Opportunities in a Web-Based Economy
Curtis R. Carlson, Ph.D.
President and CEO
SRI International
The information age has ushered in a time of tremendous opportunity and challenge. Every business is reinventing itself continuously as wave after wave of new business models and technologies hits like a tsunami. A college student with a Web site in Silicon Valley -- or Cape Town -- now has a global business strategy.
Before the Web, companies could have linear business models where they built one new location at a time or sought one new customer at a time. But the Web has ushered in an age where Metcalfe's and Moore's Laws rule. Companies must have exponential business models or die.
We now have a variety of business models -- from business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and consumer-to-consumer. How many different ways can companies can be disintermediated? When, if ever, will the models stop changing? What is the value proposition of each model?
Unlike other "gold-rush" periods this era might be different because it is based on information. There are no physical limits to information, yet technological change has just begun. Join us as we explore these issues and more.