It took being smacked squarely on the head with a revolution or two for the world to stop arguing with the huge fact that is social media. Skeptics have figured out that even if the social bubble were to burst, something has changed forever. What they're slower to get however the transformation is happening to content online, even as we speak.If you're in the business of writing, or if you produce other forms of content for your company, consider the implications of these 15 changes shaping digital media.1. DemocratisationIn this age of social networking, everyone has a voice. And everyone uses it. Right from the start of the web, the internet has been a great equaliser - anyone can produce content. And they do. This democratisation has meant content-related industries have seen a disruption inside out. The consumption of content has gone up exponentially - just not in the old predictable ways it used to be consumed. Book publishers, music companies, television, newspapers and writers have all had to reinvent themselves in a world where they're not the only content experts. The implications for anyone producing content are that they no longer have a handful of competitors. It's you against ROW. Facebook 2. Ownership In QuestionCompanies find they no longer own their logos, businesses discover that ideas don't necessarily come from their swanky cerebral-stimulating air-conditioned innovation centres, and writers see their work sprouting up in places they didn't expect it to online. Can a news site link to your blog and make it look like they wrote it? Can you use a photo someone seems to have forgotten online without it being theft? Can you put up a friend's video on YouTube for all to see when he didn't say you could? The social web has challenged and re-challenged content ownership as we once knew it. Most contentious of all is user-generated content. Does an article put up on Facebook belong to the user or to Facebook? Does a comment on a company's page entitle the company to use it as they like?3. CrowdsourcingThey call it "the wisdom of crowds". Starbucks calls for great ideas on a special website - and it gets them. Lego puts design software up for download and asks its customers-to-be to use it to create new products, Harley Davidson makes a bunch of marketing material based on the participation of fans and the ideas they submit. Business publications crowdsource polls and surveys, the Q&A site, Quora, crowdsources answers from subject experts, and journalists crowdsource information for their writing. Never before was there such a wholehearted recognition of the fact that content doesn't just come from institutions and organisations but from extraordinary ordinary people.4. Aggregation And CurationThere was a time, not so long ago, when you had a producer and a reader-visitor-viewer-listener. There was no middleman. Today, many have entered the mix. Stopping just short of violating copyrights, aggregators create collections of content, providing a different search and see experience. As long as they have their search engine optimisation in order, aggregators come up right on top in search results, sometimes far more than the sites that contain the original material. Now, curators who filter and select content are taking up where aggregators have left off. Take a look at the special way in which LinkedIn is aggregating-curating content on its LinkedIn Today. You Tube 5. Trending TopicsOnce it was publishers who controlled what ended up as news or was widely consumed. Today it's the crowd that decides what is trending and what isn't. And it isn't what you'd logically think should trend either. Recently, Rebecca Black, an American pop singer, put up a song called Friday on YouTube.Getting 2.7 million dislikes, the song nevertheless has 137 million views as it went wildly viral, gaining Black global much notoriety - or fame, whichever way you look at it. Content producers can no longer take distribution online for granted but have to figure out the science of how to make something trend. If the content doesn't "fly" on its own, they will need to push it forcefully into the social media flow.6. Content Meets AppsIn the past two years or so, apps have created magic with content. Quite apart from apps made and branded by content producers (most major newspapers and magazines have them) there are others like Flipboard, Feedly, Zite, and others that serve up content from multiple sources all dressed up in beautifully designed pages on tablets like the iPad. On smartphones too, there are apps for all sorts of content, from videos and podcasts to games and newspapers. Even apps for movies are beginning to be available. Content makers can't afford to ignore the reality of apps and will need to make sure they're right out there where more content than they realize will be consumed. In India, where smartphones are internet access for the first time for so many, it's all the more important to be part of the app world.7. Nothing Without InteractivityIn the early days of the web, interactivity was limited to a being able to click around and maybe get a pop up or picture for your troubles. Games and Flash and subsequent technologies took interactivity to another level. Today, with tablets, interactivity enters another phase of creativity. At a TED talk, Mike Mattas demonstrated the first full-length book for the iPad and iPhone, Al Gore's Our Choice. In this book, you can only pinch and zoom into pictures, you can pinch to fold and unfold sections, blow on the pressure-sensitive screen to make a windmill turn, see live infographics and get deeper and deeper into the content by touching elements. The software that makes this happen is up for use by anyone else who wants to. It's interactivity like this that is making users expect an experience, not just a visit to a static website.8. SharingHow to make content share-worthy and get it to go viral has become part of the necessary strategizing of distributing content online. Plopping it online and leaving it to fend for itself isn't going to cut it anymore. People spend time and effort thinking of what their communities will want to share (as opposed to read or view without necessarily sharing) and they package content to maximize the chances of sharing, whether that's through Retweets on Twitter or posts on |Facebook, updates on LinkedIn, or anywhere else including plain old email. Much effort also goes into apps to make it easy, if not outright pleasurable, to share content with others.break-page-break9. Social ObjectsAs if it weren't enough, content producers also have to create social objects of or around their content. Anything put out there must generate engagement and interaction. This is quite apart from pressing the Like button or even sharing the content. Meaningful discussion must combine with that to bring it up a notch. This isn't easy to do and writers, film-makers and others are constantly seeking new ways of sparking off conversations around their content. The content has to become the reason people are coming together at that moment. In effect, content can't be thought of without community engagement opportunities today. Linked in 10. Recommendations MatterThe frantic race to get people to Like content has kept many social media marketing teams busy. The point of it all may not always be clear or fruitful, but the number of Likes and Recommendations has become a yardstick for content quality. Not to be left out in the cold, Google recently began rolling out their equivalent of the Like button, called Plus 1. On the professional front, LinkedIn upped its use of recommendations to move beyond personal testimonials for individuals to endorsements for companies and products. The whole business of liking and recommending has spread through the internet to become a part of the basic fabric of everything you do.11. Instantly MeasurableTimes were when you could remain blissfully unaware of what people really think of your writing, videos, photos or songs. And then maybe a couple of people would tell you and you'd hear what you want to hear. If you went about it more scientifically, you would have to wait for audience surveys, focus groups and ratings to yield their results. Today everything is instantly measurable. At least, if it's linked in some way to social networking and not sealed off in a time-warped silo somewhere online. There are numerous tools to measure how content is faring online and these are not in the hands of experts. A URL shortener like Bit.ly will give you enough statistics - in real time. This means it's tough to get away with putting out content that interests no one.12. AccountabilityIt's no longer enough to claim expertise and years of experience. The landscape online is a transparent one and it makes it essential to prove your expertise in your chosen field. For those producing content it means not assuming no one else can do it; not being complacent with mere presence or giving away too little. If you have ideas, concepts to convey, you need to back them up with specifics and with background content. Twitter 13. InfluenceIt's an age of influence online. That much we're sure of. Ever since Twitter began growing into an "information network" where writers and others point to their work, one could see that some develop huge communities who follow, interact and spread the message - while others remain low key. Analytical tools give you influence scores, and some companies are even beginning to reward people with high social influence. See Klout as an example. For those pushing their content online, the moral of the story is that you need to be an influence in your field and you need to know how to develop and tap into other influencers. In India, as we know, politicians have recognized the importance of online influence and you'll find the most unlikely individuals have jumped into social networking, gathering themselves quite a sizeable following.14. No PrivacyOne of the fallouts of consuming and sharing content online is that the entire privacy landscape has changed. Very soon, our definition of a concept that was once fairly straightforward, too will adjust to the changes. Suffice is to say that whatever content you consume is increasingly visible to your network of friends and contacts and this is a fact that has to be managed carefully. For content producers, the onus is to create content with which people want to be associated. Another challenge that touches on privacy is the fluid boundaries online between the personal and professional. Developing and maintaining a persona or brand calls for being several steps ahead of changes you have to stay alert to predict.15. Four Screens, No WaitingSmartphones and tablets add to computers and televisions to demand new, varied formats that go beyond optimisation and must provide a worthwhile experience. If an app just gets you to click to go to a website, users will soon move on from it. If an internet-enabled television makes it difficult for you to get to content easily, viewers will lose patience with it. The long and short of it is that users want their favourite content everywhere, on all their devices, in real time. On these four devices - smartphones, computers, tablets and television - consumption patterns have also changed in that users may want to either use a device in a focused way or multitask and consume on several devices at the same time.Social media may have brought about sweeping changes to content and communication but it is still very much in flux. Changes are fast and furious as new technologies and devices come up. Already though, publishers' digital audiences are beginning to match their print and broadcast audiences and just recently, at Amazon, e-books outpaced paperback sales. According to Neilson, television-watching just went down 2 per cent because of the shift to digital media. Anyone in any content industry must not only be thinking digital but must get ahead of the curve in all of the aspects of the changing face of content.Mala Bhargava is a personal technology writer and media professional. Contact her at mala@pobox.com and @malabhargava on Twitter
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Soumitra Dutta, a researcher of Global Innovation Index report, a Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology, Dean of External Relations, and faculty director of e-lab at INSEAD, has done his PhD in computer science and MSC in business administration. He was in India recently to release the CII-INSEAD Global Innovation Index (GII) Report. Dutta spoke to BW Online's Poonam Kumar on the reason behind India's poor performance in the GII report and what makes INSEAD a preferred destination for management students. Excerpts. India has slipped 11 places down from its previous rank in the GII? What is the reason, according to you? And what can we do to improve our ranking?It is important to keep in mind that these rankings are relative rankings. Thus while India has improved in absolute terms as compared to last year, it has slipped in relative ranks. This is an indication that India needs to accelerate the pace of change in some key areas such as infrastructure, education, administrative burden of regulation etc. Due to a variety of political issues, I think that the pace of change has been slower in the past few years than what was desired. Now that India has weathered the crisis better than many other economies, it is time for India to move forward with speed and confidence. The small countries topped the GII this year, whereas, biggies such as the US, the UK and Germany slipped from their previous ranks (ranked among top 10 last year). Your comments.Small countries such as Scandinavian nations and Singapore typically do tend to do well in many international rankings. This is not just because they are small – note that there are many other smaller nations which do not make the top 10 list. However, the smaller countries which do come in the top do share some common strengths such as good leadership, a clean and efficient environment, a culture of investment in people and good infrastructure. It could be argued that they often find it easier to make changes and implement new policies given the small sizes of their countries and/or populations. Larger nations often have a harder time to implement changes and one possible reason for the drop of some of the larger countries could be the recession which has hit them harder than many of the smaller nations now at the top of the ranking. Now that the economy is picking up, what kind of impact do you see on admission for the executive programme of INSEAD.B-schools have two markets: one is the MBA market and the other is the executive education market. The MBA market is usually counter-sector market. What we expect is when the economy picks up MBA applications will decrease slightly because last two years it increased dramatically – 25 per cent per year or more. And the executive education market is more cyclical and that market has decreased with the economic slowdown. But now we expect that market would pick-up. What is the USP of executive programme? And what are the criteria to join the E-MBA programme at INSEAD?The USP of the executive programme is that you have to keep on learning. The lifecycle of knowledge is about two years, so every two years, half your knowledge gets outdated. So, if you look at any executive today in an organisation they have to keep on learning. Let us take an example of web 2.0. For most of the executives, it's a very new thing. The only way they can learn about how the companies can use web 2.0 is by enrolling into executive programmes and learning from professors and other people in the classroom. In turn, the students could even learn about what works in other countries or in some other company. For executive MBA, we typically take people who have been very successful and did not have the time to do an MBA earlier. These are people who are in their late 30s and want to do an MBA to develop their skills but didn't have the chance or ability to do it earlier. What is the percentage of Indian students' and other countries at INSEAD?The highest proportion of applications comes from Indian students. We have a policy in which we limit the number of student for any one country, does not matter which country, to 10 per cent. The three biggest nationality groups on campus are Indian, American and French. We have a policy of increasing diversity in the classroom. Tell us about INSEAD's future plans?We are a global school. We have the campus in Singapore and we are expanding in Asia to Singapore. We will be doing more in India with Indian companies. We are setting up our new campus in Abu-Dhabi. For companies and individuals, how important is innovation in the current scenario?Innovation can be defined as the leverage of new ideas to create value in economic or social terms. The world has become more flat and competition is global. Innovation is the only option for countries that wish to continuously improve their competitiveness and develop their societies. Societies around the world also face common problems such as energy, climate and the environment. Again, innovation is the only way forward to find solutions to these common problems. Your book Throwing Sheep In The Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World (2008) focuses on Web 2.0. With tools such as advanced social networking functions and smarter, personalised web services we are going beyond Web 2.0. Are the ideas mentioned in the book relevant in the present context as well?Well, the web 2.0 world is not yet well understood and I would hesitate to say that we are stepping into a web 3.0 world. It is not very useful in my view to make sharp distinctions between specific phases such as 2.0 and 3.0 as I believe that this is all one continuous process. In many ways, the seeds of what we today see as the web 2.0 world were sown 40 years ago at the inception of the Internet. When the internet was designed, it was designed as a real time shared system with open standards and with intelligence distributed to the edges. These design choices have today become a reality for many individuals and businesses around the world with the maturation of key underlying enabling technologies (such as broadband to the home or office) and have created the world we call today as web 2.0. The changes are as much or more in changing habits and behaviors as in technology progress. These changes continue and our actions today (such as attempts to provide universal broadband access) will influence and shape our world tomorrow. Whether we call it web 3.0 or something else really does not matter, in my view. What are the new teaching methods used at INSEAD?All processes in INSEAD are tightly integrated – we do not manage our Europe, Asia and Middle East campuses as three separate independent entities. Students join INSEAD as an institution, begin their studies on any campus they like and migrate at their own will to another campus. Faculty members choose to live and work on any campus and the management structure is uniform across the three campuses – such as one Dean, one department chairman, one MBA admissions office, etc. INSEAD also uses video conferencing extensively to integrate the campuses – it is interestingly the single biggest (one location) user of video conferencing in both France and Singapore. Technology supports our strategy at INSEAD and keeps us at the forefront of innovation. poonam(dot)kumar(at)abp(dot)in
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Collaborative innovation will be key for success in the future. Corporate leaders realise that they need to work collaboratively with their business partners, customers and governments to innovate successfully for the future. Innovation ecosystems that span across public and private sectors and extend to include citizens and societies have to be formed. Collaborative innovation is the name of the game for future success.In one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted on collaborative innovation, eLab@INSEAD, in collaboration with Logica, surveyed two hundred CxO level business leaders from blue-chip organisations from both the public and private sectors across the world, about their views on collaborative innovation. The research (available on http://elab.insead.edu) shows that, although they claim to grant high priority to collaborative innovation, most companies are handicapped by low levels of innovation readiness.The research reveals that while collaborating with external partners is an important enabler of innovation, executing such partnerships is difficult. This is akin to winning three-legged races. It is a game of balancing cooperation and competition while focusing on winning. Around the world, organisations are struggling to identify the best strategies and approaches to 'win together'.The culture of sharing, of risk taking and of working with diverse partners, employees and goals are all aspects that touch on successful innovation, and in particular, collaborative innovation. Complementing cultures can be a strength, however, cultural mismatches are frequently the stumbling block in designing effective collaborative innovation.This research shows that organisations need an effective innovation 'multi-culture' where different aspects of an organisation's behaviour are combined in varying proportions, depending on the stage of the innovation process. For example, diversity of experience and background is more valuable in the idea generation phase, whereas common goals and working styles may be more important in the execution phase.Effective implementation involves directing resources appropriately to ensure that competing priorities are resolved effectively. Getting the balance between innovation and managing the day-to-day demands of the business is one of the greatest challenges respondents experienced.Collaborative innovation does not succeed in a vacuum. Leadership has to create a fertile foundation for collaboration and innovation to thrive. Just saying 'innovation is important' does not make it so. Simply setting up an innovation function, and allocating money to it, does not create innovation. Innovation has to move beyond the hype and be grounded in the reality of the organisation. It is time for leaders to step up and meet the innovation challenge head-on.The author is the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD, France. He has authored several books on technology, policy and innovation. He can be reached at: soumitra dot dutta at insead dot edu
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We are living in special times. After a long wait the world is getting truly connected. Globally, nearly 5 billion people are connected via mobile phones. China's mobile penetration is expected to reach 100 per cent within the next five years. India is not far behind with already more than a third of its population connected through the mobile network. Large parts of Africa are also moving up the mobile adoption curve rapidly. Indeed the world has suddenly become closer.The near ubiquitous presence of mobile technology is having a powerful impact on the lives of people in emerging markets. It has enabled new connections to be formed and old links to be renewed. For example, mobile calls are often made by the poor in rural villages to their richer relatives in cities for the transfer of funds. Mobile telephony has enabled new forms of entrepreneurship amongst the rural populace. Witness the success of Grameen Phone in Bangladesh in which women are creating businesses to sell communication services through a mobile phone stand. It has also stimulated the creation of innovative applications to improve the quality of life for farmers. For example, Nano Ganesh (the emerging markets innovation award winner from Nokia in 2009) is a simple mobile-based application in India used by farmers to switch on remote irrigation equipment for their fields.A similar phenomenon is also taking place in developed countries. The increased availability of 3G has improved the richness of communications and data access possible through mobile telephones. Witness the range of applications available on the Apple iPhone platform. In about a year's time, more than 150,000 iPhone applications are now available for a variety of personal and business needs. These innovations are not being designed by large software houses, but are rather being driven by individuals. A similar phenomenon is taking place in other social computing platforms. More than a million developers and entrepreneurs from 180 countries have created over 400,000 active applications on Facebook within a year's time.While these innovations improve the quality of life for many, it is interesting to note that they are not generally driven by high technology research. Most are driven by a deep understanding of local customer and contextual needs and the liberation of the creativity of the individual.It is not just technology that is becoming ubiquitous in society. A new force of innovation is becoming pervasive in society. A social culture of innovation is emerging and ubiquitous technology is driving this.The author is the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD, France. He has authored several books on technology, policy and innovation. He can be reached at: soumitra dot dutta at insead dot edu
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I was recently invited as a speaker in the Google customer event in Paris. The discussion was all about cloud computing.Speaker after speaker, both from Google and other enterprises, extolled the virtues of cloud computing. It was argued that the time for cloud computing has come. The Internet has matured to a point that connectivity in technology and business processes has become natural and easy to do. The digital generation has arrived in the workplace and are demanding the same friendly communication and coordination tools at work as what they have got used to in their private life. Small businesses in particular do not have the capabilities to nurture in-house IT departments - for them cloud computing represents the best hope of leveraging technology for efficiency and business innovation.To make things more challenging, we are in the midst of a data explosion that shows no signs of slowing. Google's experts estimate that every two days we are generating as much data as what created in the world till 2003 since the start of recorded history. How else can companies continue their investments in the hardware and computing power to store and process all this data, without resorting to cloud computing for help?Then there was a show of hands. Less than a third of the assembled group of more than 300 CIOs and technology leaders from across the world gave a positive answer. Why is this the case?For one, there are serious concerns about security. Most firms are still very cautious about the security of their data and applications when they are moved on the cloud. Legal issues, especially in Europe and Asia complicate the storage and transfer of many data types across national boundaries. The response? Google and other cloud experts acknowledged this concern but highlighted the tremendous investments they are making into building sophisticated security processes into their cloud solutions. The point was argued that being open in the cloud architecture may actually lead to a more secure computing environment for firms.Also, most firms are reluctant to move their core business applications onto the cloud. In many cases, such as for ERP systems, they are tied to the cloud transition plans of the software vendors. Google and other experts acknowledged that firms need not move their core applications onto the cloud now. This could progress in phases over the years as the software packages themselves became cloud friendly. However, the major source of productivity improvements in firms today comes from improving the way people communicate and collaborate. Cloud computing is difficult to beat on these dimensions and should not be ignored.After a day of debates and discussions, I came away convinced that cloud computing is here to stay. However, I could also see that many CIOs are not yet convinced. It is time to change. It is time to start living in the cloud!The author is the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD, France. He has authored several books on technology, policy and innovation. He can be reached at: soumitra dot dutta at insead dot eduComments on this note can be sent to: mail at soumitradutta dot com
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Two important questions were posed to me the other day, "Are you born innovative? Or do you learn to be innovative"?Stop for a minute and reflect on how you would answer the above. On which side would you lean? And don't answer with "it depends" - that is not an option here!Actually, the question is not that difficult to answer. Just look at a typical four year old around you. What kind of behaviour does a four-year- old typically exhibit? She constantly observes the environment. She never gets tired of asking questions. She is not fearful of making mistakes. She never hesitates to try out different experiments and is comfortable making mistakes, learning and trying once again. Remember how she learned to walk? By constantly trying and never giving up!If you reflect on the above behaviors of a four-year-old child these are very much the behavioural traits that we associate with innovative people. So the first part of the question is quite easy to answer: people are indeed born innovative!This is good news because it shows that we all have a lot of potential to innovate. However, frequently we deplore the fact that people in our organizations are not innovative enough. Why does this happen?There are two major reasons in my view. One, our schools and universities do a poor job in stimulating innovative thinking. Most schools and universities around the world are still geared towards rote learning and memorisation in a model which assumes that "teacher knows best and role of student is to replicate what the teacher writes on the board". Few schools encourage out of the box thinking amongst students.Two, organisations are designed for efficiency of execution and not for learning via bold experimentation. Firms are focused to get groups of people to execute on processes efficiently and reliably. Incremental innovations are fine but there is little room for radical ideas that may throw the whole organisational design into question! How else can you explain why an outsider - Apple - has completely transformed the music industry?So to answer to the second question, it is not about learning innovative habits. Rather it is a question of unlearning bad habits that block innovation! We all have the DNA for innovation within us. We just need the courage and a supportive organisational environment to go back to our childhood behaviour! Well, at least for some part of the day, every day!The author is the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD, France. He has authored several books on technology, policy and innovation. He can be reached at: soumitra dot dutta at insead dot eduComments on this note can be sent to: mail at soumitradutta dot com
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In December 2009, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Internet, the US Defense Department launched a national challenge. They released ten numbered red balloons at different undisclosed locations across the US. The challenge was for any individual or team to find the exact locations of all ten balloons and the reward offered was $40,000.Mathematically, this is a problem that cannot be solved by known algorithmic techniques. Nevertheless, the winning team from MIT located all ten balloons in less than 9 hours. This is considered an impressive achievement, not just for the short time taken to solve the challenge but also for the innovative nature of the solution technique employed.The winning MIT team exploited social networks and the hyper-connectivity of society to reach out to individuals across the world and to encourage them to either submit the locations of the balloons (if they knew it) or to encourage someone else who may know the location to participate. A cascaded system of rewards was employed to reward people for either giving the location of a balloon themselves or having identified someone who did.Imagine the power of the above solution for solving real world problems like locating a missing child or pinpointing known terrorists. To leverage hyper-connectivity, organisations are reaching out to people outside their boundaries to tackle complex problems that they cannot solve individually. The American video rental firm, Netflix used crowd-sourcing techniques to improve the accuracy of video rental suggestions by more than 30 per cent. Using a prize of $1m for the winning team, Netflix attracted hundreds of scientists and engineers from around the world who submitted complex mathematical solutions to help improve the firm's algorithms.Technology is an important (but not the only factor) driving our growing inter-dependencies. Consider the global nature of the financial crisis over the last years. Capital flows freely across boundaries and risk scenarios are inter-linked thus leading at times to contagion and financial pressures in multiple markets. Global trade is highly inter-connected and changes in key factors such as currency rates in one part of the world can have far reaching impacts in distant locations. Epidemics and health problems are also more mobile given trends in global migration and increased ease of travel with modern planes and trains.It is clear that we are living in an age of hyper-connectivity. This will only increase with time. Hyper-connectivity can cut both ways. It can help you as in the Netflix example. Or it can hurt you as with financial contagions or the viral spread of a negative message. Either ways, you have to be prepared for it. Do you have a choice?The author is the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD, France. He has authored several books on technology, policy and innovation.Comments on this note can be sent to: mail(at)soumitradutta(dot)com
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January is always a good month. The old year has ended and challenges faced over the last months are fast becoming a memory. Most of us are fortunate to have benefited from a well deserved break with family and friends. And best of all, we are looking forward to a year ahead with new opportunities and exciting possibilities.How can you make the most of the year ahead? Here are three ideas for you to consider.Less Is More: Strategic success is not just about making the right choices of what more to do next. It is also about deciding what not to do. We are often victims of our own success. We are high achievers and successful in what we do. We say "yes" too easily. The result is often quite evident. We are stretched, overworked and stressed. Our work-life balance suffers and in cases so does our health. Learning when and how to say "no" is as important (if not more important) than saying "yes". Decide what you will stop amongst your activities of last year before you take on new projects. Remember that less can be more.Be Bold: We are in the midst of tectonic shifts - be they be caused by the rise of emerging markets or the rapid transformation of technology. Now is not the time to be timid. You have to think big. You have to think of the future. You have to think global. You have to be innovative. You have to be bold to seize the opportunity. There are risks, but there are also global opportunities, regardless of which sector you operate in. Remember that what is seems like a risk for you is an opportunity for someone else. Will you hunt or be hunted?Do Good: Business cannot succeed in a society that fails. It is no longer enough to have a narrow focus on your business performance alone. The boundaries of business have shifted. You have to think of business and beyond. You have to think about how you can do good for the broader societal context in which your business operates. This is not just about having a corporate social responsibility program. This is about changing the mindset of your business. This is about making sure that doing good for society is hard coded into the DNA of your team.The year has just started. It is now up to you to make the most of the year ahead.The author is the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD, France. He has authored several books on technology, policy and innovation.Comments on this note can be sent to: mail(at)soumitradutta(dot)com
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