New Prezi: The 45 elements of the Future of the CIO framework

By

One of the ways in which I use the frameworks I create is as a foundation for my keynote speeches. Since in many cases the frameworks are designed to distil the key ideas in a domain into a single graphic, they can provide a valuable lattice and flow for the ideas in a presentation.

Visual presentation tool Prezi can be a great way to do this, in showing the logic and structure of the framework through the presentation, while allowing me to zoom in through the presentation to illustrate the specific detailed concepts.

I have used Prezi in this way for keynotes on The Transformation of Business and The Transformation of Government.

For the current Tomorrow-Ready CIO series of events run by CIO Magazine and IBM I am using Prezi to run through my recently created Future of the CIO framework. The Prezi is below.


Read more →

Launch of Future of the CIO framework

By

Over the next few weeks I will be giving the keynote at the Tomorrow-Ready CIO Series organized by CIO magazine and sponsored by IBM. The events will be held over breakfast in Canberra, Perth, Sydney, Auckland and Melbourne, with an audience of CIOs and other senior IT executives. Full details on the events here.

My keynote will be on the Future of the CIO. I have recently pulled together my thinking on the topic, drawing in particular on a series of CIO workshops I ran across Europe last year.

Below is the Future of the CIO Framework that I will be sharing at the events. It is now up on my complete list of visual frameworks on RossDawson.com.

FutureoftheCIO_500w
Click on the image for the full-size pdf
Read more →

The future of social media: Almost all commerce will become social

By

Earlier this month Air New Zealand ran its second Social Media Breakfast in Auckland, with close to 1,000 people coming to see Teddy Goff, the Digital Director of Obama’s campaign, and myself speak. The number of attendees had increased since Randy Zuckerberg spoke at the first Social Media Breakfast last July, and now Air New Zealand intends to run the event regularly through this year.

Below is a brief but nice highlights video of the event, including highlighted excerpts from my and Teddy’s keynotes.


Read more →

Thinking about the future: Why predictions usually (but not always) have negative value

By

A few days ago I spoke at the opening dinner of a strategy offsite for a professional firm, on the topic of ‘Thinking About The Future‘. It is a very common style of engagement for me, being briefed to set the broadest possible mental frame for executives before their in-depth discussions on directions for the business. The session went extremely well in provoking some very interesting conversations during the evening, and I gather driving new thinking through the rest of the offsite.

Just before I spoke the executive group had heard from a well-known economist who was giving them economic forecasts for the next 10 years.

As such, in my presentation I explained why forecasts usually have negative value. I spent a long time working in financial markets, and I have seen market and economic forecasts tremendously abused.

The most important point is that almost all forecasts will turn out to be wrong. The future is unpredictable. Giving numerical values to future economic or market data can easily shut down useful thinking about the reality of uncertainty and the range of possibilities that may transpire.
Read more →

The Future of Customer Service: Using technology to increase both efficiency and relationship strength

By

Last week I gave the closing keynote at KANA Connect 2012 in Las Vegas, on The Future of Customer Service.

I packed in a wide-ranging view on where customer service is going, including the impact of connectivity, the rise of new channels, where value will reside in relationships, and what supports the integration and integrity that will be at the heart of successful customer service.

One of the key areas I covered was the shift in customer service channels, using a diagram I originally created for a keynote and supporting article on Creating the Future of Customer Relationships.


Read more →

[VIDEO] The world’s first full motion-graphics presentation

By

In late April I gave a keynote at TheNextWeb 2012 conference in Amsterdam on The Future of Crowds.

I have for many years intended to develop a full motion graphics presentation. I have long used highly visual presentations to accompany my keynotes, often including numerous videos without sound as well an array of full screen images. However they primarily consisted of static visuals.

I decided TheNextWeb conference was a good opportunity to create my first full motion-graphics presentation. Below is a video of the keynote’s visual presentation.


Read more →

Study: Increased customer expectations are driving corporate uptake of social media

By

Yesterday I spoke at a business leaders lunch event in Darwin on the Future of Business organized by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce and Optus.

Following my keynote John Paitaridis, Managing Director of Optus Business, shared some of the highlights of a recently released Optus Future of Business report, based on an extensive survey of corporate Australia.

One of the pointed themes that emerged from the study was that customer expectations are driving uptake of social media and digital intiatives. This happens to be highly aligned with my perspective that increased expectations are at the heart of social change, as expressed in my Transformation of Business framework.

Here is some of the interesting data from the report:


Source: Optus
Read more →

Social Media and the Future: Keynote slides at CIO Summit

By

This afternoon I am giving a keynote on Social Media and the Future at the Australian CIO Summit in the Gold Coast.

Here are the slides from my presentation. As always, my keynote slides are shared with the proviso that they are designed to accompany my presentation and are NOT intended to be useful on their own. However you might find them of interest.

To provide just a little context on the flow of my keynote:
Read more →

Free webinar July 19 on the Future of Media – Mobile, Social, Cloud… and Paid? with Ross Dawson and Gerd Leonhard

By

Gerd Leonhard is a greatly valued friend and colleague in our shared calling as media futurists, and work together in The Futures Agency.

As part of our intent of working more together in both public forums and with leading media organizations we are announcing a free webinar:

The Future of Media: Mobile, Social, Cloud… and Paid?

July 19, 2012

8am US EDT
1pm United Kingdom
2pm Central European Time
8pm Singapore & Beijing
10pm Sydney
Read more →

Travelling for work: 7 principles for productivity and value

By

Over the last 9 weeks I’ve been on a plane every week, have been on 26 flights or inter-city trains, and delivered 28 keynotes or workshops across 8 countries. This week I will be at home all week :-).

I have long had the concept of “the right amount of travel”, that is enough but not too much. How much that is depends on personal temperament, your relationship and family situation, health, life stage, and many other things. I do love travelling but there is certainly such a thing as too much. Fortunately on the European segment of my recent travels Victoria and the girls spent four weeks based out of Paris to overlap with me, so we were able to spend time together there and in London, which made it a lot more palatable.

The nature of my work is that I do have to travel extensively, so it is critical that I get the most out of my time travelling. I need to work at getting better at it myself, but here are some principles that I try to work by, and you might find useful.

1. Travel is the ultimate learning experience.
I am fortunate in that I travel widely rather than to the same places all the time, so I always have things to learn wherever I go. Wherever I go I look around myself continuously to learn from what I see, whoever I meet I ask about what they are seeing change, whatever companies I engage with I observe their unique culture and experiences. While all of this is of course essential to a futurist, I believe we all need to take every opportunity available to learn what is happening across the glorious global diversity of business, society, and humanity.
Read more →