September 2020 issue editorial by James Mawson, editor in chief, Global Corporate Venturing
As we emerge out of summer into autumn how people return to work after the American Labor Day holiday seems more significant than usual given the impact of covid-19 on people’s health and the economy.
Entrepreneurs and corporate venturers have been among those leading the way with a growth rather than fixed mindset. There is a new openness to the opportunities as well as awareness of the risks. Stock markets have reached new heights driven by the tech winners but the majority of companies are struggling.
The same is true of populations as a whole – few winners, many strugglers for at least the sort-term.
Grappling with supporting innovation while allowing for redistribution are two primary issues for governments and their responses will create the macro tax and regulatory environment for businesses and entrepreneurs.
This is increasingly the sixth factor entrepreneurs are looking for help with beyond the traditional big five of capital, customers, product development, hiring people and, eventually, an exit.
Corporate venturers can play an important role advising on the geopolitical and regulatory aspects in a way few other investors can.
Bytedance’s successful venture and acquisitions strategy for global expansion has been blown up by politicians. Other entrepreneurs will take note as they build their own investor syndicates.
Geopolitically important countries, such as Taiwan (this month’s innovative region), will find themselves trying to navigate these waters as a third factor beyond innovation and equality.
The ease of global communications thanks to the phenomenal reduction in costs and productivity increases from the internet and telecoms industry (this month’s sector) over the past 25 years makes these issues both easier and harder thanks to the greater spread of information and data.
When Scientific American looked back “on the past 175 years, the manipulation of matter and energy stands out as a central domain of both scientific and technical advances”.
Electricity is the control of the flow of electrons as matter. This control enabled telecommunications: telegraph, telephone, radio and television and eventually the internet, to move information, entertainment and ideas, as Scientific American notes.
Energy and information technologies have always been two of the three primary drivers of human evolution – the third being human health quality and longevity, hence the importance of covid-19, antibiotics and pain relief.
These areas are no longer – if they ever were – mutually exclusive fields of expertise. Ideas work best in conjunction and tested by different perspectives, which is why David Hume’s enlightenment philosophy that “truth springs from argument among good friends” remains Global Corporate Venturing’s motto.
There are dozens and hundreds, if not thousands, of great research projects and questions still to be tackled. Collaboration and discussion will help them be answered.
Academics’ study last year of participants at week-long conferences matched to a set of “control” scientists who do not attend found attendees with no prior collaboration produce about 9% more joint publications after participating in such a conference than the controls – and productivity only increased and a larger impact for more transient meetings.
Other academics looked at the impact of the abrupt cancellation of the 2012 American Political Science Association annual meeting due to Hurricane Isaac. By comparing the extent of new collaboration among those scheduled but unable to attend to actual attendees of the conference in previous years and political science conventions that went ahead in the same year, they can estimate the effect of cancellation on new collaboration. They estimate cancelling the conference reduced the probability potential attendees would collaborate by 16%, with the effect strongest for potential collaborators who are not co-located.
It is reassuring, therefore, to see how many of the community have engaged with the GCV Digital Forums through this covid-induced shock to travel and collaboration – the next forum is 29 September – but there remains the willingness to engage with live events as the GCV Symposium and GCVI Summit return in December and January in London and California, respectively.
But the world continues to evolve and these live – virus-willing– events will be hybrids as new forms of working have emerged and taken root.
And changes in information and energy sharing are continuing.
The next transformation in knowledge sharing and insights will probably come from the applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning allied to societal pressures on sustainable development goals.
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