International Terrorism and Intellectual Property – Network Economy Series – Article 1

Long gone are the days where companies can hide their secrets within the Research and Development departments and only broadcast ambiguous comments about their upcoming technologies. Don Tapscott, in The Naked Corporation, prophesizes an era where consumers, staff, stakeholders and even directors of organisations are no longer holding onto their secrets with an iron fist; but are in fact denouncing the secrets and exposing the very own perpetrators who yearn for economic power through totalitarian type control of intra-company fostered collaborations and subsequent protection of the so called ‘intellectual property’ embodied within their balance sheets as ‘assets’.

To really address these issues, one needs to open their eyes and be submissive into the nature of ‘reasonable enquiry’. Reasonable Enquiry is something that fascinated me whilst I did a short term assignment at National Australia Bank (nab); and whilst it is certainly relevant in the assessment of needs and wants and the consequent reconciliation of ‘suitable financial products’; reasonable enquiry also has its origins rooted deep in cybernetic and economic philosophies.

For starters, let’s address topic A above (Apple and Android location tracking) through the insightful mechanics of reasonable enquiry.

My understanding so far, rooted in a meta-contextual appreciation of ‘collective intelligence’ and its application in contemporary society. What is wrong with collectively garnering information which is disclaimed in terms of agreements where it says specifically it is going to be used to deliver a plethora of unique technologies in the future underpinned by location tracking?

In this light, its relevant that we raise issues which may get your attention – such as terrorism and the future of terrorist networks who are self-organizing in the name of religion for fanatical reasons which are beyond any reasonable enquiry!

Thomas C. Schelling, in a report entitled Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism – which was written by the National Commission on Terrorism claims that “terrorism succeeds because of the element of surprise and, unfortunately, surprise is a factor that we cannot always control”. True to this universal truth is also an eclipsing viewpoint that summons the need for “contingencies that occur to no one, but also those that everyone assumes somebody else is taking care of”. Rather serendipitously, this report also ignites its focus on International Terrorism integrating a “neglect of responsibility but also responsibility so poorly defined or so ambiguously delegated that action gets lost”.

Wow – now doesn’t this shed more light on the justification of powerful companies that operate in oligopolistic markets – such as Microsoft, Google and Apple – to track user location and make them anonymous for the purpose of a) improving triangulation (which in fact improves pin pointing any anonymous user to ‘triangulated’ location and b) studying the schematics of these networks/pathways of location information through a diagrammatic framework that entertains the differentiation of terrorist networks or consumer networks.

So, now that I have your attention – lets move onto something even more relevant. Dr Anthony Bergin, who is director of research programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in the very article mentioned before asserted the need for a “fundamental shift in moving from a need-to-know resilience culture if we are to fully understand our state of preparedness, and to be better prepared [for things like terrorism and anything branching of to national disasters and critical emergencies]”

Political leaders and their strategists can only observe models of behaviour for statistical inference of extrapolation into what-if contingencies and what might happen in the future.

Now you tell me, did these models help anyone with the Global Financial Crisis? As far as I remember, only philosophy can explain the herding and crowding out effect on equity markets worldwide – especially during “dark October/November” (or whatever it was)!

thealphaswarmer project and its trusted affiliations will generally agree that a universal intellectual property framework is required to disseminate asymmetries and foster a creative future based on federations of trust. In fact, I am currently exploring in detail a book published by the Harvard Business School entitled “ Open Business Models: How To Thrive In The New Innovation Landscape” and within its nomenclature; it makes vivid references to Clayton’s Christensen’s “Value Chain Evolution” theory of industry change and the subsequent merging of ‘networks of power’.

In aggregation, what is required (yes through MY reasonable enquiry) – is the creation of a complex technology alignment architecture when two parties have conflicting patent claims. With reference to page 84 of the HBS book in question; Figure 4-2 is in stark contrast to Figure 4-4 which details “A Patent Map Of The Value Chain” where companies may benefit through collaborating in a mutual zone of capability.