Tag Archives: digital

Average Understandings

10 Dec

Following a recent flurry of expensive reports claiming insights into aspects of digital infrastructure provision and use, it is time to remind readers of the ‘last law of averages’.

The oft-quoted ‘Law of Averages’ is, of course, a statistical nonsense usually deployed in the cause of ‘advanced wishful thinking’.  Our version highlights a darker side.  Over-reliance on averaged data means that your understanding of the data will be less than adequate – you might say, ‘below average’!

‘The devil is in the detail’  is a common complaint.   With great successes (and failures) hidden under the average blanket, the risks for policy developers are huge – and often  followed by ‘unintended consequences’.

Fortunately the digital economy is gradually eliminating the need for the bland summary reports lacking essential insights.  It is becoming altogether easier to provide the data packaged with the tools for its exploration and in-depth analysis.

Full story here

Tags: , ,

The Sunday Breakfast Review: Seizing Our Destiny

21 Oct

As a follow-up to the NextGen 12 session ‘The rise of the Intelligent City’, our Sunday Breakfast review this week looks at the latest ICF publication – Seizing Our Destiny’.

This  slim volume profiles 7 cities and considers how they have sought to adapt to the challenges of the digital economy.   Instead of drifting with the tide of national economies, these places, their people, their enterprises and institutions, are ‘seizing their destinies’ – finding ways to create local prosperity and solve local social challenges.

This movement towards identifying local initiatives as the key to wider economic revitalisation stands in stark contrast to conventional market sector analysis.

Cities may of course be deserving of special funding to alleviate complex societal and economic challenges (and there are more votes in cities) but all communities – urban or rural – should take note of the need to make a start on adaptation to the digital economy.

Resolving their local ‘digital deficit’ is just a start – it needs several supporting actions – but it is the most obvious platform for rebalancing and revitalising the economy.

Full story here

UPDATE:  (23:00 EST 21 October 2012)  ICF names Smart21 for 2013.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

NextGen Challenge: into the final digital furlong

1 Oct

The runners and riders in this year’s NextGen Challenge – the UK awards programme for advanced broadband network projects – are now in the final straight and heading towards the winning post.  The results will be announced at the  NextGen12 conference dinner in the Members’ Dining Room inside the Palace of Westminster.

The entries span the length and breadth of Britain and, in the spirit of ‘Open Access’, the competition was open to all-comers regardless of their technology choices.

The independent judging panel has the task of evaluating entries from projects in four categories – Rural and Community Leadership, Innovative Funding Solutions, Urban Network Enterprise and Collaborative Advantage.

Once again the NextGen Challenge programme demonstrates that enterprise and innovation is alive and well in this most vital of infrastructure investment areas .

Full story (and links for conference and dinner registration) here

Tags: , , ,

The Connectedness of Policy in a Digital Economy

27 Sep

For all students of the Digital Economy – its impacts and the potential for changing the way we can do things around here – we recommend the FCC’s task force report on mHealth.

This report is not just an example of the awesome lobbying power of the Mobile industry.  It carries the message that regulating the communications industry is about understanding the needs of all sectors of the economy.

Connected Health is an obvious place to start trying to catch up with ideas developed in remote parts of Scandinavia.

At NextGen 12 the session on trends in the mobile industry is being chaired by the Editor of Groupe Intellex,

Full story and link to the mHealth report here

Tags: , ,

Deference and Diffidence diluting the digital economy

20 Sep

The shock of realisation – the realisation that permission is not required – may have been novel in the late 1980’s but is still reverberating more than twenty years on.

In this editorial – prompted by examples of modest ambition – we consider whether the highly civilised Anglo-Saxon traits of diffidence and deference are inhibiting growth of our increasingly digitalised economy.

The recent Summer of Olympic endeavour certainly loosened  societal interactions but, in the context of much needed infrastructure investment in Intelligent Cities, is this alone going to relight economic growth?

Full story here

 

The Rise of the Intelligent City and other ‘digital economy’ issues will be centre-stage at NextGen12 – 8th & 9th October, Westminster, London.

Tags: , , , ,

Smartphones: the Remote for controlling your digital economy

14 Sep
In Leonard Cohen’s dark interpretation of the future, (‘things go ‘n slide – slide in all directions’) his fear is that ‘there won’t be nothing you can measure anymore’.
‘Sliding’ is a good word for the conceptual turmoil facing mobile operators.  In this editorial written for Bdaily – the UK’s business news network – we consider measures of mobility, the shift from voice to data apps and the investment needed for the next generation of ‘small cell’ base stations.
The Mobile, we conclude, has become a Remote – a controller for your personal version of the digital economy – and depends on avoiding mobile networks for much of its smartness.
The word ‘sliding’ implies a loss of directional control.   In ‘smartphones and smarter phoners’ we look forward to the debate at NextGen12 when the Mobile Operators Association goes head to head with Rethink Wireless.
Full story here.

Tags: , , ,

The Macro and Micro Digital Deficits

31 Aug

There’s ‘The Deficit’ and umpteen other deficits that are giving grief across all sectors of the economy.  But underlying all these, inhibiting a revitalisation of the economy, is a deeper, darker deficit – the Digital Deficit.

In this CMA editorial written for Bdaily (the UK’s online business forum) we discuss a top down and bottom up view of the impact of the digital deficit in the context of an emergent digital economy and the upcoming debate at NextGen12

Full story here.

Tags: , , , ,

Productivity Puzzle: making sense of the job numbers

19 Aug

When facts seem to get in the way of belief it is hardly surprising that some folk get upset.

Cherished notions about productivity were at the root of consternation in the UK last week but the puzzle provides a few extra clues for those who have not yet fully understood the impacts of digitalisation and ‘the digital economy’.

With jobs growth highest amongst people least likely to benefit from digital efficiencies and an increase in ‘digital economy’  activities that are not included in GDP estimates we are seeing the emergence of new realities and an urgent need to design better ways of understanding what is going on.

Full story here.

Tags: , , , ,

Turning the Tables on Digital Expectations

9 Aug

In the past two weeks the turnaround in UK attitudes towards Olympic prospects has been impressive.

Running rings around our expectations is now similar to what is needed to overcome the UK’s ‘Digital Deficit’ (DD).

In this slightly ‘tongue in cheek’ editorial we  liken DD to an endemic medical condition where early recognition of the symptons may prevent the need for more radical therapies later.

Full story here

Tags: , , ,

CMA welcomes House of Lords report

7 Aug

The House of Lords Communications Committee’s report offering an alternative vision for the UK is an important contribution towards the challenges of resolving the country’s digital deficits.

The Communications Management Association’s view has been widely reported.

The linkages between digital investment and economic growth will now be further explored at NextGen12.

Read the original CMA text here.

Tags: , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →