Insights from Pop!Tech

Intellectual property is quickly becoming an archaic notion.

A couple of weeks ago, we attended Pop!Tech, the annual conference on technology, business, culture, and emerging ideas. It's more than a conference — it's a community of 500 authors, techies, performers, business leaders, scientists, and thought leaders who come together in Camden, Maine for what Wired calls "a weekend-long huddle." Where else would New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, AskANinja.com's Kent Nichols, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, and acoustic guitar sensations Rodrigo y Gabriela share the same bill?

Here are our top three insights from the conference:

1. Use technology to help the best rise to the top
SimCity creator Will Wright spoke about Spore, a new computer game he's creating where players create their own creatures to navigate the game. These creatures are electronically shared with other users of the game, and the creatures that do the best over the long term will survive — animated evolution.

So how can businesses do the same thing —gmail use 'generative technology' to help the best thinking rise to the top? They can create electronic 'communities of practitioners.' For example, large organizations could give learning and development professionals the ability to post their interventions and best work, enabling everyone, even niche players in remote areas, to share their tips with their colleagues and receive comments and feedback. As a result, the best work would move up and become part of the fabric of the whole organization, enabling the collective to get smarter.

2. "Green is the new red, white, and blue"
OK, we can't claim credit for that phrase. That's Thomas Freidman's way of saying that green business is not a fringe effort anymore. Every industry — communications, consumer goods, financial services — will have to understand how to operate in a world where environmental concerns are paramount for consumers, governments, and investors. For example, a consumer goods company needs to think about reducing waste in its manufacturing process; a broker will want to think about meeting the green concerns of investors. If your business isn't thinking green, you're already behind the curve. According to experts, the "green industry" will be the fastest growing in the future. A testimony to the fact that even mainstream corporations are on board is Bank of America's $1B new office building in Gramercy Park in NYC. Soon to be the most green building in New York City, it is fully equipped with solar panels, containers to capture and filter rainwater on the roof of the building, recycled materials, and waterless toilets. If Bank of America is in the game, the game has more than already begun.

3. IP is over
Intellectual property is quickly becoming an archaic notion, despite the best efforts of many companies. If your business is built around IP, you'll need to find new ways to differentiate yourself in the future. Are there other services that you can provide that will add value? For a consumer goods company trying to please a major retailer, this might mean providing advice on how to reconfigure not only the product, but the store, or identifying and synthesizing value-added insights about purchasers' buying habits. More and more, an organization's core content is only a threshold competence. You will have to have a great product just as a fee-to-entry and to be a player, but what else can you offer to stand out from the pack?

This issue is most vividly seen in the music industry. What impact will this new reality have on the stringent and complicated copyright laws in the US? The internet and the availability of content, in conjunction with the open source movement in technology and communities is going to require a massive overhaul of our systems, laws, processes, and most importantly, our mindset, about what it means to "own" ideas and profit from those ideas. It will also debunk the belief that because something is "available" on the internet or in the public domain, that it is no longer "valuable". Availability, value, and ownership will be the three-pronged strategic question of 21st century business.

Check in with us to hear more about our insights during Pop!Tech. For more details about the conference, go to www.poptech.org [5]. For some fun, check out AskANinja.com's "What is Pop! Tech?" (especially if you've never seen one of their hilarious skits before).