There were two articles in The Star yesterday that caught my attention with regards the need for Malaysia to move towards a more knowledge based, value add economy / society.

The first one was written by Steven C M Wong of ISIS:
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/19/business/49131...

we have seen over the past few years the rise of collaborative activities that seem to drive a greater and faster level of innovation. the new web 2.0 technologies have enabled us to work together with people whom we've never met, but can leverage on each others' strengths resulting in faster development of new ideas and solutions.

but this seems to only happen over the internet/web. traditional organisations tend to fall behind in all of these new ideas. so how do traditional organisations and enterprises adapt to these trends and unlock the potential of their people?

http://socialsoftwarematrix.org/ is a site that evaluates social networking solutions for enterprises. it's introduction section says:

This website is indented to serve as an introduction to Social Software for enterprises.

The focus of the page will be on a comparison of the performance of different Social Software products in a set of defined business use cases. In addition the page will assess the chosen Social Software with respect to technological and business key factors for an enterprise implementation.

The results presented on socialsoftwarematrix.org are based on an internal evaluation of selected Social Software by the T-Systems MMS Consulting-Enterprise 2.0 team. We tried to be as objective as possible but we do not lay claim to final truth. Any feedback and discussion, on this page or on our blog http://www.besser20.de/ is highly appreciated.

On socialsoftwarematrix.org visitors will get an idea bout how Social Software can be used in a company as well as a comparative overview about Social Software products. Seeing the strength and weaknesses of a product in different use cases and the ability to compare multiple products for a single use-case can help a company to find the right Social Software for its specific needs.

The release of the Social Software Matrix is planned for the end of October. To shorten the waiting time and to give an introduction to Enterprise 2.0 we present to you our three parted presentation. Subscribe our newsletter to be informed when socialsoftwarematrix.org will be released.

there is also a set of presentations that give us a useful insight into enterprise 2.0:

Tan Sri Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Abdullah - the secretary-general of Treasury, Ministry of Finance, Malaysia wrote in The Star on 14 September 2009 in relation to Redefining Malaysia's Growth Model.

In it, he writes about the need to address new areas of economic growth - to move away from low value economic activities and reliance on low cost labour. He mentions a number of policy areas, but most importantly is our direction on human capital. Some excerpts from the article:

Now, we are at a critical juncture in our economic development path. While the input driven model was successful in transforming the Malaysian economy, there are now signs that export value-added is stagnating and investment by and large, is not contributing to the widening nor deepening of the product mix.

Depending too heavily on the external sector now is no longer an option. It is also not serving to increase domestic value-added through backward and forward linkages. Furthermore, investment is not building research capacity and domestic innovation capability.

In addition, companies operating in Malaysia are too dependent on cheap and low-skilled foreign labour, especially in the manufacturing and services sectors. Private companies are still reluctant to innovate and invest in labour saving technology and new production techniques. These conditions have led the our economy into the middle-income trap.

Transforming from the above model would require significant upheavel and reforms in a number of areas. The middle income trap that is mentioned above is very dangerous because it is comfortable. Unlike the low levels of poverty that drove our industrial model, the current middle income levels are considered satisfactory for many. Hence, moving out of this comfort zone is going to be very difficult.