Menno is Director of the Research Institute for the Analysis of New Technology (VINT). He received the Computable Award for the research done in the field of open innovation and business transformation in October 2007. Menno was born in Gouda (say cheese) and studied at the Erasmus University to specialize himself in the field of economic psychology and advertising science. This formed the base of his human-centric view on new technology.
Menno started his career at a government agency where he became responsible for spotting trends and translating them into new business opportunities for SME’s. In 2001 Menno became the director of the Sogeti Academy. He created a strategic alliance with Ohio University and builded an on-boarding program. Over 100 groups and more than 5000 Sogeti employees have crossed the ocean and are trained in a three weeks course in Athens Ohio over the last twenty years.
In 2003 Menno went back to his roots as trendwatcher, public speaker and author as he became responsible for Sogeti’s Research Institute VINT: Vision Inspiration Navigation Trends. This Institute was founded in 1994. Menno has written extensively on the impact of new technology on humans and organizations. The Research Institute operates under the guidance of a CxO Steering committee.
These are some examples of the projects Menno has worked on:
Real Fake
A book published in 2021 on the impact of synthetic media on reality. A desturbing book on deepfakes and our troubled relation with reality. The key assumption is that humans have been players with information from the start of civilization. We are a post-reality species. Ideas in the book are inspired by extensive research in the field of anthropology, sociology and cognitive evolutionary science.
Me the Media, The Rise of the Conversation Society
A book published in 2008 on the metaverse and social media. Me-media refers to the effect that we’re all becoming media ourselves. From Twitter and Facebook, to Mirror Worlds and Augmented Reality : new media are creating a new virtu-real world where humans appear as hyper-ego’s. Me the Media was runner up in the marketing book of the year competition in the Netherlands.
Digital Happiness
A study on the social desirability of technology. While technological and financial barriers are fading, the question for this 21st century is “What do we want”? The digital happiness project contains a set of reports, keynotes and events on the potential of happiness and wellbeing as drivers of technological progress.
Don’t Be Evil
The crisis of 2008 created a “frenzy situation”. Based on the neo Schumpeterian theory of prof. Carlota Perez, this book describes the coming of a new era. Major technological irruptions have lead to business disruptions in the past. These so called techno-economic crises are manifestation of a turning point. An optimistic crises theory that gives some glimpses of a world to come and one important Maxim for success: Don’t Be Evil.
The App Effect
The App Effect (2010) is a post-PC book about the effects caused by our new mobile information behavior. Soon after the introduction of the iPhone it became clear that the information age had entered a whole new phase. The Software as a Gadget.
Open for Business
The book (2007) gives a deep insight in the opportunities of crowdsourcing and new sorts of value creation where innovation increasingly comes from outside the company. Inspired by the model of open-source-development, we nowadays see crowdsourced shoes, medicine, wine, beer, advertising campaigns, laws, airplanes, toys, consumer goods, and all kinds of other stuff. This phenomenon of outsourcing to the crowd is part of the fundamental change of society as a whole.