Presentation to the Australian Computer Society
Summary
The Digital Economy is The Economy as everything we do is digitised and everything will soon be connected to everything else. Technology is vital to “Creating Better Ways of Working Learning and Living” but technology is not sufficient. The connected economy will not achieve its full potential without better ways of organising and managing people and things.
Our Challenge
Our challenge today is to realise that vision. In this election year we need to hear from our political leaders about how they will help us realise this vision for the connected economy. Such a vision requires more than technology it requires systems that build trust in data, applications and people, frictionless payment systems, online security so that people and communities feel safe, new legislation to ensure that intellectual property rights work in this connected economy and root and branch taxation reform of the global and national taxation systems to meet the demands of the connected economy.
Australian Computer Society Digital Economy Conference 21 May 2010
Solutions Required
- An automated, online copyright registration system that provides permanent but limited copyright for all digital assets.
- A frictionless payments system that is open to competition and where banks are responsible for protecting transactions and people’s identity online.
- Walled gardens where citizen are safe to conduct transactions where their identify and reputation has some form of protection and guarantee.
- Global and nation state taxation systems that are equitable in the global connected economy.
Tags: Chris Anderson, copyright, copyright registration, digital economy, digital rights management, film studios, Free, Free Culture, intellectual property, Lessig, National Broadband Network, nbn, statute of anne
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Russ, interesting preso with a number of provocative statements. Great conversation starter.
Check out Pete Williams (Deloitte) re the EMU card for points 2 & 3 above.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PZJJ_1G1SM
Peter
Russell, Thanks for such a thought provoking presentation. You have obviously thought very deeply about the issues.
Hi Russell,
Thanks for this! Really fascinating and such important issues. I’m very interested in the idea of trust and the role it plays in a healthy and connected economy. From my perspective where this has fallen down is in the tunnel vision that is used to operate the economy, without taking into account the impact and ‘external costs’.
In the past, my focus had been on placing blame and finding fault. Now I’m interested in seeing everyone as my ally in creating a better world. Finding commonality in what we value and aligning our actions with these values.
I’m really interested in how what you do and what I do intersect. I’d love to talk with you about this. If you’re interested, let me know.
Thanks Russell. Very interesting. The “walled garden” is a key factor in the work we’re doing. Trust is certainly looming as a crucial internet issue, and is poorly recognised and addressed in many collaborative offerings.
Hello Russell,
My favourite is the concept of by-passing the banks stifling ecommerce. Probably ten times harder than introducing the mining super profit tax…
Entertaining, interesting and well-delivered talk.
Largely agree with your themes on payments, copyright and tax.
On trust: I agree that it’s tremendously important but I’m skeptical of the role that strong identity is likely to play in a solution. See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123125633551557469.html
Thanks Leni appreciate the link and your comments. The one flaw in Bruce’s argument is that whilst it is certainly possible to be fooled by impersonators in the traditional economy it is far easier to be fooled online. Whilst an impersonator of your garbage collector may get a Christmas tip from you much more serious fraud is being perpetrated online.
Successful social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIN have the potential to makes billions of dollars out of people building their persona and reputation in their space I am arguing that they need to be liable for abuses that they can and should be required to control.
Better controlled reputations can then play an important role in building a more trusting environment which will lead to greater innovation and more creativity enhancing value in the economy ultimately delivering a higher quality of life for everyone.
Dear Russell
I heard this presentation only today and found it excellent. Or so it seems because I could not find anything of substance with which to disagree.
It screams reform requirements in public policy, law and government leadership. In this decade I don’t expect any of that to happen fast or in a predictable manner.
However, you’ve got the seeds of many of the core values or dialectic defined across the subjects relevant to the scope of your presentation.
At a minimum you have a platform for having a position or forecast for developments related to digital media and its impact on other spheres.
A critical issue is how will such futurism sail in a world in a decade in which I expect we’ll have ongoing economic and technological flux for years to come. Resulting from this is usually social, cultural and political instability (now in a connected world, relevant globally) that at least for me is too difficult to map.
Happy to chat more if and when you turn to build your thinking to the next level. Thanks again for your measured and insightful presentation.
Cheers
Noric Dilanchian
Thank you Noric for your warm comments and support for the ideas. I appreciate your legal expertise and will certainly talk with you soon as there has been a number of responses that will open several opportunities to help move forward the debate and development of policy responses.
You certainly have highlighted how with online technology, our society has huge issues to resolve.
For our business, the issue of online payments is a tough one (and like the EMU card!)
We seek to integrate into our companys travel reservation system, a global payment system for the travel industry and the issue of trust is paramount. Whilst Paypal may be good for parking petty cash for restaurant and retial purchases, it does not measure up for a B2B system transferring tens of thousands. Its not a bank holding the money. And whilst it can extract quickly from your bank, and it takes days to transfer money back to into the bank – no good for B2B operations.
Banks – with all their faults are still the ones trusted by our customers.