technology

The following text is the manuscript to my presentation The next 80%.

The Obama White House, as measured by its willingness to embrace new technology platforms on a rolling basis, is perhaps the most innovative in history. This week’s Google+ Hangout with the President – essentially an FDR fireside chat updated for the Internet era viewable by millions on YouTube – is just the latest example of the Obama White House embracing Silicon Valley innovation to communicate with the American electorate.

Not science fiction anymore, this: "Once chairs and other things become content, the prospect of rampant chair piracy turns from unimaginable into very real." The Pirate Bay is opening a new category for the new kind of piratable stuff: "We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles.

What's new with GPS? There were the 3D maps, then traffic information with live refresh every two minutes so to help others avoid heavy traffic jams and GPS watch. What’s next?

(The following is the first in a two-part blog-exchange I’m doing with Stephen Denny, author of Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry. Because Steve and I are among those teaching the upcoming Marketing Profs University course, Marketing Your Small Business, we decided to address retailers’ issues and opportunities in these posts and focus specifically on small businesses.

New innovations in mobile banking are making it possible to transfer the entire payment experience from the plastic credit card to your mobile device. New upstarts with funny names that sound nothing like typical financial names - like Dwolla, Venmo and Square - are going far beyond just enabling you to use your mobile devices to check balances on-the-go: they are transforming mobile devices into payment mechanisms at point-of-sale destinations around the nation.