Immediately following the keynote, I headed over to the luminary panel session. Jeff Raikes moderated the panel discussion with experts from various disciplines and points of view, including Charles M. Firestone, Dr. Marianne Broadbent, Professor Benjamin F. Jones, and Derek Woodgate.
Each panelist brought their own unique perspective to the panel. For instance, Charles Firestone, Executive Director at the Aspen Institute, is a recognized expert on communications policy and trends and the societal impact of communications and information technologies. Dr. Marianne Broadbent, Executive Advisor at Communications and Society, is a specialist in leadership assessment and executive capabilities. Benjamin F. Jones, Professor at the Kellogg School of Management, is an expert on the impact of communications technology. Derek Woodgate, President of The Futures Lab, is a practicing futurist.
Jeff kicked off the session by discussing how the information age created the knowledge economy, which helped accelerate globalization. He then turned to how the next revolution is taking place in communications, where the rise of Internet Protocol is enabling the unification of modes that existed previously in separate silos—telephone, voice mail, e-mail, instant messaging, multimedia conferencing and others are becoming seamless and context-relevant across networks and devices. The panel focused on the implications of this revolution for individuals, companies, societies, nation-states, governments, institutions, etc.
Jeff began his questioning by asking the panel for their thoughts on what type of impact the communication revolution would have on the world. Charles responded by stating that there would be three major effects, including personal empowerment, which allows the individual to pull down what they need and leverage it for greater effectiveness, collective intelligence, allowing people to gather the wisdom of crowds, and total mobility. The combination of these three will connect human capital in ways that were previously not possible. He also noted that geography would no longer define what your opportunities are.
Benjamin followed Charles by noting that the communications revolution provides substantial opportunities for countries to more easily benefit from their comparative advantages. Organizations will readily be able to connect to knowledge workers throughout the world, for whatever skills and expertise they need.
Jeff then asked Marianne how business leaders should anticipate how the next generation of the work force expects to work. Marianne responded that business leaders should embrace it and see it as a great opportunity. She also noted that organizations that fully utilize the experiences and expertise of people in their organizations relating to IT, they have the chance to innovate how they run their businesses.
Jeff also asked whether we believe the change in communications will be like the main frame to the PC in significance. The panelists agreed that we are jumping into a new world. Comments included that there is an increasing demand for this type of collaboration. Derek mentioned that higher impact work comes from larger teams and communications technology is increasingly important to allow larger teams to work together effectively.
Audience questions covered several topics. One in particular sparked my interest. One attendee asked whether we have to wait for the installed base before using these technologies. Jeff responded that these communications technologies allow people to use the software and infrastructure they already have. The installed base is already there – 500 million people already use Office. These are simply additional capabilities on top of what customers are using.
Overall, this session provided a very insightful discussion around the next revolution in communications. Attending this session really solidified for me how exciting this space is and how communication and collaborative technology are impacting the world.
- Moz Hussain
Director, Office Communications Server