My bit for Davos: Rethinking IP in the Digital Age

I'm linking to this from  the WEF site. Principle 6?

Over the past six to nine months I've been one of "100 experts from media and technology industry, government, civil society and thought leaders, including innovators and artists" gathered from all around the world to contribute to the World Economic Forum's Seven Principles for Adapting to the New Digital World.

Today the principles are being launched at the WEF's 2014 meeting in Davos.

As is inevitable with so many voices to consider, the outputs are broad.

What they aren't is a How-To guide. How they are implemented by organisations and businesses raises a whole world of new questions and challenges.

The principles do at least provide a framework to ask the right questions within. For example -

" inform users about ownership and rights. "

This in itself can trigger a wide-ranging debate including new definitions of ownership and new measures of return on contribution. The Co-Ip model, considered in my chapter on Open Innovation in The 10 Principles of Open Business springs to mind.

The seven principles - in the words of the WEF

“The way we create, consume and share content and information has changed dramatically in the digital era,” said Diana El-Azar, Senior Director of Media, Entertainment and Information Industries at the World Economic Forum. “The principles lay out a vision for the way we want our online culture to evolve.”

Developed by over 100 experts in workshops and interviews in 2013, the Principles for the Creative and Information Economy in the Digital Age encourage governments, policy-makers, the private sector, civil society groups and individuals to:

• Foster and reward creativity
• Build an ecosystem for innovation
• Expand access to content
• Inform users about ownership and rights
• Give creators and rights owners control and choice
• Enable people to be creators
• Strengthen global collaboration

The Norms and Values in Digital Media: Rethinking Intellectual Property in the Digital Age present a shared set of goals to help adapt business practices and policy-making to changing norms and values in a hyperconnected world. The principles are part of a World Economic Forum initiative which examines digital issues related to privacy, freedom of expression and intellectual property.

 Full release and supporting information,

App Internet vs Commoditised Devices?

Here's a genuinely fascinating conversation between Robert Scoble (tech blogger) and the George Colony, CEO of Forrester (recorded at Davos).

Key takeaway: The exponential growth of processing power and storage capacity is pushing everything to the edge (in device) which is a threat to web-centric companies such as Google and Facebook. "The web is a dead technology in the long run".
There is something familiar in that concept I was considering back here.(Services And The Death of The Website).
There is an alternative view - that the rapid growth in capability in devices will result in the rapid reduction in price - taking us to a place where the device (our way of accessing all the stuff of the internet) is commoditised to the point where you can pick one up off a supermarket shelf for a few pounds. In that world the web-centric companies remain important.
Perhaps it won't be one or the other but both.
The 20-minute conversation covers the impact of management changes/risk at the top of google and apple and the burning question of when China gets to be the dominant economic power in the world.
I think the CEO may be wrong about China's requirement to go through political change to end up beating the US for GDP. And here's why:

Related articles

• The world in 2020 (broadstuff.com)
• Gartner on ereader devices - they risk commoditisation (teleread.com)