What has the web done to culture?
Editor's Note: This is full text of Kim Williams' keynote address today, 1 Nov, at Google Australia's Big Tent event. You can follow along the Google Australia Big Tent event (@googledownunder #bigtentau).
Many of us are fortunate enough to have lived through each of the three modern technology waves. It has been a dizzying and compelling experience - the first was seen in the advent of telecommunications, radio and TV in the twentieth century up until the 1980s. The second witnessed the development of personal computing and from that the progressively pervasive impact of the internet over the last 20 years.
Many of us are fortunate enough to have lived through each of the three modern technology waves. It has been a dizzying and compelling experience - the first was seen in the advent of telecommunications, radio and TV in the twentieth century up until the 1980s. The second witnessed the development of personal computing and from that the progressively pervasive impact of the internet over the last 20 years.
Now we have the third - a tidal wave comprising ubiquitous mobility, social media, cloud computing and universal (as between various devices and locations) integrated connectivity. Then there is the continuing, amazing impact we have all seen from the largest power transfer in human history – that from producers to consumers. That transfer has delivered unprecedented consumer empowerment and participation as an outcome from the combination of all those Herculean forces.
Many enterprises (including very large ones) will rise and fall quite quickly as a result of this current third wave, with its almost ferociously unstoppable speed and tsunami like energy and impact.
My invitation posed the allegedly simple subject of “what has the web done to culture?” Well I’ll be!! At least I take comfort from the invitation using culture in the lower case and so I will.
I travelled first to my forever favourite, reliable source – the Oxford English Dictionary for its definition of culture; where the diverse definitions remind one of our language’s richness and of the unusual challenge set from Google’s invitation.
Numerous definitions start with: a cultivated field or piece of land; then travel through tillage; cultivated soil, crops; raising certain animals; and arrive at “the action or process of causing bacteria and other things to grow in a managed way”. Those definitions precede the most relevant ones, although all have a real place in responding to the infinite power of the net and its cultural impact.
The definitions continue with “The cultivation or development of the mind, manners etc; improvement by education and training; Refinement of mind, tastes and manners; artistic and intellectual development; the artistic and intellectual side of a civilisation” and then we travel through to “ a particular form, stage or type of intellectual development or civilisation in a society”; and “a society or group characterised by its distinctive customs, achievements, products, outlook” finally closing with “the distinctive customs, achievements products, outlook of a society or group; the way of life of a society or group.”
These final two I believe, lie at the safe heartland of the invitation.
You will have your own specific answers. But I know we all agree that the web has changed forever the nature of information access, exchange and the direction of society through politics, commerce, creativity and personal communication in life as we know it. Pretty big C cultural impact – as big as print, the telephone, broadcasting and computing rolled into one.
The hardest aspect for me is to get one’s head around the sheer scale of the net and the dimension of its impact across the totality of human experience.We live in an era where the settings change daily and where ‘the internet of things’ will see over 75 billion connected devices by 2020.
That’s right – 75 billion devices. That’s the number that Morgan Stanley has extrapolated from a Cisco report on how many devices will be internet enabled and connected by 2020. That's over 9 devices for every one of the people that are expected to be on the planet in just seven years’ time. Both numbers are regarded as conservative.
For me, that is as thrilling and to use that much abused term from youthful language, ‘awesome’, as it is profoundly confronting, culturally.
Shortly I will cite ten key elements which seem to me are either driving this massive cultural change or reflect aspects of its character and the truly profound cultural impact it is having, where nothing will ever be the same again.
However, before I continue let me say at the core of the deep far reaching cultural change are three especially relevant issues to this country and to the generation living and working now.
First, the net has no respect for the establishment in and of itself – it is a furiously strong levelling agent. New paradigms in all things are becoming commonplace. Nothing and no one is safe. Merit and performance increasingly rule the day.
Second is the unparalleled empowerment to invention and creativity with the release of entirely new energised ways of working and connecting. Fresh thinking and creative ingenuity can win through because the cost of entry is lower than ever before so that the cost of failure has never been less. This empowers new models, possibilities and expectations as never before. Never has creativity been so unencumbered.
Which leads me to an absolutely critical often overlooked third point - the journey is still in its infancy! It has only just begun. There is plenty of cultural room for a new generation of entrepreneurs, inventors, marketers and their collaborators to till and renew the digital equivalent of idea and product soil; producing remarkably fresh, resilient idea and product crops! The web is indifferent to geography or background – it requires that you just get on with it.
And now to ten aspects I would offer about this massive cultural change.
First is the way in which technology is becoming an almost genetic extension of ourselves. Touch, gesture and voice commands are all becoming second nature in all modern product constructs embedding technology patterns and personalities from the youngest age. The technology is now an embedded part of most of us and for anyone under eighteen almost core to their being.
The new cultural paradigm is that if I can imagine it, it simply has to be there – I just have to find it (or invent it myself).
Second is the stark reality that whilst growth in consumer devotion and commercial activity is all digitally derived, from a content perspective other than for a few stand out models, there is still an ardent, confronting process of trial and error in play.
Sustainable commercial content models are in the main still unresolved. And that means that the turbulence of change, the disruption and fragmentation central to digital life is going to be with content makers and investors for a long time because complete upheaval and all its, in many ways messy impacts, has only just begun. This requires innovation as never before to succeed with the broad community of consumers and the myriad niches in societies.
Third and equally important if I can shine light on the glaringly obvious, is that notwithstanding the unpredictability and insecurity the turbulent change generates, the opportunities are infinitely bigger and very much more interesting. Change is a given but the liberation to human ingenuity with this era of inventiveness unleashed and the opportunities it affords, is central to society’s future. Threats there are aplenty, but the possibilities and opportunities are richer, deeper and stronger.
Fourth - let’s remember that consumers are genuinely in charge. They now make decisions very rapidly and their judgements are stronger and often harsher than ever before. You ignore their preferences, interests, aspirations and needs at your peril. If you create useful things aligned with identified consumer priorities applying the flexibility and adaptiveness central to this contemporary world you will be well placed to perform and succeed.
And in that environment people will pay for that which meets their priorities – there is no new normal of free. There is a new normal - that of consumers being truly empowered. If you want consumers to pay you have to offer things that are connected with their zeitgeist and you have to develop sophisticated, relevant and connected commercial models.
Fifth - the old rules of show business and most commercial life pertain but with greater ferocity. For example - this is above all a hits business and in some cases a winner takes all model. In transactional domains the first rule of the net is often be number #1. Second and third order priorities – be #1. Look at the endlessly remarkable Google itself. Look at the examples in Australia of just three obvious massive change agents – REA, Seek and CarSales.
I should add that the internet paradoxically, does also open up wonderful possibilities of building business offerings from smaller, authentic offerings that connect strongly with niche audiences.
You get the point – this is a very big C cultural change in the whole personality of commercial life. The flipside is that the position as number #1 can be precarious and will last only with sustained innovation and constant consumer focussed effort – witness Monster’s decline in the USA and too many others to detail here.
The sixth point is that so called ‘big data’ has only just started and its continuing impact on planning, development, execution, study and review of all things digital and societal will change endeavour and the human landscape in the most profound ways in modern history. The growth in impact from big data across the board in commerce, government, service delivery in all manner of activities from health and education through entertainment and marketing and on to the military and science will grow with staggering exponential force for a long time to come.
Seventh - Mobility innovation will continue unabated. The ubiquitous nature of smart phones and smart phone applications and automatic use of smart phones as controllers for other devices and as the primary screen focus for life management is almost now at a cliché level. It extends to managing all in home products through to everything from cars to almost any transaction you can think of in a wide variety of ways, onto the more traditional areas of consumer computing and entertainment.
So prominent is this phenomenon that the whole nature of the 'computer in your pocket' as a core tool for your life is axiomatic to digital existence. The centrality of mobility and connection is core to those 75 billion devices I mentioned previously.
Eighth - Fundamentally central to this new world is social media, based increasingly on mobility extending into active consumer involvement and participative and/or directive engagement with new products and also with a wide variety of media, entertainment and other applications.This impact of social media includes large corporations with new collaborative approaches to product review and development - and also to collaborative approaches to solving major technical problems.
The phenomenon of the post 1981 generation – the "millennials" sees a large community which has a different attitude to self, work, play and interaction. It is core to future big C Cultural development and needs to be understood if one is to productively engage in relevant ways – commercially, politically, creatively and very much in employment environments.
The ninth point may seem culturally odd, but I think that the evolution in cloud computing has finally arrived in such a pervasive way that it is central to the next major wave of technology provision with completely changed approaches to software and hardware management. This impact on purchasing and vendor/ customer interactions and commercial/ contractual frameworks is impossible to emphasise as to a changed power landscape sufficiently. It will impact everything you can think of – nothing is protected from banking through telecommunications and on to the whole digital service economy. The ‘internet of things’ has arrived.
The issues of collaborative development, social applications, identity management across domains and devices, in the development of new techno 'ecosystems' and communities is core to successful engagement with, and delivery in, this new technology enabled cultural landscape.
My tenth and final point is that objective insight driven product and policy development whether in commerce, government or not-for-profits with rolling critical review from technology enabled strategies is core to effective delivery in a world where consumers are smarter, enabled and making fast stern judgements.
Consumers are now supported from immensely large network feedback and participation loops from friends and a broader contributing community on a daily basis. One other thing about this consumer-led environment is how asset-light you can be – whilst you own a lot of stuff, it's virtual. That is culturally transforming.
The necessity for renovated approaches in how companies and cultural enterprises deal with dynamic product development and progressive improvement in allied delivery is central to enterprise and brand health as much as to the relationship quality they have with their workforces.
Not to pay attention to these colossal forces – especially when the balance of trust often now reposes in the close community of friends and increasingly an extended community which is accessible through all that the web provides - is a fast road to failure.
In an era where a whisper is often louder than a shout, active listening and thoughtful exhaustive processing to arrive at clarity in insights and actions is non-negotiable. These are sweeping cultural changes where the only certainty is change and durable solutions repose in clear disciplined thinking, relentless invention and a commitment to testing, listening and learning forever.
Don’t know about you, but in my book that constitutes one of many human aspects of the cultural change which is truly exciting. The need to improve one’s consumer understanding constantly in order to deliver ideas and products in ways that have a real possibility of winning through the white heat of the competitive forces unleashed through digital technologies.
The world is your oyster - enjoy the BIG TENT day and please, DO THINK BIG! The cultural change which empowers your destiny has never been more fervent or fertile.
Listen, invent, learn, respect the consumer, your colleagues - and above all the power of clear thinking.
And remember in the digital arena no-one has a monopoly on ideas or anything else.
Enough from me - All power to you all!
Kim Williams, Former CEO of News Limited and FOXTEL
My invitation posed the allegedly simple subject of “what has the web done to culture?” Well I’ll be!! At least I take comfort from the invitation using culture in the lower case and so I will.
I travelled first to my forever favourite, reliable source – the Oxford English Dictionary for its definition of culture; where the diverse definitions remind one of our language’s richness and of the unusual challenge set from Google’s invitation.
Numerous definitions start with: a cultivated field or piece of land; then travel through tillage; cultivated soil, crops; raising certain animals; and arrive at “the action or process of causing bacteria and other things to grow in a managed way”. Those definitions precede the most relevant ones, although all have a real place in responding to the infinite power of the net and its cultural impact.
The definitions continue with “The cultivation or development of the mind, manners etc; improvement by education and training; Refinement of mind, tastes and manners; artistic and intellectual development; the artistic and intellectual side of a civilisation” and then we travel through to “ a particular form, stage or type of intellectual development or civilisation in a society”; and “a society or group characterised by its distinctive customs, achievements, products, outlook” finally closing with “the distinctive customs, achievements products, outlook of a society or group; the way of life of a society or group.”
These final two I believe, lie at the safe heartland of the invitation.
You will have your own specific answers. But I know we all agree that the web has changed forever the nature of information access, exchange and the direction of society through politics, commerce, creativity and personal communication in life as we know it. Pretty big C cultural impact – as big as print, the telephone, broadcasting and computing rolled into one.
The hardest aspect for me is to get one’s head around the sheer scale of the net and the dimension of its impact across the totality of human experience.We live in an era where the settings change daily and where ‘the internet of things’ will see over 75 billion connected devices by 2020.
That’s right – 75 billion devices. That’s the number that Morgan Stanley has extrapolated from a Cisco report on how many devices will be internet enabled and connected by 2020. That's over 9 devices for every one of the people that are expected to be on the planet in just seven years’ time. Both numbers are regarded as conservative.
For me, that is as thrilling and to use that much abused term from youthful language, ‘awesome’, as it is profoundly confronting, culturally.
Shortly I will cite ten key elements which seem to me are either driving this massive cultural change or reflect aspects of its character and the truly profound cultural impact it is having, where nothing will ever be the same again.
However, before I continue let me say at the core of the deep far reaching cultural change are three especially relevant issues to this country and to the generation living and working now.
First, the net has no respect for the establishment in and of itself – it is a furiously strong levelling agent. New paradigms in all things are becoming commonplace. Nothing and no one is safe. Merit and performance increasingly rule the day.
Second is the unparalleled empowerment to invention and creativity with the release of entirely new energised ways of working and connecting. Fresh thinking and creative ingenuity can win through because the cost of entry is lower than ever before so that the cost of failure has never been less. This empowers new models, possibilities and expectations as never before. Never has creativity been so unencumbered.
Which leads me to an absolutely critical often overlooked third point - the journey is still in its infancy! It has only just begun. There is plenty of cultural room for a new generation of entrepreneurs, inventors, marketers and their collaborators to till and renew the digital equivalent of idea and product soil; producing remarkably fresh, resilient idea and product crops! The web is indifferent to geography or background – it requires that you just get on with it.
And now to ten aspects I would offer about this massive cultural change.
First is the way in which technology is becoming an almost genetic extension of ourselves. Touch, gesture and voice commands are all becoming second nature in all modern product constructs embedding technology patterns and personalities from the youngest age. The technology is now an embedded part of most of us and for anyone under eighteen almost core to their being.
The new cultural paradigm is that if I can imagine it, it simply has to be there – I just have to find it (or invent it myself).
Second is the stark reality that whilst growth in consumer devotion and commercial activity is all digitally derived, from a content perspective other than for a few stand out models, there is still an ardent, confronting process of trial and error in play.
Sustainable commercial content models are in the main still unresolved. And that means that the turbulence of change, the disruption and fragmentation central to digital life is going to be with content makers and investors for a long time because complete upheaval and all its, in many ways messy impacts, has only just begun. This requires innovation as never before to succeed with the broad community of consumers and the myriad niches in societies.
Third and equally important if I can shine light on the glaringly obvious, is that notwithstanding the unpredictability and insecurity the turbulent change generates, the opportunities are infinitely bigger and very much more interesting. Change is a given but the liberation to human ingenuity with this era of inventiveness unleashed and the opportunities it affords, is central to society’s future. Threats there are aplenty, but the possibilities and opportunities are richer, deeper and stronger.
Fourth - let’s remember that consumers are genuinely in charge. They now make decisions very rapidly and their judgements are stronger and often harsher than ever before. You ignore their preferences, interests, aspirations and needs at your peril. If you create useful things aligned with identified consumer priorities applying the flexibility and adaptiveness central to this contemporary world you will be well placed to perform and succeed.
And in that environment people will pay for that which meets their priorities – there is no new normal of free. There is a new normal - that of consumers being truly empowered. If you want consumers to pay you have to offer things that are connected with their zeitgeist and you have to develop sophisticated, relevant and connected commercial models.
Fifth - the old rules of show business and most commercial life pertain but with greater ferocity. For example - this is above all a hits business and in some cases a winner takes all model. In transactional domains the first rule of the net is often be number #1. Second and third order priorities – be #1. Look at the endlessly remarkable Google itself. Look at the examples in Australia of just three obvious massive change agents – REA, Seek and CarSales.
I should add that the internet paradoxically, does also open up wonderful possibilities of building business offerings from smaller, authentic offerings that connect strongly with niche audiences.
You get the point – this is a very big C cultural change in the whole personality of commercial life. The flipside is that the position as number #1 can be precarious and will last only with sustained innovation and constant consumer focussed effort – witness Monster’s decline in the USA and too many others to detail here.
The sixth point is that so called ‘big data’ has only just started and its continuing impact on planning, development, execution, study and review of all things digital and societal will change endeavour and the human landscape in the most profound ways in modern history. The growth in impact from big data across the board in commerce, government, service delivery in all manner of activities from health and education through entertainment and marketing and on to the military and science will grow with staggering exponential force for a long time to come.
Seventh - Mobility innovation will continue unabated. The ubiquitous nature of smart phones and smart phone applications and automatic use of smart phones as controllers for other devices and as the primary screen focus for life management is almost now at a cliché level. It extends to managing all in home products through to everything from cars to almost any transaction you can think of in a wide variety of ways, onto the more traditional areas of consumer computing and entertainment.
So prominent is this phenomenon that the whole nature of the 'computer in your pocket' as a core tool for your life is axiomatic to digital existence. The centrality of mobility and connection is core to those 75 billion devices I mentioned previously.
Eighth - Fundamentally central to this new world is social media, based increasingly on mobility extending into active consumer involvement and participative and/or directive engagement with new products and also with a wide variety of media, entertainment and other applications.This impact of social media includes large corporations with new collaborative approaches to product review and development - and also to collaborative approaches to solving major technical problems.
The phenomenon of the post 1981 generation – the "millennials" sees a large community which has a different attitude to self, work, play and interaction. It is core to future big C Cultural development and needs to be understood if one is to productively engage in relevant ways – commercially, politically, creatively and very much in employment environments.
The ninth point may seem culturally odd, but I think that the evolution in cloud computing has finally arrived in such a pervasive way that it is central to the next major wave of technology provision with completely changed approaches to software and hardware management. This impact on purchasing and vendor/ customer interactions and commercial/ contractual frameworks is impossible to emphasise as to a changed power landscape sufficiently. It will impact everything you can think of – nothing is protected from banking through telecommunications and on to the whole digital service economy. The ‘internet of things’ has arrived.
The issues of collaborative development, social applications, identity management across domains and devices, in the development of new techno 'ecosystems' and communities is core to successful engagement with, and delivery in, this new technology enabled cultural landscape.
My tenth and final point is that objective insight driven product and policy development whether in commerce, government or not-for-profits with rolling critical review from technology enabled strategies is core to effective delivery in a world where consumers are smarter, enabled and making fast stern judgements.
Consumers are now supported from immensely large network feedback and participation loops from friends and a broader contributing community on a daily basis. One other thing about this consumer-led environment is how asset-light you can be – whilst you own a lot of stuff, it's virtual. That is culturally transforming.
The necessity for renovated approaches in how companies and cultural enterprises deal with dynamic product development and progressive improvement in allied delivery is central to enterprise and brand health as much as to the relationship quality they have with their workforces.
Not to pay attention to these colossal forces – especially when the balance of trust often now reposes in the close community of friends and increasingly an extended community which is accessible through all that the web provides - is a fast road to failure.
In an era where a whisper is often louder than a shout, active listening and thoughtful exhaustive processing to arrive at clarity in insights and actions is non-negotiable. These are sweeping cultural changes where the only certainty is change and durable solutions repose in clear disciplined thinking, relentless invention and a commitment to testing, listening and learning forever.
Don’t know about you, but in my book that constitutes one of many human aspects of the cultural change which is truly exciting. The need to improve one’s consumer understanding constantly in order to deliver ideas and products in ways that have a real possibility of winning through the white heat of the competitive forces unleashed through digital technologies.
The world is your oyster - enjoy the BIG TENT day and please, DO THINK BIG! The cultural change which empowers your destiny has never been more fervent or fertile.
Listen, invent, learn, respect the consumer, your colleagues - and above all the power of clear thinking.
And remember in the digital arena no-one has a monopoly on ideas or anything else.
Enough from me - All power to you all!
Kim Williams, Former CEO of News Limited and FOXTEL
