revolution Archives - Steve Sammartino

The one word that ties this revolution all together

Posted on June 16, 2017 by Steve Sammartino

If I had to use one word to tie together this technology revolution we are living through it would be this:

Mobility.

Once we think about all the tools arriving and what they allows us to do, much of it revolves around geo graphic independence and mobility.

Smart phones – mobile computing in all it’s capacities. Mobile communications.

Driverless cars – increased mobility of people and things, independent of human touch.

Wikipedia / Blogging / Vlogging – Mobility of information and ideas, not locked down the the physical location of books or other data sources.

Social networks – Mobility of connections to people, what we are doing and saying flies across the globe at the click of a button.

Work – Ability to get information work done anywhere in the globe.

Drones – Mobility of things, visual footage and data points, and soon people.

Payments gateways – mobility of finance outside of physical banks.

Crypto Currency – mobility of money and payments, independent of any geography or government.

Blockchain & Smart Contracts – Mobility of promises independent of location, and premised on execution of that promise without parties having to meet physically.

3D printing – Mobility of manufacturing – send a file, make it anywhere.

Crowd Funding – Mobility of innovation outside of funding ecosystems.

e-commerce – Mobility of retail, sell to anyone, anywhere.

Cloud Computing – Mobility of data storage – it follows you around the world

Cloud Manufacturing – Alibaba providing access to the world of manufacturing with a few clicks

Freelance markets – Mobility of labour forces for information work.

Given all of this, we need to ask ourselves a simple question to future proof ourselves and or the company we work for;

How are we increasing the mobility of what we make sell or do. It’s a great place to start.

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If you want to increase the mobility of your future join me for my new book launch – The Lessons School Forgot – on Tuesday night in Melbourne. Reserve your seat here for a night of inspiration & ideas with good people.

See you then, Steve.

Ignore what the teacher told you, and just make things up

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Steve Sammartino

Watch a 5 year old kid play for half a day and you’ll see levels of creativity that’ll blow your mind. You’ll wonder in awe where their natural ability to ‘make things up’ comes from. You’ll be inspired by how they see the world and what it makes them think and do.

We used to see the world that way too. But what happened was for the first 18 years of our lives we got told how to see the world. In fact, the concept of making things up brings back some very strong and personal memories for me. I can remember when I reached High School (Grade 7-12 in Australia) and that it was no longer Ok to make things up. We had to reference where we got our ideas from. All of a sudden my opinion didn’t matter. What started to matter was researching someone else’s opinion, someone who had been ordained by industrialised society and had been published. It felt so weird. Why couldn’t I just write what I think? Why did it have to be a quotation from someone else? Why did what they think matter more than what I think? We all got taught got taught stop thinking and start rehearsing. Rehearsing for what you may ask?

Rehearsing the lines for some kind of monetary industrial pantomime.

We were getting taught how to play inside the the modern economy. An elongated economic play in which we would become ‘extras’ in someone else’s dreamscape. Someone else had the starring role, but they needed all sorts of support so they could be the stars of the show. And we went along with it. But now the exact opposite of what we got told, is where all the value is being created.

The trick they pulled on us to not have any original ideas, to not create anything new, to keep our opinion to ourselves is rapidly becoming redundant. And this gets me excited. We all still have the ability to just ‘make things up’. Now that we have access to the tools to create anything, now that the economy is being totally redesigned, we just need to forget what we got told, and start to write some of our own lines.

New Book – The Great Fragmentation – out now.

Mindset & Tools

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Steve Sammartino

There’s a whole lot of tools we have at our disposal which didn’t even exist a few years ago. From a business perspective many of them present a counter intuitive option to the ‘Harvard Industrial Complex’. Yes, those established principals of what we thought we already knew about what worked in the market.

Trust the crowd to co-design our product? Are you crazy?

Get funding from future customers with out giving equity? How we going to do that?

Share revenue with content creating customers? Don’t be silly let’s keep it all for ourselves.

Co-opt with our competitors to grow the entire ecosystem? No way, let’s grow our market share instead.

Launch products with lower margin than those they’ll cannibalise? It’s uneconomic and stupid.

When the world changes, what once seemed ridiculous quickly becomes rational. Startups are now redefining what can work in a world driven by cheap and even disposable technology. It turns out having access to the new tools is not enough, we also need access to a new mindset.

New book – The Great Fragmentation – out now!

3D printing is nothing special

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

People who read this blog and know me are aware of my obsession with 3D printing – and the fact that I think it will be bigger than the internet. Recently I had an experience with my 3D printer which was most enlightening. Before I share the story let me share a terrific definition of technology:

Technology – Something that was invented after you were born.

So I was playing with my 3D printer in my home office when my 3 year old daughter entered the room. I asked her if she wanted me to print her something. Maybe a toy or some jewelry. She replied simple ‘Ok daddy’ and seemed pretty excited about it. Who wouldn’t be, it’s a 3D printer for crying out loud. So we picked one of the bracelets from the picture below, and sent the file to the printer. A pressed the print button and it started printing. I was pretty pumped. 3D printing my little girl some personal jewelry, immediately in my home office. I quickly said “Look, Look, it’s printing it.” To which she replied in a nonchalant manner. “Ok, thanks daddy”

Sure she was excited about the jewelry, but not the process. The process was irrelevant to her, she just wanted the thing.

When the print job was done, I called her back in and said “Look, here it is, I printed it for you!!!”. To which her reply was much like the previous one regarding the process. She said “Thanks daddy” and then put it on her wrist and skipped away to get on with her 3 year old life.

3D printing to her is as ‘normal’ as cars, TV, airplanes, computers and microwave ovens. How can it not be, it was invented before she was born. It’s just another of the thousands of normal everyday thing she is seeing for the time. Nothing more or less special that the other technology in our lives.

But the really significant element is that by the time she is 13 years of age, yourself and every person we know will have a 3D printer. We’ll all be printing things in our homes on a daily basis. And if you think that isn’t possible, let me remind you that every social media channel you currently use today didn’t exist 10 years ago, and we already know how much that changed our social and economic landscape.

3D printing is NOW – get on it and don’t regret you let this entrepreneurial opportunity slip you by.

The new industrial revolution – Chris Anderson

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

I’ve been a big fan of Chris Anderson for a long time. And he’s done it again. While I haven’t read his new tome “Makers – the new industrial revolution” – if this talk is any indication of the content, it will be mind blowing. Not only is Chris one of the most insightful technology visionaries, he also has a knowing way to explain his ideas with simplicity and conviction.

I’d recommend this talk to anyone who is interested in the future – it might just be the best hour we invest before the end of the year. And this talk ensures we know what’s coming, whiling helping us realise the gravitas what’s already happened. Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3grzYoJ2oPQ]
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The end of Fredrick W Taylor

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

Then:

Taylorism defined our world for the best part of the past 100 years. Even in marketing realms. During the mass media era, we could use tested methods to go to market with predictable success – so long as we had access to the right resources.

Now:

Rapid change and fragmentation is the new normal. While we are half way through planning, someone else will arrive and do it different, cheaper, better and in a way we never quite expected. Both in terms of what they build and how they spread the word.

Therefore:

Our mindset when it comes to startups and business (isn’t everyone in business a startup now?) should be fluid and philosophical. It’s time to drop the template and best practice six sigma bull crap.

It is very hard for a best practice to exist when something has never been done before.

My mum doesn't understand

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

For the best part of the last 10 years I haven’t been able to explain to my mum what I actually do for a living. Both with startups I have created and jobs I have had. Probably more so with the paid roles I have had. And this is an important insight into the world today and how we all fit into it.

How my mum responded to various activities I have undertaken:

My blog: Why do you do that? What is it about? Who pays you for it? Why do people want to read about startups?

Startup School: How can it be a school if they don’t get a certificate at the end of it? What curriculum do you follow?

Rentoid.com: Why would people trust strangers with their things? Why would people rent or share stuff when they can just buy it?

Director of Strategy: If you don’t write the ads or make the film at this Advertising agency, what do you actually do? I don’t get it.

Twitter: Who cares about what you have to write? Why can’t you write more than 140 characters? What do you mean people follow you?

In fact, without being disparaging, we need to ensure our mums don’t understand what we do. It’s the best indication that we are a scarce resource in a rapidly changing landscape.

When everyone understands what we do, it almost certainly means there are plenty of people who can do it. And if there are lots of people who do what we can do, then there is less chance we can extract significant value in the marketplace.