Skip to main content

Success factors for digital economies - information symmetry

In previous posts I've written about presentations on the trajectories of digital economies in Africa and Norway. Both of these were based on an unfinished framework I've been developing that tries to describe the success factors for national economies in the Early Digital Economy. I won't recap this framework in detail as its described in the posts linked above, but at the highest level it breaks the success factors into four categories:

  1. Pervasive access to computing
  2. Information symmetry
  3. Innovative AND entrepreneurial culture
  4. Digital skills and education
In order to complete the framework and starting building a broader data set to test it I've now populated one of the two missing sections, information symmetry. This topic breaks into 4:
  • Unfiltered access to information, enabling people to have open conversations and access (if not a preference for) content from every potential point of view. This is vital for true innovation as a fear of repercussions is significant disincentive to think differently
  • Open data proliferation from public and private sector organisations, enabling innovators to access information that enables validated learning and re-examination of accepted wisdom
  • Digital organisation structures at a team, business unit, company, municipal and national level that reduce hierarchy, enable collisions between people with ideas and skills
  • A culture of objective measurement ensuring that the true results of innovation and iteration can be understood and learned from in a way that reduces wastage
The above leads to a more complete framework, shown below.


I'm now working on gathering the actual metrics that suggest performance in these areas so that I can figure out whether they actually point to anything and/ or are consistent. I'm also thinking about the skills and education element, in the spirit of leaving the best until last. 

Interesting though all this is it's fitting in around the completion another project that I'll hopefully be able to talk about in the next few months. Mysterious ;). Thoughts greatly appreciated.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Differences between Industrial and Digital businesses

Since I'm stuck on a Eurostar crawling through western France I thought I'd use the downtime to share this table I've made on the differences between Industrial and Digital companies across the main business functions. A strange insight into how my mind works... but hopeful a useful summary!
32 comments
Read more

Strategic lessons from Debenhams

Yesterday’s news cycle brought with it the announcement that Debenhams, a staple of the UK high street, was now in the control of its lenders . This kind of news is sad for the employees of Debenhams and certainly for its shareholders, but it is also a good opportunity for reflection. A business that can trace its history back to 1778 may be about to cease trading forever. For leaders in the retail and associated consumer industries, now is a good time to consider what lessons can be learnt from Debenhams and what could be done to seize the opportunity presented by its passing. I’m thinking about the topic of strategic responses to emerging events at the moment because of the seeming inevitability of a recession this year or next, which will doubtless bring with it many similar situations. Before I get started, a disclaimer. I have no inside knowledge of Debenhams, I have never consulted for them, pitched to them or even met anyone in their management team. This post uses Debenham...
3 comments
Read more

Impacts of a handset leasing model on mobile telcos

Following yesterday's post, here's some related thinking on the impacts on operators of handset leasing. Handset sales represent around 25% of operator revenues in a typical European market, but generate only around 5% of margin. It may therefore be the case that the scenario described would lead operators to a more profitable structural model than exists today. Oil companies are consistently and acceptably profitable, despite being (literally in some cases) the ‘dumb pipe’ that operators are so desperate to avoid becoming. One of the reasons for the oil majors sustained profitability is clear focus on their role in the value chain – to supply the fuel that enables transportation, relying primarily on location, then brand and finally product innovation to compete. BP or Shell do not need to subsidise the purchase of a car in order to drive consumption of fuel because consumers are ‘hooked’ on it (it gets them from place to place) and there are many credible car manufacturers an...
10 comments
Read more