Digital Business

Digital Business insights: Poor old NSW

IN ANY of our ICT surveys over the last 13 years, when we gathered responses from across Australia, NSW was behind just about everybody else.

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Digital Business insights CEO Jphn Sheridan.

 

Certainly behind Victoria, which tends to come first in Australia. Then ACT, Queensland and WA. Then SA, and then NSW.

At first I didn't think much about it, but the results became consistent. Every time we did a national survey, NSW was behind the others.

So I finally accepted the information and started wondering why.

I looked at the national RDA websites for further insights. There are 55 of these across the country and they reflect the interests of businesses and other organisations in each region. You can look at the projects in each region and when I did, it was clear that ICT wasn't of huge interest in much of NSW with the exception of Newcastle and the Hunter, Northern Rivers and Central Coast.

I asked others if they had noticed the same thing. Interestingly, many vendors in the ICT industry had noticed a similar difference across Australia.

Organisations in NSW and especially Sydney were harder to engage with.

I spoke to CSIRO about its experience with the Innovation Series luncheons. Same again. Melbourne and Brisbane were more interested in innovation, audiences came earlier and stayed later to network and share.

Sydney audiences were smaller, came late and left early.

Interesting.

Sydney of course has a lot of ICT companies headquartered there. Most of the multinationals have national or regional offices with primarily a sales function in Australia. So even though there are a lot of them in NSW, they don't do much innovation in house.

That is done by the small startups in ICT. And Sydney has a lot of those. It's not all bad.

So it isn't lack of innovation and ideas, the problem seems to be at a different level.

Leadership? Victoria has had a focus on ICT for many years, with at one stage an IT Minister and even a government department.

So some state governments take IT and its productivity potential seriously.

That is when I began to wonder if years and years of corruption in NSW State Government was having an impact on the way businesses within the state operated.

Was the insider dealing, and the "jobs for the boys" and "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" and "it's not what you know, it's who you know" culture making people distrustful, secretive and selfish?

If so, that would begin to explain why organisations in NSW were lagging behind organisations in other states in collaboration, sharing and networking.

They simply didn't trust their government and that attitude had rubbed off onto other organisations and everything else.

In our research, NSW was behind other states not just in adoption and use of ICT, but in the more economically valuable territory of collaboration, cooperation and sharing at the local and regional level.

If people don't trust their governments, politicians, political parties, unions and leaders, then they simply refuse to engage. They don't see any point.

Unfortunately, this very reasonable, defensive attitude then becomes a barrier to new opportunity.

Because, the underlying currents of the digital revolution continue to connect things up, and encourage collaboration, cooperation and sharing.

And the currency is trust.

These are the all powerful tools for building economic strength, regional business collaboration and cultural value.

Just not in NSW. And especially not in Sydney.

Newcastle and the Hunter are different. And Northern NSW is much more collaborative.

Maybe when the current set of corruption enquiries is over, and when a few people have been sent to jail, then people might begin to believe things have finally changed.

It doesn't take much either way.

Across the planet we can see a clash of old and new world interests and attitudes promoted by the general thrust towards more access to information and the sharing of information. Google has let the genie out of the bottle. Wikileaks and Edward Snowden have fed it.

There is more transparency than ever before and far easier access to sources of information and insights. It is harder to tell lies and get away with it. Ask Christopher Pyne if that isn't the case.

The NSA has recently been pushed onto centre stage, into a bright spotlight of condemnation and universal concern. A by-product of that attention is a sharp drop in sales across the BRIC nations of Cisco products and services.

Countries and companies are quite reasonably asking questions about privacy and security and wondering who to trust. That concern is now being focused on all American ICT companies and services and inevitably will affect strategies and sales for many years to come. Possibly permanently.

Trust is an ephemeral thing. Hard to built up, easy to destroy. And the current government and judiciary in NSW have a problem on their hands.

Trust has gone. And distrust seems to be impacting the state at a largely hidden, fundamental level, affecting the attitude of businesses and organisations that operate there. Not a good thing. It's actually holding the state back from leveraging many of the benefits of the digital revolution.

Because nearly all of them rely on trust.

And without it there is only so far and so fast one can go.

- John Sheridan, December 2013.

John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.

http://www.db-insights.com/

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Digital Business insights: Bitcoin buyer beware

A MEANS of exchange is simply a promise between two or more parties.

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Digital Business insights CEO John Sheridan.

 

The modern form of exchange began roughly 400 years ago in Europe when banks started issuing notes in return for deposits. This meant that the banknote could be redeemed for gold or coins by anybody presenting it for payment. Over time all banks started issuing fixed denomination promissory notes and that is where we are today. Banknotes.

Typically, a banknote states, "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of whatever the value of the note." Most countries assign the responsibility for issuing banknotes to a central bank.

So the promise of the return for the note is backed by the central bank in each country. And the central bank and the promise in most cases is backed by law.

In countries where there is some distrust in the ability of the central bank to support the note, people tend to rely on US dollars, Swiss francs, Pounds Sterling and so on. These currencies are perceived to have more stable, reliable and intrinsic value than many others.

And if things get really uncertain, people transfer their notes into gold, diamonds or other precious metals.

It's pretty simple really.

Little or no trust = gold and jewels, and at the most catastrophic level, food.

More trust = big, reasonably stable economies and the currencies issued by their central banks.

The key word in all this is exchange. 

I have something that I can exchange without problem for goods and services, and it has a value that I understand.

There is always a risk. But the risk is mitigated when the whole economic system relies on the billions of promises that central banks effectively put on their notes or their electronic equivalents.

It is no longer about the absolute reality of the promise on the note, it is about the backing that central banks give to the notes. This makes them a means of exchange. Banknotes then have an exchange "rate" when they are moved from country to country.

So what is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a means of exchange if two people or more agree that it is a means of exchange. With this agreement, Bitcoin becomes currency. But only for those people.

How Bitcoins are created, mined, their rarity, their security etc are all red herrings.

Even red herrings are a means of exchange if two or more people agree they are.

That is what barter is. That is what Bitcoin is. It is a Bartercoin.

That is the easy bit.

The hard bit is the universality of exchange and whether or not Bitcoin fits into the system or any system. And whether it needs to.

Exchange agreements are now universal. It has taken a long time for the world to evolve its current exchange system. And cowrie shells are no longer part of it. Not universally.

The risk with Bitcoin is simple. Bitcoin has no universal value. Bitcoin has no value.

The value exists only in a transaction where both parties agree a value and where both parties are in a position to enforce that value. There is no intrinsic value.

The risk to anybody is in acceptance of Bitcoin as a payment for goods and services. And the risk is all yours.

Bitcoin can be potentially useful where both parties already trust each other, are part of a existing collaboration of organisations but in different countries, or where one or both parties are involved in illegal activities, want to avoid scrutiny or taxation and can use muscle or threat to ensure fulfilment at some later stage.

The other factor that clouds the Bitcoin story is the current level of hype.

Here we go again. Yet another sophisticated digital pyramid scheme with a few bells and whistles thrown in. First in, you win. That is always the hook for the unwary.

The hype has arisen largely from the view by certain people that Bitcoin is a useful vehicle for speculation, which confuses the issue even further.

For speculators, it doesn't matter what Bitcoin is. If an investment can be made, value added and an exit completed, who cares? Exit is the key word here.

There is only a problem if the speculator can't get out.

But for the rest of us, normally when there is an exchange of currency for goods or services, there is agreement at the time of exchange, on the value.

Which is even true for Bitcoin of course.

But the value of Bitcoin currently fluctuates hugely and will continue to fluctuate up and down, and possibly even diminish and disappear altogether.

In that case, the promise (which is implicit in the currency, that it has an agreed value) will fall back on the parties using the currency to sort out.

So if Bitcoin is now worth nothing. Or very little. Do we still have an enforceable agreement? Note the word enforceable.

That question will be answered differently, by different players. For some (those with existing trust or muscle), the answer is yes. Nothing has changed.

But for others, it will be hard to enforce agreement in any court in any land.

Though, those with deep pockets will no doubt give it a try. And possibly even succeed, especially in the land of litigation. But for most of us, dream on.

So, as usual buyer beware.

The digital revolution has seen a number of hype driven booms and busts so far. Bitcoin is another. There will be more to come.

- John Sheridan, December 2013.

John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.

http://www.db-insights.com/

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Digital Business insights: Elephant and the dog

IN INDIA there is a proverb "The dogs may bark but the elephant moves on."

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Digital Business insights CEO John Sheridan.

 

In Australia, we have a different version, ‘The Australian  newspaper barks, but the ABC moves on."

And The Australian barks, only because it is prodded by its owner.

"Right, the Labor Government has gone, now let's have a go at the ABC."

Every day we find new articles in The Australian, all questioning the management and leadership of the ABC, which happens to be our most valuable information asset, providing insights and support for Australian business and community services at a time of major digital disruption and radical change. Information that isn't easy to find elsewhere.

The dog barks but the elephant moves on.

The ABC is an unusual organisation and we are lucky to have it.

Like the BBC in the UK, it focuses on the key national and local issues of the day, providing useful insights and support for the many different sectors of our society. It is largely taken for granted, but without it there would be an enormous hole in our ability to grow and prosper meaningfully as a society.

Whereas The Australian is trapped in the past, and dedicated to attack anything that conflicts with the whims of its owner.

The bitterness of old age is apparent. And I don't mean The Australian , or the ABC.

The Australian no longer deserves its name. It should be called the American.

It is a sad outcome for a once great publishing house, as it struggles for readership and revenue, but continues to decline and fall. And I don't mean the ABC.

A newspaper media empire that once was powerful, responds too late to the digital revolution, fires its journalists, retains its commentators and becomes increasingly irrelevant as the internet continues to grow in leverage and power.

And of course I mean The Australian , not the ABC.

The Australian  is dying steadily and with good reason.

It is becoming increasingly irrelevant as the ABC becomes increasingly relevant.

And that is completely to do with the focus and commitment of leadership and management. One has it right and the other has it wrong.

Most of the newspaper commentators just don't have the time or resources to look into any subject in depth, so each weekly column, half page or full page is superficial, a quick opinion or a rewrite of something we've seen before.

Sometimes, the commentators are expected to write one, two or even three pieces for the paper and it shows.

Delivering opinion pieces, day after day, week after week. It is not easy.

Research takes time. Digging out the facts takes time. Talking to sources takes time. Finding good sources can take even longer. Thinking takes time and the commentators in The Australian, each with their handsome portrait in a box by their name, don't have that luxury.

So they just tell us what they think. Or what the owner thinks. And under that constant guidance, they have shifted their targets from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard to Kevin Rudd to climate change to carbon tax to the Labor Government and now to the ABC.

There are a few lucky staffers not forced to play the game, but most of them are, all at a time, when Australia needs even more and better real journalism, vision and insight, not quick, slick opinion.

Meanwhile the elephant doesn't react. It just moves on.

And delivers the goods. Far and wide. Across all media. By radio, TV, website and podcast.

To farmers, to households, to drivers, to students, to families, to businesses, community services, to the young and the old, overseas and at home. The ABC does a pretty good job really. Given the restrictions it operates under.

And all the while, that constant yapping and yelping in the background.

Jealousy, frustration, resentment, inadequacy, envy, admiration even, but ...

The elephant moves on.

- John Sheridan, December 2013.

John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.

http://www.db-insights.com/

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Digital Business insights: Full steam ahead, but nobody at the wheel

 

THE DEMANDS of modern life makes it increasingly difficult for a CEO and board members to pause, look around, take stock and move on in a sensible manner. This is a disruptive time for many reasons.

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Digital Business insights CEO John Sheridan.

 

Major transitions are under way as a result of the digital revolution. Some are obvious, many less obvious and some completely hidden. Because this revolution is taking place at the digital level, in microchips and over wires and wireless mostly invisible to us in our day-to-day lives.

We see the iPhones. We see the iPads, the array of computers, tablets and the myriad of applications they bring. We interface with technology through touchpads, keyboards, earphones, screens and mice.

The real impacts are where the connections, collaborations and integrations take place. This is the level where societal disruption is taking place, both for better and for worse.

Because, all the positive digital benefits are matched by a negative downside of cyberbullying, cybercrime, phishing, scams, identity theft, privacy invasions and so on that needs to be managed wisely if we are going to leverage digital technology to springboard us into a better world.

Like it or not, we are on the journey. And unless there is a major nuclear war, there is no going back.

Government, industry, business, environmental, health and community organisations are all structured for success in an operational environment that we are fast leaving behind.

We have become very good at managing, subjects and specialities, silos and departments, councils and states and even countries. We are good at short term. Good at ticking boxes.

We are nowhere near as good at identifying, defining and managing long term, strategic and holistic, big pictures.

And there are two things to consider.

The world we are born into and live in is already a totally integrated, connected environment. And has been for many, many millions of years.

The digital revolution that sweeps us merrily along, is moving us inexorably towards more connection, more collaboration and more integration. And the internet of everything.

Pretty much towards synchronisation with the already interconnected world we live in. Not tomorrow, or next week but at some time in the not too far distant future.

There have already been a number of seismic shifts on the way.

Access to personal computing devices of all kinds has become affordable.

Adoption and use of these devices is becoming universal.

The internet has provided a worldwide, information sharing and collaboration platform.

Google has moved power from vendors to customers forever. Not fully realised yet, but well on the way.

There are more shifts to come.

These shifts create disruption on the surface of our society. They impact our regions. They shake our industry sectors uncomfortably. They come knocking on the door of businesses and demand change.

Organisations typically respond by trying to maintain the status quo.

At the macro level, North Korea, China, Iran, Egypt, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and others have moved towards varying levels of internet control.

The NSA, GCHQ, ASIO and every spook agency in the world rubbed their hands in glee at this remarkable, new access to data and information, but didn't understand that connection, sharing and collaboration can work both ways.

A lot of the incumbent big players in the digital revolution failed to adapt and go with the flow and have lost share and influence to smaller, cheaper and more agile competitors. Forever.

The regulatory and legislative bodies around the world still haven't understood the full implications of what is happening and can only tinker around the edges with local and national laws and international agreements.

And in the thick of it, businesses and other organisations try to work out what to do and how to do it, not always recognising that some major disruptions are completely out of their direct control, and threaten the very existence of their whole business model.

So how do you do strategy in this new world?

For what worked well in a stable 20th century operating environment doesn't work so well today.

Racehorses are finely tuned to perform on the flat, on a surface without holes, bumps or obstructions. Take them up into the mountains and their natural advantages become disadvantages.

When conditions change, it is imperative to be able to change with them. And not just to change for the sake of change, but to adapt to meet the new condition flexibly and consistently.

That takes vision (20-20), decision and then leadership.

Today in most organisations the windows to this new world are closed and shuttered.

Every department is preoccupied with sales objectives, directives, tasks, hourly, daily, weekly and quarterly targets and no time to consider, imagine or dream (in the good sense). And it's not their job anyway.

Head down, bum up, for the working day and much of the weekend doesn't leave time to do anything else. Like, think.

How far up the organisation this condition extends varies slightly across organisations, but that has traditionally been the model for success.

The blame sits on the top floor, where the windows are wide open and the job is not just to consider what happens at every internal level of activity, but also to look far and wide at new activities, opportunities and threats.

Outside of Google, GE, Amazon, Apple and possibly Microsoft there isn't a lot of looking going on.

A few years ago in Canberra, I met with a number of Federal Government departments, and I asked which department, if any, was responsible for the overall strategic, digital vision for Australia. A somewhat naive question, but prompted by honest interest at the time.

They all laughed. Then they said, AGIMO and laughed again. Then, Office of the Prime Minister and laughed again.

And nothing much has changed on that front since.

So if vision doesn't happen at that level - steering and leading our nation towards a prime position for the digital future - it is easy to understand why it doesn't happen in "C" suites and in board rooms in Australia and across the planet.

All boards should have a futurist at the table if they can find one. It is criminal not to. Lawyers, accountants and traditional business leaders will tell you about the past. Somebody has to spell out the options regarding "full steam ahead".

Response?

No time. Not core business. Not our immediate problem. Not important. Nobody is interested.

I've heard them all. Many from people who subsequently found themselves unexpectedly in trouble. Well duh!

Meanwhile digital disruption continues. Every day, ever more connection, more collaboration and more integration.

We are heading into a completely joined up, international digital economy anyway, like it or not. Where shared value offers the only way of influencing destiny.

It would be nice to know that at some level, somebody in Australia has their hands on the wheel.

- John Sheridan, November 2013.

John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.

http://www.db-insights.com/

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Digital Business insights: And once again with feeling, "head for higher ground..."

I FIRST wrote this article in 2011 in response to somebody asking me what I thought 2012 would bring.

I revised it at the beginning of 2013 because it was still pertinent, and guess what? Here it is again - amended, but essentially the same message.

The symptoms are there to see. Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, Global Financial uncertainty, customers with Locked Wallets and Purses, no Budgets and that's just the obvious stuff. Inside of businesses and organisations of all kinds, "more with less" is the new catch cry.

Continue reading

Digital Business insights: Government in the slow lane

The digital revolution rolls on. An invisible, international tsunami sweeping everything before it.

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Digital Business insights CEO John Sheridan.

 

It creates massive change, but it happens invisibly. Through wires and wireless. No guns. No tanks. No flags. Just continual disruption.

What do we see? Not a lot on the surface.

We read the occasional article on the NSA hoovering up data from everyone and everywhere across the world. Or we hear about the price of Google and Apple shares moving up as Facebook shares move down. And we observe the steady decline of the old school vendors evidenced by IBM, Telstra, Cisco, HP etc pushing workers out the door.

But if we are in an industry that is being disrupted it is closer to home. We notice fewer customer enquiries. We notice the postponement of decisions. We notice the quarterly and annual results are down. We notice customers are more informed and better prepared than before. They want more. They want it quicker.

And daily, the connection, collaboration and integration continues. It is changing the world.

Who is disrupted? Everybody. But particularly, anybody and everybody who is a broker for products, services and information - "the middlemen".

It is especially hard for the associations, unions, peak bodies, local government, state and federal government departments that used to have clear and obvious relationships with organisations that needed them.

For their customers have changed. Their customers have shifted allegiance.

Rather than hunt for information on government portals and websites or rely on the monthly industry newsletter, the customer uses Google.

The PR approved and washed content, and legally cleaned government portals and websites contain lots of "vanilla" information - generic and principle based, but no direct advice, recommendations, consultation or direct help, when this is quickly and freely available at many locations across the internet.

Customer expectations have changed, and government portals and websites don't deliver to this new, bigger expectation. "I can find what I am looking for through Google quickly and easily, why can't you give me what I want, in the way that I want it?"

Government can't do what commerce and the open internet can do.

Government is not agile. Rules and regulations bind them. It's not their fault. That's how they are required to operate. They are not allowed to do things differently.

There is even a sense of frustration within government from staff who see this situation clearly themselves.

What they deliver doesn't align to what customers now expect because of all the other sources of information they access through Google. Even if and when customers visit government portals, they are disappointed with what they find.

Five  years ago, Gartner recognised that this was happening worldwide and proposed that government information and services should be made freely available through third parties and channels outside of government.

But it is hard for government to accept change and to effect change, especially when it would diminish apparent control, and what they see as their responsibility for the information they provide. That is perfectly understandable, but unfortunately it provides an excuse to change nothing.

Meanwhile the world continues to connect, collaborate and integrate.

And a thorough analysis of what the digital revolution is invisibly doing may even undermine and diminish the requirement for government departments of industry and trade and communication and services in the first place, including many of the people that work in them.

So that isn't going to happen.

However, doing nothing doesn't block or stop the continual disruptive change.

Customers just look elsewhere. And Google is the catalyst for this search and enquiry.

It's no use telling people that Dr Google is dangerous. People use Dr Google anyway...84%. So do doctors. And it's the same for everything else.

How do you compete with that? Government is in the slow lane, doing everything properly for a world that no longer exists.

The politicians and their departments are on a different time scale to the revolution. Three year terms. Sound bites. Quick wins. Short-term photo opportunities. Focused on the media scrum.

All while the fundamental digital changes and disruptions continue.

Debate, consultation, committees, advisory groups and everything else are designed to make decision making more camel-like, laborious and irrelevant.

It is not hard to understand. Politicians don't have the time. They rely on political advisors who only have a superficial grasp of what is happening (digital change) and then on the policy officers in government departments who have lost touch with all the day to day impacts the digital revolution is making in the real world. Assuming they were ever in touch in the first place.

Big issues? Not enough time. Broad issues? Leave them alone. Strategic issues? Forget them. Leave them to the next government.

All these things involve more than one department and who's going to pay, who's going to lead, which minister would possibly support such a focus, and who will own the photo op at the end? If there is an end.

Leave it to posterity.

So in an ever more connected world, government doesn't do connections. Government doesn't do holistic. Government doesn't do strategic. Not our government. China, Singapore, Vietnam = different story.

But our government doesn't know how to think. plan or legislate for the new issues.

Our government doesn't do long term, or even medium term. It does 3 years. Which by the time it gets settled and allowing for the next election means government actually does 2 years if we are lucky.

And the digital revolution rolls on. Connecting, collaborating and integrating as it goes.

And Google has replaced anything and everything as an information source.

Well duh! We all know that don't we?

We certainly all know the obvious part of it.  Google is a very efficient search engine.

Less obvious are the changes in patterns of behaviour that result, as people continue to use and trust Google more and more.

New habits are being formed. New relationships are being created.

Google has replaced the industry association as an information source.

Google has replaced the salesperson as an information source. Google has replaced newspapers and the Yellow Pages as an information source. Google has replaced government as an information source.

They are all too slow. Too siloed. They have too many limitations. They lack direct knowledge. They are too political. They are not responsive. They are inaccessible.

Too vanilla flavoured or biased = irrelevant = somebody else is filling the gaps.

And that is Google. It empowers. It builds confidence. Gives access.

Then people check what they find out with friends and family, and online and offline associates and referees.

For many people internet based collaboration has completely replaced and swept away physical limitations and geographic, council, state and national boundaries.

Businesses may be physically located somewhere, but connected everywhere.

So customers now look to whoever and wherever they can find support.

New tribes. New relationships. New advisers. New collaborators.

For government, the restrictions of geographic boundaries and responsibilities, funding limitations and decisions, and election-based timetables are becoming serious barriers to each and every 21st century digital opportunity.

New digital networks are steadily replacing old geographic, social, business, economic and political networks.

There is an ongoing scramble for relevance.

The digital revolution inexorably rolls on. And government is in the slow lane.

But if it is not careful, it will end up parked by the side of the road.

- John Sheridan, November 2013.

John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.

http://www.db-insights.com/

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