Hal Varian on how the Web challenges managers
I’ve been a big fan of Hal Varian, google’s chief economist, since I read the book Information Rules and decided that there was something magical about the economics of the internet. Here’s an interesting interview with Varian from The Mc Kinsey Quarterly.
Read this if your an entrepreneur, vc, or simply interested in online businesses. (There’s also an acompanying podcast & video)
Click Here To Learn From Google’s Top Economist Hal Varian On Web Business & The Future
Tag Line (Via McKinsey)
“Google’s Chief Economist Says Executives in Wired Organizations need a sharper understanding of how technology empowers innovation”
Introduction (Via McKinsey)
More than ten years into the widespread business adoption of the Web, some managers still fail to grasp the economic implications of cheap and ubiquitous information on and about their business. Hal Varian, professor of information sciences, business, and economics at the University of California at Berkeley, says it’s imperative for managers to gain a keener understanding of the potential for technology to reconfigure their industries. Varian, currently serving as Google’s chief economist, compares the current period to previous times of industrialization when new technologies combined to create ever more complex and valuable systems—and thus reshaped the economy.
Additional Article Excerpts (Via Mc Kinsey)
So I think now, with what we’re seeing with mobility, we’re going to have a totally different concept of what it means to go to work. The work goes to you, and you’re able to deal with your work at any time and any place, using the infrastructure that’s now become available.
At the base, there’s the innovation infrastructure making better, faster, cheaper networks. There’s the improvement in the human–computer interface because the big challenge in mobile communication has always been dealing with this—quite limited—interface. But then, the kinds of innovations I think will arise on top of that will be innovations in how work is done. And that’s going to be one of the most exciting aspects, in my opinion.
We have to look at today’s economy and say, “What is it that’s really scarce in the Internet economy?” And the answer is attention. [Psychologist] Herb Simon recognized this many years ago. He said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” So being able to capture someone’s attention at the right time is a very valuable asset. And Google really has built an entire business around this, because we’re capturing your attention when you’re doing a search for something you’re interested in. That’s the ideal time to show you an advertisement for a product that may be related or complimentary to what your search is all about.
Click Here To Learn From Google’s Top Economist Hal Varian On Web Business & The Future
