Networked Economics | Leveraging connections
Everything is networked: friendship, professional life, customers, knowledge, causes and commerce. These networks represent new opportunities to invent, innovate and disrupt. What do philanthropists, advocates, social entrepreneurs, tech startups, journalists, venture capitals and everyday users now have in common? Have networks changed the nature of business?Session Chair: Merrill Brown, Chairman, NowPublic

• Lawrence Wilkinson, Founder, Global Business Network
• Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix
• Nic Fulton, Chief Scientist, Reuters Media
• Tom Bosco, VP, Video Sales, Fox Interactive Media
• Suha Araj, Founder and VP of Strategy, Real Girls Media
• Jennifer Carroll, VP, New Media Content, Gannett
• Randy Paynter, Founder and CEO, Care2

This panel addresses how many of the elements which we have been discussing at We Media ties together. What does this networked world mean? This panel addresses many of the networked dimensions of our lives and brings together a range of perspectives.

Merrill beings by asking the panel to address the big question of: How is the networked economy changing how you do business?

Lawrence: We overestimate impact of technology in short term and underestimate in long term. Social networks are changing (almost) every sphere of business, but we haven’t realized full extent of change.
Marketing, development, engagement, but gives us a taste of the full scale re-invention that we have to audience in our business models

Jennifer: Potential to reconnect communities. Her focus is how to capture soul of a community and help them to live their lives. Launched site connecting moms together, and notes connection between mothers and have its facilitating connection and ability to share their lives.

Randy: Online community / social news site to empower individuals. , members are “conscious consumers” because we live in a connected world. We must care about the environment around us.
Two sides to affecting change: the me, and the we. Tell people to live a healthy lifestyle; help people to impact their community.  Change seen in the moving money from direct mail to online. 20 billion market, opportunity to help non profit be more effective. Al Gore – sea change with a much larger audience.

Chris: Impact of Internet is not just like TV, radio etc. The interactivity changes everything. We’ve underestimated impact of this; it changes how you do business and make money.
Must maximize engagement.

Suha: what we see in marketplace is underestimated. If big players don’t listen to consumer, they fail. So, they integrate consumer. Plus, there is a market that is empowered and expects to have their voice heard. How do you bridge these two in the market? Real Girls – built to integrate the two. The brand validates these voices and bloggers. So Real Girls is a place for writers to be part of a community. We’re seeing an integrated model, and we need new ways to curate these voices.

Nick: (Reuters).  The core bodies of Reuters remain the same, apply new technology. But the Internet since its not one way, does make differences. But the core value (first, accurate etc) remains the same. There are more voices out there, so it makes our job harder, but technology makes our job easier. Our business is not that affected.

Tom: (MySpace TV)
There is a non-linear discussion. Conversations before were linear. Now, there is complete breakdown. From a business capacity, the programming comes from everyone now. There is a circular conversation, which is a total change even from 5-6 years ago.

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