By Ross Dawson
This year I am very frequently speaking to top executive teams about the future of business. These presentations are often scheduled during strategy offsites or as part of leadership development programs. Sometimes these are full-day workshops; more often I have 45-90 minutes to work with.
My objective is to stimulate executives to think beyond the everyday, get new ideas, and develop an optimistic mindset about the challenges and opportunities afforded by the extraordinary pace of change today. Many clients want their executives to take the attitude of Embracing the Future, one of my most popular speaking topics.
Given the brief time I often have to create lasting energy and initiatives, these are some of the approaches I find most effective.
Use industry and in-house examples. During my briefing I uncover situations and stories that are currently most discussed in the organization. I always use industry examples but it is also valuable to identify issues that executives can recognize as their own.
Create participation. I often structure my time into two or three brief presentations, each followed by custom-prepared discussion topics or case studies. Engaging with key questions during the session makes it far more likely that those conversations will continue.
Balance awe and inspiration. These days it is easy to blow people away describing the extraordinary things that are happening in domains such as online sharing, genomics, robotics, and augmented reality. It is good to help people understand quite how fast things are changing, however that can easily become daunting. The emphasis must be on the actions that can create opportunities and build success.
Demonstrate that new thinking is necessary. Talk is cheap. Giving clear case studies of the how companies are successfully embracing new approaches helps to shift attitudes. In a recent session on the future of business I did for a corporate leadership group, real-life examples led to genuine discussion on how to change the organization.
Create an appetite for thinking about the future. There is massive value for organizations to think in a clear way about the future and how they can build their success. However for most companies their interest extends as far as hearing from a business futurist. It is important to help companies understand how they can build broader initiatives to drive long-term thinking and strategy.
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Energize your event with leading futurist and keynote speaker Ross Dawson’s compelling and inspirational presentations that leave audiences stimulated. Contact Ross Dawson’s office today to discuss the precise keynote topic and title that will best meet your requirements. |
In the global talent economy over 50% will be mobile workers
By Ross Dawson[This post first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website]
Research firm IDC has forecast that there will be 1.3 billion ‘mobile workers’ in the world by 2015, representing 37.2% of the global workforce. This points to the massive explosion of what I call the ‘global talent economy’, in which talent can be and will be anywhere.
The forecasts suggest that the bulk of the growth will be in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan), which will see 838 million mobile workers in 2015, up 237 million from 2010, representing well over half the global mobile workforce.
Read more →
Harley-Davidson goes direct to the crowd after initial success with creative crowdsourcing
By Ross Dawson[This article first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website]
Harley-Davidson has been in the vanguard of using crowdsourcing to fuel its creative marketing initiatives. That initial success has fueled its appetite, with its latest initiative a Facebook app that takes idea generation to a far broader crowd.
Last year I wrote about how Harley-Davidson had launched a major advertising campaign using Victors & Spoils, an agency built on crowdsourcing principles.
Harley-Davidson was initially cautious, saying:
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Top 10 posts on the future of media
By Ross DawsonAnother quick selection of my most popular posts from 2011, this time on the topic of the future of media:
1. Predictions for media industry in 2011
Social news curation, crowd sourced journalism, multi-platform distribution, personalized advertising and tablet media will be just some of the key trends shaping the year ahead.
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The spirit of Sydney: an extraordinary New Year’s Eve celebration
By Ross DawsonLast night I was privileged to see in the New Year at the harbour-side broadwalk of the Sydney Opera House, at the Lord Mayor Clover Moore‘s party.
Personally, it was probably the best New Year’s Eve that I’ve ever had, not least because it was an absolutely fantastic party.
I wish I could do justice to the evening with an in-depth review, not least of the extraordinary fireworks and spectacle master-minded by designer Marc Newson, whose work I wrote about last year. Below is a brief excerpt of the display.
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Today show: Social media and technology trends for 2012
By Ross DawsonYesterday I appeared on the Australia national breakfast program Today, talking about what we can expect in social media and technology in 2012. I was on holidays in Melbourne so spoke from the studio there. You can see the clip below, or on the Today Show Video page, under the title Social Trends for 2012.
It is always hard to fit in a lot of content into a breakfast TV format, however I managed to cover thoughts on Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, augmented reality glasses, Siri and voice interfaces among other topics.
From news-on-paper to news-on-many-channels
By Ross DawsonI’m officially on holidays, but back at home between a family Christmas and beach sojourn and doing quite a few interviews as I go, so I’ll slip in a quick blog post or two. :-)
Yesterday I was interviewed by Toronto radio station Newstalk 1010 about the future (or lack thereof) of newspapers, coming off the news that New York Times has sold its regional newspapers.
They of course wanted me to talk about my Newspaper Extinction Timeline from last year, and I ran through some of the economic reasons why remnant demand for newspapers doesn’t necessarily mean there will continue to be supply.
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New frameworks of 2011: Connected Success, Transformation of Business and Government, Crowdsourcing
By Ross DawsonI believe strongly in visual frameworks as a way of communicating and engaging with complex ideas. I share these on the web, sometimes use them as central frames for my keynotes, apply them in strategy workshops, use them to shape my own thinking on the topics they cover, and sometimes create private custom visual frameworks for clients to define and articulate their strategy.
I will be shortly launching a more complete review of all the public visual frameworks I’ve created. For now, here is a review of the public frameworks I’ve created this year.
Success in a Connected World
I have used this in many keynotes and workshops this year to help individuals and small to mid-sized businesses to work out what they need to do succeed in a connected world, usually going into detail on the specific tools they can use in each area.
Click on the image for full size
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12 most popular posts of the year on the future
By Ross DawsonIt’s almost the end of the year, so I’ll try to do a few compilations of my most popular posts of the year. Today, on the general theme of the future, here are 12 (+1 for next year) that have attracted the most interest…
1. Zeitgeist 2011: anxiety, mobility, blending, indulgence, immersion, wrath, nudity and more
The spirit of the times for 2011
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The most contagious marketing memes of 2011
By Ross DawsonContagious Magazine has just launched its annual Most Contagious 2011, “reviewing the most innovative exercises in branding, technology, and popular culture,” taking a marketer’s perspective on what has succeeded this year.
The slides are below (you really need to view in full screen as it’s very detailed), or you can also see the Most Contagious website or the pdf version.
As a brief highlight of the report, here are four of Contagious’ favorite promotional YouTube videos of the year. Great viewing! I particularly like Nissan’s Damned Ponies…
Read more →
5 fundamentals for presenting to executive teams about the future
By Ross DawsonBy Ross Dawson
This year I am very frequently speaking to top executive teams about the future of business. These presentations are often scheduled during strategy offsites or as part of leadership development programs. Sometimes these are full-day workshops; more often I have 45-90 minutes to work with.
My objective is to stimulate executives to think beyond the everyday, get new ideas, and develop an optimistic mindset about the challenges and opportunities afforded by the extraordinary pace of change today. Many clients want their executives to take the attitude of Embracing the Future, one of my most popular speaking topics.
Given the brief time I often have to create lasting energy and initiatives, these are some of the approaches I find most effective.
Use industry and in-house examples. During my briefing I uncover situations and stories that are currently most discussed in the organization. I always use industry examples but it is also valuable to identify issues that executives can recognize as their own.
Create participation. I often structure my time into two or three brief presentations, each followed by custom-prepared discussion topics or case studies. Engaging with key questions during the session makes it far more likely that those conversations will continue.
Balance awe and inspiration. These days it is easy to blow people away describing the extraordinary things that are happening in domains such as online sharing, genomics, robotics, and augmented reality. It is good to help people understand quite how fast things are changing, however that can easily become daunting. The emphasis must be on the actions that can create opportunities and build success.
Demonstrate that new thinking is necessary. Talk is cheap. Giving clear case studies of the how companies are successfully embracing new approaches helps to shift attitudes. In a recent session on the future of business I did for a corporate leadership group, real-life examples led to genuine discussion on how to change the organization.
Create an appetite for thinking about the future. There is massive value for organizations to think in a clear way about the future and how they can build their success. However for most companies their interest extends as far as hearing from a business futurist. It is important to help companies understand how they can build broader initiatives to drive long-term thinking and strategy.
Energize your event with leading futurist and keynote speaker Ross Dawson’s compelling and inspirational presentations that leave audiences stimulated. Contact Ross Dawson’s office today to discuss the precise keynote topic and title that will best meet your requirements.