Jonathan Schwartz, President and Chief Operating Officer at Sun Microsystems, gave a fascinating address in San Francisco just last week. The one hour audio recording is available here, and thanks to Dan Farber for bringing it to my attention. Jonathan's messages, about the need to explore quite radical new models of doing business, and about the importance of unlocking content in order to realise (greater) value at a point downstream from the original act of accessing it, resonate. In the new model, access to content and services need not be controlled by the Gate Keepers who purchase licenses to monolithic blocks of content on our behalf. Economies of scale obviously still have a place, as do coordinated acts of selection. But our employees and our public are increasingly going around the glacially slow straitjackets of institutional/organisational purchasing and interacting directly with those sources of content and services smart and nimble enough to respond. The value of each of these individual interactions is minuscule. The potential is enormous, as is that for a new breed of 'Gate Keeper'; one that facilitates and mediates rather than controls and constrains. Jonathan has agreed to talk with me for a Talking with Talis conversation, and we're working out the final details on that just now... I've heard Jonathan a few times now, and am very much looking forward to it. Once we have a firm date I'll invite your questions, as usual. As is my wont, I listened to this while driving home late yesterday evening. All the clinking cutlery to be heard in the background did my grumbling stomach no good whatsoever! I wonder if the Churchill Club's food tasted as good as it sounded?
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