Envisioning the future of government as solution enabler

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When you look at the future, there are few more important topics than the future of government.

Government was designed to be institutional, providing stability to nations. Yet that design and structure means that governmental institutions are generally very poorly prepared to change as required in the face of extraordinary shifts in society and business.

I have been drawn more into the future of government over the last few years, among other activities creating and sharing my Transformation of Government framework with a variety of groups of senior policymakers.

William Eggers and his team at Deloitte have distilled some excellent analysis and insights into the future of government at their Government 2020 site, which includes an overview of drivers and trends shaping government, and views on the implications across domains of government.

The following slides and video provide nice high-level overviews of the work.

The other resources on the website are well worth a look, including the Drivers and Trends sections.


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Timeline of Emerging Science and Technology: A visual framework

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My colleague and friend Richard Watson and I have created a number of visual frameworks together, including Trend Blend 2007+ based on the London tube map, which has spawned many imitators over the years.

Since Richard has moved back to London we’ve collaborated less on frameworks, however Richard has continued to do some marvellous work.

Here is the Timeline of Emerging Science and Technology, created by Richard’s What’s Next in collaboration with Imperial College Tech Foresight.

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Click on the image to view the full-size pdf.
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Flying cars are here! Will they become mainstream?

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I’m at the Marketing Summit 2014 in Istanbul, where I’m giving the closing keynote later today. It is proving a delightful event, drawing on a framework on GameChangers from conference chairman Peter Fisk to invite inspiring speakers from around the world.

Yesterday Stefan Klein of Aeromobil described his journey to create a flying car. The beautiful video below shows the maiden flight of Aeromobil, just one month ago.


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Latest insights into the state of global telecommunications

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A delightful report out from International Telecommunication Union (ITU) today, Measuring the Information Society 2014, examines in depth the state of global telecommunications.

Below are a handful of the particularly interesting insights from the report.
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The rise of robots in retail will be swift

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Yesterday US retail chain Lowe’s announced that it will be launching a robot assistant named OSHbot in one of its Orchard Supply Hardware outlets.

The Wall Street Journal notes:
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What is the future of robots in human society?

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Last week I was delighted to speak alongside Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro at the SAP APJ Leadership Summit in Singapore, and spend time with him as we did video interviews to support the event.

I have followed Prof. Ishiguro’s work for many years, first writing about him on this blog in 2006 in a post Being in two places at the same time when he launched his first Geminoid robot. Below is a video of more recent versions of his Geminoid robots that duplicate real humans.


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Will real-time big data feedback transform sports?

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This evening I was at SAP’s Asia-Pacific Japan 25th Anniversary Leadership Summit in Singapore, which brought together a small group of leaders of SAP’s major customers in the region for an exclusive dinner at the Shangri-La hotel.

The guest speakers were myself, speaking on How Hyperconnectivity Will Fuel Asia’s Growth, and Stacey Allaster, President of the Women’s Tennis Association.

Stacey, together with WTA founder Billie-Jean King and last year’s Wimbledon winner Marion Bortoli, fielded questions about this week’s announcement that the WTA is allowing in-game coaching using real-time data from the match.

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Billie-Jean King, Women’s Tennis Association President Stacey Allaster, and Marion Bartoli at the SAP APJ Leadership summit in Singapore
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4 important implications of us reaching Crunch Time

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A little while ago we released our “Crunch Time” framework, looking at the 14 domains where we are hitting dramatic disruption, including work, money, privacy, government, education, media, climate and more. You can see the full Crunch Time framework on the Future Exploration Network website.

We have created a short video to introduce the concept of Crunch Time, and the four major implications that apply across the board.


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5 uncertainties that will shape the future of wearable technology

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The rise of wearables is one of the biggest emerging trends in consumer technology. Over the last decade our primary interfaces with connected technology have shifted from fixed computers to devices that we can carry in our pockets or bags. The next phase is for our interfaces to be worn on our body.

While it is always hard to predict consumer response to new technologies, it is safe to say that any early adopters will take to the next generation of devices with alacrity. While traditionalists will remain, certainly over time many who now choose to wear a wristwatch will replace it with a device that does far more than tell the time.

As the wearables landscape emerges there are 5 major uncertainties to consider:

How fast and far will we shift how we access information?

The rise of smartphones as an interface to information has been dramatic. It has been largely foreseeable in terms of the power of the technology available at an accessible cost, however what was less certain was people’s willingness to use a small screen to access information.
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It’s an attitude: Embracing the future

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On my RossDawson.com site I list some of the more popular topics for my keynote speeches.

Particularly for internal corporate events, one of the most popular themes is ‘Embracing the Future‘, in which I not only point to the dramatic shifts underway and the potential of the future, but show that the attitude of embracing those changes will bring the greatest personal opportunities.

I recently created a short video to help describe the main themes of the keynote, shown below.


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