As I moved around from friends’ houses and hotel to hotel over the Christmas and New Year period, I reflected on the need to continually charge devices, becoming ever alert to plug sockets on trains, planes and unfamiliar living rooms.  Where to sit to be close (and not leave wires for people to trip over), do I have the correct charger/adapter and dongles. I’ve managed to internalise the need to carry a raft of chargers, adapters, duplicates in different bags. I’ve become adept at flipping between wifi and network carriers, hopping in and out of hotel lobbies.  It occurred to me that I have become the equivalent of a 21st century hunter-gatherer drifting from point to point, picking up electricity, wifi or broadband juice where I find it – and in competition at times for sometimes scarce resources.  adds a frisson of excitement to the journey I guess!

Update

I’m  pleased to say that I have had some good people applying for this opportunity – sorry to say the deadline is now passed, and I’m working on the selection.  Of course, I’m always interested in new colleagues who want to work with me in this space so feel free to get in touch if you want to discuss anything further.  Thanks to all those who applied and colleagues who circulated the link.

Work with me at the University of Southampton’s School of Management

Project Title: Digital disruption and value creation

The research focuses on how small businesses in the knowledge-intensive services sector can realise value from mobile communications.  It embraces innovation theory and business strategy and will enhance competitiveness in UK plc.

Supervisor: Dr Lorraine Warren

Start Date: October 2010

Details of the Project:

The rapid development of digital technologies now presents a nexus of possibilities: widespread access to broadband/mobile technologies; smartphones enabling new forms of communication, handheld internet access and bespoke applications development; software platforms that enable a high degree of networked connectivity and communication  with the potential to amplify to (potentially) a global audience; readily available real-time geographical data; increasing availability of government datasets to the public.  This nexus produces a new locus of innovation, a shift from the corporation to the individual, recognised in new so-called paradigms for innovation, ‘open innovation’ (Chesbrough) and ‘democratic innovation’ (von Hippel) across the distributed innovation networks foreseen by Rothwell.  The barriers to digital innovation by non-computer scientists have been significantly lowered as the plethora of new businesses in the fields of social media, or smartphone applications demonstrate.  It should now easier than it has ever been to not only access and use new technologies, but to extend them, customise them, develop new combinations, and to access and develop new sectors and markets.  Thus the potential for not only incremental innovation but transformative, disruptive innovation is also possible.

However the roadmap for inductive thinking that will create value in novel and unforeseen ways in new contexts and settings is not clear.  Classical technology transfer models are too linear to translate into this milieu and are also too focussed on economic value creation at the expense of the other forms of value – social, cultural, creative, artistic and technological – that are so significant in the 21st century.

At the heart of this project is a continuation, development and extension of ongoing research on the use of complexity theory to provide an understanding of value creation in disruptive contexts because of its potential to: conceptualise across multiple, interlinked levels of analysis (ie non linear); relate initial conditions to indeterminate outcomes.  To explore the above, the project will take as its starting point the use of the iphone/smartphone as a tool for small businesses in the knowledge-intensive services sector, now that people are using mobile applications  for a wide range of tasks, from purchases, service access communication and information retrieval, bypassing traditional web access.

The Student

The project would suit a School of Management student with an MSc in a relevant qualitative discipline, or a mature student with industry experience.  In terms of future employability, the student would graduate with detailed knowledge and practical understandings that would support entry into the industry, or the development of their own business, trading consultancy skills either to companies or government agencies.

To apply for one of the above scholarships, please apply for a place on our PhD programme by following these instructions at: http://www.management.soton.ac.uk/StudyOpportunities/PhD Please email Phdteam@soton.ac.uk once you have applied stating your application number and which scholarship you are interested in.

All completed applications, which include all supporting documents and details of any funding already awarded, received by 31st July 2010 will be considered for the scholarships.  Students who already have significant sponsorship will not be awarded scholarships under this scheme.

There has never been a better time for innovation in the Digital Economy. The barriers to disruptive innovation by non-computer scientists have been lowered by a nexus of possibilities, namely:

• Widespread access to broadband technologies
• Smartphones that enable new forms of communication, handheld internet access and bespoke applications development (Ling, 2004)
• Software platforms that enable a high degree of networked connectivity and communication, such as blogs, wikis, twitter, Facebook, ning, youtube, flickr. As well as connectivity, there is the potential for rapid-fire one-to-many and many-to-many broadcasts and interactions that have the power to amplify any interaction very quickly to a very wide, possibly global audience.
• Readily available real-time geographical location data
• Increasing availability of government datasets to the public, e.g. for e-citizenship (van Deursen and van Dijk, 2009) or for practical applications, such as data from the Ordnance Survey in the UK

It has never been easier to not only access and use technologies, but to extend them, to customise them, to develop mew combinations, to access and develop new sectors and markets. My focus in 2010 will follow on from last year’s work in the creative industries  to seek out new ways of creating value from novelty, towards new business models, new products and services.  Part of that will involve working with those who have the ability to use social media, probably connecting with people outside my existing sphere of influence, developing new activities based on real-time information and breaking news. So this time next year, I could very likely be working with people I don’t know yet on something that hasn’t happened yet — that’s what makes it so exciting!

References

van Deursen, A.J.A.M and van Dijk, J.A.G.M (2009), Improving digital skills for the use of online public information and services, Government Information Quarterly Volume 26, Issue 2, April 2009, Pages 333-340

Ling, R. (2004)The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone’s Impact on Society, Morgan Kaufmann