Great (and busy!) first day of the World Economic Forum at Davos today. I feel really privileged to be able to attend this global gathering again this year and was honored to take part in a panel discussion on digital convergence.

The pulse here is cautious – not optimistic. There’s a sense among some that we aren’t sure whether the recovery of 2010 — which appears to have been strong — is holding steady.

A huge part of the discussion at this year’s gathering is the diminishing power of the West to set the tone of debates in finance, governance, education, and to a large extent IT.  The Indian and China contingents feel incredibly empowered to set the course of IT innovation and overall dominance of this recovery.

On the tech front, the key focus is around connectedness and convergence.  How do the business and social norms change when our lives are as connected as they are today?  What does this tell us about the way business needs to change?

In some ways it’s as if Customer Experience Management is the biggest issue in technology right now! Everyone agrees users are driving the changes, and businesses and governments need to be responsive to users.

I really enjoyed the lively discussion on the panel about digital convergence, led by the venerable David Kirkpatrick of the Daily Beast. The panel was a great discussion about the trends in digital innovation that are changing the way we conduct business.

More to come…

– Rob

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