Generational amputation

At least half of numbers of new generation in CEE region are well connected, well skilled in using new technologies and well networked among their peers, at least in their hood. And there is another group on the other side of the spectrum – those above 45 who are desperately loosing it in terms of new technologies and abilities to cope with the inflow of information society and other buzz words. This generetional gap is well recorded and well utilized – with first group staffing high-end outsourcing and emerging new companies down the supply chain and the second providing ample supply of employees for the first-wave outsroucing factories that have re-located to the region in 90-ties.

Both groups inhabit the same world; operate within same societies that designed certain social nets, social systems etc. Such societal mechanisms are meant to protect but often estrangle one or another group. General disaffection with politics means that new generation is less affecting changes in the existing systems. At the same time the changes or lack of those will directly affect this new breed of economically effective generation within next 20 years. Call it generational amputation – people in power operate in terms and discuss things of direct interest to the less-effective older, less-off and dissatisfied group of voters while new post-socialism generation is either ignoring the debates or too busy doing business and enjoying good life (which means effectively ignorance too). Older generation does not care to retrieve opinion of the younger and younger generation does not bother to listen to the debate of the older, – they both severed the links.

The ability to diminish such generational amputation would define how coherently will develop post-socialistic societies in the future. How to smoothen the dialogue and transfer of generational wisdom? How to make boring political things look cool and attractive for young people and how to explain older generation that their lives could be better, shall they listen carefully to the technological cum lifestyle bruhaha of modern media? Only by re-dressing the conventional wisdom and by having “dressing rooms operators” in place could be get rid of generational amputation. Operators will explain novelties to older generation in their language, in their way, when it fits to explain. And the other way around – they will make boring discussions about social secutiry contributions, subventions, subsidies and social nets look cool and fascinating.

Recipe for capturing lessons of growth

Companies are in the rush. Market is growing around them; they double in size every year. There are problems is getting young talented people to work for them. IPO vs. a sale to private equity. Getting permissions from the messed-up government. Foids among ueber-hyped young managers who are getting carried away with cash floating their way.

Any company operating in developing world, and especially in former USSR is either going through these questions or will soon be. In the rush of such transition and development and weak government it is easy to oversee the need to capture the lessons, esp about mistakes to be avoided. And the capturing should be happening locally by locals, if jobs are to be created n the region. The job currently done by World Bank, EBRD and alike should be outsourced (or returned?) locally.

There is quite a market at stake. CEE has been moving from socialism and even communism into full-blown capitalism. Asia is emerging with socialism still alive. With millions of people going through grossly similar transition, CEE could forge a link between two processes of transformation. Boutique consultancies, professional associations, research entitites, writers and trainers could discover a way into the East on the back on CEE experience. But they need content to deal with, cases to showcase etc.

Just this week Financial Times published an interesting article in their Education section on work done by CEEMAN, Central and East European Management Development Association, – Common ground across continents – showcasing how regional network could open up to the world and start attracting Asian interest on the back of the experience of the transition. Indian schools are starting to join CEEMAN members and even Western European ones are now paying membership fees. There is a need for more of such examples.

Emerging Virtual Worlds and Emerging Market Niches

The emergence of Second Life have created a splash in the media recently – companies are exploring ways to promote their products in virtual worlds or to research tastes of the consumers, ordinary people explore ways to find avenues for their creativity (e.g. recent article in BBC, the American Cancer Society’s virtual Relay 4 Life just raised $40,000 auctioning off virtual goods, nonprofits in SecondLife). SecondLife is one of the first serious virtual worlds, i.e. not linked to any kind of virtual gaming and not being geeks-only place.

As in virtual gaming, there always will be smart youngsters who will work instead of real users to sell ready-made avatars for those bored to spend hours in the in-game worlds building their virtual incarnations. Such business models look even more compeling for the serious creative virtual worlds such as Second Life. And here comes an interesting thought – such worlds will provide a unique opportunity for Eastern European creative minds to set boutiques there. Being far more agile than their more entrenched Western European counterparts, with similarly good Internet access, small creative companies from Eastern Europe could be a driver behind inhabitation and humanization of virtual worlds. This will not only boost their incomes, but will also help companies owning such virtual worlds to leap frog from the unsettling initial phase of world’s development. Market niche? Potential for partnership? Opportunity?

Virtual Worlds and Online Collaboration

I have stumbled upon an excellent research of Edward Catronova of Virtual Economies. Though it is an emerging topic, there is still not thought put into the Virtual Worlds emerging and Virtual Economies linked to them. Below are some thoughts of mine on Virtual Worlds and Online Collaboration. They are far shot from being a scientific research but somehoe it feels like talking about 22 century.

Real-life questions:

- How to combine the power of attachment that online gamers have to the VWs and power of creating knowledge in a knowledge economy?
- Can we make professional online communities as fun place to be as VWs in games?
- Social aspect of this phenomenon – current gamers are growing from their teens and moving to the real world environment where they are either bored because it is too slow or they create their “avatar” substitute industries, – look who is working for companies creating games, or all those IT companies providing bits and pieces of software to make it run?
- There are obviously many points of overlap between the VWs and real world. Take for example biots in the VWs, – this is exactly what is happening in almost all Intranets, – there is always a standard greeting sent of behalf of the Intranet Manager, thanking for registering of reminding about something. Right now normally there is a person linked to all those messages, – could it become a biot and the Intranet Manager instead will take an avatar to guide users of corporate Intranet around the system? Is this a point where VWs could “sneak” into the back door of the real commercial online communities of practice?
- Skills gained in playing multi-player online games (I used to know acronym for this) are gradually being recognized, at least in some sectors of teh economy. Could playing in oline games become a part of curriculum to make sure that students are aware about the VWs? Can this be part of a training programmes, for, say leadership MBA or an executive trainine course? I bet it is not what executives are doing and it probably good to let them fell what does it mean to start from scratch, to build av avatar of being slottered for a minor mistake – potential for fast-track learning are enormous.

Futuristic musings:

- Countries will start paying attention towards carving a strategic piece of virtual worlds. Political squablings about status of Antarctica will be transformed into UN-guided piece conferences on the borders and regulations in Virtual Worlds. Developing countries will have an advantages over developed countries by having by far more young people actively engaged in populating and gaining status in Virtual World while developed world with its aging population will have slim chances.

- Avatars will become economic agents of their owners creating direct value for them. For example, a market research company paying a number of avatars for evaluating certain social aspects of the Virtual World while playing in the game. The research company will provide a survey they will have to feel in after every session or there will be a piece of software looking at the avatars activities. The research company could sell the report to potential members of the Virtual World or those willing to increase their value (exactly what London City financial analists and herds of consulting companies are doing). Taking into consideration there are more Virtual Worlds than the countries and industries, it has huge economic potential.

- People will treat avatars as children, caring for them (tamagochi principle) and puting them into their will for inheritance for their real children. Such avagochi have economic value for their owners, a historical value which will keep staying important and at the same time avagochi will require constant attention to stay relevant economic actors of the VWs.

- eIdentity discussions will move from the identification of physical persons to the Internet-based avatar environments, – repositories of avatars information and test beds for creating, nurturing and emercing of newly created avatars into the selected VWs. Economic blocks, esp. EU and US will play a game on bar with Galileo vs. GPRS regarding the first truly global reference point in avatars repositories. Moreover, lobbying technologies from the real world will split over to the VWs with the delegations of avatars from one VW negotiating mergers and acquisitions of other VWs. Blocks of VWs will emerge.

to be continued …

Knowledge Management in Russian-speaking countries

Recently I have been trying to spot any information online on Knowledge Management in Russia or Ukraine. Unfortunately, I was not able to find anything solid. There are many disperse resources, esp. from private companies but no unified point of reference. Perhaps, the search should go on.

Reason for the search. I am trying to identify the peculiarities of the online collaboration in Russian-speaking domain. There are some features, which in my opinion are unique for the region:

• Big gap between those with extensive Internet usage skills and those without any or very limited ability to use Internet and, as a result, online systems. This gap is cross-generational, i.e. present in all generations
• Vibrant and high-skilled community of young Internet users with clear 2 layers: professional and fun-oriented. It is quite common to find lively discussions online of one of the above-mentioned natures.
• Lively community of Russian-speaking bloggers at www.livejournal.com or in some forums shows that people are generally not afraid to express their opinion online, though it might be easy to identify their physical identities. Over years I have noticed that people are much more inclined to refer to their networks and online resources to find answers (even for really small one) than here in Western Europe.

It is interesting if these observations actually have justification or merely reflect my area of contacts and knowledge? Interestinly, maybe there are already some research done on this topic.

Practical interest of this question – possibility to identify where peculiarities of Russian-speaking online community could make a contribution on international level, what could be explored for economical benefits, esp. to the economical development of Ukraine and other Russian-speaking countries, any know-hows to extract from this?

Some articles of interest:
UNDP’s ICT-for-Development (ICTD) Focus Area Holds a Knowledge Management Training in Kiev, November 2004
Корпорация Атлас. Управление знаниями.
Center of Community Networking and Information Policy Studies, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation