The network always wins

Every day there is a special lunch for CIOs with an invited speaker. Today was the author Pete Hinssen and he was fantastic! His latest book, The Network Always Wins I supposed to be very good, but I shall let you know as we were given a copy!

His topic was disruption and he gave a fascinating, entertaining and humourous talk. I hope it was recorded as I'd like to show it to colleagues. I took some notes of the key points he made which are below, might be a bit disjointed but should give you a flavour of what he was talking about.


Technology has never been more interesting, and has never been more disruptive. Technology has become normal.
For example, in July 1980 10 megabyte hard drive was on sale for $4000.
Today you can buy a bracelet which turns into a drone which flies out and takes the perfect selfie, then turns back into a bracelet again. ( note to self. I want

Technology is addictive today. The world is hooked.
Technology is relevant today.
In the old world, technology was special. Not any more.
Impact on society huge.
Huge changes in technology trigger changes in society.
Media, marketing and advertising, and retail have been disrupted.
Even software has, it used to be expensive and difficult now it's cheap and easy.

Information is core to everything we do. Information behaviour changes faster than information systems. It isn't static anymore. It flows.
We are all now connected.
But, networks run on platforms, and there are only five key ones, known as GAFAA they are:
Google; Apple; Facebook; Amazon; Alibaba


Key question for us - in this age of disruption are we going to be active or passive?

Cloud companies are springing up all ver. There's a new "sharing" economy with more than 7000 new platforms in last year. Some examples:
Rent the runway. Rent an expensive bag or dress for an evening.
Trunk club - for men who hate to shop. Get a box of stuff a month. Keep what you like, send back what you don't.

Airbandb Is enormous but it has an IT dept of 3 people. They do everything with Amazon web services


Everything is a network. Not about technology anymore. Networks are being fuelled with information.
Linear thinking is gone.
Organisations have to become networks.

Silicon Valley is changing. Because the role of technology is changing. A 26 year old in a hoodie could be the next big player.


We are in the age of disruption. Radical innovation is here. Look at the driverless car. Google have started delivering shopping in California. Why? Because they have Google maps, lots of algorithms, drones, driverless cars and robots. Soon a driverless car will deliver your shopping and a robot bring it to the door.

Watch the documentary called "Humans need not apply" about machines taking over jobs currently done by humans.

This year a robot built out of lego and a smartphone broke the world record for solving a solve a rubrics cube.

Summary - Technology is changing society and economics. Innovation is non linear.
Can we as CIOs reinvent ourselves to be active and not passive in this era?


Great talk, and my favourite slide was this one to illustrate a particular organisational culture....



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