To conclude this series of four postings on Defrag,the research puzzle | The third effort, “dealing with the deluge,” is linked here. let’s look at some key battles going on these days, in tune with a military example used in the entertaining opening keynote of the conference given by William Duggan, author of Strategic Intuition.Strategic Intuition | Subtitled “The Creative Spark in Human Achievement,” the book surveys important insights across a variety of disciplines.  The key takeaway is that those breakthroughs that we marvel at are usually integrations of disparate ideas whose combination proved remarkably powerful. He used Napoleon’s coup d’oeil (“strike of the eye”) that led to victory at Toulon to illustrate the nature of intuitive thought that can lead to strategic advantage.

Of course, there is the not-to-end skirmish between analog and digital.  To the extent that notes were taken at the conference, they were largely recorded on electronic devices, but business cards and brochures maintain a dominant role in personal and business marketing.  And while the attendees were at the top of the distribution in terms of roaming devices, they could often be found sitting in the hall, tethered to outlets.  The digital attack on business models of all sorts is part of this tug-of-war, with a panel of “analysts” (with the word used in the sense of those who analyze technology products and services) pointing out how their work is changing now that there are lots of would-be experts publishing, often for free; investment analysts seem to have been somewhat slower to acknowledge and understand how the same forces are affecting them.

There is also a generational divide, with the “digital natives”Six Pixels of Separation | Here is one take on some of the issues for companies trying to work with the “natives.” bringing a different sensibility to some of the organizational issues presented by social media tools than those of us of a certain age might have.  The age-old tussle between revolution and tradition often represented by those cohorts is amplified due to the power of the tools and the crumbling of some comfortable hierarchical structures, adding additional dimensions to the conflicts between the individual and the organization, and causing issues like privacy and intellectual property to be examined in light of the trends of personal branding and “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

For now, however, the real war may be economic.  Will the financial crisis (and the related problems in the “real economy”) cause firms to go more virtual and more social to try to save money while changing their operations, or will the cutting-edge technologies be viewed as frivolous and a waste of resources?  The attendee roster for the conference might provide a hint — it seemed like most people there were selling products, services, or advice, and that very few real buyers were around.  Having seen a few technology cycles myself, this particular one has an ominous look at the moment, with the exciting long-term prospects for social media (in the enterprise) being outweighed for now by a lack of clarity of how to use the tools, too many start-up firms aiming at the same end markets, and a woeful economic landscape.

The conference ended late in the afternoon on Election Day, the analysis of which provided some hope to the advocates and purveyors of social networking and other Web 2.0 applications.  Commentators of all persuasions remarked on the Obama campaign’s masterful strategy and in particular on its use of new tools to excite, educate, and mobilize voters (especially young voters).  As the talk turned to governing, speculation began about how those connections could be effectively tapped going forward.

The power of those new possibilities is very real, and working through the immediate difficulties will provide true advancement for those innovators that address the right questions and keep their eyes on the prize.