Sunday, November 7, 2010

The Future of Entrepreneurship - ... into Blue Sky!

Gartner expects trends beyond 2010

1. De-routinization of Work
2. Work Swarms
3. Weak Links
4. Working With the Collective
5. Work Sketch-Ups
6. Spontaneous Work
7. Simulation and Experimentation
8. Pattern Sensitivity
9. Hyperconnected
10. My Place

.... in which way will these affect the future of consulting, and doing business?

What are the next big changes in the entrepreneurship and startup arena?

Here I share my personal views (they get updated) on more than 12 years of done action research in the midst of a challenging workspace environment (the scaling up process of the BMW Plant Leipzig in the mid-2000s), and the field of intrapreneurship (at BMW) and entrepreneurship (since 2008, running my own lean consulting firm, and lately working on a startup)
  1. System Dynamics (wiki provided by Gene Bellinger), will be essential to understanding and design complex and interconnected organizational systems 
  2. Entrepreneur in the role of process consultant, not giving advice (as this is free of charge and ubiquitous available on the web for anybody)
  3. Entrepreneurs will be transparent on the various social networks, giving advice of general concern (Freemium Business Model) 
  4. Collaboration and sharing of experiences transparently on the web (on places such as Facebook, GoogleBuzz (shut down), GoogleWave (shut down), TitanPad, and others) 
  5. Intercultural consulting journeys similar to the learning journey of CharlesVanDerHaegen and VilleKeraenenhttp://bit.ly/cFEz3R 
  6. Shared benefit model based on the long-term benefit of the consulted client, similar to #TeamLearningExperience(TeamLea(r)ningExperience) 
  7. On flight consulting sessions, sponsored by airlines (Consult & Fly, Travel & Improve will be the first players in this field based in Dresden) 
  8. Hourly consulting (doing about two dozen clients at once, learning from diversity, cross-fertilization) 
  9. Co-Consulting as prototyped by http://mindbroker.de/wiki/CoConsulting (currently at a stop) already 
  10. Pattern recognization based consulting and entrepreneurship based on data provided by smart organizations providing online data as on the Tesla Roadster, http://bit.ly/d1yJh8, or through intelligent sensor/ RFID-based production systems (either in production areas or office environments where flow of paper, electronic files is done) - some general applications laid out and implemented during my past work at BMW Plant Leipzig and Kombiverkehr KG Frankfurt (can be also applied to other fields of interest) 
Updates

2016-06-06 Presentation of HTxA - HighTech x Agency as part of the Ideas Showcase (page 33, in German) at futureSAX Innovation Conference 2016
2016-04-05 Team Project CitizenScienceLab (part of the MOOC #ScalingUp)
2015-03-10 Interview given as part of ArbeitsVisionen2025 (WorkVisions2025) by Guido Bosbach
2014-07-29 A Mission to Bring World Changing Ideas From Singularity University - an interview
2013-07-15 HTxA - HighTech x Agency (a virtual communications agency currently in the making in order to make the knowledge flow out of conference rooms into the unexplored business opportunity world possible by applying digital communication technology)
2012-07-18 Startup Accelerator (concept)
2012-07-07 Jay W. Forrester's vision for the 21st century (and in large my own personal view on the future)

.... so a visionary future is awaiting us all, where ever we may live, or work. 

Would you like to be amongst the first movers to make the future a reality today step by step? BMW Plant Leipzig has already taken some significant steps in Saxony as well as AMD (now Global Foundries Fab1) and there is yet more to come over the coming years.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

The current business consulting model is becoming less and less relevant as it is not equipped to collaborate with business and government in the new economy in a way that produces long term sustainable value.

Your ten approaches are a great innovative list of consulting models and approaches for a new and wonderful era.

MsMaverick said...

Hello Ralf- a timely post and a topic we will be pondering at #Amplifyfest in 2011. Dr Paul Cooper from SMS Consulting in Melbourne (@longboardfella) will be conducting a workshop on this topic. I will introduce you two to each other via @Hashable. I love that you have made System Dynamics the first requirement. "Everything connects" (Theme of Amplify 11)

RalfLippold said...

Hello Annalie - Thanks for connecting with Paul and mentioning the importance of System Dynamics. One could also call it Group Dynamics, Complexity Challenge, Make Things Easier.

In my view there is so much potential in just talking together from different disciplinaries, such as http://facebook.com/Semperoper.Ballett (ballet), so our individual minds are sparked to the bone with ideas coming from out of the Blue :-)

"I have a dream - flying down to Australia with a bunch of crazy visionaries and tour through institutions, companies, and communities to co-create the future! All covered by radio and tv stations all around the world putting all experience in open data with ways to interact with people who are perhaps keeping their goats in Sardinia or hunt in the middle of Africa. An ongoing experiment over the span of one month in 2011."

... having such a dream for almost 10 years now I wonder whether the time is ripe and what the most suitable way to funding is.

Who would be willing to sponsor the trip with 100 € (or more) with the certainty to get back new insights into his own business he/she would have never experienced otherwise in such short time?

Let me know what you think and whether an intwining with Amplify 11 would be feasable

Jack Martin Leith said...

Ralf, it's great that you're doing this. I've just posted something on Twitter with a link to this article. One challenge will be to do with our diverse models and approaches. For example, I mentioned Stafford Beer's Viable System Model on Twitter the other day, and someone immediately came back with "No, that's a cybernetic model - what's needed is a complex adaptive systems approach." You say Jay Forrester, I say Gregory Bateson. And so on. How do we, as collaborating practitioners, shift from "one model, one method" to "all models, all methods"? This, for me, is the biggest challenge in realising your vision. You have my support - please keep me posted. Warm wishes, Jack www.jackmartinleith.com

Anonymous said...

Thank for posting this: it's a very useful overview of resources, trends and controversies, but is is as you say, 'Blue Sky', and it's all the view from the supply side of consulting.

The most important trend of all is that the nature of work is changing. By this, I mean:

1/ How we create value is changing;
2/ The skills required of business owners is changing;
3/ The employment mix of permanent, temporary, freelance and outsourced staff is changing;
4/ Relationships between organizations and patterns of collaboration and are changing.

If we add these four together, we can see a profound shift in the demand for consultancy services. We need to understand the problems our clients and prospective clients face, in making the transition to new ways of working, and running organizations in new ways. And we need to understand how this affects their appetities for buying consultancy.

If we cannot rise to that challenge, we won't have much to contribute.

Bruce Lewin said...

Great post :-)

RalfLippold said...

Thanks a lot for all your comments and appreciation :-) Seems to be that there is more power behind the thoughts so far. Eagerly looking forward to seeing more connections - in the "virtual" and real world amongst us and others.

Can six people scattered around the globe already form a tribe? I suppose so. What's your perspective?

RalfLippold said...

It's Easter 2012, and Dresden has seen everything from sunny sky to white snow flakes coming down - making room for deep thinking, on what course the bold vision above is truly on.

https://www.facebook.com/betsey.merkel/posts/343708312343780?notif_t=mentions_comment

I am going to connect with Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs, VC, business angels, and the global community of innovative entrepreneurs meeting during the summer on NASA Ames Research Center premises. Tell me what I can do for you, using this opportunity, and decided how much this is worth for you, and your company.

RalfLippold said...

The ambitious goal of 2012 did not work out the way I intended - however other most interesting things especially in applying digital communication to conferences on technology has largely evolved. If you are interested to hear more, just comment here.