D+16 in Scoble's Viewfinder

ONE OF THE THOUGHTS meandering from Robert Scoble's current trip to China is the growing effects of disintermediation that appear front-and-centre to Scoble. He calls it "disruption" but the online architects I have heard from Amazon and Yahoo! consider it disintermediation (or D+16 on some briefing slides). Our Tipperary delegation returned from China with a respect for disintermediation because it removed intermediaries in the supply chain by cutting out the middleman. In our case, if we can advocate our education brand prominently, we don't have to tow the line behind the Minister for Education because we can go directly to potential exchange students from China. That's a real challenge, and the internet isn't going to make things a simple process.  Although we do attract creative multimedia students and they occasionally offer photos like the one at left, shot by one of our second year students in 2006. When it comes to travel, I blogged about D+16 in air travel, musing that most of my friends rarely talk to a travel agent because they can book without any problem online by themselves. This might prove helpful for those considering the direct flight from Dublin to Beijing.

Scoble's respect for Liam Casey, Irish storyteller and prominent entrepreneur with PCH International, comes through in a post about disruptive factories. Liam would be an excellent guest at Cork OpenCoffee, if he could squeeze in a short chat during an upcoming flying return to Ireland. What do you think, Pat?

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Liam Casey on Twitter.
RTE -- "Liam Casey named Entrepreneur of the Year, 22 October 2007.
James Fallows -- "China Makes, The World Takes" in the July 2007 edition of The Atlantic.
Irish Times -- "Dublin airport seeking to establish direct scheduled service to Beijing"
Previously -- "D+16 air travel" March 20, 2006 on "IrishEyes".