strategy + business, 2012

To foster economic growth, innovation clusters need to draw on the power of an interrelated “quad” of sectors: public, private, civil, and academic.

Even as communication technology makes it easier to connect with people around the world, the value of clusters will remain. Regions will continue to vie to become the next Silicon Valley or Bangalore. The ones that succeed will be those that deliberately cultivate talented, creative people; foster management reforms that promote innovation; and build networks among key leaders. By focusing on those three leverage points, leaders of a cluster can bring together the four critical sectors — public, private, civil, and academic — nurturing a community that becomes, in itself, an engine of sustainable innovation and economic growth.  Read More »

MarketWatch , 2011

Ernest Wilson smiles when he assesses his job as the dean of the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California.

Wilson, for his part, can take pride in knowing he is making progress with his journalism, communications and public relations agenda. He supervises one of the nation’s most complex and ambitious media-education programs.

Annenberg works in conjunction with such USC divisions as business, engineering and public diplomacy. Labeling USC Annenberg’s School for Communication and Journalism as a simply “journalism” school, in the traditional sense, diminishes what Wilson and his colleagues are trying to accomplish.

Wilson believes that journalism plus innovation equals entrepreneurship, and that word sums up what Annenberg is trying hard to preach to its roughly 2,200 students.

“Five years from now, if we do this right,” Wilson said, “we can establish a new set of competencies for the digital age. Our graduates can go to work for Cisco or the government of China or the World Bank or a school in South Central LA. All of them would understand that communications is at the center. The biggest export in the U.S. economy is content.”  Read More »

Futures, 1998

This essay analysis four possible outcomes of the transition to tomorrow’s global information society. Using scenario building methods the essay describes and
analysis the pathways the transitions may take, in the hopes of guiding proactive thinking about the most desirable information and communication strategies
for developing countries. Read More »