lessons from eric schmidt

LESSONS FROM ERIC SCHMIDTNotes from a VCU Brandcenter Roundtable - 04.08.2011Created by @rachelmercer

Content, unless in quotation marks, is paraphrased.

“MOBILE IS THE ANSWER TO EVERY QUESTION.”

WHY MOBILE?‣ (Moore’s Law) Technology is doubling in speed /

performance every two years

‣ Think of all of the things that your portable device is for you - gaming device, bank, personal assistant. It has stored value.

‣ People can now pretty much fully rely on mobile devices for everyday tasks

“THINK OF THE WORLD AS A PHONE-CONNECTED CLOUD.”

A CONNECTED WORLD

‣ There’s 1 BILLION Smartphones, 4 Billion Phones, and the world has a population of 7 Billion people.

‣ You’ll never reach that final billion

‣ Think about what the world is like when people are reliant only on mobile devices

“THE NEXT GENERATION OF ADVERTISING IS HIGHLY PERSONAL.”

NEXT GEN ADVERTISING

‣ These will be microtargeted

‣ This should target each person, but will do so slightly differently

‣ Must be highly interactive

“FACEBOOK WILL HAVE PROBLEMS WITH FOREIGN AUTOCRATS.”

POLITICO

‣ Online technologies appear to benefit dissidents, but these technologies also allow for the secret police to look into their organization and activities

‣ China does this to some extreme - allow for some online organizations to flourish, while suppressing all physical demonstrations

IS THERE A FUTURE FOR THE DESIGN-ORIENTED CEO?

FUTURE CEO‣ “Steve Jobs is the only CEO who bridges the

financial and innovative gap. He is a national treasure.”

‣ The CFO as CEO model has been discredited - their skills are the wrong skills. The CEO needs to be trained in taking risk.

‣ Skeptical that a truly creative design person could run a company. They need to be organized. They need to be boring.