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Maybe
more importantly, this Network Economy is an environment in
which relationships between people are being reshaped – or
at the very least : an environment in which the tools exist
for those who have them to reshape relationships. Private,
public, business, government : no sphere is left untouched.
Behavior
People
are at the center of it all (or should be...). Initially I had
put this paragraph at the end of the section ; but the more I
thought about this, the more it became clear that people's
behavior is what shapes the world : how people come up with
ideas and create new tools or ways of doing things, how they
take up (or don't...) new services, how they
"function" together. I have always had an interest
in sociology, but I wouldn't have dreamed of studying it at
school : it felt too remote, it lacked real meaning to me. As I
gain more experience, I realize that people's behavior is
makes or breaks new services - particularly in the field of
information technologies and networks.
Specifically,
I now have one very strong belief, backed with a lot of evidence
: people won't start adopting a new [write
here anything you can think of]
until they "feel" its usefulness to them in their
bones. Forget about convincing them : you have to show them
first, and they have to taste
it for themselves.
Take broadband : until you have started to use a high speed
Internet connexion, you can't figure what it can do for you.
Of course, the cost is an important factor : but not the
most important. Once you're hooked to "high speed,
always on" connectivity, it's difficult to give it up.
The price sensitivity goes down dramatically...
People
also crave for frames
of references.
How many firms have introduced new company-wide IT-based
policies, only to see them fail because they had overlooked
workers' behavior ? You cann't change things
overnight : you have to listen, adapt, convince,
demonstrate, simplify. The ultimate goal should be to
reshape how people view themselves in their environment, and
then only provide the tools required. Not the other way around,
as is so often (and so consistently) been
done...
I have a
BA in economics, and I have long been a follower of Eugene
Fama's efficient market theories. But
something was missing. Then I learned about behavioral
economics,
and it all started to make more sense : people don't always
do what the theory says they should. By and large, markets
behave in a predictable, Fama-ish way. But on a micro
level, things aren't that simple. So where is the line ? It
appears that the most brilliant decisions tend to come from
the gut. While that observation is not new, it is now backed
by a growing body of research from economics, neurology,
cognitive psychology, and other fields. All of which
suggests that intuition is a real form of knowledge which
however nonrational, ineffable, and not always easy to get
in touch with, can process more information on a more
sophisticated level than most of us ever dreamed. I am
fascinated to see how this approach helps understand a
number of new technology marketing issues.
Innovation
For the
majority of us, the Internet didn't "exist" until 10 years
ago. But innovation is what makes the world go round, or at
least evolve. With Technosystems, I have had the opportunity
to delve into how people come up with business ideas, how
they feel about them, and what it takes to turn them into
businesses. Then I experienced the process for myself with access2. Now I am being paid to advise other groups of
people about how to go about all this. Tough... The
innovative process is a fact of life, but one that we all
have a hard time to grasp.
Convergence
Back to
the network economy : in my view, the term convergence
describes how information technology and telecom come
together, enabling a whole new set of people-related
possibilities. Over the last three years, I have worked
extensively on the subject (voice over IP, wireless
fidelity, new 2.5G services, virtual private networks,
virtual office, etc...) and I have found that we are only at
the beginning. I have also had the opportunity (logically
enough) to test this new "convergence" concept
onto myself (simple things like : how do I work seamlessly
with my PC at home, my laptop at work and my new Orange
smartphone...), and in the process find out how I too (like
all of us) have difficulties tackling new ways of doing
things - however seducing the ideas behind the tools may be.
This is unfinished business, it really is...
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