In a recent article, Kevin Drum makes a compelling argument that You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot—and Sooner Than You Think. The piece is a little long, but this is a must read for everyone. At the heart of his argument lies the exponential progression of artificial intelligence (AI). Using the human brain as a barometer, AI will reach one tenth the power of the human brain by 2035. By 2045, we will have full human level AI.
Our Emerging Future
All aspects of our emerging future
Strategy and Multiple Futures
I recently engaged with fellow futurists on an article for Digitalist Magazine titled Why Strategic Plans Need Multiple Futures. I think the authors truly captured the challenges of strategic planning in a world where pace and the sheer volume of change makes our emerging future anything but predictable. The focus on story telling as the most effective way to communicate potential futures is powerful, and the Lowe’s example really brings that point home. I recommend this articles to leaders everywhere. Here is a powerful quote:
“Companies like Lowe’s are realizing that standard ways of planning for the future won’t get them where they need to go. The problem with traditional strategic planning is that the approach, which dates back to the 1950s and has remained largely unchanged since then, is based on the company’s existing mission, resources, core competencies, and competitors.
Yet the future rarely looks like the past. What’s more, digital technology is now driving change at exponential rates. Companies must be able to analyze and assess the potential impacts of the many variables at play, determine the possible futures they want to pursue, and develop the agility to pivot as conditions change along the way.”
Machines, Platforms, and Crowds
Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson – Authors of The Second Machine Age – wrote a new book which they launched in the middle of this year. Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future builds upon their first book, exploring three big trends that are reshaping the business world:
- The rapidly increasing and expanding capabilities of machines
- The large and influential young companies (Platforms) that bear little resemblance to the established incumbents in their industries, yet are deeply disrupting them
- The emergence of the crowd: the large amount of human knowledge, expertise, and enthusiasm distributed all over the world and now available
Taxing Robots
In this recent Article, Futurist Rohit Talwar explores the issue of robot taxes and long term unemployment. Although long, I recommend reading the entire article, but I captured some key points from the article below.
A Future Thinking Canvas
Our exponential pace is due in part to the overwhelming number of building blocks available to innovate. Understanding how these building blocks combine provides a glimpse into possible futures. In this visual, dots connect to portray the building blocks that are likely to extend our healthy lives – a key emerging future scenario.
Transforming for the Digital Age
Digital transformation means different things to different people. As I strive to change mindsets, I am sensitive to these distinct perspectives and the individual filters applied to terms like digital and transformation. In my view, Digital has been more narrow than holistic, while in some organizations ERP implementations are considered transformation. So, does digital transformation represent the narrow use of digital technology to improve some aspect of our organization? Or, is it the wholesale change of a set of structures, institutions and paradigms built for a different era? Although I have mostly abandoned the phrase, when I do use it, I mean the latter.
Let’s call it what it is, starting with the term transformation. To truly transform means to change from one nature, substance, form, or condition into another. I’d maintain that the pace of change has made the archaic nature of our industrial era structures, institutions, and management paradigms very apparent. Therefore, to transform in this sense means to change from the nature, form and substance of our industrial past, to a state that is viable for our digital future. Digital is foundational: the building block for which this future state is built upon. Therefore, for clarity sake, a better way to describe digital transformation is:
TRANSFORMATION FOR THE DIGITAL AGE: a change in the nature, substance, and form of our industrial past, to a future state that allows us to thrive in our emerging digital future.
Continue readingWhat are your thoughts about the Future?
I had the pleasure of developing an online thought leadership course focused on our emerging future back in May of this year. I had the added pleasure of working with futurists Gerd Leonhard, Gray Scott, and Chunka Mui, along with several industry leaders. The free Thought Leadership Course is available through May of next year. The course has been invaluable to me, as it provided a platform for dialog about our emerging future. I was thrilled with the thought provoking dialog that occurred through our moderated forum. For all those that participated thank you.
During the two week course, several poll questions were positioned to help us understand how the community is feeling about critical topics like ethics, our economy, and the likely transformative period that lies ahead. Here are the questions and their responses. There is plenty of time to take the course and add your voice to the conversation.
A Shift to Purpose and Well-Being
Singularity University has been talking about purpose for some time now. They describe a focus that is audaciously big and aspirational, causing significant transformation to an Industry, community, or the planet. There is a clear “why” behind the work being done, something that unites and inspires action. They call this a Massive Transformative Purpose.
A focus on purpose has a motivating effect with the potential to trigger incredible outcomes. A proven approach in high-growth organizations according to Singularity University, with a focus on purpose in common across the 100 fastest growing organizations. In an era that challenges much of our belief system, an aspirational quality of purpose is a mechanism that helps us think differently. Shared passion within communities and shifting generational views of mission-driven work can fuel the fires of purpose. An organizational focus on purpose is a vehicle for attracting and retaining top qualified talent. A purpose that is aspirational and focused on creating a different future is what ignites passion in individuals and groups; it’s what engages people’s hearts and minds to work together to realize their goal. Breakthroughs in science and technology can be linked to the deeply unifying and motivating ability of purpose. Setting out to solve big problems brings purpose and meaning to work. The more we organize around purpose, the better the outcomes and the more fulfilled we will be with our work.
Mary Meeker: Internet Trends 2017
Mary Meeker recently delivered her now famous Internet Trends Report for 2017. She covered:
- Global Internet Trends
- Online Advertising and Commerce
- Interactive Games
- Media and Distribution Disruption
- The Cloud and Accelerating Change Across Enterprises
- China Internet and the Golden Age of Entertainment and Transportation
- India Internet
- Healthcare Digital Inflection Point
- Global Public / Private Internet Companies
The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be
For those that have taken the thought leadership course focused on our emerging future, thank you. For those that may have interest, the course will run for foreseeable future. In this post from last year, I summarized the key messages from the course. It has been updated to reflect the progression of our emerging future.
Yogi Berra is credited for once saying that the future ain’t what it used to be. What a perfect way to describe what is coming: a complete change in the way we think about the future. Our journey to the future begins with a look back. A convergence of multiple forces during a special century following the U.S. Civil War established the standard of living in developed economies. Some believe that we will never see a convergence of forces as dramatic and impactful as that which occurred during this period. I pulled this wheel together to capture that convergence across the various areas of our well-being, leveraging the work of economist Robert J. Gordon. I captured his thinking in a recent post titled Revolution and the Innovation Wheel.
The Timing of Future Scenarios
Timing. It’s one of the most difficult facets to consider when thinking about the future. We know that convergence across societal, political, economic, science and technological forces is creating many future scenarios. We also know that enablement is happening at an exponential pace. Some believe (present company included) that the coming macro-level tipping point is likely to impact humanity on a scale only experienced twice in human history (hunter-gatherer to agriculture and agriculture to industrial). There will be many micro-level tipping points on the journey towards an automated society – and the timing of those tipping points is impossible to predict.
Discussing the Future of Sports
This story was posted this morning to promote a fund raiser that I am participating in on Tuesday evening, June 13th at 6:00 p.m. We will be discussing the future of sports, and its implications to fans, stakeholders, arenas, the athlete, humans, and the sports themselves. Here is an excerpt from the article by J.P. Pelzman and a glimpse into what I will be presenting.
This event will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday night in the Brown Recruiting Pavilion behind the south end zone, with proceeds to benefit the Rutgers women’s soccer team. Details for the event can be found here.
Join us if you live in New Jersey.
CXOTALK: June 9th Episode
Update 6-9-17 3:00 pm: It was an absolute pleasure spending time with Anthony Scriffignano and Michael Krigsman discussing very important and difficult issues regarding our future. The rebroadcast is available here.
Our Emerging Future: Revised
Several months have past without adding to the emerging future visual. In this post on Visualizing our Emerging Future, I described the origins of the visual and how it is being used. Two specific activities have prompted me to add two new scenarios to the visual:
Reimagining the Future: Week Two of the Online Course Launched
Week two of Reimagining the Future has just launched! Week one drew a large audience and generated great dialog. A big thank you to those who have participated so far. As discussed in the course, we must collectively take control of creating our future. Our hope is this course and related dialog are just one small step on that journey. There is still plenty of time to take the full course, you can enroll here.
Reimagining the Future Athlete
On June 13th, I will be presenting at a Rutgers Athletics Fund Raiser with a focus on the future of athletes and athletics. We will explore
1) Automation – robots replacing athletes, sensors and software replacing officiating
2) Performance – more data and machine learning lead to improved performance through better insights
Technology vs Humanity – The Future is already here
In a recently released video, Futurist Gerd Leonhard delivers his key messages in a powerful and passionate plea for balance between technology and humanity. This five minute video is a must see. Some of his key messages are:
Sector after sector, industry after industry, we are waking up to the fact that the future is already here. My note: after struggling to drive a level of urgency regarding the speed at which the future is approaching, leaders are now beginning to embrace a future-back mentality.
Dual Transformation
In a recent book titled Dual Transformation, the authors (Scott D. Anthony, Clark G. Gilbert, and Mark W. Johnson) focus on the challenging task of transforming the core while simultaneously creating a growth engine. They refer to it as dual transformation: Transformation A – repositioning the core, and Transformation B – creating the new. This complex tension is represented in this visual from our upcoming leadership course: Reimagining the Future: A Journey through the Looking Glass.
Continue readingDisruption and the Future of Work
Join me on the June 9th episode of CXOTALK with Industry Analyst and host Michael Krigsman. We will be joined by Anthony Scriffignano, Chief Data Scientist, Dunn & Bradstreet. A quick description of the episode:
What are the implications of technology and new business models on the future of work? The impact of technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics have profound implications for both companies, individuals, and society. At the same time, government policy on these issue lags technology and the impact on people. On this episode, a respected futurist and well-known data scientist explore these complicated and important issues.
Our Journey Forward: Thoughts from Futurists
I had the great fortune of working with three very accomplished futurists in the production of our upcoming course titled: Reimagining the Future – A Journey through the Looking Glass. SAP’s Susan Galer interviewed these futurists in support of the course launch on May 23rd. The SAP Post provides a glimpse into the course, with thoughts from futurists and industry leaders. Here are several quotes from the post.
Reimagining the Future 