Looking backwards at a portion of a week’s reading…

• John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison, The New Reality: Constant Disruption:

  Once businesses learn to harness the disruptive elements of today’s digital technologies—or so the conventional thinking goes—everything will settle back into equilibrium.

  But what if the historical pattern—disruption followed by stabilization—has itself been disrupted?

  Expanding on the post, Ethan Bauley:

  There’s enormous power and creative freedom in accepting that tomorrow will not be like today.

  Pure gold: both Ethan and Brooks Jordan picked up the exchange in the comments on the changing nature of organizations and the flow of talent:

  In the meantime, the growing gap between the aspirations of talented individuals and the needs of institutions designed for scalable efficiency will drive many of these talented individuals to strike out on their own. But we view this growth of independent contractors as largely a transitional phenomenon, reflecting the misalignment, rather than a permanent condition. Individuals over time will eagerly seek out institutional homes that can help them to accelerate the development of their talent and amplify their impact on the world around them.

• More thoughts on the nature and use of social capital:

  Alan Patrick, Karma Chameleons and the danger of whuffie based feudal systems. Food for thought; think of the post as a set of ingredients than a fully-baked meal.

  Alvin Toffler: The Thought Leader Interview:

  Thirty-six years after his book Future Shock, the world’s most influential futurist sees the informal economy as a basis of revolutionary wealth.

• Mike Bonifer on ChangeThis, Don’t Script, Improvise!
• Startonomics, a one-day workshop in Los Angeles, CA on Feb 6, 2009:
  

  Startonomics is a one-day workshop designed by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs on how to create simple, actionable metrics; and how to use them to make better product and marketing decisions for long-term growth and startup success.

• Alan Patrick, Paris Hilton, Twitter Flight and other viral afflictions of Social Media.
• Andrew Chen, How to create a profitable Freemium startup (spreadsheet model included!)
• Basil Peters, How VCs Block Exits.
• Albert Wenger, No Such Thing as Too Much Seed Capital Availability (Reprise), (via Brooks Jordan).
• David Hornik, Will VCs Continue to Suspend Disbelief:
  

  The startup world is always a meritocracy but never more so than in a tough economy. Those companies that show results will continue to get funded. Those that don’t, won’t. My hope is to continue to invest in those that do. And then work hard to bridge the disbelief gap.

• Wall Street Journal, Media Firms Team Up to Test Online-Video Ad Formats:
  

  Starcom MediaVest and sister agency VivaKi say they are trying to create standards in the online-video market, which is popular with consumers but hasn’t turned into a serious money maker.

  What a surprise: any chance the reason consumers like online video is because it doesn’t have ads that interrupt the “value stream”? How good can a business be if its value is primarily derived from interrupting what consumers are trying to do?