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Showing posts with the label business model

programmable money - the big idea

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I had the pleasure of hosting @ledaglyptis on mashup* .  We chatted about programmable money. A central theme was about gaining acceptance of a “big idea.”   Programmable money, cryptocurrency, control of money, tracking, avoiding fraud, CBDC are all part of a big idea, which we concluded has a few issues.  However, Leda beautifully draws on her background as a political scientist and gave us this thinking. Starting from a Big Idea that will struggle to gain acceptance as is it a jump to far for ordinary citizens, companies and capital steps in to make and create acceptable use cases.   These are adopted by niche markets who gain value and benefits.  Slowly many capital-backed incremental, agile acceptable use cases become a wider acceptance which means we end up with the badly thought through Big Idea. Is this a back door or just humanity and now do we pick up all the known problems which are now at scale - create a new BIG IDEA!   The question is how do we add into the loop solving

Can we thrive on the dark side of the moon?

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Image: Andrew McCarthy   https://www.instagram.com/p/B--9AFgJZ4-/ We know there will be normal on the other side of the lockdown and recession, but what is it and how will it be different? In seven weeks of lockdown, we have experienced seven years of process alternations and digital adaptations. If COVID19 had not emerged we would not have undertaken such digitization changes in such a time frame.  This pandemic has only just begun given the history of HIV which has just had its 40th birthday and SARS at 15, both complex viruses neither have vaccines.  We lack data right now and most of our actions are based on human hope and wishful thinking for better outcomes than the worst-case scenario. A new landscape It almost feels like we have been living on the lite side of the moon, seeing and understanding the layout of the land, its structure, our infrastructure and our connections.  The global pandemic has forced us to move to the other side of the moon, the side with no sunlight and w

As an executive, investor or board member; how should we interrupt, position and understand AI?

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  Image source: https://medium.com/politics-ai/an-overview-of-national-ai-strategies-2a70ec6edfd and updates https://futureoflife.org/national-international-ai-strategies/ The purpose of this article is to provide a framework which gives you a clear and coherent communication tool to assess or position any AI initiative. The positioning will be on the continuum of AI will either save the human race from extinction or be our nemesis, causing our very eradication. The framework is built on an explanation of how value is created using an economic model that provides for both stability (BAU) and change (disruption). Critically explored is how the choice is made between the stable and change models. Through exploring stable, change and choice we unpack how the outcome of an AI project can lead to growth and prosperity or dystopia and destruction. The simplest economic model Figure 1 presents a very simple process. Raw materials are an input to a process called gain , which creates

What is “the future of money?”

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So many wise words and wisdom's have been shared and debated on the topic of the future of money, along with numerous books and research papers on the same topic. I have reviewed much of what has been said over the past few years and surely the first question is. “Is there anything new to say?” Whilst walking recently with a good friend Celia Gates we explored the question using her Whether Forecasting model and here is some fresh thinking. “The future of money”; is the wrong question! Money was and remains amongst other things a method of exchange. If money had stayed as only a mechanism of exchange; kind of like what we created it for, we would not be where we are today with the economy we have and the freedoms we enjoy. Money had to and has become an object or an entity . An entity is a thing with distinct and independent existence. Money exists for money itself, it creates itself, it has value in of itself. Money is therefore both an exchange and is something in its own righ

What do we do now, as our trust in reviews has been broken?

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Read this excellent Medium article on "The Age of the Negative Review Is Over" by @jenniferrabin   thinking about no response to worse than negative when we consider attention.  Have a different issue with reviews and that is that I no longer "TRUST" them, principally because of the emerging and growing set of rules, revisions, lies and so much material on what to do to get one deleted, reversed or hidden.  I have come to depend on feedback and reviews for choices, the ability to read others thinking has been so beneficial for online booking and purchases. The reason is that a while ago we booked a wonderful 4* hotel in the 3 valleys; to read the week before we left a very long, detailed and negative review. We left for skiing a tad worried. We arrived, the staff were amazing, the location was spot on, the food was excellent and the lodging was exactly as described. The previous empty nester reviewer obviously booked a 4* expecting a 6* and as it was

Why “#Privacy-by-Design” is more than playing the game of #ethics of opt-in or the #morals of opt-out.

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Key message : decisions regarding the right type of initial explicit and informed “consent” sort from customers is currently a delegated authority from the board. This article argues that there is an imperative to bring back “consent” decisions to the board; at least for a while. The board needs to debate “consent” in light of ideas such as “privacy by design”, ethical AI, brand values, privacy policy, cookie policy and culture; given that consistency across these critical business areas are increasingly core differentiators. - - As a context, much of the classic(al) thinking and definition(s) of consent are here on wikipedia . There is excellent technical work on consent from Kantara for both the user interface and back office processes based on new consent thinking. MEF is publishing really helpful thinking on UI/UX. In the idea of implementing “privacy by design”, I published this blog exploring the concept of Approval vs Forgiveness as the method of gaining consent when consid

Review and thoughts on Surveillance Capitalism @shoshanazuboff

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“The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power” So I took this one for the team, and read every single page of the near 700 pages.  It is a slog, even for me as a massive advocate of privacy, PII, identity, security, trust and data.  Massive respect to S hoshana Zuboff for 15 years of thinking, research, dedication and writing on and to the topic. This is half of a life's dedication.  Yes I wrote and published " My Digital Footprint - where your privacy is someone else's business model "  10 years ago and whilst we now have lots of proof now, the theory has not moved on.  There is a lot written on this book already. If you want a summary of Shoshana work these are some of these better write ups. WIRED , FT ,  ZDNET ,  The Guardian ,  Harvard , Linux Journal , The Verge , Philosophical .  For those who want a few videos try these TWIT , Democracy Now My thinking I am critical of this book , and can only as

somehow we are going to have to pay for free, the question remains where ?

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Been looking at Flux . Simple proposition.  Aggregation of all your receipts and loyalty into one place. #loveit The power; [in terms of control of your data and what happens to it, how gets to exploit it and what rights you have] shifts from one silo ( the retailer and the bank) to Flux.  It moves from the relationship collector (who you interact with) to a new third party. (intermediary) So here is convenience for you, as these services improve your customer experience, at the expense of data, it is trade we make with having to determine the consequences.  Your data is spread out to a new layer who now needs to monitise  data  to thrive.  The players who now have access to and want to monitise your data goes up.  More competition usually means a lower price, in this case to access your data.   Given some of the players have a direct business relationship with you for products and services ( how your data is generated)  - reselling your data is incremental.  However for the

Revisiting FREE : The Derivative CASH FLOW model for Digital is about to change.

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The majority who read this will be aware of the response that when a digital or Internet service is Free; you are the product. It is most probably an adaption of a 1970 quote from the TV/media industry. Free to Air TV, which is advertising supported, means you watch for FREE in exchange for attention to watch adverts, as product and service owners hope you will buy. The idea of this post is to explore this line of thinking a little further, as with the introduction of PSD2, GDPR and many other new regulatory frameworks from the US to Australia: the user/ consumer can now get their data back, so this idea needs to be looked at again with our digital glasses on. The purpose here to raise questions with the hope others will help explore what it means through commentary.  Definitions for this post  Derivative : A derivative is a contract between two or more parties whose value is based on an agreed-upon underlying digital data asset (like your social media posts) or set o

The Future of Capitalism

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The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier  outlines original, pragmatism and ethical ways of addressing the growing gaps between economic prosperity and being more humane. The topic is of great importance and you may not agree with the content but it is beautifully written and important book. The author takes on the failures of contemporary capitalism driven by national and global policy for the now discontent of contemporary high-income western countries and offers (practical) ideas and policies to address them. Drawing on ideas from some of the world's most distinguished social scientists and much of his own personal background and leading research Paul shows us how to save the ideals “capitalism” from itself - and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the 20th century. “Deep rifts are tearing apart the fabric of our societies. They are bringing new anxieties and new anger to our people, and new passions to our politics. Thriving cities versus the provin