Tag Archives: economy

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: , , , , , , ,

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: , , , ,

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: , , , , ,

Letting go – job polarisation and innovation in the digital economy

26 Jul

No-one doubts that small companies are great generators of new employment but new research has also highlighted the effects of ‘job polarisation’ where the growth is found in either ‘lovely or lousy’ jobs at the expense of ‘middle income’ roles.

In this review of ICF’s latest report by co-founder Robert Bell we ask why large companies find innovation so difficult and we suggest that major firms have a wider responsibility for investment that could balance the apparent reluctance of banks to lend to small businesses.

Read the full story here

Tags: , , , , ,

Quarterly Review and Index

28 Jun

Our editorial streams in the quarter April-June 2012  were dominated by coverage of the UN Sustainability Summit, (Rio+20) with considerable input from ‘Groupe Intellex Associate’ Marit Hendriks in Rio de Janeiro filming for NextGen TV.

Surprise hits, however, were the editorials on the ‘digital’ economy, New Economic Models and, from the archive, a heart-felt sermon on the iniquities of call centres, ‘ Please hold during the silence’.

The Quarterly Review includes references, acknowledgement, a chronological listing and a full alphabetical index of topics and people featured  in the last 3 months.

Tags: , , , ,

Newer Entries →