Real-Time Economy Community - New ideas

FSI - Future Social Intranet

Veli-Matti Vikman — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:47:43 GMT

Today many employees struggle with many different and usually complicated information systems in their daily work. Our idea is to combine the most commonly used administrative information systems with best innovations of modern social media into a single modular on-line platform.

The platform contains the most commonly used administrative systems such as CRM, work time planning, project management, file sharing, and corporate announcements. These features can be easily accessed and all use the same common interface.

The platform also contains basic information, such as special skills and status in the organization, of each employee. Employees are connected to projects, and every project has its own page where its progress can be tracked in real time as the project members register their hours and progress into the project. Every employee uses a calendar which can be seen by others and from which the working hours automatically go to the corresponding projects. Project chat windows and frequent status and task updates can be used for convenient information sharing. Status updates can be seen also cross-project by whomever they may concern. Also conference calls can easily be made when needed via FSI. Everything is linked together in same fashion as in Facebook, and the amount of metadata embedded greatly enhances organizational learning.

A dedicated idea section, or forum, makes it easy for employees to register the ideas they come up in their daily work. Ideas that are visible to and can be commented by everyone greatly increases whole organization’s participation to creating innovations and improving processes.

FSI facilitates daily administrative processes and forces every employee to use it, which in turn strengthens the effect of its social applications and knowledge sharing. Such a social network can prove an invaluable asset to any company.

Finnish health care platform

Merja Mattila — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:38:52 GMT

A customer of Finnish public health care may have a long waiting time when calling to discuss with a trained nurse, to make an appointment with a doctor or to renew a prescription form. It may also happen that a customer will not be served at all and she/he has to turn to a private clinic. In addition, the handling of the costs of medical treatments causes a lot of paper work, when an insured files a claim for an insurance company. According to my idea, a platform which combines a customer - a sick person - and public health care with chemist's shops, private clinics, Kela and insurance companies will provide better health care services for a customer.

In the essay I introduce my concept of public health care platform and describe its users, components and rules. I also briefly introduce some existing web services such as Duodecim/Terveyskirjasto, Rokote.fi, Tohtori.fi, Kela.fi, If.fi, Pohjola.fi and a calling service Terveysneuvonta. In addition, customer satisfaction, cost and benefits of the platform (e.g. one time data entry, administrative handling expenses, disputes between insurer and insured, legal issues and preventing fraudulent insurance practices) as well as e-invoicing possibilities are analyzed.

The effects of downloadable content on information goods

Aleksi Aalto — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:06:58 GMT

Videogames have traditionally behaved as information goods much like music and films. However, through the rising popularity of downloadable content (DLC), game and console producers, as well as consumers are witnessing a revolution in gaming.

Downloadable content has already caused restructuring in pricing through versioning, as well as in the networks themselves where the consumers also produce content themselves. Yet DLC is still a developing phenomenon with new applications being constantly introduced.

What kind of opportunities does DLC present to game producers, especially in pricing? Is DLC only a game-specific phenomenon, or can it affect also other types of information goods? Can the pricing models etc. adapted into video games be used in other types of products as well?

Essay: Exclusivity of Information Goods in Platforms

Kasper HyppÃ¶nen — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:53:40 GMT

The idea of the essay is to discuss the dynamics of contents exclusivity with regards to platforms. Content exclusivity has been widely adopted in platform competition, but how succesfull has this strategy been from the perspectives of different stakeholders of platform business. In which kinds of situations can platform exclusivity of content be beneficial, and in which cases it has been destructive? Can content exclusivity exist on a stable and mature business where several competing platforms exist?

Providing Real-Time Product Pricing and Availability Information Online Through RFID

Ville Hallavo — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:19:50 GMT

First of all, because the RFID-tags are discussed to replace the barcode system in retail business in the future, some innovative uses for them should be discovered. Hence, this proposes an interesting possibility to offer real-time price and product availability information of all possible products sold in physical stores. For example, all the grocery stores could present online real-time information of the prices and of the availability of their product assortment by updating the prices online through RFID to the Internet. Moreover, the customer could then follow these price changes real-time by their mobile phones, or the price could be sent to a digital RFID-screen at the shelves.

What is more, this would generate many positive implications:

The efficient and agile pricing process would benefit the resellers

By presenting the real-time price and availability information in the Internet in a common market place platform, the markets function economically more efficiently, because the customer finds the goods at best distance and cheapest price conveniently.

Huge possibilities to match real, intangible and inconcrete needs and wants of the customer by finding the corresponding goods. For example, if the customer wants to prepare a fine pasta meal, the program would present some recipe choices and finally the price and availability information accordingly.