Category Archives: Economy

Generation C and the Co-Production Economy

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I predict that one way or another we’ll be hearing more about “Generation C” the Community of talented individuals who Connect to Co-Create Content. What a mouthful! Appropriately, the phrase itself has been popularised by online articles and has begun to take hold with the aid of viral marketing, virtual magazines and blogging. Idealog ran an article on the topic about a year ago.

The concept probably had part of its origins in Richard Florida’s controversial, but widely read book The Rise of the Creative Class, which explores the Post-Industrial shift towards “knowledge work” involving technology and/or creative pursuits and how this is impacting on cities and economies.

Labelling the co-production economy as the next Renaissance is possibly going a little far at this stage and I still believe we do need to question the validity of crowd-written editorial. Contrarians like Andrew Keen go even further, espousing a dystopian view of the future whereby the Internet enables the lowest common denominator to prevail in the world of arts and letters. He describes Web 2.0 as  a “vertiginous media world in which content and advertising become indistinguishable”. However, Keen may have an axe to grind. He founded an Internet startup company that crashed and burned during the first tech boom.

Notwithstanding all the cynicism, I do like Matt Webb’s summation of what Gen C stands for amongst creative and connected people. Community, empowerment and sharing seem like important themes even without referring to the Internet in any way. I’ve seen the phrase “digital socialist” used in the context of freeing up better broadband connectivity and perhaps that moniker applies here too. So is Gen C and the disintermediation of traditional media and consumer channels perceived as a broader threat to capitalism?

Patricia Seybold doesn’t think so. In fact she articulates a somewhat clinical and business centric view. She’s adamant that Web 2.0 is neither a fad nor a phenomenon associated with a particular demographic. Web 2.0 enables not only peer produced digital content, but also opens a whole new channel to engage with customers by allowing them to co-design the products and services they want.  More importantly let’s imagine what might be possible if we networked entire organisations together and let them collaborate on interesting stuff.

But once corporates and government agencies take it onboard, will Web 2.0 then become mainstream and lose its cutting edge? Once everyone is converted to Generation C and is cross-trading the same images, soundbites and information nuggets repeatedly, will this devalue the opportunity? Will we still be able to differentiate between knowledge and folklore?

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The folks at Webstock have organised a panel debate and networking evening in Wellington on June 19th. The topic of the debate is:  “That Web 2.0 is all fizz and no substance”.

Govt. Gets Wise to Web 2.0

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David Cunliffe outlined his government’s ICT agenda in a speech to public service CIOs last week. As minister of all things to do with ICT as well as economic development, he is in a unique position to influence outcomes. Achieving better productivity and enhanced connectivity has never been more important to our economic well being. So it bodes well that we have a Minister who is fronting up and paying attention to the very industry that can enable those things.

At the same event, visiting experts implored the government to get on board with Web 2.0 and start using web technologies to engage with its constituency. The State Services Commission have (finally) heard this message and are now involved in developing a state services framework for online participation.

To their credit the commission have invited a small community of interest to contribute to the policy formation process. Encouragingly, the consultation process makes use of the very technologies being proposed as part of a new toolset to bring government agencies closer to the people.

The only variable missing from the equation is that the government heads of departments have not yet been widely consulted on the policy proposal. Government agencies are brimming over with staff and there is an election looming on the horizon. Implementing an e-participation plan that actually empowers the public, increases transparency and contributes to productivity may yet prove unpalatable within certain quarters. A few government agencies are already well advanced in their use of Web 2.0 technologies and having a cross government standard, sooner rather than later, would be a good thing for service providers and the public who will be the end users.

Opening the Door to Economic Wealth

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Nick Willis, the Auckland inventor who developed the cellphone lock opener, says that if you “make success your dominant thought” that is where you will gravitate towards. His story has captivated the business media and looks like a PR person’s dream come true. Not only has the guy made a lot of money for himself by licensing the technology, but he’s intelligent, articulate and has a highly photogenic family. The fact that he’s on a first name basis with both Sam Morgan and Stephen Hawking is just the icing on the cake.

Willis is very much the poster boy for the government’s economic development strategy right now, illustrating that a little intervention can be a good thing. He benefitted from publicly funded business training and startup programmes and also secured financial backing through the government’s Seed Co-Investment Fund. That’s good news. But we need 100 more companies like this.

Frankly the government needs some good news on the economic front right now! The departure of “iconic” Fisher and Paykel to Thailand came as no surprise, given the current economic settings. However the news that Australia’s GDP per capita is now a huge 38% more than New Zealand is somewhat more alarming. This startling fact received scant coverage or analysis. Where it was reported on, the media got their numbers wrong.

I know F&P have a proud history in New Zealand, but if the global price for an assembly line worker has dropped to $20 a day, do we really need that kind of industry? Wouldn’t it be better to grow some more high value, low density industries such as electronics, optics, biotechnology and software? For that to happen there needs to be a complete remodelling of the culture around research and development. That includes tax treatment, education and incentives on the government side. But it also calls for businesses to underwrite risky ideas and good people like Nick Willis.

Perhaps we need to take Nick’s advice and make success the predominant thought for the national economy.

[tags]globalisation, export, technology, New Zealand, innovators[/tags]

Distilling NZ’s ICT Exports

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The recently released  New Zealand ICT Supply Survey may not be everyone’s idea of bedtime reading, but  bear with me, because it does give us a useful snapshot of growth patterns within the industry. Up until 2004 Statistics NZ compiled a slightly different set of figures, but the new data set has now been realigned for easier comparison to figures from surveys in other OECD nations. So this years figures (2005/06) are the first by which we can draw any meaningful conclusions under the new regime.

Perhaps the most significant change is that data from the electronics industries is now included. Consequently, nearly a third of all ICT exports fell into the “electronic devices and equipment” category, comprising over $500 million in export returns. So sales figures from high growth hardware exporting companies like Rakon, Endace, Tait and 4RF may have actually inflated the figures somewhat. Whether you consider them to be manufacturers or ICT firms, it doesn’t really matter – it’s all good news.

Notwithstanding this, the value of ICT exports still only equates to about 5% of our total commodity export trade or about the same value as our (declining) fruit and vegetable exports. New Zealand remains near the bottom of the OECD ladder based on ICT export value and (like most nations) we are a net importer of ICT. Interestingly, two comparably sized exporters, Finland and Ireland, are amongst a small number of nations who actually export more ICT than they import. This demonstrates that agility has more to do with being successful at selling technology than does size.

ICT export revenue grew almost 20%, compared to a growth rate of 7.9% across the entire industry, but 90% of New Zealand’s ICT revenue comes from domestic sales consisting largely of telecommunications and sales of computer hardware. An optimist would say that this shows there exists a huge growth opportunity. A pragmatist might suggest we have done a poor job of articulating our value proposition globally.

Why aren’t we exporting more of our good ideas?