Technology Strategy

I am still pondering the usefulness of this developing model. The six dimensions which I beleive are the key to attaining some traction online are: co-operation communication incentives standardization co-ordination collaboration  If we take a look at facebook, as an example: co-operation : the interface encourages people to comment, discuss, help and share information and events. communication : at the core of the website there are different forms of communication. incentives : there are a number of non-monetary incentives to participate ones facebook communities - recognition, acceptance, social-connection, sharing etc. For businesses there is branding, reach, connection to the client base. standardization : the experience is standardized, moreover via the API other platforms can connect and facebook applications can be integrated. This promotes diversity and growth. co-ordination : this is perhaps slightly more obscure, but lets say the platform facilitates the...

Some years ago I shared a house with a group of day-traders. They operated on the NASDAQ every week day, playing the day trading game remotely. The deal was they traded and received payment for profits they generated and the number of transactions they made - they company providing the system and the funding took a percentage of profits and cut them off when losses where too high. Most days these guys lost money, occasionally they made some. I became interested and realized that there was an entire industry of websites, books, DVD's and training around how to make money. I kept hearing about this "one" guy who was making a fortune. Each day there were new stories of the heroics of this individual. I began thinking, if I was recruiting day traders and building an industry around the promise of riches, what would I do ? The answer of-course is "I would create a myth" - create some super-hero figure who achieved magical results and all those that follow aspire t...

Interestingly, having in my last post posted a model, the issue I want to address in this post is the misuse of models. Firstly, let's consider what a model is and what it is not. A model is really an abstraction of reality, in most real-life situations it is impossible to capture all the parameters that influence any social phenomena. So for example, in economic growth there are far to many variables that impact economic growth. We can create some simplified model, which helps us attempt to capture at least the most important variables and suggest a way in which the economic growth mechanism works. Note, this is not a theory, a theory is an attempt to explain the workings of a mechanism whereas a model is only a simplification of a mechanism (see Mario Bunge for more discussion on this). When one person or organization create a model, it is with a particular context and set of assumptions in mind. If they create a model which is valid for all contexts and situations and does not ...