by Alan Toman, author of The WOOF Factor
During the months of June and July I began a quest to gain perspective on what has been happening in business & technology today. During that time I had conversations with over one hundred senior executives, managers, engineers, designers and developers spanning the industries of the Internet, mobile, marketing, advertising, entertainment, recruiting, e-commerce, education, energy, finance, IT, nonprofit, public relations, software, venture capital and health care.
What resulted was a document that became The Wisdom Of Observant Friends (or The Woof Factor) and what follows here and in future posts are a few of its highlights.
Social Media, Crowd-sourcing and Mobile were hot topics, but many other trends, quotes and ideas also offered real revelations. Consider the citing, by a prominent technology journalist, of Alan Kay’s statement: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” And the 12-yr-old’s comment that defines the PGA (Post-Google Age) generation: “Who wants to read? Go to YouTube.” I couldn’t help being inspired, and I hope you will be, too.
Some of you may find this information unsurprising (in fact a few predictions that were made in the beginning of my process actually became factual news items before I finished). And for some of you this may be a simple confirmation of your own thoughts or ideas. Others, I hope, may glean some useful insights. In any case, taken in its entirety I think it’s a compelling snapshot of our world as we saw it in the summer of 2010. I hope you find something valuable in it. — Alan Toman
Speaking of Google, you can’t mention trends and ideas without including Google’s philosophy, written a few years ago, but as relevant today as ever:
The Google Philosophy:
1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There’s always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn’t good enough