The rise of the network economy

In 1998, Kelvin Kelly wrote about the network economy in one of my favourite books: New Rules for the New Economy. The central thesis of the books describes how the economy is transforming into a network-like structure, where different strategies and business models are needed to thrive. This is exactly what we are seeing today, across different verticals and industries.

Network of Farmsa Bay Area startup has launched a service to make it easier and cheaper for restaurants to buy food from small, local farms. With a suite of mobile apps for use in restaurants and on farms, FarmsReach wants to create an online food marketplace that would directly connect farms with restaurants.

Car InfrastructureHis vision of building networks of battery-exchange stations in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia to increase the driving range of electric cars.

Patient Care Medical Network
by creating a marketplace for health service transactions to occur, I believe that Carol now becomes a new style of provider network. As a consumer, Carol becomes my new provider network of preferred practitioners who are willing to bundle their services, display relevant differentiating aspects of how these bundled services are delivered, and transparently post their prices.

Talent Network
To fully realize the potential for talent development in broad, cross-enterprise networks, companies will need to deploy even more ambitious pull platforms that scale easily to large numbers of companies.

It is a testatment to the author's intelligence that much of what he says is still thought provoking and relevant, 11 years after the book was published. What other networks have you seen developing?

Posted in: network