John Sviokla

I was recently interviewed by Scott Henderson for the site New Empire Builders, which is a site dedicated to finding new startups, interesting non-profits, and interesting new firms.  In my conversation with Scott I talk about the idea of third wave capitalism — which rides atop the standard, global, infrastructure for knowledge work — the internet — and what it means for businesses and individuals.

When we think about knowledge work productivity, it is a very tricky subject. The reason it is tricky is because at one extreme we can routinize knowledge work — as when someone is calling to fill out a survey, or answer a customer service call. In a low value added knowledge work task, there is some variation, and the motivation and attitude of the employee is still a very big and important deal. 

Co-authored with Chris Curran

Never before has such a mass of data existed. Needless to say, all this information complicates the decision-making process. Businesses need new strategies to answer the biggest question:

One of my colleagues just asked me: What’s the difference between a vendor relationship and a true business partnership? This is a vital question when any individual or firm is innovating, because when anyone is doing something truly new, it is impossible to pre-specify everything needed from a vendor — because you are busy creating something never seen before!

There is much talk about innovation — and there are many approaches to creating new things, from the famous “open innovation” ideas of Henry Chesbrough to the ever popular notions of Clay Christensen about “disruptive innovation“. 

Last week, on Thursday night September 16, 2010, I had the good fortune of speaking to the Society for Information Management’s (SIM’s) Boston chapter about the implications of social media. You can get the slides here.

The other day I received a downright inspirational email from my friends at IndieGoGo, a site dedicated to the collaborative funding of ideas. (Here’s a short video of my friend Slava Rubin, co-founder of the company.) The missive pointed to a video featuring 9 year old Jackie Evancho a rising America’s Got Talent star who belts out To Where You Are.

I’m coming to believe every good is a convenience good. A recent New York Times article reported that Nordstrom has integrated their in-store inventory with their online supply, meaning that anyone can get access to the entire inventory from any “location” — a physical store or online. They also report that Nordstrom’s management believes that this “innovation” has helped change their same store sales from a “negative growth” (don’t you love that term!) of 11.9% to a positive growth of 9%.

Wired magazine recently announced on its cover that the Web is Dead. I confess I really like the magazine  despite some of the hyperbolic rants that Chris Anderson, Wired’s editor creates like his book “Free” — which is completely indefensible from an intellectual or factual standpoint.

If you are the type of person who likes to think about where things might be going I’d suggest you start watching the evolving competitive battle between Facebook and Google. Both firms want to know who you are and whom you connect to, e.g. your “social graph”. To date, Google knows a ton about what you search for, but only Facebook, LinkedIn or another social network knows your social graph.