Digital Economy Dispatch #0692nd January 2022

Making Time for the Digital Economy News

I’m not big fan of New Year resolutions. It strikes me that if you want to do something, then you should get on with it. Waiting for an arbitrary end of year boundary seems neither here nor there. For me it falls into the same category as deciding your career choice based on your star sign or selling your house because a black cat ran across your path.

However, I do believe that it is important to take time to reflect on what matters to you and periodically to re-evaluate priorities. Especially now, with so much going on in the world, giving yourself the space to think about what is important is essential. It seems many people are taking this opportunity to decide on how they will face the volatility and uncertainty that lies ahead. The result is a large number of people making shifts in their lives by moving house, starting new jobs, or rebuilding their skills for a different future.

My pause for thought and re-focus has led me to consider ways that I can understand more about the digital economy and its directions. We are in a time of massive transition. As the challenges and opportunities have grown, so it has become more important than ever to be better informed and to stay connected to the key debates and discussions taking place. As I looked at the variety of information sources available, the first step has been to bring together many of those that I have found to be the most useful in a convenient form, and to make them accessible to all.

So this New Year you won’t find me “first footing”, emptying my fridge to begin Veganuary, or switching to “nolo” drinks for a dry January. Instead, I have used the past few weeks to start on the road to retrench and refresh my perspectives on the impacts and implications of the digital world. And I thought some of you may be interested in joining me on the journey.

Build it, and they will come

With this in mind, I am pleased to announce the availability of Digital Economy News, an aggregation of news, views, and opinions on Digital Economy topics from around the web. It provides a portal to what I have found to be many of the most useful sources of information for anyone wanting to build their knowledge of the current issues facing the digital economy.

Drawn from a variety of domains and organized into 6 key categories, these information sources are available via:

• The DigitalEconomy.News website, accessible from any browser.

• The Digital Economy News App, available from the Google Play Store for Android devices.

Please take a look and enjoy this collection of materials as a great way to stay up-to-date with news and views on the digital economy. I hope they can be a useful part of your digital economy refresh journey, in the same way that they are for me.

Learning the lessons

However, providing access to these materials is just a first step. The key is to engage with the themes being discussed, widen the set of opinions being explored, and improve understanding of the ways that our world is being digitally transformed. In my experience, this requires you to adopt three essential learning behaviours:

1. Listen More. In recent months I have found that I am hearing the same endless descriptions and commentaries on a narrow set of topics. What is worse, I feel that my own writing and discussions are become stilted, stale, and predictable. By taking on board ideas from a wider set of inputs, we are exposed to a greater variety of experiences and can rebuild our views from a stronger base.

2. Ask Better Questions. In many ways I find that the more I hear, the less I feel that I understand what’s going on. In such a complex, changing environment, rushing to find answers seems like a fool’s errand. To address the challenges we face, the key to progress is to use what we are learning to enable us to ask deeper, more meaningful questions.

3. Never Stop Experimenting. We are experiencing extraordinary volatility, uncertainty, and ambiguity. In such times, it is important to adopt an agile approach to learning and keep experimenting to build knowledge in small steps, using a variety of techniques, and with constant adjustment as we uncover more about the context.

When engaging with the Digital Economy News, I encourage you to adopt these learning behaviours to help in growing your perspectives on the current state and future directions of our digital world.

Go forth!

As we continue through these difficult times, the New Year break allows us to take time to reflect and reset priorities. For many of us, this will bring much needed focus for the coming months and encourage a skills refresh that will bring a new energy to our activities and a clearer direction for the tough journey ahead.

To support this goal, I have created a new website and app to aggregate key resources to help take the first steps on this road.

Please take a look at DigitalEconomy.News and install the app to get access to the best aggregated news feeds on the Digital Economy from around the web. I hope you enjoy engaging with the materials you encounter, and never stop learning.

Happy New Year!

Digital Economy Tidbits

2022 Predictions. Link.

I know that there are tons of these kinds of articles at the beginning of January, but I thought this review from Scott Galloway to be particularly useful. His attitude to these kinds of predictions is refreshing. And his insights and comments always make me think. A good combination.

The value of a prediction is in the act of making it, not the prediction itself. Contemplating what may happen encourages us to take responsibility for decisions we make in the present. Also, revisiting a prediction and asking why it did/didn’t come to fruition provides insight into the machinations of our world and whether we are progressing or regressing.