Last week, Forbes ran the story of Justin Rice, a sports journalist whose independent coverage of high school athletics in his hometown of Boston gained the attention of the Boston Globe, the largest newspaper in the area, and ultimately resulted in a niche section of their website dedicated to Boston Public School Sports. Says Rice of his journey: “I knew I wasn’t going to get paid for it, starting the site… But when [the Globe series] happened, I realised that I had to jump in, to do this. I didn’t know if someone else was going to do it – I had to take that chance… Now I have two photographers to help out, and an intern who’s fully dedicated to the site.”

Rice is also full of ideas when it comes to expanding this venture while keeping it close to its scholastic roots: “I want to really ramp it up, have kids live tweet, or shoot video, or write stories. A lot of schools in the city don’t have their own newspapers, so there’s no outlet for them to do this kind of stuff.”

A prime example of creativity meeting entrepreneurialism is What Took You So Long, the nomadic non-profit we interviewed last month. Philippa Young, a writer and editor with WTYSL, believes that with the media industry “in crisis”, the onus is on journalists and filmmakers to branch out, diversify, and find new ways of telling stories.

As is the case with any industry, though, not all enterprises are entirely successful. The Kernel, a magazine covering the world of tech and start-ups, was the first entrepreneurial endeavour of British journalist Milo Yiannopoulos, and ran from 2011 to 2013 before ceasing publication. Yiannopoulos acknowledged in a closing blog post that The Kernel “has not been as much of a financial success as it has been an editorial one”, going on to eulogise the venture “a bold experiment”, albeit a short-lived one.

But while the practice of launching a journalism start-up might have been fraught with risks, Yiannopoulos’s rationale was sound – journalists-come-creators are on the up.  The City University of New York now even offers a Master’s Degree in Entrepreneurial Journalism, although blogger Jonathan Frost has criticised the entrepreneurial merit of “spending thousands on a Masters, when you could be investing that money into getting yourself and your idea off the ground”, pointing instead to professional mentoring networks like The Made Project and free e-learning channels as alternative starting points.

Adda Birnir is a member of this course’s first graduating class, and something of a poster child for the skills and insight that the programme can offer. Her online tech education company Skillcrush is a direct result of her participation in the M.A.; Birnir went into the course with a completely different idea. “One of the things we learned is that if you think something is a good idea, you have to validate it in the marketplace,” Birnir tells PBS. “The start-up mantra is you have to get outside your head or your office or your small group. There wasn’t a lot of interest or traction in our original business; it was only when I started talking about this side project that my professors got excited.”

Whether those pearls of wisdom were worth the price of admission will depend entirely on the future success of Skillcrush, but one suspects that common sense could direct a young creator in much the same way. Jonathan Frost certainly thinks so: “Entrepreneurship, by its very nature, is about seizing the moment and just giving it a try.”

3D printing takes designs from CAD software and, using thermoplastics, renders them in incredibly thin layers, making it possible to create intricate final objects which were previously too complex to produce.

The development of 3D printing technology has been largely led by Western countries, with US President Barack Obama going so far as to say it could well play a crucial role in “guaranteeing that the next revolution in manufacturing is made in America.” But according to a recent article in The Economist, plans for an American manufacturing renaissance may be premature, as “China has plans of its own.”

Chinese production company AFS uses 3D fabrication units to create prototypes for the aerospace and automotive industries; the technology enables AFS to render designs into moulds for metal objects within rapid timeframes. Says AFS’s deputy general manager William Zeng: “All the parts needed to make a prototype car engine can be printed and cast this way in under two weeks. A conventional machine shop would need several months to do that – not least because many of the components would have to be made by hand.”

As with any technological advancement, its full potential of 3D printing depends on whose hands it is in. Chris Nesi at TechCrunch believes that “the disruptive potential across nearly every industry for this technology is incalculable. From the medical field to manufacturing, empowering consumers to produce will surely up-end the natural order in mostly good ways.” Nesi also goes on to explore the less beneficial implications of an inexpensive and commercially available manufacturing process, referring specifically to that controversial “Wiki Weapon”, the Liberator, the first ever fully 3D printed firearm.

In response to news that the price of 3D printing technology may soon make units available domestically, last month Guardian columnist Charles Arthur questioned the extent to which a 3D printer is likely to become a household appliance like any other: “Will everyone own a 3D printer to use at home or will it remain a technique, such as high speed colour photocopying, that stays in specialist high street shops? If the knob on a washing machine or cupboard breaks, will we download the file and ‘print out’ a new one as we now do with online forms?”

James McBennett is keen to empower individuals to make objects locally, by making the computer files that control 3D printing readily available: “At the moment you only get desks in particular sizes in the mass market. If you want a desk that, say, can also double as a doghouse, where do you go? Designers could write the file, you download it and get it made, and there you are.”

Should McBennett’s vision catch on, it could open up a whole new cottage industry of bespoke design, from spectacles which consist entirely of one piece, to customised jewellery and accessories (3D printed engagement rings are already a trend on the up), along with anything else you might be able to imagine. And just think; if you have a 3D printer and are keen to make the most of this lucrative new market, you could always produce more 3D printer parts.

This past year has seen the launch of several products that claim to predict what we want. Most of these products are content with trying to anticipate our immediate desires. Google Now, named innovation of the year for 2012, suggests the quickest way home or recommends places for lunch depending where you are and what time it is. MindMeld, a voice calls app dubbed ‘Siri on steroids’ also launched last year, listens to your conversation and predicts the online content you might want to see in the next ten seconds.

However it looks as if predictive computing is about to get bolder. Where are you going to be 285 days from now at 2pm? Microsoft researchers claim to know, using big datasets to predict your location far into the future with, apparently, an accuracy of more than 80 percent. Armed with this knowledge, the researchers imagine commercial applications like adverts that say “Need a haircut? In four days, you will be within 100 meters of a salon that will have a $5 special at that time.”

As anticipatory computing moves from thinking about the next ten seconds to worrying about next year, what will this mean for privacy? Setting aside for the moment the accuracy of such predictions, the point, as Eric Siegel says, is that ‘predictive analytics reveals a future often considered private’. In other words when companies start using predictive analytics, privacy stops being just about controlling what historic information is held about you but also what speculation they make about your future self.

It could be a supermarket predicting you are pregnant before you’ve told your family or your employer anticipating if you are one of the employees most likely to quit. These are important life events that you probably don’t want other people betting on until you yourself know. You almost certainly don’t want people speculating and getting it wrong.

And in this new era of anticipatory computing the less data you share, the less accurate are the predictions made about you. Of course no one really claims to be able to accurately predict the future, which is why the emerging market around anticipatory computing talks about relevancy instead. The more personal data Google Now can access about you, the more ‘relevant’ its predictions about what you want.

Receiving irrelevant recommendations is irritating but it’s not life changing. However the issue for the debate on privacy is this coming scenario: if you block access to your personal data, a company will use what little data it can find to make a prediction about you anyway. This could have real consequences, such as increasing your insurance premium or making it harder to secure a mortgage.

So what’s at stake in predictive analytics is more than the privacy of the personal data used in making predictions about your future. We need to start thinking about what happens when the companies making predictions about us get it wrong. The privacy battleground will move from the volumes of data held about you, to the statistical assumptions hidden within algorithms that decide how your future self is presented to the rest of the world.

For full article on Fast Company click here

I spent last weekend at the annual gathering of the Association of Professional Futurists, a professional organization of working futurists with almost 300 members from around the world. The theme of the conference was Play: Simulation and Gaming. Here are some highlights:

Simulation is here to stay, and is becoming more valuable. We played with a wide variety of simulation software, designed for the military, police, and fire departments. One example: a simulator designed to help an Incident Commander from a fire department better assess a fire. Ten years ago, when promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, an Incident Commander had seen around 100 live fires. Now, with better fireproofing of materials and fewer fires, a newly promoted Lieutenant has seen an average of three real fires. Hence the importance of being able to learn from virtual experience. The fire simulation software enabled the user to learn the importance of the color of smoke, the location of smoke, and the importance of air flow. It even included an upset homeowner right in your face, as many people don’t understand that the first fireman to reach the blaze is supposed to assess it rather than put it out. Expect more and better simulation software, especially for real world activities that are dangerous and whose actions can result in significant consequences like loss of life or high financial cost. Can you apply simulations to better understand the consequences of decision making?

The tools for simulation are evolving rapidly. The simulators that we saw were expensive, and written for PCs and lots of hardware to mimic things like driving a police car. These simulators are going to become obsolete as open source software and natural user interfaces allow much more intuitive experiences at a much lower cost. After working for three years on Microsoft’s Kinect, traditional PC interfaces feel very clunky and non-intuitive to me. Innovations like Google Glass, VR goggles and hand sensors will make for far more realistic experiences at much lower cost. Don’t invest in clunky traditional PC interfaces; monitor innovations in interfaces and hardware to get better experiences more cost-effectively.

The principles of game design are beginning to be well understood, and are being applied more widely. ‘Gamification‘ has become a buzzword, even if the principles of game design haven’t generally been well applied yet to improving product or service design. But applying these principles properly has the potential to turn industries upside down. Start with education. In a world of lifelong learning, business training and development has the opportunity to reinvent learning models. Why spend time listening to lectures or reading textbooks when you can learn from your own virtual experiences in a gaming environment? Students can work through levels at their own pace, repeating them to consolidate core skills before moving up. Students will be able to get a much more realistic experience of the consequences of actions and decisions, learning virtually before making mistakes in the real world. The principles of gaming can incentivize behavior with your employees, partners and customers. But think beyond that, to making informal and formal learning immersive and fun.

CRM is arguably the most direct and active form of content. And arguably the most critical space for marketers now to apply content driven CRM is in shopper activation. Outlined below are three simple steps to connecting with your consumers and converting them to shoppers.

Whatever motivates your current CRM efforts this article hopes to illuminate a potential blind spot in your thinking. As shopper marketing becomes one of the fastest growing disciplines in communications we argue the time is right to add a little shopper to your CRM. And in a content driven world, marketers need to move from brand centric to customer centric strategies if they wish to successfully woo consumers.

Most of us think in terms of a path to purchase. Whether we represent this as a funnel, a cycle, or a journey the mechanism is pretty much the same. And along this path we appreciate that consumers become shoppers when they are looking to buy. And post purchase they return to being consumers. From an FMCG perspective traditional CRM has been used in nurturing relationships with consumers to stimulate demand and to enable ongoing connections to motivate repeat purchase.

The blind spot comes from a lack of consideration for the needs of our shoppers. As a result we are not truly connecting throughout the path to purchase and may leave ourselves exposed in the highly competitive shopping arena.

To bring this into focus here are three specific ways of creating shopper relationships, enabling valuable connections, and influencing behavior throughout the path.

1. Synchronize – Create services along the path to purchase and beyond that build relationships by delivering value at each step. Too often CRM programs are driven by brand-centered objectives. While we must be commercially driven today it is imperative that we service the needs of our target to create a stronger bond. Simply put, if we are not useful we will be lost in the mix. Budweiser took an interesting approach to this by developing the Bud Ice Cold Index app. The app connected shoppers to pubs they may like to visit and delivered offers that were based on their location and temperature of the day, all which facilitated shoppers’ discovery of Budweiser’s new beer.
2. Vaporize – Take specific moments in time and place, leveraging the shoppers’ context and servicing their immediate need. Here we must understand what happens at the point our consumer becomes a shopper. What is triggering their behavior and what role can we play? Making connections here has been one of the most challenging aspects of CRM but with the penetration of smart phones and rapid adoption of mobile as a shopping aid we have a wonderful opportunity. Neiman Marcus have made great strides in this area with their personal shopper app – NM Service – that among other things allows shoppers with emergency shopping needs to shop on the mSite or online and push a selection of clothing to their store personal shopper. When they turn up in-store their selections are prepared in the fitting room ready for them to try on.  Neiman also Vaporize by utilizing shopper in-store movement information (tracked by wifi to help identify the most visited departments), integrating that with online and in-store purchases to deliver highly targeted and relevant offers through the app when they visit the store.
3. Reorganize – Make a direct connection to purchase by short-circuiting the path and instantly turning consumers into shoppers; in other words create services to initiate shopping occasions.  We are living in an age where the path to purchase no longer has to be linear or sequential. By leveraging data and insights we can better understand the what, when, and why of shoppers’ needs, enabling us to develop high value utilities any where along the customer journey. The virtual stores Tesco built in the subway in Korea last year that turned otherwise dead time into productive shopping occasions connected to home delivery services for commuters is a perfect example of cementing relationship with shoppers with a high value service.  Admittedly, the added elements of surprise and delight also played a role in motivating people to purchase in this instance. Retailers from China to the US have since emulated this model.  Others have followed suit such as Dominos Pizza in Japan with their delivery app. The geo-location feature promises “delivery anywhere.” It has opened up a new shopping channel and resulted in huge incremental revenue for the restaurant chain.

So the message is: augment your existing CRM activities through the inclusion of shopper considerations and insights and you’ll build stronger shopper relationships, generating greater return on your efforts and drive increased lifetime value.

Do you want more from your music? While the ease and speed with which we can download music nowadays means that we can hear a song on the radio in one moment and have it on our phones in the next, there are still many of us who miss the little extras that used to come with buying a single or album on CD, cassette, or vinyl.

I’m talking, of course, about the album art, notes from the artist, and other little touches that used to make buying music that bit more of a special experience. File-sharing giant BitTorrent has taken this idea and run with it, resulting in an exciting new endeavour in which a simple music download actually serves as a gateway to a plethora of exclusive content.

To pilot this concept, BitTorrent is offering a free download, or “bundle”, from the label Ultra, comprising a song by Kaskade and a trailer to an upcoming documentary featuring the performer. Users will be invited to submit their email address to “unlock” more content including a tour video, photos, and a digital booklet.

A spokesperson for BitTorrent explains the rationale behind using email as the key to this new content kingdom; “We’re starting with the email address as a way to open the gate to more content, but in the future, there could be other ways to do so, such as paying for access… A fan’s email address is far more valuable than a Facebook Like or Twitter follow because you are directly communicating with your audience and don’t have to go through a social network.”

This notion of bringing additional value to a download couldn’t have come at a better time; the recent hype surrounding the Daft Punk / Pharrell collaboration “Get Lucky” has proven that there is still a market for anticipation and “event” releases in the digital sphere. In addition to making a music download more of an experience, this new approach essentially ensures that each customer not only receives a song, but also a fully functional retail platform. Say BitTorrent; “It’s like visiting a record store within a song, or a box office within a movie.”

Next in the pipeline is a BitTorrent publishing channel, which will enable more musicians and record labels to offer their fans special content: “We want everyone to be able to create a bundle… What we see digitally is that each business model is different. Some companies want email addresses and others are looking for a monetary tool. Either way, artists and labels will be able to get creative.”

Earlier this year we covered Hubble, a social start-up created specifically for families. Private networking is proving to be quite the trend, with media behemoth Disney joining the party. The latest creation of Disney Interactive is a private photo and video sharing app called Story; “the Disney photo app for family storytelling”.

Disney Interactive is known for churning out games and virtual platforms such as Temple Run: Brave and the insanely popular Club Penguin. Story marks a decidedly more personal approach to fostering engagement; its central function is as a digital “memory maker” which curates all of the photo and video content on your phone and intuitively sorts it into sharable, customisable albums which you can post to Facebook, email to friends and family, or embed in your blog.

The content is organised based on when and where that image or clip was captured, making it easy to highlight specific events. However, this time and date-based sorting functionality is by no means new, with previous start-ups such as Flock, Cluster and Everpix experimenting to varying degrees of success.

Similarly, Story’s personal scrapbook aesthetic likens it to KeepShot, Mosaic and SimplePrint. Story does not offer the printed final product like these photo-book publishers do, although that is a ”definite” consideration moving forward, according to Senior Director of Engineering Scott Gerlach: “In our extensive usability testing of Story, we heard clearly from our users that they’d like to purchase high quality printed materials for themselves and others.”

Story is currently being piloted on iPhone, with all albums automatically backed up to iCloud, enabling access across your other Apple devices, although strangely the app itself is not yet supported by iPad, which would provide perhaps the most logical space in which to curate and customise your own digital family scrapbook.

With this limited functionality in mind, it certainly seems that Disney Interactive are depending on the power of the Disney brand to push Story forward. There may be future plans for Story to evolve into a more collaborative networking experience, but Sarah Perez at TechCrunch is confident that “there are other apps that will lead this space for now.”

A spiritual guru once said ‘if learning stops, you are dead’. Meant as a metaphor for personal progress and discovery, little did he know that this innocuous expression would eventually come to define the very core of 21st century enterprise.

For this is the second industrial revolution; and as it accelerates, it isn’t uncommon to see entire industries being revolutionized by a most inconspicuous disruptor, or by previously unimagined technology convergence. One way to survive this revolution, and eventually thrive in it, is to accelerate our collective rate of learning in line with accelerating change. In reality, every industry now has a distinct learning velocity, a rate at which we abandon old thinking and embrace new skills and ideas.

To contextualize this in business terms, let’s look at a famous recent example – Kodak.

A few decades ago, even the most clairvoyant business commentator couldn’t have predicted the spectacular failure Kodak recently experienced. In the golden era of photo film, Kodak was so hysterically ahead of rivals (picture this – Kodak had 90% of the US market, on a product generated an 80% profit margin) that there was no domestic competition to speak of. Yet Kodak was decimated by the digital revolution. Had they seen it coming – sure they had. They even had a head start!
Not many people know that it was in fact Kodak that built the first digital camera in 1975.
How does a market leader that pours millions into R&D, and has a distinct head start in new technologies eventually fail? The short answer – by not adapting fast enough – in large part because we are unable to raise its learning velocity in line with new competitors.

What happened to Kodak is now happening to a number of industry leaders, except that it’s playing out a lot quicker. As a talent strategist, I have spent 15 years influencing the learning agenda of tens of companies. Most were very successful and many were industry leaders, yet for all their past success, it was easy to spot a bit of Kodak in each one of them. I am referring to legacy systems or outdated thinking that curdles imagination itself. Because imagination is critical in times of change: it helps you skip the ‘why’ entirely, and focus instead on ‘why not’.

Imagine what your company could be achieving if it raised its learning velocity. Here are three ideas to speed things up a little -