Irving Wladawsky-Berger

The Digital Evolution Index

Last year, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University published Digital Planet: Readying for the Rise of the e-Consumer.  The report, - based on a research study by the Fletcher School in collaboration with MasterCard^*, - explores the economic transformations taking place around the world as countries continue their evolution toward the 21st century digital age.

The report introduces the Digital Evolution Index, which was created to quantify the unique digital journey being pursued by each of 50 advanced and developing countries, to measure the rate of change of their digital evolution, and to provide information-based insights to companies, investors and governments.  The Index is based on four key underlying drivers:

Technology and the Future of Media

Most everyone will agree that advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) are radically transforming the business landscape.  But, how are these transformations playing out industry by industry?  This question was explored in Industries in Transformation, a series of reports developed by Ericsson in collaboration with the Imperial College Business School and the UK’s Sustainable Society Network.  Several weeks ago I wrote about The Future of Financial Services, based on their report on the subject.  I now want to turn my attention to ICT and the Future of Media. 

Like few industries, media has been disrupted by the digital revolution of the past 20-25 years, - with much more to come.  “[T]he number of Internet users is expected to increase from 2 billion to 5 billion by the end of the decade,” notes the report.  “Internet users already spend 20–30% of their time online, mainly engaging with media content…  Globalization, deregulation, technological innovation and the convergence of previously separate industries such as media, entertainment, information, and consumer electronics, have created a somewhat turbulent media landscape.”

Is a Backlash Brewing Against Silicon Valley’s Perceived Insularity?

“Empire of the geeks… and what could wreck it” was the featured cover story of The Economist’s July 25 issue.  “Silicon Valley should be celebrated.  But its insularity risks a backlash,” reads the tag line of its leader article.  Last year’s anger at the private buses that take employees who live in San Francisco to their workplaces 30 or 40 miles south, is but one of the signs that a backlash might be brewing.

You can sense the reaction against the perceived excesses of its culture in a pair of recent articles, - Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem in the NY Times Magazine, and What Silicon Valley Thinks of Women in Newsweek, the latter visually making its point in its cover.  You can feel it in HBO’s no-holds-barred namesake TV series. And then there is Peter Thiel, - one of Silicon Valley’s most successful, outspoken, and wealthy entrepreneurs and VCs, - who adds fuel to the backlash fire with his controversial views on a wide range of subjects, including women, democracy, capitalism and education.  

Could the End of Moore’s Law Be Near? If so, What’s Next?

I recently read The Next Wave: A Conversation with John Markoff in Edge.org.  Markoff has been a science and technology writer at the NY Times since 1988, as well as author and co-author of several books, including the just published Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots.   I can personally attest to his deep understanding of technology and the IT industry, given the many discussions we’ve had over the years. 

In The Next Wave, Markoff talks about a wide variety of topics, but I’d like to focus my attention on what I think is the main thread throughout the report, the state of Moore’s Law, - the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit has been doubling approximately every two years.  

He believes that Silicon Valley, - where he grew up and has long lived, - has been fundamentally about Moore’s Law.  And Moore’s Law has played a central role in his career since becoming a technology reporter in 1977.  But then,  “I suddenly discovered it was over.”

As a result of Moore’s Law, the costs of computing have been falling at an exponentially accelerating rate for almost five decades.  But for the past two years, we seem to be at a plateau as the price per transistor has stopped falling. “I see evidence of that slowdown everywhere.  The belief system of Silicon Valley doesn’t take that into account.”