Not only have the rules on the back of the box changed but so has the game inside!

While the title may sound like an “executive summary” for an econo summit or a self help book for the Quicken impaired..... This book is no less than the clearly stated rules that will form the foundation of the next decade of social interaction and commerce. If the word in the 60’s was “plastic” the word today is “network”.  The four “tracts” of the information networking universe are:

1. Broadcast ( TV and radio),
2.  Request cast ( the Internet  )
3.  Real time linking ( telephone and video conference)
4. And the good old eyeball to eyeball connection.

These tracks cross and co-support each other in ways that add value in an expediential way. The stock market is now reeling from the shift from the old game to this new great game that does not know the boundary of countries or the constraints of law.

Kevin Kelly’s New Rules for a New Economy outline’s  the new rules of value to be found in relationships.

Why do old business plans and traditional stock evaluations seem to warp under the heat of the speculation of this new world order?

Why do the creation of “standards” offer the basic first step to the creation of markets and then value?

Why are old networks  scared and artists and creators are euphoric?

Why you must look out of your box...nine times out of ten, your fiercest competitor will not come from your own field.

To maximize  innovation, maximize the fringes.  In computer simulations of evolution, particularly those run by David Ackely, a researcher at Bellcore, demonstrates how the source for mutations that eventually conquer a population start at the geographical fringes of the population pool. Then after a period of “beta testing” on the margins, the mutants overtake the center with their improvements and become the majority.

Yet the  corporate model  is sleek fast and efficient... “lean and mean” which allows for very little fringe area for new development or in-house change, thus the change comes from outside the old culture and then pow! While a firm is congratulating itself on creating the world’s fastest punch card reader- the fastest in the universe!- the rest of the economic world has moved on to the PC.

While this book does not address education specifically the new rules clearly apply to the closed system of higher education. The changes  to our ivy walled institutions are just around the corner and long needed.

New Rules for a New Economy has brought a clarity to many of the core ideas and opportunities the Internet will offer. I would not yahoo or e-trade another moment without reading it.There are new laws! Newton’s apple is not always falling in our greater universe.

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