Last week I talked to various people, amongst them John Gray, Charles Leadbeater and Daniel Cohen. All interesting talks about society, technology and of course, the economy. I all asked them if they thought we’d come to the end of an era. Namely the end of capitalism. Yes, they all answered, we’ve come to the end of capitalism in the sense of the ‘financial capitalism’: the system that has lead to the build up of tremendous wealth creation in the financial sector. But we are still far from the eradication of capitalism as the ideology on which a society operates…

Africa’s Silk Road: China and India’s New Economic Frontier
by Harry G. Broadman

Isbn-13: 9780821368350

China and India’s new-found interest in trade and investment with Africa - home to 300 million of the globe’s poorest people and the world’s most formidable development challenge - presents a significant opportunity for growth and integration of the Sub-Saharan continent into the global economy. Africa’s Silk Road finds that China and India’s South-South commerce with Africa is about far more than natural resources, opening the way for Africa to become a processor of commodities and a competitive…

“Ask yourself a very different question: what are the inputs or strategy, not the outputs. What are the necessary elements, skills, that I need that will work in any situation. It’s like prepairing for a trip around the world; you are going to be in business, casual situations, hot climate, cold climate, what cloth do you take? And you have to do with carry on lugage, not with a trunc on a steamer ship or something. How do you pack? You pack cloth that are versitile, that you can dress up, dress down. The organisation has to do the same thing; what skills do I have that are adapteble, that will work in any situation. Because when I can’t predict the future, then adaptability and flexibility is paramount. Focus on those skills, process those skills, be world class at those skills, then worry about where the journey takes you, but be ready for the journey”- Jeffrey Sampler, Fellow, Templeton College-Said Business School, Oxford

“The key thread is one of individualization, that is reaching more and more inside of individuals. If you look at the progression of economic value that goes from commodities to transformations (even beyond experiences). Commodities are these arms length things that we hardly even touch and feel anymore. Goods are things that we touch and use like cars and clothing. Services are activities performed on those goods like cleaning our cloth, or on ourselves cutting our hair. But experiences for the first time reach inside of us and they engage us in creating a memory.  Transformations actually reach inside and change us; so effective is the experience, that now we become a different person as a result. So that process of individualization of getting more and more into a person, and with transformation the customer IS the product. And of course that is going to be authentic because you actually changed the self-image of who they are.” Joseph Pine - author of “The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage ” and “Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want“

“Communities needs diversity in order to thrive and grow. But if an 12-year-old and a 65-year-old are trying to have a conversation with one another, not knowing how old the other is, having no context of whatsoever. The 12-year-old will react like a 12-year-old does and the other person will react like 65-year-old does because there are not enough gestures there. With twenty people in a room you can modify your behavior and that is part of how communities work but that doesn’t happen in online forums. There are just not enough ways to project the complete person I am to you. Neither for me, nor for you, nor for the community.” - Charles Kriel, artist, producer, DVJ

Societal change is heavily driven by energy and food, both closely related. Food production is the basis of a society. As the food production is essentially changing, society changes. Energy is of the utmost importance to food production as we basically eat our energy. Historically energy meant hunting the animal, than became guiding the animal for agriculture, until today we essentially eat our oil. So the transformation of food production and energy is what realizes a revolution. Information can be part of that revolution as the explosion of information intensifies management. However, media (information) has been of less impact to changing our lives that the automobile has done. -  Wouter van Beek,  professor, anthropologist (INTERVIEW IN DUTCH)

Africa is a developing region, trying to climb from the bottom up. Many regions on the African continent are suffering from extreme climates, environmental degradation, colonial trauma, language barriers, HIV, illiteracy, poverty, famine, artificial borders, dictators and armed conflicts. But at the same time, Africa is also a continent of tremendous unleashed potential of natural resources, human capital and economic activities. For several years in a row now, Africa is the fastest growing region in the roll-out of ICT infrastructure, especially mobile. In FreedomLab’s new study into this continent we sketch a thorough picture on the status quo of many of the aspects of the African growth dynamics. And we’ll discuss the hurdles as well as the tremendous opportunities.

Yesterday I had a conversation with Grant McCracken. Grant is an anthropologist deeply interested in the impact new technologies and the digital era are having on our culture. Plus he’s the author of several books on the matter including his latest: ‘Transformations: identity construction in contemporary culture’. Grant beautifully describes all the transformations of the individual from traditional societies to the post-modern era. In my opinion that has led to what I would call hyper-individualism…

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.