In a world more globalized,  complex and interdepent there are new challenges but also opportunities. Some of the steps that can be used to identify opportunities are below.

Identify trends (you can use some of the documents described in link Understanding the World): 

• Geopolitical
• Technological
• Demographic
• Economical
• Cultural

These trends lead to new life styles:

• Technological connectivity
• Ecological
• Extreme sport 
• Tourism
• Health care
  • Organic food and healthy life habits
  •  Senior citizen care and recreation
  • Exercise and being in good shape
• Life Long Learning (executive education)
• Equitable trade
• Corporate social responsibility
• Bottom of the pyramid business
• Pets
• Senior citizen life styles

Retail Forward has identified 10 innovation opportunity areas that provide tremendous potential for creating new consumer benefits and stakeholder economic value:

• Catch a wave  
• Solve my problem  
• Do it for me  
•  Help me choose  
• Come to me  
• Enhance/enrich the experience
• Make it easy
• Do it my way
• Help me connect
• Speed it up

Now, by creating a 2×2 matrix with the life styles and services innovation we can identify places where an innovation can be created:

On top of this, the core competences needed to develop the innovation must be considered.

This post is inspired by the interesting lectures of Dr. Jaime Alonso Gómez, National Dean and Professor EGADE – ITESM, on International Business Strategy and Modeling.

Interesting discussion in TechCrunch on Internet advertising and Internet business models: Steel Cage Debate On The Future Of Online Advertising: Danny Sullivan Vs. Eric Clemons

Eric Clemons is Professor of Operations and Information Management and Management at Wharthon.

A quote from the article from Danny Sullivan  editor-in-chief of SearchEngineLand.

“I agree, many sites cannot sustain themselves solely on advertising. Mine certainly doesn’t. Our revenue comes from online ads, paid memberships, lead generation and conference attendance. As a veteran web publisher, I know that in my particular space, online ads alone don’t cover the bills.

There are plenty of other examples. Right now, some newspapers are reconsidering whether they should have “opened” their sites to non-paid subscribers, since ad revenues are plummeting. But even when ad revenues were high, the ads alone weren’t covering all the costs that go into producing the New York Times. Other streams such as print ads and print classifieds were helping to keep the online site going.”

This is the same topic reported by Chris Anderson My Two Cents on Charging for Content, a quote from the post: “Free may be the best price, but it needn’t be the only one.”

Therefore, I am looking forward to read Chris Anderson´s latest book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price: The Economics of Abundance and Why Zero Pricing Is Changing the Face of Business, with the concept of “fremium”,  check his blog´s post Revised: the *four* kinds of FREE