John Hagel, the noted business writer and management consultant argues in his recently released "Shift Index" that we're in the midst of "The Big Shift." We are shifting from a world where the key source of strategic advantage was in protecting and extracting value from a given set of knowledge stocks -- the sum total of what we know at any point in time, which is now depreciating at an accelerating pace --

into a world in which the focus of value creation is effective participation in knowledge flows, which are constantly being renewed. "Finding ways to connect with people and institutions possessing new knowledge becomes increasingly important," says Hagel.

"Since there are far more smart people outside any one organization than inside." And in today's flat world, you can now access them all.

Therefore, the more your company or country can connect with relevant and diverse sources to create new knowledge, the more it will thrive. And if you don't, others will.

The film business tries to learn from others' mistakes 

(From The Economist print edition)

This week the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a consortium that includes five of the six big studios as well as technology firms and retailers, agreed a format for digital films and named a single outfit to keep track of purchases. Consumers will be able to buy a film once and then play it on different gadgets. As it will be held on a remote server, they will not have to transfer it from device to device. Disney, the studio shunning the consortium, has a similar initiative called Keychest

DECE's initiative aims to stop a company doing to film what Apple has done to music and Amazon threatens to do to electronic books. By taking a huge lead in the market, and by tying content to their own devices, the iPod and the Kindle, these firms have been able to dictate terms to media firms. Instead of a closed system, Mitch Singer, the head of DECE and a Sony employee, wants to create something more like the CD or the DVD--an open format that will encourage competition and innovation.

Susan Chiu, Director, Business Intelligence Center, Ingram Micro
Bill Stephenson, VP Advertiser Solutions, Nielsen Online
Greg Kahn, SVP, Director of Strategic Resources, Optimedia
Mike Cooperman, Senior Director, Consumer Marketing and Product Development, J.D. Power and Associates
Aseem Chandra, Senior VP of Product Marketing, Omniture
Tania Yuki, Director, Product Management, comScore, Inc.
John Hoctor, VP Business Development, Navic Networks
Mark Ghuneim, CEO, Wiredset, Moderator