Jeremie Averous | The Fourth Revolution Blog

How Regulation is Used to Defend old Institutions

Avid readers of this blog will know how much we believe and observe that the Fourth Revolution will transform existing institutions. Older institutions do fight back though – and often through the usage of existing regulations, which do in fact tend to reinforce the status quo.

Older Institution in need of a facelift?

A good summary of the issues faced by a number of startups that intend to radically change the economics of certain sectors such as taxi (Uber), accommodation (Airbnb) is available in this post ‘New innovators face backlash‘.

Issues related to tax that are faced by the web leaders such as Google and Amazon can be added to the evidence. In fact it is amazing how existing regulations promote stability. And hence do promote deep instability when changes are so significant that the former order of things can’t work any more.

Would the legislative inflation that can be observed in many countries nowadays be another sign of the resistance against the Fourth Revolution?

In any case, really disruptive innovations will necessarily hit existing regulations as they become significant enough to be noticeable. Those countries that will be flexible enough will succeed quicker in the transition to the Collaborative Age. Which are they?

How to shift worldviews by shifting words

Words are are more meaningful than we would think. And they are also much more powerful than we would be ready to admit. Actually it is possible to shift worldviews dramatically by shifting the meaning of words. There are several ways to achieve this effect:

Refer back to the etymology of the word and its Greek or Latin meaning will shift the modern use of it. Example: ‘career’ means a ‘race‘, hence in a world of scarcity! Is that really what we mean?
Use a metaphor encompassing this word but bringing it on a different level than its common usage, thus shifting the image. For example, ‘fishing‘ can be used in the context of recruitment with a specific meaning.
Create a new word (or promote a word from an other language, or revive an old word) to describe a concept. For example ‘captious‘ is a qualification applicable to people tending to find fault or raise petty objections (for example in meetings). Now you have a word you can use to describe a behavior you could not qualify before! Suddenly lots of meeting participants seem to be captious!

“The limits of your language are the limits of your world” (Ludwig Wittgenstein). Overcome that limit! Hat tip to Prof. Neil Bearden for ‘Captious’ and insights on the power of words in coaching

How we underestimate how meaningful our words can be

Who doubts the power of words? Still we probably underestimate how meaningful the words we are using can be.

In his excellent book ‘the Secrets of Consulting‘, Gerald Weinberg describes how helpful it is to a consultant ‘.”It’s gotten so I can actually identify many of my client’s problems by the gilded language used to describe the problems. Clients who use euphemisms are hiding something – event from themselves. For example, most of the time, cost-benefit analysis means cost analysis, and no attention is paid to benefits. In plain language, this means “we’re going to list every expense we can possibly associate with this plan, to make sure it’s smothered””.

With my experience as a consultant I agree fully with that statement. In particular when I start an intervention at a new client, the words that are being used are so strikingly describing the culture that it gives instantly a flavor of the issue.

Of course, it is less obvious if you are immersed in it. What about taking some time to think about the real meaning of the words you are using on a daily basis?

When to change your approach to a problem

“Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged“. – Thomas A. Edison.

Mr Edison, How persistent do you need to be? — Don’t look at me like this! How persistent do you need to be?

I like this inspirational quote, and at the same time I am still struggling to understand how to apply it. Until when is persistence bordering on the fringe of stupidity? What is the patience we need to have when our project really seems impossible?

Edison’s persistence and his 10,000 trials to get a functional light-bulb are legendary. But it is not always possible to have the means of persistence. Sometimes persistence will lead to disaster. Or to outright insanity.

Thanks to this blog,we now know what to do not to become insane: stop doing things the same way expecting different results. So, I’d like to hack this quote to make it more applicable:

“Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That’’s the place to change how he approaches it“. – Fourth Revolution

Should your work be your (only) passion?

I stumbled upon another great post by Amber Naslund, ‘Do What You Love. Right? Almost.‘

work and passion — Should your work be your passion?

In the post she explains how she has difficulty accepting the mantra ‘your work should be your passion’. She describes some experiences where she converted her passion in work and it did not work out! Too much strain and too much focus almost killed her passion. Her advice is then to be careful and not necessarily mix the two together. And while work should be interesting, she states that it is also important to have a passion outside work.

The contrary argument of course, is that if you want to become good at what you are doing, you should be a minimum passionate about it otherwise you won’t put in the effort required.

All in all, and that’s an advice that can be found in several places, it is probably safe to say that you should be passionate about your work, AND at the same time, have a great passion outside work for the balance.

What about you?

Why are we susceptible to the “Good Old Days” fallacy?

Everybody at one time or the other will mention the “Good Ol’ Days”. It seems that our past is such a great place to have been… compared to the present or the future

This psychological effect is due to hindsight. “It is the future that frighten us, not the past. Even if it has not been easy, it always seems sweet because certain.” explains Dan Gardner in ‘Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail – and Why We Believe Them Anyway‘. He continues, “The profound perceptual distortion created by hindsight bias can make almost anyone nostalgic for the good old days“.

Even people who had to live through rough times in their youths, for example during the Great Recession of the 1930’s and the following World War, will tend to remember the past with affection.

“This illusion is pervasive and yet it is seldom recognized. In books, articles, blogs and broadcasts, we call our time the ‘age of uncertainty‘, believing that there is something uniquely uncertain about this moment. But the phrase ‘age of uncertainty‘ which has appeared in the New York Times 5,720 times, made its debut in 1924!”

Uncertainty is scary. We tend to fall in the trap of the security of hindsight. Let us not do that, and let’s lean decidedly into the Fourth Revolution.

Why 3D objects’ piracy debate just starts!

In the last months there has been an increased attention and writing about piracy for 3D objects, following the continuous success and spread of 3D scanners and printers. A good summary of the 3D piracy issue is available in this Quartz post. A good summary of the development of 3D printing and the associated issues is available on the Economist here (although it dates back Sept’ 2012 it is still a good paper).

Authorities start to get worried (see this link on the US Copyright enforcer’s concerns). Because the issue is about sharing the files that describe the 3D objects freely, it would be possible to enforce the same type of measures than the ones currently enforced by the music and video industries regarding copyrighted material. However it will certainly prove more challenging to decide whether the file is really an infringement. It is probably more difficult to figure out what the object really looks like compared to a music or video stream!

Anyway, once again we observe that the Fourth Revolution is challenging traditional, established industries and institutions in a new way. There will be a struggle, there will be a debate, and finally we’ll see emerge a new balance between the needs to the creator and the industry that supports it. Let’s watch how other institutions will change!

Fourth Revolution’s blog 500th post!

I can’t even believe it but the statistics on the website can’t lie: this is Fourth Revolution’s 500th blog post!

500th post Our adventure started in October 2010 during the research for the book “the Fourth Revolution”. And it continued ever since, with a steady rhythm of 3 posts a week.

I do realize that I got better at writing and although there has been some times where I almost stopped, I am continuing on. In part, it is because of the interaction, and in part, because it is a sanity exercise for me to stand back from daily grind, do some research and to write about the great stuff I find about how the world changes.

So, let’s celebrate with the 12 most successful posts so far in the history of the blog!

Do you master the Art of Asking?
Monitoring flu trends in real time
Bonus: positive emotions improve health!
Useful Reminder: We Are All Artists Now
Must Read: “Makers” the Manufacturing Revolution
Open data hacking: Fourth Revolution value creation in action!
Urgent, Stop Doing What You Have Always Done
How simple is it to get positive emotions?
How Education Accreditation Impedes Change towards Excellence
Perfecting the Rules for Crowdfunding: Reminding abour the Risk!
Real leaders prove themselves in times of crisis
On which Organizational Plateau is your Company?…

Enjoy!

How the music industry transforms through the Fourth Revolution

I would like to share this excellent summary of the economics and of the transformations of the music industry in the last few years: Who killed the industry – an interactive explainer. It is a brilliant example of the transformation and of the questions raised by the Fourth Revolution.

music industry revenue per year — The music industry total revenue per year, by type of support

The interesting point is that from the point of view of the artists, it was pretty tough to earn any money in the previous setup. All the money was flowing to the industry.(“[in 2000, she estimated that if a band made an album, sold a million copies, went on tour, and made two music videos, the band might break even, but the record label would take home $6.6 million”!.., [and the band owns none of the work])

It seems there are more opportunities now to be heard, to connect with fans, and to make a living. However, the new forms of music streaming seem once again to forget to compensate the musicians!

In any case, if you thought you’d become rich by becoming a well known musician or singer, that will make you think twice!

Hat tip to Mitch Joel/Alistair Croll in their fantastic weekly “Six links worthy of your attention” on Mitch’s blog

Why you should first depend on trust… and still put it in writing!

Contracts and how to behave with them are one of the most frequent issues in many instances, in particular in professional activities. In my case, it applies particularly in the field of project management activities.

Should we have a contract? What should be in there? How should one behave with respect to the other party? Be extremely contractual and formal or be relatively informal and rely on the contract only as a last resort reference? Opinions on the matter vary, behaviors are tainted with cultural differences.

One of the best guidance I found is: “Get it in writing but depend on trust“. It is a quote from an excellent book by Gerald Weinberg, ‘the Secrets of Consulting‘.

It sums it all: those that are coldly contractual are wrong. Those who are all in talking and not in writing are wrong. Both won’t get anywhere.

In all instances I have found that whatever the contractual environment, the bureaucracy and the expectations of compliance, trust needs to be created, maintained and developed between parties for things to happen. And the best project managers and managers understand that. They will try to develop trust with their counterparts.

Depend on trust. You’ll go far. Just put it in writing too!

How a Single Person Can Now Create a Product useful for Millions of Users

Maybe you have been using the ‘Instapaper‘ application. It is an application that allows you to bookmark webpages and read them later, even when you are disconnected, from any device (more on Wikipedia).

What you may not realize, is that this application was developed single-handedly by one person, Marco Arment, during 5 years, from 2008 to 2013. With no full-time employee, this self-funded startup attracted more than 2 million users!

Marco sold it in April 2013 to allow it to grow and in a very humble blog post tat is worth reading explains how that was needed to allow the product to grow and tackle competition (he still remains involved and has only sold a majority stake).

Think about it: “If a multi-million dollar business can be developed and managed by one person with a laptop in an apartment, what happens to your business and your job as this rapid innovation and digitization continues to ripple through every industry“? This question by Mitch Joel in his last book “Ctrl Alt Delete” is worth considering for a moment. In the Industrial Age, such product development would have required a large staff and a huge investment. Not any more.

And I have personally met a number of entrepreneurs running very profitable companies from home with the help of part-time contractors.

Indeed, the Fourth Revolution is marching on! Are you in?

The End of Ownership

The Fourth Revolution is about the end of ownership as we know it traditionally. At least it is the trend for may of the amenities that we use on a day-to-day basis. Instead of owning, we rent. When we own, we share.

We don’t own any more our music, our films – we rent them. In many towns people rent on an as-needed basis their transportation means: bicycles and cars – instead of owning them. In electrical cars we will probably rent the batteries instead of owning it – and exchange it instead of loading it. We won’t probably even own the car but lease it and share it.

When we don’t rent, the trend is to share in an effective manner – hence the services such as Airnb (sharing apartments or couches), or services that propose to share cars during the day instead of leaving them in the office parking…

This is all made possible by the online platforms made available by internet, powered up by mobile ubiquity. The number of these platforms is increasing at a rapid pace. Those that can offer a great quality of service thrive. These platforms lower the time and cost for coordination with other users. Our preferences can be known that optimize what’s available and even offer useful suggestions.

Not only will this trend decrease the number of items we will need collectively, it will result in less waste. It also means that our choices increase dramatically – owning, sharing or renting.

There are still certainly a lot of still unidentified opportunities in renting instead of buying, or sharing those amenities we use on a day-to-day basis. Any idea?

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