The Future of Innovation Journalism

The Future of Innovation Journalism
Originally uploaded by Innovation Journalism.

I made a panorama of the full table. A bit tricky, but quite decent result.

Photos from the roundtable discussion

Tony Perkins, Editor and Founder, AlwaysOn.

David Nordfors, Program Leader, Innovation Journalism, Stanford University.

Vinton G. Cerf, Senior Vice President, MC.

Click on the photo to get more photos.

Roundtable discussion “The Future of Innovation Journalism”

I just participated in the roundtable discussion “The Future of Innovation Journalism” at Stanford. We discussed the future of innovation journalism – the shapes it may take, the business models it may have, the readerships with which it may interact, and how it could work as an "engine for enabling society to understand and manage the changes brought on by innovation". The debate also included the interaction between technological advancements and new media development. Very interesting and surprisingly creative discussion, probably due to that there were both journalists and techie gurus, as well as innovation analysts around the table. The discussion was videotaped by Stanford University Television (STV) and will be published in some weeks time.

Participants (excluding myself):

• Amy Bernstein, Executive Editor, Business 2.0
• Lee Bruno, Senior Editor, Red Herring
• Dan Gillmor, Founder, Bayosphere
• Anders Lotsson, Computer Sweden, Innovation Journalism Fellow w. Business 2.0
• Frances Mann-Craik, President, Addison Marketing, and Columnist, Tornado Insider
• Harry McCracken, Editor-in-Chief, PC World
• Tony Perkins, Founder and Editor, AlwaysOn Network; Founder, Red Herring
• Dr. Vinton G. Cerf, Senior Vice President, MCI.
• Dr. Whitfield Diffie, Vice President, Sun Fellow and Chief Security Officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Menlo Park
• Richard Allan Horning, Partner, Tomlinson Zisko LLP
• Dr. Charles Wessner, Director, Program on Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, The National Academies.
• Prof. Stig Hagström, Co-Director, SCIL, Stanford University. Fmr Director, Xerox PARC and President Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.
• Dr. David Nordfors, Program Leader, Innovation Journalism, Stanford University.

Innovative in-house outsourcing

I’ve always liked Swedish Global IP Sound. I wrote an article about them when I worked at the SF Chronicle. It’s a spin-off from Ericsson Research that develops embedded voice processing solutions for real-time communications on packet networks specifically for PC or Pocket PC applications. They just recently reported that they have licensed their VoiceEngine package to Microsoft’s MSN service to Microsoft improve VoIP functionality in MSN Messenger and MS real-time messaging and collaboration tools. Microsoft will license Global IP Sound’s Acoustic Echo Cancellation and Auto Gain Control software to improve real-time collaboration within Microsoft Office applications. Congrats!

Global IP Sound have organized the company a very simple, but in these off-shoring/outsourcing days interesting form. Research and Development is based in Stockholm, and sales and marketing in San Francisco. It's a sort of in-house outsourcing to put development where it’s cheap and sales where the market is, but within the company. (I know the big ones always have done this, but this is a 25 people company).

In general salaries for experienced high-tech personnel in the Bay Area are between twice and three times as high as in Sweden. And not only are the US salaries much higher. One can also note that the pay differentials are much higher in the US salaries. The Swedish pay differential is virtually insignificant. Bay Area today is struggling with high labor costs, very high and increasing costs for real estate and very high insurance costs. Even if the US basic taxes are low compared to Sweden, the total labor costs in Sweden, social charges and taxes included, are much lower, especially for engineers.

At Almedalen Political Week

Former Minister of Education Beatrice Ask, is looking at the teaching aid project. It is produced by Microsoft in cooperation with the Swedish Media Council and The Swedish National Agency for School Improvement, to produce teaching aids on internet security for younger teenagers. The focus is not technical stuff, but things like integrity, netiquette and criticism of the sources; How to behave on chat sites, how to value what you read on the net and that sort of things. Could be something for the U.S. schools and libraries...

Innovations shown at Swedish Week of Politics

I’m at the traditional Week of Politics in Sweden that takes place since many years in Visby on the Island of Gotland. We’re showing a teaching aid on internet security for kid 12 to 15 years of age. Really fun and a lot of attention.
I met my old friend, colleague and fellow blogger Per Gudmundson (sitting at the round table). He is covering the event for the Swedish news cable channel SVT 24. He’s first blog was one of the more popular in Sweden, but he had to stop blogging as his employer SVT found it inappropriate for their journalists to express political views in a blog on his spare time. Idiots. Swedish state television is so reactionary and old fashioned it makes the angels weep.