How to drive change by focusing on exponential opportunity, not threats

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Among the insights that John Hagel shared in our recent conversation on The Virtual Excellence Show was how to frame change for leaders.

From his decades of experience he says that you must focus on opportunity. Emphasizing threats simply increases resistance to change.

What makes this easier today is that fundamental shifts in the economy mean that opportunity can be exponential, generating even more compelling reasons for positive action.

However to seize those opportunities companies need to fundamentally recreate themelves, their old configurations are not adequate, deep change is essential.

See the video for John’s insights on this, or see below for a full transcript of the video.
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Experiential technologies will be at the heart of the future of physical retail

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Despite the deep challenges of the last decade, now overlaid with the dramatic impact of the pandemic, physical retail absolutely has a future. Much of that future will be through integrating useful technologies into the in-store experience to compete with the purely online experience.

This morning a segment on the Sunrise national breakfast show on the future of retail, shown below, included some thoughts from me on this (around 0:55 and 2:30).
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Human-technology interfaces will drive our future: here are four innovative new wearables from Google Research

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One of my oldest and most central themes in my work as a futurist is interfaces. How humans can and will interact with technology will shape not just our future, but indeed who are.

We have only relatively recently begun to move beyond keyboard, mouse and screen interfaces to voice and a handful of early-adopter gesture controls.

The tech giants well understand the importance of providing the most compelling interface.
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Going beyond Zoom hell to avatar-based meetings in virtual spaces

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Since March many people feel they have been caught in a ‘Zoom hell‘ of back-to-back video calls throughout their waking hours.

While this would have seemed futuristic a few decades ago, it already feels deeply tired. We have all experienced the problems with engagement, attention, and effective collaboration on video-conferencing calls.

One of the most interesting directions for the next phase of virtual meetings is avatar-based meetings in augmented and virtual reality.

In this very interesting excerpt from my conversation with futurist and AR/VR expert Cathy Hackl on The Virtual Excellence Show, Cathy discusses the realities, potential, and pragmatics of avatar meetings, including a demonstration of one of the current offerings in the space, and her own experiences using the technology.
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Reinvention and the virtuous circle of learning by doing: the case of The Virtual Excellence Show

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For the last couple of months I have been selectively sharing conversations, tutorials, and highlight videos from The Virtual Excellence Show on this blog, but I haven’t written anything about the show itself. This is the story of the show and the most important things I’ve learned so far.

The last time I spoke in-person at a conference was in late February of this year, with in following weeks all my other engagements cancelled in rapid succession. It quickly became apparent that there would be no more physical events for the foreseeable future.

I do have other ventures but the majority of my revenue for the last couple of years has been as a professional speaker, so, as many others, I saw my current livelihood simply evaporating.
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How technology is changing dating and remote relationships in pandemic times

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I was recently interviewed on the Studio 10 TV program about the future of dating and relationships. See the video below:


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Imagine… a global economy optimized around everyone’s unique ability to contribute

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Every one of the almost 8 billion people on this planet is unique.

And everyone can contribute to the world and humanity in a unique way. Most of us spend our lives trying to work out quite how.

The past of work has been one of using and paying for a tiny and specific portion of people’s capabilities.

The future of work should be one that is able to uncover, express, and reward everyone’s unique capabilities and their ability to contribute to society.
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Sharing my life story from a virtual perspective

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Last week on The Virtual Excellence Show our scheduled guest was not able to make it at short notice, so I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to share my own life story and how it relates to the virtual.

For those are familiar with some of my work, the broader frame that I share in the show gives perspective on some of the other facets of my work over the years, much of which has related to the virtual, and how these pieces fit together.

To get the fuller picture watch the video, or if you prefer you can read a transcript below. And if being excellent at things virtual is of interest, please do subscribe to The Virtual Excellence Show on YouTube. 🙂
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Scalable learning founded on small group collaboration and extended networks will drive organizational success

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In my recent conversation with John Hagel on The Virtual Excellence Show, one of the topics John shared insights on was scalable learning, which he has substantially focused on in recent years. For an excellent framing of the subject see his article in Harvard Business Review Great Businesses Scale Their Learning, Not Just Their Operations.

In our conversation John spoke about scalable learning – which by its very nature has to be significantly virtual – as a fundamental driver of institutional success.

He describes how the most powerful form of learning is creating new knowledge by learning from action, the accelerated learning of small groups that challenge and help each other, and the opportunity to connect to broad and diverse expertise beyond the organization.

See the video for John’s full insights, or see below for a full transcript of the video.
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Wave and the future of immersive live virtual music

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Today virtual live music platform Wave announced a $30 million investment, placing it at the center of the burgeoning virtual live music performance space.

I recorded a segment for The Virtual Excellence Show on this, watch the short video below, including relevant video clips, or a transcript is below.
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