Beyond Marketing To So Many Other Aspects of Business: For many of us, the hyperconnected world we are a part of is all about communications and marketing. However, the fact of the matter is the hyperconnected world reaches way beyond marketing and into virtually every aspect of our business, our lives and our communities.
The other day Don Tapscott, CEO of the Tapscott Group and a long time advocate for the positive changes arising from technology and a networked world, announced his new role as Senior Advisor to the World Economic Forum. In his post, he notes that the Forum is working with business, academics, government and NGOs on 9 major issues, including:environmental and resource security; employment skills and human capital; international trade and investment; long-term investing, infrastructure and economic development and 5 other pressing global challenges. He notes that these issues require leaders leading every day, not just once a year during Davos:
“they require 365-day, real-time collaboration. To achieve this the Forum has undertaken the construction of an elaborate technology-enabled virtual collaboration space called the Global Agenda Platform. This effort seeks to enable communities to form around these 10 issues by providing an efficient means to combine the expertise and resources of governments and non-state actors as well as by accelerating progress on global challenges that require a more multi-stakeholder or interdisciplinary approach.”
I clicked on the link to the “Future of the Internet” leading me to The Hyperconnected World where it noted that by:
“2020 there will be 50 billion networked devices. This level of connectivity will have profound social, political and economic consequences, and increasingly form part of our everyday lives, from the cars we drive and medicines we take, to the jobs we do and the governance systems we live in. ”
It just reminded me of the significant impact and changes we face. It reminded me that for business the potential of the hyperconnected world reaches way beyond marketing, even though that seems to be what we talk about most. It touches things like the collaboration and customer communities that become a valuable part of the mix in ways we have only begun to explore; and, impacts the skills we need and our professional development; it impacts new markets and new work forces; its about new value business can deliver in conjunction with its’ current products and services; and, how we organize to collaborate and compete; as well as how we collaborate and serve in a hyperconnected world.
Just a dreamy thought on a summer Friday afternoon
