[supernova] Nicholas Carr and Chris Meyer

Nicholas Carr is working on a book on what all these changes mean economically. In the 19th century, factories to produce their own power. Producing it more economically could be an important competitive advantage. Then independent power suppliers supplied it far more economically. In 1910, only 40% of electricity was generated by independent utilities, and most of that went to lighting. Just 20 years later, 80% was coming from utilities. This unleashed network innovation. But the real change came when sockets were everywhere. Now there was huge innovation in the appliances that plug into them, from assembly lines to televisions to computers.

Now we can have rich computing services served over the network, services that could not be matched at the local level. When we have computer sockets the way we have power sockets, all sorts of things will change.

The challenge is to begin to break free from the Web 2.0 world and the narrow innovation we see there.

“Organization: The Fourth Factor of Production” is Chris Meyer ‘s talk’s title. What isn’t going to change, he asks. Technology drives organizational innovation. But traditionally the response has been to create departments to manage change.In 1937, Ronald Coase wrote “The Nature of the Firm.”. What wil lbe the next answer in the information economy? Traversal of the boundaries. Web 2.0 collaborative tools. Chris recommends Neal Stephenson’s vision in The Diamond Age as a social vision for business…

In the Q&A, Nick says that the electrical network only supplied electricity, whereas the future computing network will supply services as a commodity. Chris points out that industrialization happened within one legal system, while this change is happening internationally.

Chris predicts that they’ll be a bifurcation, with some big centralized corporations, and then a swarm outside.

Q: (brad templeton) The real difference isn’t bandwidth but control…
A: (nick) Rich applications over the Net empowers the user, even if they don’t own and control it.
(Chris) You should only bother controlling things that are choice. But in Nick’s world, bandwidth is not scarce.

Q: (Shannon Clark) Your pronouns of yours and ours are inappropriate…

A: (John Hagel) What happens to competitive strategy in this world you’re sketching?
Q: (Nick) It depends on the industry.
A (chris) Strategic advantage? Who needs it. It’s for firms in the old sense. [Tags: supernova2007 supernova07 nicholars_carr chris_meyer ]

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