We are reorganizing into a networked economy. The world is changing rapidly, and is creating the need for a fast turnover of strategy and idea;, a more fluid way of thinking and approach. But for most people it is hard to do something different every day. The repetitive character of the manufactering age is transforming into something more fluid in the network economy as new stratigic approached may require different expertise than the ones inside the boudaries of the organization.

After yet another restless attempt to watch something decent on television, and flipping dozens of channels, I turned to the Internet for some satisfacting. After browsing ten’s of online video portal and peer-to-peer on demand video channels, and becomming increasingly restless I just wondered: what would a television-navigator look like? What is the brandname that filters the millions of pieces of content to my personal satisfaction, and is there such a thing even possible?

The development of the communications technology and especially the Internet and the Web 2.0 is causing a big disruption in the professional world. We see newspapers and tv in trouble, while the attention for blogs and YouTube is growing. One of the key factors in this development is the empowerment of the amateur, who seems to take over tasks from the professional. We recently interviewed both Andrew Keen and Jeff Howe about this trend, and both have a different perspective on the matter. But what I am wondering, and what seems to be missing in the discussion is that the amateurs select the job he works on himself, while professionals are selected for the job. And an inspired amateur beats a bored professional.

The world is trying to convince us that everything can be done anywhere, anytime. We’re bombarded with information and triggers to act upon. Technology has acted as a funnel which delivers an ocean of information to one place.  Computers on mobile phones flash at every incomming event. But where do you focus on? Everyone knows that to get anything done, you have to pay full attention.

“Absorptive capacity […] also means having simple thing like education. Having a reservoir of highly educated people, which China had for a long time. It means the type of education which shouldn’t be too abstract and oriented towards classical literature or history, but more towards technology, towards business, towards practical applications. For instance, this is typical for the United States, which was a catch-up economy in the nineteenth century which had more technical agriculture oriented education compared to the hybrid classical education in the United Kingdom.” Adam Szirmai, Professor of Technology and Development Studies.

Sometimes you grab a book that you’ve already read, and the moment its in your hands again, it triggers all sorts of new thoughts. I had picked up the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience ” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and somehow connected it to the need of vending machines…

“A company like Facebook is valued at 15 billion dollars. But why is it valued on that? They still haven’t discovered a coherent business model. Facebook became very popular, because it was a clean, well led site, which wasn’t as dominated by advertising. But now they’ve become more popular and are trying to integrate advertising into their content as a way of cashing out on their traffic and the size of their community their community rebels against them. It’s hard to see where the money comes from in the Web 2.0 economy. And the crisis, in moral, cultural terms is that the people who are getting screwed are the content people. The writers, the musicians, the film makers, the journalists. They’re the ones who ultimately are not realizing revenue from their creative work. They’re the ones who are having to take jobs as waiters or lawyers or postmen during the day to sustain their creative habit.” Andrew Keen, entrepreneur and author.

We are all connected to networks, physical ones and digital ones. We increasingly explore and navigate the structures of the city roads, the Internet, globalization and even the cells of our bodies. Over time we have explored more and more of these networks. which has disclosed an abundance of information and revealed millions of new possibilities. But did the disclosure of all this information make the world more complex, or did it merely demystify that what was already there? I think for the larger part it has been the latter.