Be like the Internet

OK, now I am in my first workshop at the Web 2.0 Expo. Scott Hirsch, founder of Management Innovation Group (MIG) out of San Francisco is inviting people to think about innovation issues they are facing.

[…] getting honest about the real assets you bring to the table and finding ways to work with the network instead of fighting the changes it represents. This means explicitly changing the way you work and collaborate to set direction, scope opportunity, and build capabilities to rapidly assess business changes and react to them … or choose not to react.

Unfortunately I’ve been late to the show (thanks to Berlins public traffic system …), so I missed the introductory informations. I will try to get my hands on the slides, and provide the agenda and more then.

Scott introduced the audience to the changed business environment in the Web 2.0 era, some important points being

• You don’t own your ideas
• It is really easy to start a business (and you don’t want to own the infrastructure)

First part of the workshop: Bottom up Innovation – A personal guide to Disrupting the World

• Characteristics of web 2.0 innovators (don’t overcommit to solutions, don’t overplan strategy, embrace many points of view and transparency, …)
• Traits (humble, flexible, facilitative, persuasive, collaborative, passionate, persistent – but not defensive)
• They create cultures to manage (uncertainty, openness, leadership, management, hiring, strategy, competition, marketing, business and product development, …)

Nice thought and metaphor: “Web 2.0 innovators look at their business like a poker game, not a chess game”

– you don’t have all the information you need
– you constantly get more information from the other players
– you have to pay to play and for information
– every round there’s a new round of cards
– business case is useless, you just look at options

Nice example of Web 2.0 innovators view of strategy (comparing friendster, MySpace and Facebook) along axes of openness/closedness and awareness (also hinting at openness for evolving complementing business ecosystems)

Jotspot and Google as examples for how Web 2.0 innovators look at business models

Web 2.0 innovators view of management (opportunity cost is the scarce resource, not people, time or money), comparing Yahoo (fear of false positives) and Google (fear of false negatives).

Web 2.0 innovators view themselves as facilitators rather than managers, and encourage smart divergence over quick convergence.

Continued after the break, in fact I have blogged notes on the second part of Scott Hirschs workshop over at my BMID-blog: Uncovering Strategies and Business Models