Swarm intelligence in action. Just beautiful.
Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.
This piece of news* sums up everything that’s wrong with the traditional Finnish mindset: instead of celebrating wins and looking into future opportunities, one single device (coming from a Nokia rival) is demonized and blamed for basically bringing down our dear country’s whole economy. A blog post about Finnish media treating ‘beacons of hope as state enemies‘ by Steve Blank, a professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford, is spot on in this case as well.
The iPad and other tablets (including the surprisingly potent Kindle Fire by Amazon) are not weapons of mass destruction. They simply manifest people’s increasing willingness to consume, create, edit and organize media through a rich experience wherever they are. This should not be seen as a threat but as an infinite possibility – especially in a country as technologically savvy as Finland.
Luckily, things don’t look as bleak for the younger generation, whose enthusiasm and inspiration oozes from these videos and photos taken during Steve Blank’s recent visit to Aalto University. Just hope there was an Aalto Entrepreneurship Society for the old hands as well – they could use the spirit.
*The text translated for my English speaking readers:
“THE iPAD NOW HITS THE PAPER MILLS!
‘The consumption of paper is decreasing at a staggering annual rate of 3.5%. The iPad effect as well as the looming recession threat to accelerate this decline’, warns the new director of market research at UPM.”
I’ve been spending a lot of time recently lining up the concepts and frameworks for the upcoming Cloud Company book I’m writing with Teemu Arina. It is with great pleasure that I announce the arrival of the Cloud Company eBook, which outlines the central themes and arguments in the book. The work is still far from finished and that’s exactly why we invite you at this point into the discussion. You can view the book below – or download it against a tweet or Facebook mention here.
The central argument of Cloud Company is that social technologies and distributed practices – utilized on the fields of strategy formation and leadership, work and management, as well as external communications and interactions – can make an organization infinitely more agile, intelligent and responsive. Their usage thus enables an organization to anticipate, lead and exploit changes in the environment, instead of being thrown at their mercy.
Furthermore, the book sets out a practical framework for re-designing these essential functions of an organization to meet today’s needs.
I believe that in the age of digital we also need to be reminded about the good stuff in the physical realm. I invite all to explore and re-discover this space with me through my new Tumblr blog ‘Sami Viitamäki Hands On’ (samiviitamaki.tumblr.com). The purpose is to explore and discuss tangible things in the physical world that bring us joy, value, sorrow, happiness or something else. You can also join in and send your photos/videos/stories via the submit function.
C U there too!
An announcement by Steve Jobs regarding the Microsoft partnership from 1997 reminds us, that cooperation does not always imply the destruction of either party.
…But this time they’re more about silver linings than shadows.
Some of you may know that I’m collaborating with Teemu Arina (Dicole CEO) on writing a book about re-designing strategy, management and communications for the digital age. Our focus is going to be on social technologies and digitally distributed practices and how they can be harnessed for agility, intelligence and responsiveness in an organization. We spent the last weekend outlining some of the core concepts in the book and the first results can be seen at www.cloudcompany.cc. We’re also soon releasing a short ebook preview that will contain a sneak peek to the innards of the work and will also give you all an opportunity to give feedback on it.
Having had a book on my agenda since 2007, I’m certainly hyped about this recent development, and though there’s still work to be done, the book is now very close to becoming reality. I also already want to thank Teemu, who is the ideal sparring partner for this kind of work.
Check out the site here.
One for the Friday: Pogo’s new track ‘Wishery’ made using only samples extracted from Disney’s ‘Snow White’. Check this one out – one and a half million people have already done so.
According to Scientific American Mind, wearing fake sunglasses leads to lying, cheating and cynicism. So there you have it: it’s worth paying a few extra bucks for being – and feeling like – a better person.
Time to make it public: we’ve decided with Teemu Arina to write a book that deals with the ongoing paradigm shift in organizations from closed, hierarchically led autocracies towards more open, flexible and democratic models. The book is christened Cloud Company – which relates of course to cloud services that just about every self-respecting technology vendor is now offering. The book however doesn’t so much focus on technology and software (service-based or not). It focuses instead on cloud-inspired management, work and marketing mindset, practices and tools – of which software and online services are only a small (but naturally crucial) part. Our goal is to show how to design open and democratic models for management, work and marketing that result in the company being able to function faster and smarter – and ultimately to gain power and momentum in the market by sharing and distributing it to staff, external actors, customers and the general public.
The book will be out this winter/spring and we’re currently investigating options to publish / self-publish.
Stay tuned for more!
