Robert Tercek talks about the evolution of communication, the rollout of  5G and the state of digital transformation at the AT&T Business Summit.

The future of digital media services - tercek speaking to audience

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The Future of Digital Media Services

Artificial Intelligence

Big Data

Decentralization

Internet of Things

Mobile

Web3

Robert Tercek delivered a 90-minute webinar of dozens of novel use cases for non-fungible tokens (NFT) in retail promotion, marketing, loyalty programs and the Metaverse. Tercek is a consultant for GS1 US, part of the international organization that governs data standards for the global supply chain.  From November 2022

Robert tercek speaking to an audience with title NFT, an overview

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Robert's 90-minute webinar about novel use cases for non-fungible tokens (NFT). On behalf of GS1 US, the organization that governs data standards for the global supply chain.

Webinar: NFT Use Cases

Identity

Metaverse

Rob Tercek's opening keynote speech at the 10th anniversary edition of DIG South provides the audience with a look back as well as sharp perspectives of the future. Tercek surveys the tech trends that spurred historic levels of growth during the past decade and provides four compelling scenarios that project into the next ten years. As implausible as it may seem today, the big Internet giants are determined to continue growing beyond the current valuations in the $1 to $3 trillion range. This talk reveals where that growth might come from. And it also provides a vivid explanation of the competing forces behind the drive towards decentralization and Web3 that seek to undo the domination of the planetary-scale tech giants.

Photo with title what's next after what's next

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Rob Tercek surveys the trends that spurred unprecedented growth during the past decade and provides four scenarios for the next ten years. He concludes by highlighting the drive towards decentralization that challenges the domination of the planetary-scale tech giants.

What's Next After What's Next

Colonialism

Economics

SaaS

Hundreds of companies have announced plans to invest, collectively, billions of dollars to construct virtual worlds known as the Metaverse. Who are these worlds for? Under what terms? What role will be assigned to the people who populate and contribute to these privately-owned worlds?

This presentation, from a futurist and expert in dematerialization, applies concepts from decolonial theory to frame a critical perspective of the emerging Metaverse and to raise urgent questions about the rights and roles of those who participate. Presented by Rob Tercek as the opening keynote speech at CXSF in Santa Fe in March 2022.

Robert tercek speaking to an audience with title Will we be citizens or subjects of the metaverse?

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Hundreds of companies have announced plans to invest, collectively, billions of dollars to construct virtual worlds known as the Metaverse. What role will be assigned to the people who populate these privately-owned worlds?

Will We Be Citizens or Subjects of the Metaverse?

Automation

Decolonization

Tercek's closing keynote was called "amazing" by the host of the USC Entertainment Technology Center summit. In the race to the Metaverse, Tercek explains, today's Internet giants seem to be hellbent on repeating the worst of the colonial era. This talk exposes the striking parallels between colonial conquest and today's information empires of the mind.

Decolonize the metaverse photo with people in the background

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Tercek's closing keynote was called "amazing" by the host of the USC Entertainment Technology Center summit. In the race to the Metaverse, Tercek explains, the Internet giants seem to be hellbent on repeating the worst of the colonial era, exposing striking parallels between colonial conquest and modern information empires of the mind.

Decolonize the Metaverse!

Are you ready to get vaporized? Robert Tercek's keynote speech at the Innovation Summit in Istanbul sets forth the dynamics that drive the technology trend that is redefining contemporary society. This talk provides sweeping historical context for recent innovations in telecoms, mobile computing, Internet of Things, wearable computers, the sharing economy and the evolving media landscape.

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Will your business be vaporized? Robert's keynote speech at the Istanbul Innovation Summit describes the dynamics behind a technology trend that is redefining the global economy. This talk provides deep context for recent innovations in mobile computing, IoT, and an evolving media landscape.

Vaporized Keynote in Istanbul

Which companies will create the next trillion-dollar platform? In this keynote speech for NEBSA in February 2022, digital technology strategist Robert Tercek provides the audience with three lenses to bring the future into focus: dematerialization, decentralization and democratization. This talk sets forth four different scenarios for Internet evolution during the next five to ten years.

Whatever can be vaporized will be - photo with title

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Which companies will create the next trillion-dollar platform? In this keynote speech for NEBSA in February 2022, digital technology strategist Robert Tercek provides three lenses to bring the future into focus: dematerialization, decentralization and democratization. This talk sets forth four different scenarios for Internet evolution during the next five to ten years.

The Next Trillion Dollar Platform

Social Media

This speech addresses the urgent topic of ethics and values in technology and society. The convergence of several innovative technologies, including 5G, AI, VR/AR/MR Spatial Computing, will create unprecedented opportunity, but they also introduce a range of new hazards that have the potential to disrupt democracy and society. What values and ethical principles will guide our decision-making in an environment where we cannot even agree on what is reality? Keynote speaker Robert Tercek addresses this urgent topic in his opening keynote speech at the CapGemini Spark conference in Pebble Beach.

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This speech addresses the urgent topic of ethics and values in technology. The convergence of several innovative technologies, including 5G, AI, VR/AR/MR Spatial Computing, will create unprecedented opportunity, but they also introduce a range of new hazards that have the potential to disrupt democracy and society.

The Age of Anxiety Keynote at Cap Gemini

Gaming

This opening keynote speech at DockerCon 2018 by Robert Tercek puts the explosive growth of Docker's container-based virtualization software into the broader context of accelerating innovation. It was a blast for Rob Tercek to share his perspectives about how the cloud is shaping innovation in the Age of Dematerialization. He presented these remarks before an incredibly enthusiastic crowd of 6000 Docker developers (and 5000 more via live stream). 

Containers offer much more than a way to avoid "lock in" by the big cloud hosting platforms: container-based virtualization also offers a way for a firm to embrace rapid iteration as a path to continuous innovation and a continual give-and-take dialog with end users and customers. If you are seeking customer-led innovation, you should consider using containers to accelerate your deployment of novel applications.

Rob Tercek has been advising organizations at the leading edge of innovation for more than 30 years. He can help your company define a future strategy and construct a plan to execute it.  Use the contact form below to reach him today.

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This opening keynote speech at DockerCon 2018 by Robert Tercek puts the explosive growth of Docker's container-based virtualization software into the broader context of accelerating innovation. Rob Tercek  shared his perspectives about how the cloud is shaping innovation in the Age of Dematerialization.

Tercek Keynote at DockerCon

The Cloud

Robert Tercek, an international authority on the topic of dematerialization, shares his perspectives on the accelerating process of digital transformation which occurred during the pandemic. This talk updates his "Vaporized" thesis for the recent era in which the world's biggest information empires grew to trillions in stock market capitalization, all on the strength of the trends that were originally defined in Tercek's award-winning book.

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Robert Tercek, an international authority on the topic of dematerialization, shares perspectives on the acceleration of the process of digital transformation during the pandemic. This talk updates his "Vaporized" thesis for the moment which the world's information empires dominated the stock market.

VAPORIZED: A POST-PANDEMIC UPDATE

Robert Tercek was invited to be the opening speaker at AT&T's internal management meeting, Leading With Distinction. The focus of his remarks was AT&T's new 5G network. Faster bandwidth and low latency are not the whole 5G story: AT&T's 5G Network is also autonomous and self-healing, like a vast distributed artificial intelligence. That combination holds the potential to transform many industries. This talk takes the audience on a wild tour of the near future where media, entertainment, health care, shopping and advertising are re-shaped by hyperconnectivity and AI. This speech is illustrated with many examples from current deployed technology, and it also exposes the economics and network dynamics that shape successful businesses today. Consider it a master class in planning and designing digital services that scale to planetary level. Throughout the speech, Tercek invited the 4000 people who were viewing the talk from AT&T offices nationwide to join in by sending in their comments and observations via the smartphone app for the event. Their contributions confirmed that even this mobile telecommunications giant is on the brink of massive transformation.

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Rob Tercek was invited to give the opening keynote speech at AT&T's 5000-attendee event Leading With Distinction. Most people think that 5G is about faster bandwidth and low latency, but that's not the whole story. In Tercek's view, the potential of 5G to to transform the industries that are optimized for the network.

Leading With Distinction at AT&T

Tim Sanders, the host of Voices of Authority, invited Rob Tercek to talk about the ways that the pandemic had accelerated digital transformation and, especially, the process of dematerialization.

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Voices of Authority with host Tim Sanders

The evolution from one-way broadcasting to social media has changed the landscape for storytellers. It's now possible for individual activists to tell industrial-strength stories that can change the world.

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TEDx: “Reclaim The Power of Personal Narrative”

Television

What is the role of a documentary filmmaker in a world where everything is recorded and stored? Robert Tercek suggests that the role of filmmakers may evolve: he predicts filmmakers will become creative activists. Robert Tercek's controversial opening keynote speech at the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival includes observations about the evolution of television, painting, photography, live performance, social media, and many other types of media transformed by new technology.

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What is the role of a documentary filmmaker in a world where everything is recorded and stored? Rob Tercek predicts filmmakers will become creative activists. His controversial opening keynote speech at the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival includes observations about the evolution of television, painting, photography, live performance, social media, and many other types of media transformed by new technology.

DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING IN SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY

Last week I was invited to attend the Digital Directions conference hosted by Fairfax Media in Sydney Australia. On March 4 2011 I gave this keynote speech.

This talk explores the question of why Pay TV companies are so bad at innovation. But in fact they are not bad at innovation: it's just that their business model is based on a completely closed architecture and private infrastructure. So it's not optimized for collaborative creativity. Instead, Pay TV is optimized for coercion.

The contrast of coercive architectures and cooperative architectures explains a lot: why internet companies are able to scale their audiences much faster than traditional media companies; why internet companies die an ugly death after they are acquired by major media conglomerates; why vertical integration is the dominant theme in old media; why Hollywood studios and broadcasters are hooked on predictable formulaic plots and two-dimensional characters; and especially why internet video is likely to be the biggest challenge to traditional media conglomerates yet. Brace yourselves. We are about to watch the battle of the century.

Mies Van Der Rohe said, "Architecture is the will of the age conceived in spatial terms." Which architecture best expresses the will of our current age? The open architecture of the web? Or the completely closed architecture of pay television?

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Rob Tercek was invited to address why Pay TV companies are so bad at innovation. But in his view, they are not bad at innovation: the problem is that the business model of TV is based on a completely closed architecture and private infrastructure. So it's not optimized for collaborative creativity. Instead, Pay TV is optimized for coercion.

COERCION AND COOPERATION IN THE SECOND CENTURY OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA

As a society, we humans now generate new information faster than anything else that we've ever produced. Each of us creates an immense amount of new information each day, not just by writing and posting videos, but also through our consumption, our behavior and our habits. We even generate new information when we are asleep!

The sheer amount of information generated by humans is increasing at a staggering exponential rate, doubling every two days, and that's just the beginning of an incredible transformation.

Historically, every major advance in human civilization has been triggered by new ways to communicate and share information. And now the number of ways we have to communicate is about to explode. Every aspect of human society will eventually be transformed, from law to education to health care, media, entertainment, democracy and manufacturing.

Robert tercek speaking to an audience, screencapture of other photo and speaker

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As a society, we humans now generate new information faster than anything else that we've ever produced. Each of us creates an immense amount of new information each day, not just by writing and posting videos, but also through our consumption, our behavior and our habits. We even generate new information when we are asleep! The sheer amount of information generated by humans is increasing at a staggering exponential rate, doubling every two days, and that's just the beginning of an incredible transformation.

INFORMATION TRANSFORMATION

In November, Oklahoma City was the site of the annual gathering of the Creativity World Forum. Delegates from all over the world joined an audience of thousands to participate in workshops, exhibitions, demonstrations and to hear the perspectives of leading thinkers on the topics of innovation and applied creativity.

I was the host of a discussion about technology aiding the creative process. This is my short opening speech. I wanted the audience to understand three fundamental points that govern the application of technology to the process of collaborative creativity: thinking about scale on a much bigger dimension; creating a two-way dialog with the audience; and leveraging the power of open standards, open source software, open platforms and open APIs to accelerate innovation.

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Oklahoma City was the site of the annual gathering of the Creativity World Forum. Delegates from all over the world joined an audience of thousands to participate in workshops, exhibitions, demonstrations and to hear the perspectives of leading thinkers on the topics of innovation and applied creativity. I was the host of a discussion about technology aiding the creative process.

Beyond Imagination at the Creativity World Forum

The Digital Convergence Forum, brought to you by GS1 US®, is moderated by Robert Tercek, Digital Futurist. Listen as he reviews the explosive growth of data, the internet of things, and interoperability.

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TERCEK MODERATES THE DIGITAL CONVERGENCE FORUM

Gabe Zichermann, who coined the term "Gamification" and introduced the concept of game-based marketing, invited Robert Tercek to join him at the Gamification Summit in San Francisco. Gabe suggested that Rob speak about "Game Based Society", which led to an exploration the idea of putting games everywhere in the real world: in cities, shopping malls, cars and more.

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Welcome to the Game-Based Society

How will digital technology reshape education? Award-winning author and digital pioneer Robert Tercek explored this question at a special conference at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, where experts from all over the world were invited to participate in planning for the new Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Digital Arts. This short presentation begins with a short summary of Tercek's "vaporized" thesis that posits that we are in the process of replacing physical goods with digital services. Then he applies this thesis to higher education, raising powerful questions about the nature of the University and the format used in higher education. This talk ends with speculation about the themes and topics that the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts might explore in a post-disruption society.

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How will digital technology reshape education? Award-winning author and digital pioneer Robert Tercek explored this question at a special conference at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, where experts from all over the world were invited to participate in planning for the new Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Digital Arts.

The Future of Education

Education

Robert Tercek's keynote speech at the PBS Annual Meeting in San Francisco in 2014.  How will Public Broadcasting be affected by turmoil and transformation in the commercial TV industry?  The speech begins at 5:28 after the introductory video clip about PBS Digital.

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How will Public Broadcasting be affected by turmoil and transformation in the commercial TV industry?  The speech begins at 5:28 after the introductory video clip about PBS Digital.

PBS and The Future of Television

Robert Tercek's opening keynote speech at the Canadian Media Producers annual PrimeTime event in Ottawa. This talk examines the many new developments outside of the TV industry that have undermined the old ecosystem and replaced it with a new, far more volatile ecosystem. If you pine for a new TV ecosystem, or if you are fed up with the old pay TV system, you'll enjoy this talk very much.

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This talk examines the many new developments outside of the TV industry that have undermined the old ecosystem and replaced it with a new, far more volatile ecosystem. If you pine for a new TV ecosystem, or if you are fed up with the old pay TV system, you'll enjoy this talk very much.

Is Television Being Disrupted - Of course it is!

On April 17, 2014, I was invited by Jan Matern and Volker Hirsch to give the opening remarks at the Demo Day for a half dozen startup ventures incubated by the Emerge Education program. As I prepared for this talk, it became clear to me that there is great urgency in the project of rethinking education for the 21st Century. Innovation in education systems tends to occur rather slowly, at the stately pace of big government institutions. But innovation in the economy is happening at a rapid clip, and by some measures it is accelerating. In particular, technologies that will displace workers (robotics, automation, artificial intelligence, virtualization, remote communication, telepresence, collaboration) are improving much faster than the economy can create new jobs. And so there is a race happening: it's a race between education and automation. Can we reinvent our 19th century education system fast enough to produce citizen scientists, entrepreneurs and empowered employees who are prepared for a job market that will be reshaped by robotics? I believe that incubators like Emerge Education hold the key to rapid innovation.

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Innovation in education systems tends to occur rather slowly, at the stately pace of big government institutions. But innovation in the economy is happening at a rapid clip, and by some measures it is accelerating. In particular, technologies that will displace workers (robotics, automation, artificial intelligence, virtualization, remote communication, telepresence, collaboration) are improving much faster than the economy can create new jobs.

The Future of Education

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