Kendall Whitehouse: Supernova 2009 in Pictures

Kendall Whitehouse shot some amazing photos of Supernova 2009.

Catharine Hays on the Future of Advertising

Catharine Hays, Project Director of Wharton’s Future of Advertising program, tells us why we should care about the Future of Advertising. The project seeks to reinvent the scope, practice and value of the word Advertising. It’s more about redefining what Advertising means, and looking at the audience, instead of being intrusive and interruption focused.

“Corporations have products we want, so why not have a good symbiotic relationship?” asks Hays. Customers have the power to destroy the advertisers who don’t fulfill their promises, and companies are starting to realize this. They are now recognizing that they must be part of conversations.

JP Rangaswami on Connections in the Network Age

JP Rangaswami of BT and “Confused of Calcutta” discusses his learning from Supernova’s Real Time Flow track, including the challenges in both standards and technical connections, as well as the social interactions that connect us. While there’s lots of focus on the “network” part of social networks, it is the Social part where there’s a lot of room for new learning. JP appreciates insights from Danah Boyd’s talk, as well as those of John Hagel and Umair Haque.

Towards the end of the discussion, JP gives some of his predictions for the future of telephony and communications.

In case you’re looking for it, I referenced an interview... Read More

Linda Stone on Millenials and Continuous Partial Attention

Linda Stone‘s history of working at the cutting edge at places like Apple and Microsoft has lead her to recently coin the phrase “Continuous Partial Attention” – the constant shifting of attention so a person doesn’t miss anything going on. The millennial generation who grew up watching this are not in sync with this value, and are looking for different balance in their lives. In this interview, Linda tells us about their value system, and how this may affect the future of work in the Network Age.

Andrew McLaughlin, Deputy CTO of the US

Deputy US Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin spent some time after his panel on Day 2 of Supernova 2009 talking with me about the President’s agenda on technology in Health Care, IT part of the Smart Grid, the Role of Technology in Education, and CyberSecurity, as well as Patent Reform and Net Neutrality. He describes his interaction with the entrepreneurs at Supernova, seeking new ideas for solutions to the government.

He also gives insights as to what new projects the Government is working on to help taxpayers better understand how their money is being spent, and what projects are connecting the Federal and State governments to improve communications.

... Read More

Karl Ulrich of Wharton on Innovation Tournaments

Dr. Karl Ulrich spoke to me after his Wharton Talk at Supernova on the subject of Innovation Tournaments (which is also the title of his most recent book.) He describes innovation tournaments, and how companies are already using this format to help find more ideas that can be funneled and used to drive new products and services. The key is generating as many ideas as possible at the top of the funnel. Interestingly enough, Innovation Tournaments and American Idol have common elements, leading to a discussion of Kelly Clarkson versus Sanjaya.

Craig Walker of Google Real Time Communications

Craig Walker, the Group Product Manager for Realtime Communications spoke on the “Telecom as Software Panel.” In our talk he describes Google Voice for those who haven’t yet seen it. As telephony increasingly becomes IP (Internet Protocol) based, and more able to be manipulated like data, the innovation we’re seeing now with products like Google Voice, Ribbit, Skype, and others will continue to increase.

We also discuss what things are going to happen over the next 3-5 years in the telephony industry, including how to innovate with the user as the center of your innovation.

John Hagel on Employees with Passion

John Hagel of Deloitte spoke to me after his opening plenary on day 2 of Supernova about his research on the Shift Index which “highlighted a core performance challenge …: return on assets for U.S. companies has steadily fallen to almost one quarter of 1965 levels at the same time that we have seen…modest, improvements in labor productivity.”

John and his team interviewed employees about many factors during their research, and in our talk he discussed employee passion for work as a key indicator of company performance. He also mentioned in his talk a recommendation to reach out to the “smartest people in your industry” and figure out... Read More

Kevin Werbach interviews Alec Ross, Craig Newmark and Jimmy Wales

After the final plenary session at Supernova, Supernova Group Founder & Conference Organizer Kevin Werbach interviews Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark, Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Senior Advisor for Innovation Alec Ross about the most important changes they’ve seen, and their predictions for the biggest changes to come.

Thanks to all the panelists for their insights. You can also see the full Supernova Day 3 Closing Session live stream recordings.

Clips from Thursday’s thought leaders

In the final analysis, on this day, anyway, the Internet is human. That's the takeaway of dozens of Supernova conversations, whether they happened on Twitter with folks miles away from the conference or with the person right next to you in the room. The Internet, in all its technology and technicality, is a tool for intimacy. We just have to carve out the boundaries that protect our privacy, our talents, our corporate competitive differentiation, our social interaction, our governing systems. The thing is, we don't have the luxury of waiting for the Internet to pause. Like people, the Internet keeps flowing and leading us to new discoveries about ourselves and the data we produce. With luck, our closer proximity will generate and sustain the kind of trust only humans can do.