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Trends in the Living Networks

Ross Dawson's Trends in the Living Networks blog offers high-level commentary on developments in our intensely networked world, and how it is coming to life. The blog is primarily intended for a general business audience, in identifying critical technology, social, and business trends and their implications.

(Good) blog aggregators are the best source of newsDecember 1

As one of many deeply absorbed in the US Presidential elections, I spent a lot of time scouring the news to gain insights into the latest as the extraordinary story unfolded. I consistently found that blog aggregator Memeorandum provided the best view on what the most relevant and interesting news was. Often stories became prominent on Memeorandum before they hit the mainstream press.

This points to what I first wrote six years ago in Living Networks, and have often restated:

“Blogs are not necessarily important individually, but in aggregate they are massively powerful. The “blogosphere” pulls together what millions of talented people around the world are discovering and thinking. Collectively, blogs enable us to collaborate to filter and uncover the most worthwhile news.”

The Guardian is the latest to say Memeorandum runs rings around Google News.

“Memeorandum is embarrassingly better than Google News. Google reckons that the more coverage a story gets, the more important it is. Unfortunately, broad coverage takes a long time to develop, so Google News can run hours or even a day behind Memeorandum. This is fine for casual co

Celebrate at the 10th Annual Self-Employed and Entrepreneurs Xmas Drinks! Sydney, 16 DecemberDecember 1

In 1996, when I left the world of corporate employment to do my own thing, I soon realized that not only do you not have anyone organizing a Christmas party for you, you may have no-one or very few people to party with.

So together with some of my self-employed and entrepreneurial friends, we decided to have our Christmas party together. This year is the 10th anniversary of the self-employed and entrepreneurs Xmas drinks.

It just seems like a really obvious thing to do, and every year it’s been a fabulous event, with a stack of great people turning up and celebrating. It’s primarily intended for the self-employed, entrepreneurs, and those working for micro-businesses, but absolutely everyone is welcome to turn up and join the festivities. Open to all.

Date: 16 December
Time: From 6pm
Where: Centennial Hotel (front bar), 88 Oxford Street, Woollahra
Drinks and food available for purchase at the bar.

You can RSVP on the Facebook site for the party (and see photos of who’s coming), or just see you there!

Every year I say that next year I’ll do something bigger, and maybe get sponsors to provide some food and drinks, but I always get busy. Hopefully next year I’ll get my act together on this…

Registrations open for Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009 on 24 February 2009 – providing a clear roadmap for organizationsNovember 30

I’m delighted to announce that registrations are open for Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009 on 24 February - full details on the website.

To help you make up your mind early, there are significant discounts for registrations before Christmas, and the first 25 registrations get a free copy of my book Living Networks.

Click here to download flyer for Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009

The inaugural Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum was in February 2008, attracting a sell-out audience of senior executives and extensive media coverage, including Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Computerworld, NineMSN, MIS The Scoop, Smartcompany, The Financial Standard and many others.

This year will be bigger and better, building on an additional year of experience from Australian and global enterprise experience in successfully implementing Web 2.0 and mobile technologies to transform their organizations.

Major announcements soon on a fantastic

Design our new logo – get rich and famous!November 28

The existing logo for Advanced Human Technologies was designed in 1997. Not only has the world changed a lot since then, it is now becoming a very different company. It is time for a complete rebranding, starting with the logo, and including a complete redesign of the website, which is also sorely out of date. More on all the updates later – in brief Advanced Human Technologies will go far beyond being a consulting company to also being a publisher and supporting several new start-up ventures.

I have chosen to use 99designs to get the logo done. I have long written about and explored online service exchanges such as elance, Guru, and rentacoder. In fact the subject of my next book is about the global talent economy. As such I’m keen to try new models, and since 99designs seems very interesting, I’m giving it a go.

The way it works is first you put up your brief for a design such as a logo and you set a budget for what you’re prepared to pay. The interesting part is that all of the designers’ submissions are visible to all, and you rate them and give feedback on them until there is a winner. See How it Works.

This i

Keynote: The Future of Technology in Aged CareNovember 26

Last week I gave a keynote speech on The Future of Technology in Aged Care at the Aged Care Association Annual Congress. In this case I wanted to take the audience on a big-picture journey into where aged care is going, which went down very well between the many high-detail presentations at the conference.

I was invited as a general futurist, though I have in fact written and being interviewed on the topic of aged care frequently before, particularly on the role of robots in aged care, including in a feature article in Newsday.

Below is a brief snapshot of five key facets of how technology will transform aged care.

1. Telemedicine

Health care is being transformed by connectivity. This ranges from simple applications such as monitoring medical data through to remote surgery, bringing the skills of the best doctors anywhere in the world. Accenture's Online Medicine Cabinet is an example of how patients and the elderly can have their health monitored from home, and their medications managed effectively. Now robots such as the one in the video above can visit patients or do rounds in the ward, linking them directly by video to doctors or nurses.

2. Care robots

Japan is in the vanguard in using robots in aged care, being at the most pointed confluence globally of a rapidly aging population and a lack of health care workers. Increasingly the basic work and functions - both at aged care institutions and in people's homes - will be performed by robots, or in some cases, such as in the video above, by people assisted by robots or exoskeletons.

3. Emotional robots

As I've discussed often before, we will become increasingly emotionally engaged with robots. Paro the seal robot, which I first wrote about in 2004, is being used to help the elderly, people with Alzheimers and schizophrenia, and sick children. The first video above shows Paro being used in therapy, including of a Japanese Prime Minister. The second video reports on a recent study by St Louis University which showed that the robotic dog Aibo was as helpful as a real dog in helping seniors to feel good and engage with the world around them.

4. Connecting

While younger people have tended to take up social networks more than the elderly, most people underestimate how many old people are engaged in online communication with their family and peers. Over two years ago, 18% of Americans over 65 had shared content onlne, with photo sharing common in this demographic. The key thing that will allow elderly people to engage in technology is easier interfaces. As shown in this video, new interfaces such as that on the iPhone make access to technology far easier. We can expect social networks for the aged to grow rapidly, for example the Grandparents Network described at the Online Social Networking and Business Collaboration conference I chaired earlier this week.

5. Getting better