Signals, noises, elections and technologies of engagement

The views contained in this blog and all of my blogs are very much my own. For those in the UK it can’t have escaped anyone’s attention that we have a forth coming election on the horizon. My polling card arrived in my mailbox and it got me thinking how old fashioned the process of elections is.  I recently attended Nesta’s showcase event Future Fest. At this year’s event you could make a case for Edward Snowden to be the headliner with his session on the challenges and implications of his experiences.

Crowdsourcing democracy

One of the main themes of the event was future democracy and through a range of talks and presentations we explored the rise of new parties. The majority are pretty traditional in their methods, but one or two are radically reinventing how parties should work.  Could we have an internet led and based political party in the UK. This idea isn't new as these Open network parties are appearing across Europe with parties such as Five Star and various Pirate Parties. Further afield Democracy OS in Argentina has designed an impressive way for people to propose ideas and shape them online. When you describe it like that you could find yourself using an Innovation Management System such as Wazoku’s idea spotlight.

Signals and noises

At one of the sessions we heard from Matthew Falla, co-founder of Signal Noise who are mapping our digital cities with data and it reminded me of Nate Silver, American statistician and writer, and his stellar performance in 2008.  He’s known for his successful baseball analysis, think pre Opta and the world of data based training, and his work on elections. He is currently the lead editor of the FiveThirtyEight blog.

For the November 2008 presidential election predictions he correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states. He also correctly predicted the winner of all 35 U.S. Senate races that year. So some reasonable credentials and bring this closer to home.  I recently say the picture below

When you get behind the numbers makes for a very interesting race and if this picture turns out to be right, they’ll be changes on the horizon.

For those who want to find out more checkout the blog and Silver's book, The Signal and the Noise, was published in September 2012, not the most riveting read but if you are interested in the power of data definitely worthwhile. I’m sure they’ll be all manner of analysts out there taking note.

Beyond the hype : Delivering on the Blockchain’s Potential.

I attended the techUK Financial Services & Payments Programme and a seminar on exploring the Blockchain’s potential and demystifying the hype. The positioning of this session was very much along the lines of Blockchain has the potential to revolutionise the delivery of financial services and payments.  From disintermediating banks from the payments process by way of a decentralised system of exchange to facilitating the development of ‘smart contract’ applications the distributed consensus ledger (DCL) technology has in some parts been described as the enabler of the internet of value.

The session with an exceptional panel of Keith Saxton, Simon Bailey Director of Payments and Transaction Banking at CGI, Dave Birch, Director of Consult Hyperion and author of Identity is the New Money and Richard Brown ‘on the blockchain nobody knows you are a fridge’ the leading authority on cryptocurrencies in IBM covered how the technology industry can support, what are the implications and is there a direction of travel.

For me, as someone who has come late to this world but sees the incredible disruptive potential, the takeaways were the Blockchain isn’t a magic unicorn. That ability to make the make the virtual world more like the real world is its transformative effective and the usecase challenge hasn’t been solved. 

When it comes to choosing these I’m with the panelist in that the way forward is to do as is often prescribed, have a go and explore. The base technology you choose will have much depend on your objectives and whether this is an individual or organisational ask.  Whether you go for a Bitcoin or Ripple like offering is up for grabs as they offer different things and come with points of view and how much you see the world changing, with one working within the context of current financial structures and one looking to work outside it.

Disruptive journey ahead of us.

I also related to the idea that the disruption of the Blockchain is more likely to come from a solution for dishwasher warranties rather than an attempt to overthrow governments.  The real strength of its disruption is the ability to offer a vehicle to protect and reward the digital and creative industries.  Whilst we started in the world of payments and financial services, the thought of applying a blockchain concept coupled with a Kobalt type offering really does have incredible potential to disrupt the Music and Media content ecosystems. Just the start of the art of the possible, the journey will be bumpy, take longer and be more costly but the genie is out of the bottle. All this and we were supposed to be beyond the hype.

BIC goes large

Last evening, I went along to the Big Innovtaion Centre scale up party.  BIC launched in September 2011, exists to make the UK a global open innovation hub, to build a world-class innovation ecosystem, and re-balance and grow the UK economy.  Not small challenge by anyone’s marker.

It’s gathered together some of our great companies added in key institutions from across the policy landscape to carry out business-oriented research, taking emerging ideas and backing  it up with evidence.

Support across the board

The party was to celebrate and call out the work they’ve been up too across thought leadership, innovation promotion and their co-creation platforms.  It was also an opportunity to remind all the political parties the importance of its mission.  With speeches from Vince Cable, Chuka Umunna, and David Willets the support was flowing. Understandable really as it has the sense of kissing babies for any politician.

We also heard from Ashok Vaswani at Barclays as he compared the industrial revolution to the digital revolution, as well as Pradeep Sindhu, founder of Juniper Networks on the opportunity and challenges of the new age innovation.  He had offered a useful slant on the implications and ethics of artificial intelligence.

My challenge is that I would love to greater diversity and representation from across the commercial sectors. Where are the awesome SME’s that are disrupting these major players and leading the charge for the UK? I’ll be looking to champion them as it’ll be these companies that showcase the UK as a global innovation hub.