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Prof. Richard Scase: The need for new business models in Europe. In his talk  Global Re-Mix and the New Corporate Playlist , Prof. Richard Scase,Professor of Organisational Change at the University of Kent and a highlyinfluential business strategist from Britain, addressed the issue of globalisationin the 21st century, the driving forces behind it and its consequences. According toScase, it not Europe, at this moment in time, that is controlling and profiting fromglobalisation, but countries such as India, China and the USA in particular. Theonly way to counteract this trend is for European businesses to be more open towardsand to adopt new business models, strategies and structures. However, it is smallbusinesses that are really capable of doing justice to the demands of a globaleconomy. This is because these are the ones more readily prepared to take risks, aremore flexible in their approaches and more entrepreneurial. They are more efficientin dealing with the increasingly shorter periods available for achieving performancerequirements and are capable of coming up with efficient knowledge managementsolutions. According to Scase, another important factor determining the success ofglobally operating companies are their employees, who must be capable of recognisingwhich of the countless new innovations developed every day will be useful to thecompany in the long run and be able to integrate them into the business accordingly.
Dr. Curtis R. Carlson: Managing innovation. Dr. Curtis R. Carlson, CEO of SRI International, honed in on innovation as the onlyway to ensure economic success in his talk  Innovation  The Five Disciplines forCreating What Customers Want . According to Carlson, there are no limits toinnovative ideas and creativity. Economic growth these days is rapid and newdevelopments are creating endless new opportunities. Companies must be able toinnovate in order to enable them to recognise and harness these opportunities and toprofit from them. Just as Scase, Carlson also emphasised the importance of small andmedium sized companies, although primarily with regard to their ability to innovate.But, how exactly does a company drive innovations? According to Carlson, this isachieved by being willing to take risks and by creating environments that enableemployees to be creative. Carlson strongly recommends the well-proven fivedisciplines of innovation, which has now been used by SRI International with greatsuccess for many years. According to these disciplines, only innovations that relateto customer value stand any chance of success. While  Innovation Champions aregiven the opportunity to implement new ideas within a team setting, costs andcompetitors must be monitored consistently. Innovation is not something that can beseparated from general business operations, i.e. is not a stand-alone operation, butrather something that should be integrated into company operations, e.g. by becomingpart of quality management.
Jaron Lanier: Technology and diversity. The eagerly anticipated talk  The New Definition of Personhood , given by JaronLanier, a computer scientist and artist, focussed on the world of technology and itsassociated dangers. To Lanier, any kind of  primacy of groups and teams in the Web2.0-age, more often than not, is a myth. The success stories of Web 2.0 companiessuch as Wikipedia or Google are currently threatened by a dangerous monopolisationof knowledge. This trend is based on widely held but highly erroneous beliefs. Anexample of this, according to Lanier, is the  rather flawed  general belief thatWikipedia articles reflect knowledge arrived at by a process of mutual agreement anddiscussion, as well as the general belief that any Wikipedia articles listed amongthe first 30 Google search results are actually providing the  correct searchresults to any given query. Lanier strongly warned against the negative effectsinherent in collecting knowledge in this way. He argues that individuals are oftensimply better at providing knowledge than a collective, with the only drawback beingthat these individuals will usually not be readily available to discuss thatknowledge. This is why both are needed: Collective intelligence and elite, i.e.individual intelligence. This in turn means a company must create a workingenvironment that is suitable both for highly creative individuals as well asco-operative teams. Lanier furthermore warned against a fanatical and totalitarianbelief in the power of technology  in particular if this is used to suppress thevoices of individuals and their creativity.
Tim OÂ'Reilly: Web 2.0  in the service of users.Tim OÂ'Reilly, founder and CEO of OÂ'Reilly Media, coined the term  Web 2.0. in 2004on the occasion of a conference in order to describe the type of internet serviceswhose contents can be influenced and determined by users. OÂ'ReillyÂ's talk  What isWeb 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software ,focussed on the main characteristics of Web 2.0 applications. To OÂ'Reilly, they are,primarily, Internet platforms on which data is being aggregated. They are based onOpen Source software and are specifically designed to be user-friendly. Some of theprinciples cited as exemplary of this approach included  Web as a platform , Software as a service ,  Harnessing collective intelligence and  Data is the nextIntel inside . OÂ'Reilly made it clear that software is increasingly becoming a process and less of what we conceive of as a  product . While, in the past,software would predominantly reflect the beliefs held by their developers, it nowincreasingly focuses on user preferences:  It is not that technology is making ussmarter, we are making smarter technology . Thanks to current technology, Web 2.0service users are able to network and collaborate with each other and create systemsthat are constantly being improved and further developed as more people participatein them. For the first time, Web 2.0 business models are enabling customers andusers to become active and integral parts of a solution that is in constantdevelopment.
The use of Web 2.0 in companies.During his final speech given at the end of the event, Prof. Joachim Niemeierstrongly recommended the use of the Web 2.0 approaches in business. However, to manycompanies, these approaches more often than not represent unfamiliar and unchartedterritory. These companies are the ones that find themselves in situations that canbe likened to the way companies used to use the Internet in 1996. However, therewill be quite a few decision-makers who will be rather critical of associatedstructural and process-related changes and, in particular, of those related tocompany culture. The changes to companies, such as outlined by Scase and Carlson,can only be realised by using Web 2.0 approaches. The only way to stay competitivenow is to get out there, rapidly gain experience and to develop the use-potentialinherent in the different areas of application, because even though, Â we may not yethave seen much of this future and do not have any great understanding of it, it hasalready started.Â
Videos of the talks can be viewed on the Dresdener Future Forum website atwww.dresdner-zukunftsforum. de. The site also provides access to a live coverageWeblog of the event, including numerous photographs of the speakers and guests, aswell as a lot of background information to the event.
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For more information about the company and its services, see www.t-systems.com,www.t-syste ms-mms.com.
