The new layer of the economy enabled by M2M payments in the Internet of Things

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Last week I gave a keynote on The Future of Banking to a group of the most senior risk leaders in a major bank, sharing some provocative ideas on how the banking landscape may change in the years to come.

One of the ideas I shared briefly was on how micro-payments between connected devices could enable an entirely new layer of the economy.
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Launch of Social Media Strategy Framework in Arabic

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When we first released our Social Media Strategy Framework, the response was so strong that it ended up being translated into 12 languages.

At the time we did want to translate it into Arabic, however this proved difficult as it requires the Middle East version of Illustrator; most versions of Adobe CS do not support Arabic text. Fortunately we were recently approached with an offer to do a translation into Arabic, supported by the NGO Internews.

When I recently did the keynote at Arab Media World in Dubai on Creating the Future of Arab Media I noted that one of the defining aspects of Arab media is the exceptional uptake of social media in a number of Arab countries, by some measures the highest in the world.

As such the social media familiarity gap between users on the one hand and companies and governments on the other is extremely high. Hopefully this framework will prove useful. As always feel free to pass on the framework to those who might find it useful.

Click on the framework image to see the full pdf.

SocialMediaStrategy_Arabic_510w

Report: The Future of Back-to-School

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I am currently in Toronto to launch a report commissioned by Visa Canada on The Future of Back-to-School.

As noted in the announcement of the report:

In a recent survey conducted by Ipsos Reid on behalf of Visa Canada, 52 per cent of Canadian parents with children aged 5-16 found back-to-school preparations to be stressful for them and their families, second only to the Christmas or winter holiday season. With an eye on the future, Visa also explored how tomorrow’s technologies and innovations may address the challenges presented during the busy back-to-school period. Visa commissioned a report by internationally-renowned futurist Ross Dawson who identified a number of innovative technologies that may exist by 2024 to help ease the stress during this annual time period.

In his report, titled The Future of Back-to-School, Ross Dawson highlights these futuristic innovations through colourful vignettes, such as at-home scanners that measure children’s clothing sizes and systems that automatically allow for purchase and delivery in a timely fashion, or family-focused and streamlined ordering of nutritious groceries, making planning for school lunches a breeze – all purchased using authentication of unique voice patterns.

You can download the full report by clicking on the image of the report cover below.

FutureofBacktoSchool_Visa
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Future meetups next week in NYC and Toronto

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I will be in New York City next Monday 25th and then in Toronto for a couple of days for a client media campaign on the future.

Since I’m in town so briefly I’m organizing ‘Future meetups’ in each city. These bring together some interesting people I know and anyone else who is interested in joining us for conversations about the future, connected world, media, technology, the usual things… All very casual.

I would love it if you made it along, feel free to pass on word to others, all are welcome.

If you’re coming you can register on the Facebook event, comment on this post, tweet me, or just turn up!

Hope to see you there.
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The politics of crowdsourcing in government

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Last week the New South Wales government announced that it will use crowdsourcing to seek solutions, first to traffic problems and then more broadly to government policy challenges.

Channel 7 News did a piece on the story, including an excerpt with an interview with me about the initiative. You can watch the clip by clicking on the image below.

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Will rapid advances in robots and AI displace work and jobs or create them?

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One of the most important – and uncertain – questions we face is whether rapid technological developments in domains such as robotics, artificial intelligence and telepresence will lead to substantial unemployment.

Pew Internet has just launched a very interesting report AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs which delves into this topic by drawing on almost 2,000 experts who responded to the question:

The economic impact of robotic advances and AI — Self-driving cars, intelligent digital agents that can act for you, and robots are advancing rapidly. Will networked, automated, artificial intelligence (AI) applications and robotic devices have displaced more jobs than they have created by 2025?

They distilled the responses into positive and negative perspectives as well as points of agreement:
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Concept video: The Future of Work

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A while ago at Future Exploration Network we created the Future of Work Framework to provide a high-level overview of how the world of work is shifting.

Over the past year I have used the framework extensively as a starting point for executive briefings and strategy workshops on the strategic implications of the rapidly changing world of work.

However the static visual can be hard to interpret on its own, so we have now created a short video that delves into and narrates the framework.


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The Future of Healthcare: Power shifting to the patient

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Ross Dawson recently did the opening keynote speech at Australasian Long-term Health Conditions Conference in Auckland, New Zealand.

NZ Doctor reported on Dawson’s keynote in an article titled Technology shifts the ‘power’ to patients:

Technology is driving a shift of power from institutions and professions towards consumers and individuals, according to futurist Ross Dawson.

A keynote speaker at the Australasian Long-Term Conditions conference being held in Auckland today, 29 July, and tomorrow, 30 July, Mr Dawson wowed delegates with examples of technology changing the way we live and work.

In one case, the brain of a paralysed woman was hardwired to a robotic arm and by thinking, she was able to instruct the arm to pick up a mug so she could drink through the straw.

By 2017, half the people in the world will have smartphones and half will have downloaded a medical app, Mr Dawson says.

Smartphones and other portable devices such as smart-watches, essentially powerful computers, can gather real-time health information.

That’s putting power with the consumer, Mr Dawson says.

The article goes on to describe how social media and smartphones are shifting power in health:

Social media and smartphones are driving the shift of power and increasingly consumers have expectations of good service, irrespective of who is delivering it.

Mr Dawson spoke of smart homes, wired to understand the health needs of occupants, sensing whether someone was in trouble and reacting accordingly.

Such technology would enable people to live longer in their own homes before needing rest home care.

The article goes on to look at Dawson’s comments on remote work, monitoring patients’ medicine-taking, and changing health behaviors.

More details can be found in the complete article.

Keynote slides: The Future of Healthcare

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Yesterday I gave the opening keynote at the Australasian Longterm Health Conditions Conference in Auckland on The Future of Healthcare.

A conference report in NZ Doctor said that “Mr Dawson wowed delegates with examples of technology changing the way we live and work”.

The primary theme of my keynote was that power and control is shifting to the individual, an absolutely necessary shift in the world of health, and beyond.

Below are my slides. As always, my visual presentations are designed to support my keynote, not to be useful by themselves, but I share these in case they are are useful for attendees or others. The actual presentation includes quite a few embedded videos that show up as images in these slides.

Business transformation: an ongoing process of shifting to more open organizations

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A recent article in CMO.com titled Telcos Undertake Customer-Focused Transformation shared some of my thoughts on the realities of business transformation. The article opens:

Transformation isn’t so much a process as a modus operandi for successful businesses in the digital age, according to Australian futurist and digital strategist Ross Dawson.

Dawson said that successful, ongoing transformation comes from a fundamental change in business culture–away from secrecy, hierarchy, and fear, and toward greater openness in which failure is embraced as a learning tool.

“There needs to be a real shift in the culture of the business–not just at the top levels of the organization–and this requires greater risk taking, as well as greater transparency,” Dawson said. “This transparency and visibility around what is being done in the transformation, and the successes as well as failures, are vital to any business transformation.”

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