FASTforward09: Dan Rasmus

It’s almost 4:30 (7:30 in for those of us in the Eastern Standard Tribe), and for some reason Dan Rasmus, Director of Business Insights at Microsoft, is quoting Schopenhauer to us. We’re still on the big picture part of the conference, but that seems a bit…philosophical.

His point, however, is looking at the new world of business and how companies can navigate through it: globalization versus resetting borders, and centralization versus distributed work networks being two major axes of interest. Add to that the current economic climate, consumer pressure for green products and myriad other factors, and you start to get an idea of what’s facing companies today. Business models are changing, at least in part in response to some of these forces.

Globalization, and what will happen if the upcoming power economies – India and China – decide that they want to pull back and build their own infrastructure instead of servicing the world. Outsourcing, and the impact of managing a freelance workforce. Blending of languages, and the impact on collaboration. The blend of work and personal, such as we see in the online lifestream of our Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blog updates. The blend of data between on-premise, personal and cloud-based. The blend of place, like when read your RSS feeds from your iTouch in bed (okay, guilty), allowing people to set their own boundaries or (if they’re dumb) let their boss set them for them. Blended enterprises through mergers and acquisitions, and the challenges in terms of people and processes.

Lots of changes. Lots of challenges. Not a lot of answers.

He did list some of the skills required for the new world of business:

  • Information and media literacy
  • Complex communication
  • Critical thinking and systems thinking
  • Problem identification, formulation and solution
  • Creativity and intellectual curiosity
  • Interpersonal and collaborative skills
  • Self-direction
  • Accountability and adaptability
  • Social responsibility

I had to laugh when he painted a scenario where a Net Gener goes into his job and whips a monster Vista notebook out of his backpack to compare to the crappy old desktop machine that his employer offers. I have news for Rasmus: that notebook’s going to be a Mac.

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