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Hannes Sapiens – Biohacker – In Conversation With Futurist Ian Khan

by Ian Khan | Feb 10, 2021 | Ian Khan Blog, Ian Khan's Blog, Podcast

Hannes Sapiens – Biohacker – In Conversation with Futurist Ian Khan

In this episode, i speak with globally recognized Futurist Hannes Sapiens, also a co-contributor to the recent book “After Shock”.

Bio

Hannes Sapiens Sjoblad is an internationally recognised thought leader, media commentator and professional advisor on biohacking, human augmentation and the impact of exponential technologies on the human condition.

As a campaigner and activist he works to democratize public access to and understanding of new, powerful technologies in the field of biohacking. With a background in international business, deep insights in emerging technology fields and an easy going style of communication, Hannes is a popular speaker and business advisor on tech trends.

Learn more about Hannes at https://www.hannessapiens.com

About After Shock

The world’s foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shock—and look ahead to the next 50

Contributors include:

Alan Kay
Aaron Frank
Adrienne Mayor
Alexander Mankowsky
Alexandra Ivanovitch
Alisha Bhagat
Amy Zalman
Anders Sorman-Nilsson
Andra Keay
Andrew Curry
Andy Hines
Anita Sengupta
Anne Lise Kjaer
Aris Persidis
Aubrey de Grey
Barry O’Reilly
Barry Vacker
Bill Davidow
Bill Diamond
Bryan Alexander
Byron Reese
Carlos Osorio
Carver Mead
Cat Tully
Cindy Frewen
Clem Bezold
Daniel Burrus
Daniel Levine
David Brin
David Guston
David Krakauer
David J. Staley
David Weinberger
Deb Westphal
Diane M. Francis
Donna Dupont
Eleanor “Nell” Watson
Eric Daimler
Erica Bol
Erik Qualman
Fotis Sotiropoulos
George Gilder
Grady Booch
Gray Scott
Hannes Sjoblad
Harish Natarajan
Hazel Henderson
Helen Messier
Ian Khan
Ignacio Pena
Jack Uldrich
James Canton
Jane McGonigal
Jason Jackson
Jason Schenker
Jay Gambetta
Jeff Eisenach
Jeffrey C. Bauer
Jerome Glenn
Jerry Fishenden
Joe Dispenza
Joe Tankersley
Joel Garreau
John L. Petersen
John M. Smart
John Sack
John Sanei
John Schroeter
Jonathan Venn
José Morey
Kaitlyn Sadtler
Kirk Borne
Klee Irwin
Kris Østergaard
Lisa Bodell
Maciej Kranz
Martin Guigui
Martin Rees
Maggie Greyson
Michael Tomczyk
Michel Laberge
Mick Ebeling
Moon Ribas
Naveen Jain
Neil Jacobstein
Newt Gingrich
Patricia Lustig & Gill Ringland
Paul Saffo
Paul Stimers
Po Bronson & Arvind Gupta
Ray Kurzweil
Rebecca Costa
Richard Browning
Richard Slaughter
Richard Watson
Richard Yonck
Rodrigo Nieto Gómez
Rohit Bhargava
Ross Dawson
Ruth Miller
Sanjiv Chopra & Pankaj K Vij
Sohail Inayatullah
Sridhar Mahadevan
Stan Rosen
Stephanie Mehta
Steve Waite
Tanya Accone
Terrence (Terry) Sejnowski
Teun Koetsier
Theodore Jay Gordon
Thomas Frey
Timothy Chou
Vikram Mansharamani
Wolfgang Fengler
Zoltan Istvan

Publication Details
ISBN Print: 978-0-9997364-4-9
ISBN eBook: 978-0-9997364-5-6

Full Transcript : Hi friends and welcome to this episode of the Ian Khan show. You’re listening to an aftershock special episode and I’m speaking with a co contributor to the recent book aftershock. Today I’m speaking with Hannes Sapiens who’s a biohacker and human argumentation technologist committed to the idea of radically improving the human condition. He’s an author, speaker, professional advisor on the impact of exponential technologies. And he’s also a faculty member at Singularity University, Nordic Let’s speak with Hannes. Hannes Welcome to the Ian Khan show ladies and gentlemen today I have with me hennis Sapiens. He’s based out of Stockholm works for Singularity University, and he and I are the contributors to aftershock. It’s the book put together by a friend john shorter and a book that came out 50 years after Alvin Toffler wrote the book, Future Shock 50 years ago, it’s so long ago it how do we even make sense of what he wrote back then, is what we’re going to talk about right now.

How are you? hennis? I’m very well, thank you. And it’s it’s great to be on here with you. Thank you so much for making time. I know you’re in Stockholm. So give us a COVID-19 impact assessment as to what’s happening in Stockholm. Right? Well, frankly, I think life here is relatively close to normal compared to many other places. We haven’t really had a proper lockdown. The kids still go to school. Obviously, a lot of people work from home. I do that myself. But I’m happy to tell you that life is carrying on relatively normal over here. So Sweden right now, obviously, is one of those countries that is defined conventional norms. It’s defined what everybody’s talking about lockdown, shut down everything, Don’t move, don’t do anything. But I think the world is failing to understand what Sweden is doing and why it’s doing it. And many people are afraid that isn’t the right thing to do. What’s the strategy behind keeping everything open? What are Swedes doing to stay safe? Generally speaking, right. So this, this could potentially be a long conversation. But my main takeaways for an international audience would be that the Swedish strategy is that the cure shouldn’t be worse than the initial disease. So yes, COVID-19 is a terrible disease. But if we run the country into a complete economic crash, then that’s going to have even worse consequences. And fool currently in works for a short time, but it has also has many negative effects for society. I think the explanation why this is happening in Sweden is partly the way this country works. And partly, it’s the culture of Swedes. So the first dimension is that in Sweden, the politicians have stepped back from from making decisions and left it to the experts. Whereas in many other places, we’ve seen politicians who want to be brave, and they want to make decisions that they want to show that to take it seriously. And they lock everything down and close the borders. And that’s not very sustainable. If this is going to last for for many, many months. Yes. second dimension is that we Swedes have a general overall we obey authority to a decent extent. So if the government tells us stay at home, don’t meet your grandparents, people actually comply to a very large extent without you know, the threat of putting police and military in the street to enforce these things. Excellent. Well, hoping everybody comes out of this without a scratch. Let’s talk about Toffler Toffler has changed the way many of us think. aftershock got 50 plus futurists together and we all wrote our piece in the book talking about what does Future Shock mean? What are we doing today, you’ve written that you constantly are trying to explain Future Shock to people, or you’re trying to put them into Future Shock, so that they could start understanding the changes the world is going through and so on. Tell me about your process of knowing Future Shock, and then helping others understand it, right. Yes, I read the book many years ago, and I found it very inspirational. So it’s been a concept of carried with me for many years. And one thing that I have been doing a lot over the last few years is that I have been very active in the world of biohacking, where we experiment with new technologies, and what we can do to modify biological systems everywhere, from sales to plants, to animals, even to homosapiens. And in this role, I have been traveling the world really speaking to audiences and doing workshops with companies and organizations and I, as a practical biohacker, I really enjoyed taking people through an experience before I do the theory part. And one of the many hacks that we apply is to chip implant people on stage and chip implants is an awesome way to experience how technology is not just modifying society and business but also ourselves. And I find the reactions to instead of showing people some beautiful slides and curves when you actually take them through a live demo when there is blood and there is needles and there is drama that touches very deeply and it conveys a very strong message and when I think Think of this in terms of giving people a proper Future Shock. And so you’re putting Future Shock into actual perspective by by getting people to interact with technology in the way they always listen. But then you’re getting them to experience that I think that’s a great way of getting people to, to understand something is by going through the process, the pain, the pleasure, whatever we can call it. In the book, you also talk about the ideas of Big Brother, Big Sister, they’re always talking about surveillance states, how the world is changing how we’re being watched, and how some people always want to know what you’re doing and how they use our information to do whatever they need to do. And there’s so many different ideas, thoughts, people who have different ways of thinking about it. How do you separate these Tell us about your philosophy on this? Right? Well, in a nutshell, we live in a world, which is already a world of distributed sensors and big data and enormous data flows. This is the new normal, it’s not going to go away. And you can take different perspectives on this, the obvious one, let’s say the 20th century perspective would be, oh, no, this is a big brother society, we are being under surveillance, we are being you know, abuse and data is being taken of our behavior. And then it’s being used against us in different ways. And it’s overall a frightening, you know, idea of the future. What I’m trying to convey and with the metaphor of the big sister society is that if we take this world of big data, and consciously design, how we want these things to work with respect for the individual user, and also giving the user control and power over their own data, then we can enable a very different society. And with the metaphor of the big sister society, what I want to convey is a world where it is not a big brother bully that sort of observes you and addresses you in ways that frighten you. But a caring system watched over by machines of loving Grace is a classic line from a good old poem. And what I’m trying to say with the big sister society is that we can create a society in which the systems take care of us to a very great extent. Then there’s of course, the the ironic twist that I myself grew up with two big brothers and I never had a big sister. So maybe I see them in a in a somewhat rose tinted light. Yeah, and you write about this in the book and I’m going to read from from actually from the book use a big sister does not spy on us, She protects us from prying eavesdroppers Big Sister does not monitor our online habits in order to push more products on us. Instead, she negotiates with the other superbly powerful systems on the other side on our behalf. And I want to add a thought here that I really believe we are going to this very initial evolution of our relationship with technology, right? Our relationship with surveillance, artificial intelligence, robotics, name it, whatever it is, I don’t think we’ve lived with all these things for many, many years. And I think first off this primary relation that we have many things we are too keen on many things we don’t observe. I’m wondering, and it’s an open question. I wonder what the world will be like 20 years from now, or 30 years from now. Right. And I’m thinking about Toffler 50 years ago, he wrote the book, what will the world be 25 years from now? Will we really be so attached to our data and our information that we are as we are right now? Or would we have evolved to a different state, and we wouldn’t care about something? What do you think about that, I think there are data that we still don’t have access to that are tremendously important. For example, data relating to our own health. Today, if I feel ill, for some reason, I need to go to a doctor, I need to draw a blood sample, we need to analyze it in a lab, and then I’ll get my data A week later. And this for me, the body has a system, if something that we urgently need to have a completely different data access to. And in 20 years from today, I think that will absolutely be the norm. I think that what we need is a technology that gives us a real time understanding of what is happening in our systems. We can do this for companies, we can create awesome companies with dashboards of web traffic or cash or inventory flows. But we can’t do it for the most important system of all the ones that keeps us alive. And my vision is that we must create this technology that allows us this access to our bodies. And I would like to make the analog with vaccinations because 100 years ago, most people were not vaccinated and many people died from diseases like tuberculosis. And today, it’s of course the norm. Everyone has numerous vaccinations during the years when we grow up, and we don’t question it. My view is that in 20 years from now People will be asking how did people survive back then when you didn’t have this real time understanding of what was going on in your bodies? And you know, what will tell them? We can say, Yeah, can you imagine people died back then? Yeah, I completely agree with you, and that we are going through this natural process of rejecting something new and fighting and opposing it, but then we are getting very comfortable with it. One of the dilemmas with technology generally doing so much for us is, is privacy is the integrity of information. I think at the end, I could be wrong. But if you simmer down everything, people are either afraid of their body that they will be caused bodily harm if their information is exposed to let’s say, my information is exposed. And I might say, well, a stalker will come to my home and attack me or rob me correct. Like, literally the bottom line. Or people might say, well, somebody’s going to steal all my money from my bank. Remember, the early days, when online banking started, people wouldn’t even log into online bank saying no, I don’t trust this thing. Because why? Well, somebody may access my funds and take my money. So these are literally big, big things that people are afraid of. And my question to everybody all the time is, what if these they have our information and they cannot do anything, right? You see a lot happening with the democratization of technology and how data is everywhere. Maybe tomorrow, it would be fine to give our data away. And we wouldn’t be afraid that any harm will come to us financial, economic, bodily harm. One of the things now that I want to get into regarding biohacking is that sure, we’re going to have implants, we’re going to maybe and that’s where we’re going with by hacking, correct? What if the corporation that controls these implants starts controlling me and does something to me makes me into a slave or robot? I don’t know people have great imagination, they can see see to make the worst. So how do we start creating that understanding what the possibilities are what what are your thoughts on this, as you as you do this work in biohacking? I think we’ve overcome bigger challenges. I think that this is in many ways, it’s the perspective of human rights. It’s not the data in itself, that is bad in any way. We need to understand if we specifically take body data, for example, it’s always an agent with a certain agenda that has the potential to abuse it. And in open societies and in well, working societies, we have protections against these things. And this is what we must extend to all human beings on this planet, the principles of privacy of human rights in a broad sense. There are also initiatives, of course, regarding understanding the rights for upgraded persons, such as, for example, the right to have ownership to technology, third party technology in your body, right to imagine that I would have at some point an implant from Apple, for example, at any point in time, I will have the right to if they want to take it away, I will have the right to keep it if it’s part of me, I will be able to say yes or no to any kind of software systems that are installed there. We can set up rules and procedures that actually protect the individual to a significant extent with technology, and also the legal systems that we have in place today. So I am an optimist that we will muddle through with creating this more benevolent surveillance system, which I call the big sister, do you see some regions, some countries are doing some really good work regarding this? I know a lot of places and regions are doing work about it. But good work? What are some of the good examples that you can share with us? Well, let me be honest with you, I am proud. And I’m also happy to be living in Europe. In this day and age, because of the way data is treated here. If you somewhat simplify the different wealth systems and how we work with data, you can you have the American model, which is that individuals users data or the property of the corporations, it can be collected, it can be sold, it can be traded, it can be exploited in many ways. And then you have the Chinese version, which is data, not for profit, but data for control. When it’s the state that collects the data on the people companies are relatively restricted, but the government can apply the insights on people’s behavior and sanction different behaviors. Whereas in the European model, we do our best far from perfect to protect individual rights and human freedoms under the law. And I think for example, with the GDPR, we have a decent degree of protection. It’s interesting to see though how other parts of the world how this is playing out, because we can see that countries with more authoritarian tendencies such as Russia and Turkey, they are looking very closely at the Chinese model. So we’ll really see I see this is a battle of really some different systems in the 21st century, how we how we manage these big data models on a national and international level. I also think that I completely agree. I also think we’ve got to do a lot of work when it comes to regulations when it comes to international relationships when it comes to Africa. work that we can apply to this or subset of technologies globally, right? Because if I have data implants, or if I have implants of some kind in me, you know, I’ve got different things happening. And I go from us to I go to Japan, or I go to India or I go to China, and I should have the same rights or, you know, the governance around having those implants. And so that’s very important. I think that a framework be created. Is there somebody who’s leading this? Or is there somebody who’s creating this framework? Is there a body an organization that’s working on this right now or no, not to my knowledge, there is no international initiative on a significant level, there are brilliant technologists and philosophers who are exploring these points, I think that they may not be as influential as we want them to be. But COVID-19 is, of course, a roadblock now in terms of the ongoing globalization, but I think that globalization and international harmonization of laws of travel of industry of business is just it’s going to pick up again, sooner or later. It’s an inevitable development. And of course, we need to harmonize these things. Otherwise people will vote with their feet and go to places where they feel that they are treated fairly. Absolutely hoping that the next five to 10 years we’ll see more development in the world of biohacking. Help us maybe take, you know, the first few steps into biohacking. What should our listeners do about it? Where can they go and read more about it? Or what can they do? I’m not saying they should start experimenting on their bodies with something but what is it? They should? What is the safe way, which is my right, so there are many good things in which you can explore just getting to understand your so let me explain briefly the concept of biohacking specifically for us humans, what we can do is you can measure thanks to new technologies, a lot of things about your body, through wearables and other systems, you can log and understand your system in many good ways, then the hacking comes in first you need to understand the system, then you need to see how you can modify it. If you want to change your vital parameters in various ways your cholesterol are different vitamin levels, etc. You can address that through diet and exercise and supplements, etc. So but I would encourage everyone to, for example, do a DNA test, get an understanding of your own genome don’t do this silly ones, like oh, what’s my heritage, that’s not what this is all about. It’s about understanding how your system works, what kind of diseases you’re susceptible to what kind of diet and exercise that are actually optimal for you based on your genetics. And in this perspective, I think that everyone should really do a genetic test, because you will learn a lot of interesting things. A rapidly expanding field in genetics is pharmacogenomics. pharmacogenomics, is the fact that your genes, in fact, have a great effect on different medicines that you take. And a lot of people take medicines that don’t really have the expected effect, because they have certain gene variants, a lot of doctors subscribe to certain medicines without being aware of whether the patient has that particular gene or not. And if you go to the FDA website, they are have an ever growing list of gene markers that now relate to different medications. So this is a completely new field in research that has just exploded over the last few years simply because we now have access to huge human genome datasets. And I encourage everyone to learn about this technology, what you can do with it, and how it really impacts your life in very important ways. You mentioned the DNA test, is there a specific test stance that people should take like there’s, there’s probably many of them, there are hundreds online, you can just browse around. Now, if you’re concerned about how they use your data, I wouldn’t go for a US based one, forgive me. But I’d rather go for a European based one, where you actually own the data, even if it’s in the company system. And there are dozens of them online. And so the reasons for doing a genetic test is learn about disease, learn about how you should eat and exercise and most importantly, perhaps learn about what kind of medications you may or may not be suited to taking. And then it’s the more cute and little bit silly dimension, which is Oh, what kind of ancestry Do I have and find the distant relatives? That’s not for the biohackers? Absolutely. Well, I think that that’s an interesting thought for us to go and figure out who we are, first of all, and then get into the second stage of optimizing our body, look into biohacking, see what can enhance our lives our health? You never know what’s what’s around the corner. A hand is where can people find out more about you? Where can they follow you check out your work, tell us right so I’m on most of the social platforms if they want to find me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, it’s harness Sapiens. And I’m very happy to engage with people who are human augmentation and human body modification will give us radically different better future. Amazing. Well, thank you so much Hannah’s for being here having this conversation with us. Thank you for being part of Aftershock. It’s been incredible sharing the platform with thinkers like yourself, very humbling for me to be part of that special group of people keep doing what you’re doing, continue making changes in the world. And hopefully we’ll see around the bend after COVID-19. And I completely agree the world is going to bounce back things are going to change and hopefully we’ll be stronger, better. And yeah, we’ll look forward to catching up with you very shortly. My pleasure. I thank you very much for time you take care. Hey, friends, this is Ian Khan. If you like what you saw on my video, then please subscribe to my YouTube channel and be inspired every single day with innovative content that keeps you fresh, updated and ready for the future. For more information. Also visit my website at Ian khan.com

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Kris Ostergaard On The Ian Khan Show

by Ian Khan | Feb 10, 2021 | Ian Khan Blog, Ian Khan's Blog, Podcast

Bestselling Author Kris Ostergaard on the Ian Khan Show

Kris Ostergaard is a researcher, author and globally sought after keynote speaker on innovation, corporate culture and the impact of technological change. He is co-founder and Chief Learning & Innovation Officer of SingularityU Nordic, the Nordic entity of Silicon Valley based educational institution, Singularity University.

Besides being the author of Transforming Legacy Organizations, Kris also co-authored The Fundamental 4s – Designing Extraordinary Customer Experiences in an Exponential World. He has co-founded the experience design firm DARE2, accelerator program Thinkubator and co-working space DARE2mansion. Kris is also a board member, angel investor and advisor to both startups and Fortune 500s.

Kris is also bestselling author of Transforming Legacy Organizations: Turn your Established Business into an Innovation Champion to Win the Future.

About After Shock

The world’s foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shock—and look ahead to the next 50

Contributors include:

Publication Details
ISBN Print: 978-0-9997364-4-9
ISBN eBook: 978-0-9997364-5-6

Thanks for watching this video! Please do subscribe to our channel.

Full Transcript : Hi friends and welcome to the Ian Khan Show. Today we’re listening to a special aftershock episode and I’m speaking with a co contributor to the book aftershocks. My guest today is Chris Ostergaard. He’s the co founder and chief learning and Innovation Officer at Singularity University Nordic, which is the North Nordic entity of Singularity University is the author of transforming legacy organizations, co author off the fundamental fours. Let’s go over to Chris. Welcome to the Ian Khan show. And today I have with me a really great friend, Chris Ostergaard. He’s based out of Denmark. He’s in Copenhagen, one of the big, most beautiful cities that I personally like.

And Chris, how are you? I’m very good. Thank you. How are you? I’m doing well. How are things are working out in Copenhagen? I’m asking everybody about COVID-19. What are the repercussions? Tell me how you guys doing there? First of all, yeah, I feel always I have to emphasize how lucky I am to live in a country like Denmark. And that is actually also correct this time around. So relatively speaking, we are safe here in Denmark, I think the government reacted relatively quickly as well. So we’ve been in more or less of total lockdown about the Prime Minister just announced today that they’re opening up slightly. Now we’ve had, again, relatively speaking few deaths, and the curve has flattened and it looks to be moving in the right direction. So I feel that we’re in a in a fortunate place compared to a lot of other countries around the world. You know, a few weeks ago, maybe a couple of months, I should say now that we were all moving at a certain pace in our lives with business with life, and we were paying attention to many things. We were not paying attention to many things. But it’s so amazing how that perspective changes how our focus changes, because of what’s happening in the world outside. How do you think the world will come out of COVID-19? What do you see happening in the next couple of years? Let’s start there. So what I think will happen is that what we’re already seeing is there are a lot of, you know, jokes and cartoons floating around on the internet on who sort of sped up the digital transformation processes in the world and in organizations. Was it the CIO? Was it the CEO? Or was it the Coronavirus, right. And so for organizations who have been forced to move even more radically into digital transformation as our society as a whole, obviously, we’re all working from home now, or at least most of us to probably what that means is that cause those trends existed already the move towards digital or probably what it means is that it is sped up the pace at which law will transition into this with five, seven years, let’s say right, so while we of course, there’s another there’s light at the end of the tunnel in regards to us being able to meet physically, again, hopefully very, very soon traveling and going to restaurants, tourism, all of that stuff. I’m convinced that this has really accelerated the whole move into digital for all of us, both professionally and personally, to a much higher degree than would have otherwise been the case. Absolutely. And I can’t agree more that you know, we’re we’re going towards a different world, of course, majority of everything being seen, but at least I think people have given it a test drive and people who haven’t been technology savvy, they’re using technology, and hopefully it creates some efficiency in our world. It reduces our carbon footprint, it does all of those good things that it’s supposed to do. I really believe that it’s some kind of maybe a wake up call or maybe a great leveler, greater reset, greater refresh. It’s one of those things where we’re getting an opportunity to think a little bit more because we were just so busy in the world that we live in. So I really suggest everybody to utilize this time in reading more in doing an online course in studying and doing a bunch of these things that you’ve been constantly being let go. So good time to do that. Let’s talk about technology. So we’re here because we both are contributors to this amazing book called aftershock. And aftershock was put together by a friend john Schroeder. He needs to pay me every time I say his name seriously. I’ve said his name so many times. But john shorter put this book together called aftershock. 50 years after the famous futurist Alvin Toffler wrote his book, Future Shock and Future Shock was a revolution 50 years ago, he talked about this future with technology and how people will behave and so on and so forth. And so this book has 50 different futurists who talk about the future. Alvin Toffler. Tell me about your experiences and your exposure to Alvin Toffler. Yeah, so well, it was really amazing to get the chance to contribute to this book, because obviously, I have, you know, been in the space of innovation for I guess, almost two decades now in various shapes and forms. And so the book Future Shock has always, you know, stood out almost as a Bible in regards to looking into where we will we’re heading as a society and the impact that technology will have as well. I think his predictions and his scenarios for the future, there are so many remarkable insights on his account that it’s just mind boggling to see now 50 years after I read the book and in preparing for contributing to to aftershock, and it was just mind boggling to me to really see how he nailed it in terms of some of these very big influence inchoate trends that we’re seeing, including, as we were just speaking about speed, the whole notion of, you know, the adhocracy, the network, HR organizations, and how we would all be operating at a pace and impact so far, far bigger than what was the case in 1970. And he certainly got that right. And that was sort of what inspired me to take that as a starting point to look into then. So what does that then mean for you know, the next 50 years or thereabouts? And so you also you work with Singularity University, isn’t that right? Yeah. I’m a co founder of Singularity University, we system Nordic entity of Singularity University. So we have our headquarters in Copenhagen and no service all of the Nordic countries on the faculty of Singularity University, where I’m specialized in regards to innovation and primarily innovation in large established organizations. I recently wrote a book called transforming legacy organizations that deals with this. And I’m also the host of the corporate innovation podcast, which is a Singularity University podcast as well. And Singularity is incredible. With the number of programs you guys have the number of experts you’ve got, I’ve definitely interviewed a few people from Singularity University on my podcast series as part of Aftershock. And hopefully I’m also looking forward to perhaps interviewing a couple of more people that I’ve missed. But Peter, Peter Diamandis is amazing, incredible to see all the work you guys do. XPrize is amazing. It’s great for innovation and to push the boundaries. Let’s talk about artificial intelligence is one of these things that we all are continuously pushing and pushing ahead. And you have a really nice model of human AI roles in the future workplace, you know, what does the future look like when it’s the the mesh between artificial intelligence helped me understand this model that you have here? And I’m going to put this up here? I’ve been reading it. Yeah. talk. Talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah. So what I was investigating and have been thinking a lot about and wrote about in aftershock was the whole notion of so whatever topless spoke about these network HR organizations, and you know, the radical increase in pace and impact that we will be seeing from organizations and with all the technological development, then we have been seeing, and we’ll be seeing what does that then mean for the types of organizations that we will have in the future. And to me those, there’s really two key issues here, which is about human and artificial intelligence, I’m pretty sure I don’t know how far down the line, but at one point, we will be talking about artificial intelligence and longer, right, that sort of terminology, simply because I guess it is still so new to us. But then I guess that’s the point and making that, you know, increasingly artificial intelligence, and what that enables, becomes, you know, natural to us, or, as a default, that is just absolutely, basically necessary for running a company. And I guess we’re almost already there. And certainly, pretty soon, if you’re not AI powered as an organization, well, you know, then you have issues. And thus it is it is about AI or human execution and AI or human authority in regards to your organization who does the work and who calls the shots. And let me to develop this model here, that’s, you know, the basic two by two that sort of highlights four core organizational models that we already see, one of them is still relatively theoretical theology we already see and we will see them in an even more emphasized version. And so the most relatable probably is what I call the hyper lean organization. So that is your big tech companies of today the most of the the Silicon Valley and increasingly from other places as well hardcore tech companies that how are by almost entirely digital, they’re empowered by technology, they know working very hard to become AI, first all of them, so they have to a larger and larger extent AI execution, right, but they have human authority. And so what I’m contemplating here is that you know, increasingly, we will be able to have AI execution on more and more tasks. And the question then becomes, at a certain point, we might be able to give the job to the AI or have the AI executed, and when will we choose not to give the authority to the AI? When will we choose to remain in the driver’s seat as human beings? Yeah, that’s the human versus AI authority. And you know, and I guess that that becomes an ethical, philosophical discussion. At one point, we will be able to have the AI call the shots, but we will choose based on some ethical guiding principles that no we want to call the shots at least at a certain level, but increasingly that will mean that organizations the hyperlink organizations, they will be, you know, have management levels of people but won’t be needing human beings for execution. As you know, core staff are will to a much larger, larger extents rely on freelancers, which is another sort of core forms of organization that we will see we already seeing it, of course, but that will be by far the dominant way of working. Yeah, that is where of course you have human execution here. But increasingly AI authority, I got you. Now we’re in now, you mentioned the Silicon Valley that there’s some kind of, you know, the early adopters of AI are in Silicon Valley. What other pockets in the world do you see adapting more towards this AI driven world? I see a lot being done done in Europe to in to some extent, you know, the Netherlands is doing something. The UAE United Arab Emirates, Dubai is doing something with an entire artificial intelligence ministry, Saudi Arabia is doing something with a newly formed ai thority that’s working on AI in any particular experiences or insights, China, so probably no one at least geographically is doubling down harder on AI than China is. And and I don’t think you can find any country in the world wouldn’t say that, you know, AI is absolutely core to the future, you will be hard pressed to find companies not saying that. And of course, they have very different levels of maturity, where the Silicon Valley and quotation mark types of organizations are sort of leading the game here, but that doesn’t matter. They’re found in Silicon Valley or in Shenzhen or in Tel Aviv, or where they’re coming from. And that’s, that’s really on how they are designed from the get go on their understanding of technology. Well, legacy organizations, you know, it’s a longer journey for them, right, because there are still, again, different maturities. But they’re still you know, moving from analog to digital. And But increasingly, of course, that also means that they’re thinking AI from the minute they start to think about digital. Now, what about some of these really extremely large corporations that are funding AI researching AI, they’ve got billions of people who use their products and solutions, and we know who we’re talking about, which is great, we love their product solutions, and everything’s great. It makes our life so much more easy. But where do we start looking at AI as something that could fall into the wrong hands and the information people have out there could be used in a wrong way? like where’s the ethical boundary? Where’s the regulation boundary? How’s regulation, ethics, user rights, privacy all coming together? When we talk about AI? That’s the billion dollar question. Right. But maybe it’s the trillion dollar question. So a lot of people are asking those questions right now, both on a societal level and enterprise level and individual level. I think there are many ethical dilemmas in here and which is also actually a reason that we are right now in the process of putting together a book, which is like aftershock also an anthology called ethics at work, which is exactly about this stuff, how do we move into the future and ensure that as enterprises as organizations, we do that in an ethical manner, knowing that due to the exponential developments of technology that you know, our powers and the impact we can have with these technologies is increasing dramatically. So ethics becomes ever more important? And there’s so many questions that need answering here. And I think what kind of answers we are giving will mean, you’re dependent on a lot of different things we see geographically, if you look to us versus China versus the EU, it’s a very, very different philosophical foundation for how we think about ethics and how we act out our ethics so well. So that’s like one starting point. And then of course, you have individual organizational philosophies as well, that also impact the center. The bottom line is, as we’re speaking right now, this is very early days when it comes to ethics is that most people and that also goes for top leaders in organizations and politicians, they don’t really have awareness about the importance of ethics, they don’t have a language or ethics, they don’t have principles, they don’t have frameworks. So it’s really about kickstarting these conversations to move that into figuring out what are the kinds of actions we need to take, and how do we operationalize ethics. That’s really what’s going to be absolutely at the core of it. And what’s challenging is that, you know, we’ve had technology in the mainstream for I would say, for over 20 years now, at least 30 plus years, we’ve used technology on an everyday basis. And it’s taken us so long to come to the point where we are right now. Now, undoubtedly, AI and related technologies will accelerate the pace of change, and AI will teach itself and machine and robotics and Internet of Things will all come together. I really don’t see that happening for the next five to seven years, or even 10 years. All right, the scenarios that are posted in the movies and media, I think they’re pretty far away based on oil in some pockets. Maybe yes, you might see a lot of automation. But when we look at generally AI dominating in running different things across the world, where do you see it kind of becoming the mainstream? What timeframe would you give it? So it’s interesting when we’ve been a couple of studies done qualitative studies with relatively large bundles of experts in a variety of domains with this question on whether we Hitting what type of AI development or dominance etc. And I think what everybody agrees upon is you know how wildly they agree upon the timelines for when something will happen, but everybody agrees that you know, it will happen at some point, I think, you know, what is what is automation is one part we will the Coronavirus was will also accelerate this because organizations need to double down on innovation. That’s sort of the hard part because during crisis, typically innovation suffers. But they also of course, need to double down on efficiency and effectiveness. And that means automation. And that means leveraging AI then even faster pace and then what they were already doing, but then it’s consumer, right. So it’s you know, it’s Amazon, its Alexa, that’s where it’s coming from, right. It’s about you know, evermore convenience for the consumer ever more customer centricity for the consumer AI, plays and can play a huge role in this generally speaking, as consumers, we, you know, we’re suckers for convenience, right? If we can get it more convenient, we want it if we can get it more customized wants and needs, we want that and that does whoever can provide that. And, you know, Amazon’s is way ahead in this game right now. And they want Alexa to be your digital assistant that you know, sits on your I don’t know if it’s the left or right shoulder 24 seven, and you know, whisper to you, you know, how you should act and move and purchase right so that they’re pushing this massive plan. And you know, we can talk about levels here. But there’s already what 100 million Alexis out there in the world. So I don’t see that stopping at all, I only see that accelerating for sure. And I think one of the core reasons for how fast this adoption will accelerate and to what extent the AI assistant digital assistants, whether we want to call them what role they’re able to play in our lives will, to a very large extent depend on legislation, and what our governments will allow? Absolutely. I want to read something from the books. It’s from your chapter. And it says these human workers will in effect, have an AI boss telling them what to do evaluating their work, and ultimately deciding whether they deserve a raise a bonus, a warning or termination. I think in some industries, where there’s high level of automation, I don’t know if they, you know, what kind of workers will still be working in a factory where there’s so much automation, that technology is your boss, what industries Do you see where the role of technology will be much higher, let’s say, you know, 98% of your employees are AI robot robots machines, and maybe one or two or 5% are humans. So I guess ultimately, it’s gonna come down to cost. And so in some cases, you are able to automate something, but you don’t do it, because it’s actually still cheaper to have a human being doing it, at least for now. And then, you know, at a certain point, maybe technology will be able to take over if there’s an incentive to develop a cost effective enough technology. And maybe there isn’t, depending on, you know, the cost of the human labor hand. So, but it points to the notion of the freelancer right, which is, you know, there’s one study that suggests that it by 27 50% of the American workforce will be freelancers working in the gig economy, right. Again, Coronavirus here that’s accelerating this for sure. With these incredible terrible numbers we see upon employment, right and the you know, notion of a cakewalk, and being a freelancer is great if you have real unique skill sets, and you can choose your jobs, and you can have a really great paycheck come out of it as well. But for the majority of people being a freelancer and being part of the gig economy that is need that is not want, and that will accelerate. And that will increase dramatically. And to the extent we already see what the Googles of the world, they have more contractors than they have full time employees, right, because they don’t need to provide the same salaries and the same benefits to them. So it’s much more cost effective for them to do that. So unless our legislators do something about this, there’s no doubt this will be to like the 90 plus percent degree be the predominant way that human beings will be working, they know down the line here and whether they will be able to do that in a guess even more in a better way than what is currently the case for the majority I think will depend on whether they will be able to unionize. And I think guess for unions, this is their chance to really come back and claim a spot in history that they used to have as well, but they have sort of lost over the last two years. I completely am blown away with some of the possibilities that are possible in the world of tomorrow. And hopefully, we’ll have better mechanisms of predicting disease and coming up with treatments and cures and things that are unsolvable right now. Like right now. I think we’re literally at the mercy of many different elements around us and we’re unable to do anything but hopefully hope is something hope an action that people take is something that keeps us going forward. Chris, I know we’re limited on time and tell us more about Singularity University and where people can check your work out, Singularity University out and some of the ways they can start learning and engaging with the university. It’s a great time to learn Yeah, absolutely. So we’re an educational institution and our education programs focus on how to leverage technology to solve the really big problems in the world, what we call the global grand challenges and you can check singularity Nordic out issue nordic.org, which is based in the Nordic countries here out of Copenhagen, there’s an su.org as well, which is global, if you like. What we do is similar around the world, we have education programs to help people understand technologies better and more importantly, understand how they can leverage the technologies both on a societal organizational and individual level to make a positive impact in the world. There’s also the podcast I recently started in collaboration with Singularity University called the corporate innovation podcast you can find it on your streaming services of choice where every week I’m talking to a world leading innovator with a lot of innovation dirt under their nails to really understand how to think innovation in order to create 10 x impact so I couldn’t wait definitely recommend them to check that out as well. Amazing. a quiz thank you so much for your time and helping us understand where we’re headed. Again, everybody grab a copy of Aftershock is available on Amazon. And it’s really a great read if you want to understand what forces shape the future and what you should do and how things are evolving. Chris cannot thank you enough for taking the time for us. Thank you so much, and you have an amazing time and hopefully we’ll catch up in the future. Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. Thank you. Hey, friend, this is Ian Khan. If you liked what you saw on my video, then please subscribe to my YouTube channel and be inspired every single day with innovative content that keeps you fresh, updated and ready for the future. For more information. Also visit my website at Ian khan.com

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Donna Dupont, Chief Strategist, Foresight & Design At Purple Compass With Ian Khan Futurist

by Ian Khan | Feb 10, 2021 | Ian Khan Blog, Ian Khan's Blog, Podcast

Donna Dupont, Chief Strategist, Foresight & Design at Purple Compass with Ian Khan Futurist.

In this episode i speak with Donna Dupont, a co-contributor to the recent book “After Shock”.

Bio

As the Founder and Chief Strategist in Foresight & Design for Purple Compass, Donna Dupont brings skills and insights developed over 20 years working with leaders in healthcare, emergency management, government public policy, strategic planning and program design. She has facilitated a range of foresight and design activities for clients in healthcare, emergency management and military.

Donna’s interests are at the intersection between climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and sustainable development. Her aim is to collaborate with communities and organizations, and use strategic foresight and design methods to empower and strengthen local capacity, health services, public safety and security.

Prior to Purple Compass, Donna held a variety of senior roles within Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in both healthcare and emergency management. She also worked on the front-lines as a Registered Respiratory Therapist during the SARS crisis. Donna is a recipient of seven government awards at the provincial and federal level for outstanding achievement, excellence and partner relations in policy and strategic planning.

Donna is a Master of Design candidate in Strategic Foresight & Innovation (2020) at OCAD University, has a BHA in Health Services Management from Ryerson University, and completed continuing education with Harvard Humanitarian Academy, United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. She is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists (APF), International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), and the Canadian Risks & Hazards Network (CRHNet).

About After Shock

The world’s foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shock—and look ahead to the next 50

Contributors include:

Publication Details
ISBN Print: 978-0-9997364-4-9
ISBN eBook: 978-0-9997364-5-6

Full Transcript : Hi friends this is Ian Khan and you’re listening to the Ian Khan show. And this is an aftershock special episode. In today’s episode I’m speaking with Donna DuPont, who’s the founder and chief strategist and foresight in design for purple compass. with a focus on disaster risk management and sustainable development. Donna is in the final stage of completing her master of design and strategic foresight and innovation at OCAD University and she lives in Toronto over to Donna. Donna. Welcome to the Ian Khan show. It is such a pleasure to have you now first of all, you and I are book contributors to this amazing book that came out some time ago aftershock, which was written 50 years now I want our listeners to understand 50 to five zero half a century ago gentleman named Alvin Toffler wrote a book called Future Shock in which he wrote about the future tomorrow the changes that will happen, and in aftershock we wrote about you and I and 50 other contributors wrote about our thoughts and ideas of Future Shock in the world we are living in.

So welcome to the show, and the special series featuring aftershock contributors. How are you today? Well, thank you for the invitation. And I’m doing well. I mean, considering the time that we’re living in right now and all of the change and the turbulence, I’m finding a way to, to manage day to day. Yeah, and I think a lot of people are trying to also figure out the new normal going forward. Now let’s talk about the new normal, you are a practicing futurist you. This is your work, you live futurism for a living, help us understand, is this something that is part of this incredible change that was supposed to happen that Oscar wrote about? Is this one of those things? You need? Specifically the pandemic? Yes, yes. Well, I mean, infectious disease type emergencies isn’t new. They’ve been around, we’ve had them before, but they are really complex type of emergencies. And so what we’ve learned from this particular experience is that a lot of our assumptions or perspectives, perceptions of what we thought would happen, are totally being challenged right now, in so many ways. And what we are seeing is a lot of the social and economic cascading consequences of this particular health emergency. And so I think for a lot of people, you know, and myself included working in the emergency management space, we’ve done scenarios, we’ve done pandemic planning, this is really challenging for our assumptions as well in so many different ways. And I think it is an incredible learning opportunity to to understand the broader system and the vulnerabilities that exist right now and to have conversations about the future, I believe. So know, one of the things that and I’ve spoken with so many incredible people who contributed to this book, one of the reasons being soil. So the other night de la, who’s based out of Australia, amazing futurist, and tons of other people. Now, everyone I’ve spoken to, from a futurism angle, is saying, Hey, you know, it was supposed to happen one way or the other, if it’s not, the pandemic, it’s going to be an asteroid, if it’s not an asteroid, it’s going to be a tsunami, it’s one thing or the other, that’ll keep on happening, because change is not changes constantly. The world has a very dynamic nature. And as we keep an eye in people in the world, we are we’re battling with just one specific event. There’s many other things happening in the world, which are great, which are good that probably Toffler wrote about in his books, as well. Tell me a little bit about Toffler and his work. Have you read his work intensively? Are you inspired by his work? Tell me about your experience? Well, I am inspired by taufers work, and I’m inspired from just the perspective of adaptation, and that changing environment and how, as a society, we need to adapt and evolve. And I think that’s an important concept that is not necessarily recognized a lot today, I think a lot of organizations, people really have a very, potentially a very static type of view of the system or the broader environment. And so don’t really think about it as constantly emerging or changing and don’t necessarily pick up on those signals in the system on whether or not those signals might be relevant to their personal lives or to their professional lives. And so I think that this I love the notion of this constant adaptation, and that we need to be mindful, we need to be aware and we need to be prepared to adapt and pivot. And I think that’s what we’re exactly seeing right now with COVID-19. We’re seeing a lot of different organizations and also people they’re everyone’s lives are shifting and based on this particular crisis, and so we are having to change our havior is the way we do business. And for a lot of organizations from a business perspective, they’re pivoting their business models, there’s a lot of uncertainty and they may need to redefine going into the future. So they will need a stronger, different vision post COVID. Amazing. I actually want to read something from your essay in the book that I think aligns with this, you say, and I’m quoting, as is true for many organizations, the emergency disaster management community has a tendency to think and behave in short term cycles moving from crisis to crisis stuck in the cycle of disaster response recovery loop, the knowledge gained from emergency events is not fully mobilized into long term planning, in anticipation of emerging and future risk. And this is what I want to ask you about, how do we get ready for future risk? How do we plan for future risk? It’s a good question, I think the first place to start is our perception of risk, and to really take a look and have those conversations about what is our perspective, our assumptions, our internal biases, and to take a more systems lens of looking at risk. And I see this kind of playing out right now with the pandemic. And you’ll see right now your different countries have different assessments of risk around the pandemic. And based on that risk, they’re making decisions around public health protection measures. And that’s an important assessment, right, because you’re going to see differences across the board. And some of those decisions might be influenced from economic lens, a political lens, there might be other issues at play that we’re not aware of. So I think the whole discussion around future risk needs to be to start with our perception, what we what we what are our biases, perspectives of risk, and then and have a conversation about what’s emerging. Right. And that requires new skill sets, new ways of engaging with risk. So not just looking at risk from a modeling perspective of predictive analytics, and just very limited variables, but to really recognize the complexity of systems and where the modeling the predictive models end is an opportunity to pick up with foresight methodology, to have more of that holistic view of what’s emerging around risk, and also identifying those areas of uncertainty. Because that can be a very problematic space for a lot of organizations, understanding how to work with uncertainty how to generate agency for change a lot of people if they’re uncertain than they just don’t go there or have that conversation. But I think it’s important to be open to having those those conversations. Now, does this have anything to do with how we’re able to use emerging technology to maybe accelerate this learning process, because I really believe the art and the skill of predictive modeling, predictive analytics, futurism foresight, it’s a very specific and narrow field practice by very few people, of people like yourself, experts, and they know what they’re doing. One of the challenges in the common world is that people are unable to see the future. they’re unable to just imagine 10 years from now or five years now, because people are so busy in their everyday lives, their job, their mortgage, their car payments. I mean, get this knowledge across to the common people. So they can say, Hey, COVID-19, here are the lessons that we can learn from it. And maybe now think in broader terms, what should we do? And technology being wonderful? Is technology a part of this? Yeah, well, technology also provides opportunities. So So I think it’s important to leverage technology. But I also think it’s important to understand the limitations of technology, right, and to recognize that and to be able to, to add to that in terms of a more inclusive approach to futures and engaging a larger audience. And that could be whole of society, which we’re seeing engaged right now in COVID-19. I think there needs to be a new way of having this conversation, perhaps perhaps making it less mysterious around futures and more about a dynamic conversation. Perhaps technology can be that tool to reach, you know, people within a network certainly is something that can be scaled, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be done in a digital environment. I think sometimes great conversations can happen in person, obviously limited right now. So I think there is a need to rethink how we democratize foresight and and make it relatable to make it accessible to the average person and somehow people can participate in conversations in different ways, other than perhaps a formal workshops are other methods that have been used. Yeah. And I you know what one of the things that we’ve seen to 2020 during this COVID crises that has been unleashed on humanity is how fast some things have progressed, have ideas of digital transformation, people using zoom and one of these platforms to communicate. And pre 2020 it was a nightmare talking to people about giving the example about the accounting industry, tons of my clients were getting got in the accounting industry, it’s really hard to move, get them to move from one place to the other, because that’s the nature of the business. But now things are moving. So the challenge has also brought upon acceleration of change rate. And that is so interesting, huh? Definitely, I think, especially the use of technology, this pandemic has certainly created a situation where people are forced to change. And so it’s definitely opened up a lot of new opportunities. I think many organizations and people have really tried to reimagine, you know, how they can conduct their day to day activities or the businesses on in a virtual way. So I think that’s, that’s wonderful to see him as well. You’ve asked some really critical questions and some really nice questions in your article. So you talk about accelerations and the pace of change that, hey, the increasing pace of environment change is more visible. But having said that, you’ve talked about I can’t help but ask and you’ve asked a few questions. Why does Why does our society lack the collective will to take out? Why are we not acting with urgency proportional to the scale of the threat? And we’re living that right now? How can we wake up from this sleep walk nightmare? Could we be suffering from normalcy bias, thinking that if you stay the course everything will go back to normal? No, my question to you is, have you found the answers to any of these questions? Well, I’m certainly seeking the answers. So. But I do know that many people and I’ve seen a number of articles talk about that there is no going back to normal. And so I think this normalcy bias is being challenged in a number of ways with COVID-19. And I think that’s quite fascinating. And certainly I’m connecting in with a lot of my colleagues, both in the futures space, but also in emergency management space to understand what their perspective is around all of this and get their insights on what’s transpiring. But with that need for the future for the profession as well. Yeah, absolutely. I also believe that many people are saying this is the new normal, the era that COVID-19 has created is the new normal, I have a problem with that. Because I don’t believe I think we’re in a transitionary phase, we are always in a phase of transition. And I think there’s somewhere else we need to go because we can be a normal, in a state of crises, I refuse to accept it. Because people are amazing, we do incredible work, we’ve surpassed all our challenges in the past. So there’s got to be something better ahead in our life. And we should strive for achieving that or getting there. So I think the new normal is up ahead. It’s in the future. And I think it’s, it’s about convincing people to see beyond the crises and saying, hey, everything’s gonna be alright, just work on your game, start thinking about what you want to do, act on it, and then move forward. That’s kind of my thought. I don’t know if you agree or not. You know, I agree with that. I think you’re quite right in that because I also see this as this is a turbulent time. And so there’s just so much activity happening, I think most people are just trying to keep pace. But this discussions have shifted in the last little while around recovery. And and so this is an interesting time, because this is the recovery phase of trying to find a way back. And I don’t think it will be, you know, back to the way it was, I think this is the the adjustment of the path towards that new normal. And I think along this path, this is the recovery side of the work we do in emergency management. This is where we’re really doing a lot of reflecting work, and we’re doing a lot of lessons learned. And so that’s an opportunity as well to help shape about that future trajectory. And the profession in emergency management is very much focused on a vision of resiliency, and sustainability. And so I think my question is, while we’re recovering, what’s that bigger vision? What does that resilient vision look like, given what we’ve learned with COVID-19? And this whole of society type of approach that was needed to really respond to the pandemic? And what are those relationships going to look like with communities with businesses going forward? And so I think it’s an interesting time and I agree, we are just starting to perhaps head down that path and around what that future could be. If you can share, maybe help us understand what our business community’s thinking right now maybe help us understand you know, some conversations that you’re having with your clients? And how are you helping them understand, you know, here’s how you unpack today’s era and how you get out of it. I just want our audiences to learn from you, how do you do it as a futurist, and then maybe start thinking in that direction? I think a lot of the conversations I’ve been having with my clients have been around how to navigate this, obviously, they’re thinking about it from a short term recovery. So more near term foresight, and just how to pivot how to adapt. So it’s a little bit of a combination of just not not just foresight, but a bit of adaptation, and a bit of pivoting business models. So it’s been that kind of learning. But in terms of the longer view post COVID. I think that where a lot of our conversations have been going is around, what could the environment that future operational environment look like? What are the issues that we’re seeing emerge? And how is that going to impact the business in those environment? And will those businesses be sustainable? Will they be relevant and given what’s happening in the broader system shifts? And so I’m thinking and specifically around shoes of we’re seeing cyber issues, right, I have some clients that deal a lot in the information, space, and cyberspace. And so with all of these new types of behaviors happening in that space, what does that mean, for a lot of organizations, the way they do their business, if they have to maintain a business online, virtually what different new types of capabilities or processes need to be in place, what new functions and maybe new resources. So that’s just one example. But I think that a lot of organizations are really trying to understand in the near term around how to pivot their business model. So this is where I think scenarios can be helpful. And I tend to work with critical uncertainties in the near term, and just to create to really work on those areas where there’s the most impact to the business, and then to facilitate and have those conversations to get at the some deeper insights that could help pivot their business model. They may not have a full vision of where they would like to take it. But at least they have a sense with some of the dimensions of uncertainty where they may need to navigate. Absolutely, yeah. And it in a very similar rhetoric needs from clients is know where do we go next? What do we do next? I really believe everybody needs to become a futurist have a sword. I mean, business leaders especially have to be able to anticipate change. They’ve got to be able to anticipate what happens in business and how to react to it. It’s a part of what they’ve signed up for. So no, readily said, Donna, thank you so much for joining us again. I want to point out to viewers, that aftershock is available on Amazon, I believe it’s available now it was on pre orders now and you myself 50 Plus, other amazing people have contributed to this book. I really believe this is a read of a lifetime. If you read and have a copy of Aftershock, you really will understand many different things. I’ve interviewed people who are medical doctors, to scientists to people who are the head of SETI yourself. There’s incredible people in this series, quite a bit aftershock. So I really am suggesting to everybody buy a copy of Aftershock. And if you don’t have the money to buy it, tell me send me a message. And I will send you a copy of Aftershock. I have a few extra copies lying around. I don’t I know, we don’t have a lot of time with you. But help us finally tell us maybe give us three things give us or three or four or two things that we should do right away, to change our tomorrow to change our future to make it better to get into this tomorrow where we perhaps control things or have a better outcome than what we have today. If that makes sense? Well, I think the first place to start is just awareness, you know, starting with oneself and personal awareness of the environment, what’s shifting around you and and how that’s having an impact on your day to day life. I think then the second part would be the next layer in terms of your work, right and awareness around the impacts of shifting environment in your work, and then really being open to different ways of exploring the future. So what I mean is that really pay attention to what’s shifting, you know, in the environment and think about what does that change in the system mean for me on a personal level, or what could it mean for the work I do and I think just having that first stage of awareness It would be a really big step. And then from there, perhaps then it will lead to other questions around what is possible. What could happen down the road, even if it’s, you know, six months down the road, what if, and, and having those types of conversations, to start to, to start to think differently about the future and to be open to the need to pivot, and to shift and to not be afraid of change? I think that’s would be a great starting point. Thanks so much. That makes perfect sense. Where can we find more about you? Where can people go and contact you or check out your website or see the incredible work that you do? Oh, thank you. So for more information on the work that myself or my team does, you can go to our website, purple compass, at www dot purple compass.ca. And we have a list of different projects collaborations, as well as services. We recently launched the emergency management futures lab this year. So there’s a lot of new exciting initiatives that were part of and so we would love to hear from you. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. Incredible Donna, thank you so much. I wish you your team and incredible and safe time ahead of purple compass.ca is where you are at your team is at so I’m openly telling anybody who need help in futures and helping understand tomorrow you’re in Toronto, especially contact Donna and team and see where that goes. Right. And thank you so much for being part of this conversation. Let’s chat soon and thank you very much. Thank you so much. Take care Thank you. Hey, friend, this is Ian Khan. If you like what you saw on my video, then please subscribe to my YouTube channel and be inspired every single day with innovative content that keeps you fresh, updated and ready for the future. For more information. Also visit my website at Ian khan.com

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Daniele Levine, Top Innovation Trends Speaker In Conversation With Futurist Ian Khan

by Ian Khan | Feb 10, 2021 | Ian Khan Blog, Ian Khan's Blog, Podcast

Daniele Levine, Top Innovation Trends Speaker in conversation with Futurist Ian Khan

In this episode i speak with globally recognized Futurist Daniel Levine, also a co-contributor to the recent book “After Shock”.

Bio

Daniel Levine is a trusted consultant to major companies and brands worldwide. He is regularly featured in newspapers and magazines and is often on television and radio including CNN, NBC and others.

Mr. Levine is the director of the Avant-Guide Institute and the global editor of the popular trends website WikiTrend.org where he leads a large international team of trend spotters; over 9000 researchers who chronicle the latest ideas, products and experiences from around the globe.

-Founding Director of the Avant- Guide Institute trends consultancy
-Bestselling Author of 11 books on trends, business, travel and marketing
-Keynote Speaker with over 266 presentations in 37+ Industries
-Corporate Consultant for American Express, Intel, HBO, NBC, BMW & many more
-Global Leader of WikiTrend.org for business professionals

Learn more about Daniel at https://daniellevine.com/

About After Shock

The world’s foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shock—and look ahead to the next 50

Contributors include:

Full Transcript : Hi friends and welcome to the Ian Khan show. You’re listening to a special episode of The aftershock series, which where I interview co contributors to the recent book aftershock. My guest today is Daniel Levine, who’s one of the world’s best known trans experts. He’s named the ultimate guru of cool by CNN, and he’s a frequent guest on TV and radio. He’s the director of avant garde Institute, based out of New York helps people understand the future. Let’s speak with Daniel. Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the Ian Khan Show. Hey, I’m so excited to be speaking with you. Because you are quite the man you are the person who is the go to person for trends. And you’ve been doing this for many, many years. You and I are both part of Aftershock. This is something our good friend Joshua put together. And we’ll talk about that and many other things in the few minutes.

Welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. And I wish we were here in person, but I guess that’s gonna have to wait a little bit. So COVID has changed the world? I don’t know. And I don’t think Toffler wrote about that, among many things that he did, but it’s really I mean, I’ve been speaking with so many different people. Nobody was expecting it. Yes, everybody knows there are many viruses and they are sitting in some labs, but nobody was expecting this kind of change to happen to an everyday world. What are your thoughts off this 2020 being the year off? COVID-19? You know, there’s really only one story this year, right? It’s the main thing that’s affecting so many people’s lives. And it’s where it’s gonna go. I think, you know, a lot of the people who you’re interviewing on your podcast, have a lot of ideas about that. And I’m sure we’ll get into some of those things today, where I think I’m probably different from many of the people that you speak with is I don’t consider myself a futurist. I consider myself a trends expert. And by that, I mean, I don’t look at sort of pie in the sky prognostications about what might be happening 50 years from now, I’m really looking at the next, you know, three to five years and even closer than that, based on things that we’re actually going through right now. So my specialty, along with the avant garde Institute is looking at changes that are happening in culture as we are living them. And then extrapolating what that may look like. And I think that’s important, because it’s really difficult for most people to see where they are when they’re in the middle of it. You know, so many people right now are freaking out about, about the future, the near future, because it’s hard to see what the next few months are gonna look like, when you’re so deeply impacted by what’s going on right now. You agree? Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And bang on you’re you’re right. And I’ll tell you what other people have been talking about. So among all the contributors of Aftershock, I probably have had so far, maybe 80% of all the contributors who I’ve spoken with 80% of them, until now. And these people, some of them are doctors, some of their MD, some of them are specialists, some of them the head of SETI search for extraterrestrial, and doesn’t like people like that. And everybody has a different perspective on especially COVID-19, that we’re all in it together. First of all, nobody was expecting it to happen. Number two, the disruption on common life and all the things that we find are right around us and we have access to them. Seven, you cannot do it. So it’s been a shock for everybody. That’s been a bit of a shock for everybody that you can’t just go out anymore, you can go out and you can go for a meeting. And so that disruption of life, something that Toffler talks in a different way that, hey, the pace of change will be rapid. But it’s more like a direction change rather than an amplification of that what I think is really interesting about one of the things that’s very interesting, about tumblers book was his main thesis was that we’re going through this malaise that we’re going to have because the world is moving so quickly, and you know, we can’t catch up. We weren’t built physically to catch up to how quickly the world is moving right now. But what sort of strikes me and I think sort of taps a hopeful note for us is that the world seems to be moving so much faster now than even Toffler expected. And yet, humans have sort of proven to be adaptable. And we have caught up in many ways. You know, that Malays is I don’t really see that as being a major part of our culture, especially when you look at younger people who, you know, people who who grew up in the were born in the internet era that’s just normal and natural to them and people who who are sort of born into eras that seem natural to them, and their genes are not don’t seem to be holding them back from surviving and thriving in the society. So I think I like that from I think it’s sort of a positive note for us with what’s happening with with the COVID crisis. And I think, you know, when you look at this crisis in terms of like, the next year, your job, my job, and many of your people who are watching this, people are writing them, and rightly so. But if you take a longer term view, if you look at your work and your life over the next 10 years, then I think things become feel feel better, like the world will go back to a semblance of the way it was before. Do you think so? I think we reached you know, top and I’m going to backtrack a little bit you You talk a lot about and I’ve been following your work as well, you talk a lot about the adaptation of trends, you talk a lot about, Hey, this is what’s happening down the line, this is potentially what will happen. Interesting, amazing stuff, I love it, bang on. And here comes COVID-19. It just amplifies and accelerates some parts of our life, for example, web conferencing, or remote work or work from home or whatever you call it. And nobody expected that to happen at such a fast pace. Now, we’re all talking about, Hey, this is the new normal, I don’t think this is the new normal, I think the new normal is coming until we adapt and go through this change. But here we go. We have had rapid acceleration in some things. And some things will be amazing, because now we’ve really found out these cool things to do and better way of doing things. I think the new normal interest me the tomorrow that we will arrive that after we stabilize, and we cannot have this crisis is something that excites me, because that will be a better, faster, more efficient world. And probably this, you know, it’s like going on, it’s like a boost. It’s a shot of adrenaline that humanity’s going through. And I think it’s amazing, it’s taken us out from that malaise and rapidly accelerated what we do. Right? You know, I, I’ve heard people refer to this place that we’re in right now as either the great reset, or the great pause. And I think you probably have heard both of those as well. And many people watching. And to me, those are sort of different ideas, it’s different ways of looking at what we’re going through and how we’re going to come out of it. The great reset, I think is talking about, you know, the kind of thing that you were just mentioning that we’re going to come out of it in a different kind of a world than we are today. And no one’s sure exactly what that’s going to look like. But it will be created. And then the other side of it is it’s the great pause that we’re just sort of taking a few months now to everyone’s stopping their lives. Not everyone, but most people sort of stopping their lives, pausing their lives. And then things after COVID ends, everything will get back to normal. Yeah, yeah, those feel like two different ideas to me. Yeah. And I actually am more of a great pause guy. So I think that there will be changes for sure, of course. But when I look at, you know, humanity, and the basis between the way that we act, it has to do with, you know, who people are, we’re social beings, we’re selfish beings. And all of those sort of core things about humanity don’t change. So I’m reading and hearing so many people talk about, oh, this can be fantastic, we’re going to come out of it, you know, loving our neighbors more and appreciating our lives more. And unfortunately, I think for the most part, Bs, and one of the reasons I see that is when you look at in the United States, the the stimulus money that the government is giving to small businesses is being first of all, it’s being distributed through banks who are distributing it to their biggest clients, because they get the biggest fees on that. And it’s going to publicly traded companies who are giving or giving money to their investors, we’re in the middle of this thing. And it’s not changing people’s behavior, it’s sort of people are talking about, it’s gonna be wonderful. But what I’m seeing is people are people, unfortunately, and in, you know, a few years from now, it’s going to be closer to the great pause than the great reset. Do you think a reason for that is the fact that our world is, let’s say, moving fast, because of technology and all of these things, distractions, and they’ll all of that is still I mean, people are watching more Netflix right now. They’re watching more television and online shows and all of that, right? So they’re distracting themselves with all of these things, despite the fact that we’re all sitting at home. I think there could be a reason for the fact that people will go back to their old way of doing things maybe after six months or a year or two years, is because of the world around them. It’s because that’s what the world around them looks like. And I agree with you that there’s a huge possibility that people will just Come out of this once they go back to their jobs, and they’ll feel good for a month. But then after two months, they’ll you know, it’s like going on a vacation one month coming back from your vacation, you feel you never gone on a vacation. Right. Right. And so it’s possible. Yes, it’s interesting. Let me let me say something about a more sort of positive level, which is that, you know, trends, some, some trends change quickly. And some change, some change more incrementally. And I think there’s a lot of people who are hoping that this is such a big deal, that it’s going to, you know, create a sea change in the way people act and the way the world is. And in some cases, it will. But in some cases, what’s actually I think is going to happen is that more incremental change, and if I look back at 2008, after the Great Recession, it did change the way that people acted in their lives, especially younger people, when I think about young millennials at the time, who felt that maybe it’s not the way that they want to live their lives. It’s not like their parents accruing stuff that sort of led to the so called sharing economy, people not wanting to be indebted, as much, especially younger people, it could change people’s attitudes. And I think this will change people’s attitudes in a similar way. And depending on how deep the economic malaise is, it could change people’s attitudes in the way that our, you know, grandparents and some of your watchers, great grandparents change their attitudes after the Great Depression, they lived in a depression mentality the rest of their lives, that that very well could happen. I think the key is, and I feel this is my opinion, that people who despite these times of whatever change, they’re going through people who continue to invest in themselves, they continue to read, they continue to learn, they continue to do all these things that can so that they are getting ready for when things open up, they can do things better, I think they are, they will get the maximum benefit out of this, we’re constantly on a path of self improvement, because that’s what change creates change. You know, that’s the other side of change is self improvement world is changing fast. You look at yourself and improve yourself faster and faster and faster. So I really hope those are gonna come out on the top. I do believe also that all these stimuluses that governments are giving in Canada, United States, a few other places, it’s going to come back in form of taxes in form of other things. So it’s not free money that’s being distributed. But of course, it’s helping people keep doors open and, you know, small businesses wherever they’re, they’re struggling. So I think it’s a great thing. But But people also need to keep Be aware that, you know, it’s got to be paid back with interest. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. I want to ask you about trends. You know, many times you probably come across people, who are the naysayers who don’t believe in your trends, who say, hey, Daniel, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t think cars will ever fly. Come on, tell us something different. How do you work with those people? Or what’s your response to those people? Well, to be honest, it I actually don’t usually get those responses, mainly, because when I’m talking about things that will happen, I’m informed by things that are already happening. So I’m using those as examples. This is how things morph in the world. So let me give you an example. You know, I’m often asked, What’s the difference between a trend and a fad, because people often confuse those two things. And one of the main there’s a few differentiators, but one of the main ones is longevity. So you know, fad is oftentimes something that happens comes on quickly and leaves quickly. And a trend is something more long lasting, that you can make a business plan around. So when it comes to like wearable technology, is that a trend or a fad? wearable technology? And my argument is that wearable technology is a trend because humans have been wearing technology since almost the beginning of humanity when it was a sword by their side will is any particular product, you know, watch or headset or anything is that the trend probably not the those things. Anything that has a brand on it is usually a fad or part of a bigger trend. So by using examples like that, I think that this is a way that I explain where the world is heading. And that it’s not that that’s why I’m not making these, you know, guesses about 50 years from now. But what some of the things are trends and fads that you’re seeing come out of this COVID-19 crises? Well, I think one of the thing that struck me when you were telling me that you’re speaking to people from all different industries, you know, what I do is I sort of bring those all together to understand the big trends because trends are not siloed by industry trends are about what people are thinking and feeling. And you know, we’re all looking for the same trends to be answered in every part of our lives, the cars we buy the clothing, we wear, the vacations, we will eventually take, again, for ourselves. It’s about it’s about lifestyle and the way that we perceive ourselves and want to be perceived by others. So what struck me when you were telling me this about all these people from different industries is I think one of the things that ties all of that together, is that we’re seeing right now an acceleration of many of the trends that were already in motion. And I think that I’m sure you’re seeing that as well, he and this is sort of a time, this, this, this culture quake that we’re in is accelerating a lot of the things that were already happening. So it’s not necessarily about starting completely new things. A great example is exactly what we’re doing right here talking by video. This is something that was in motion before, but is now on steroids. And there are so many examples of that across the industrial spectrum, Bradley said there’s many industries, Daniels that are that are very slow in adoption, I work across different verticals. And I see some of them being very slow when it comes to adapting to change, for example, financial industry takes a lot of time to do things, because they’re inherently they’re got a complex structure, the accounting world there, they have practices that go 500 years back. And so for these industries, I think it’s, it’s a really great time to look at these new trends that are shaping the world adapt to new ways of working, and use all these things, trends to create more efficiency in business. I mean, that’s what technology does, it creates efficiency, it helps you, you know, reduce whatever expense, so on and so forth. So I think it’s a, it’s a great way to create more value. And to go back to the drawing board, I’ve been telling people, hey, you’re doing if you’re doing nothing right now, then go back to the drawing board, strategize with your team every single day. And think of new ideas that can perhaps make your business different. And I see a lot of companies doing that as well. Daniel, I know we don’t have a lot of time, help us understand the top three suggestions, recommendations, advice, guidance that you would give viewers watching this. And we’ve got a diverse set of viewers watching this, what should they do in order to adapt or look into trends? Or how to implement trends into their businesses? And kind of, is there a step by step approach? Is there a process that you recommend you teach? Thanks, the the, you know, trends are extremely powerful, because they show you what customers are thinking and feeling they’re showing you about the world from a from a market pull perspective, I think I wouldn’t have a job and maybe do and a lot of people who work in marketing and sort of adjuncts to marketing, if people or business people in particular, were really good at seeing themselves from outside of themselves. That’s what marketers are great at marketers, or, in general, I think are the specialists and seeing the business world from outside of the business world from seeing it from the customer’s perspective. And that’s what the power of trends, the trends are like the secret sauce, of understanding getting inside the brain of what people are thinking and feeling and what’s motivating them to act. And so in a case like we’re in right now, it’s there’s a lot of motivators behind what’s motivating, you know, what, why people are acting, that the two most obvious ones concerns about health and concerns about the economy. And those two things are where we’re going to see the biggest changes, just like 911 changed everything. In regards to security, this thing, this crisis will change, you know, everything quote, unquote, in regard to the way we perceive our health, that will be one of the long lasting effects. So a powerful way that your watchers can understand that is by discovering what their customers are looking for, in a bigger sense, not just in their particular business, again, because trends are not siloed. by industry, their customers are looking for the same to buy or the same products and services based on the way that they’re feeling and the way that they are in the world. And as I said, what’s happening, and one way to track those is on trend watching sites. And I’ll just give a little plug for for wiki trends, which is wiki trend.org. It’s run by the avanti guidance Institute, which is the company that I’m the director of it’s a free website that’s updated every day with some of the most interesting and important trends that we’re seeing. Come across our desks every day and working with people like you and people like me who spent what, you know, we spend our lives our business lives looking at the future and what that’s going to bring to businesses. It’s an extremely powerful thing for business to understand. And, and I think it’s a benefit that, you know, it’s sort of a silver lining, if you could call it that of what we’re going through right now is that people like you and me are indemand right now, Daniel again, aftershock is Daniel has contributed to aftershock, I’m in it and we’ve got 50 other plus other people, amazing people who’ve written this book, we came together and wrote this. It’s really thick. It’s a thick volume, but every chapter is different. That’s what I love about aftershock. It’s available on Amazon, please, folks, if you’re listening or watching, buy a copy of Amazon. And also Daniel, tell us where people can find you and check your work that you’ve given us one website, the E trends.org. Tell me more if there’s other URLs that we can visit. Great, thank you, Daniel levine.com. That’s my personal website. But my business I’m the head of the avant garde Institute at avanti guide.com. And yes, you’re all welcome. And I love talking about this stuff. Give me a call and let’s chat. And thank you Daniel. So Daniel levine.com, event guide.com, Vicki trends.org. Folks, Daniel is the person to go to when you want to learn about trends, what’s shaping the world where we’re headed, what you should do what you should ignore what you should pay attention to. My friend Daniel Levine, according to aftershock really amazing, gentlemen, as well. Daniel, thank you so much for your time. I thank you so much for inviting me. And everybody listening, health and wealth and good future thinking. Absolutely. Let’s hope for the best and I know the future is definitely what we created today what we focus on today. So folks get to work, figure out your tomorrow despite the disruption that’s happening, and you will come out shining Thank you so much. Thank you. Hey, friend, this is Ian Khan. If you like what you saw on my video, then please subscribe to my YouTube channel and be inspired every single day with innovative content that keeps you fresh, updated and ready for the future. For more information. Also visit my website at Ian khan.com

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Byron Reese – Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur In Conversation With Futurist Ian Khan

by Ian Khan | Feb 10, 2021 | Ian Khan Blog, Ian Khan's Blog, Podcast

Byron Reese – Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur in conversation with Futurist Ian Khan

In this episode, i speak with globally recognized Futurist Daniel Levine, also a co-contributor to the recent book “After Shock”.

Bio (In Byron’s own words)

Hello, my name is Byron Reese. I enjoy studying technology and history, contemplating their intersection with the future, and writing and speaking about it all.

I have always loved technology. As a kid, I was always taking stuff apart to figure out how it worked. I grew convinced that I must have a knack for engineering because whenever I would put something back together, I always had a few pieces leftover. If that isn’t talent, I don’t know what is.

Like many people that are fascinated by technology, I loved science fiction. I was, and still am, a big Star Trek fan. Years ago, I read a quote by the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry. He said that in the future, “There would be no hunger, there would be no greed, and all the children will know how to read.”

This quote gnawed at me, and I wondered if it was true. Or did it just sound true because it rhymed? So I decided to try to figure it out. That’s how I became a futurist.

I got into business early in life. When I was 12, my mom asked me to paint our house number on our curb with a stencil. Our neighbor, Mr. Roland, saw me doing it and asked me to do his as well. Afterwards, he gave me $5. Five bucks! For five minutes work. In 1980! I remember hearing a distinct “ka-ching” inside my head. I immediately started going door-to-door and made a kid-sized fortune. I have been an entrepreneur ever since.

After I had some business success as an adult, I began getting invitations to give talks. Good speakers write a speech and give it over and over. I am not a good speaker. I have never given the same speech twice. I just can’t bring myself to do it… it feels like I am phoning it in. So, I would give talks about whatever I was interested in at the time. After a while, I noticed that the same themes were coming up over and over. Suddenly that collection of speeches looked a lot like a book. That’s how I became an author. My latest book is about AI and is called “The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity.”

Today, I am requested to speak to both technical and non-technical audiences around the world. I invite you to check out my Talks on Tomorrow and visit my blog for a collection of writing including my articles on artificial intelligence and interviews with today’s AI thought leaders.

Whether I am writing or speaking, you are sure to find me exploring the intersection of technology, business, and the future. Follow me on Twitter at @byronreese

About After Shock

The world’s foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shock—and look ahead to the next 50

Contributors include:

Full Transcript : Hi friends this is Ian Khan and you’re listening to the Ian Khan show. And this is an aftershock special episode, which means I’m speaking with a co contributor to the recent book aftershock. I’m speaking with Byron Reese today and Byron is an Austin based author. And his most recent book is the fourth age smart robots, conscious computers and the future of humanity. Byron Reese. barn Welcome to the Ian Khan show.

I’m so excited to have you on board. Where exactly are you right now. I am in Austin, Texas. And I’m happy to be here. amazing to be here with you. Oh, thank you. I so appreciate you making time for me. You know, we’re both contributors to aftershock, which our good friend john shorter has put together thanks to him for bringing together an amazing group of people like yourselves and others that I’ve interviewed on the show so far. Byron, I am learning I’m drinking from the hose when I’m interviewing people like yourself just because of the things I’m hearing and people that are sharing. So thank you for joining me, I’m happy to be here. Let’s talk about connection. You know, in your article in your work, and I’ve seen some of your work online as well, you talk a lot about people need to change their perception of a world driven by technology, because it just has a bad rep so many times when it comes to not losing jobs, but creating more jobs, engagement. And we’re living in a post COVID world today, the world has definitely changed. What are your thoughts in a COVID world, and your ideas of technology in general. Human beings are about 100 watts of power, that’s what we have your and if you were dropped on a desert island, you would feel the limits of that. And a long time ago, we learned a trick, and that is technology. And we use technology to multiply what we’re able to do. You can measure it in a number of ways. One way is you know, energy consumption. Now the average person in the West uses 10,000 watts of power few 100 extra yourself throughout society because of this trick we learned. And all it does, it’s a very simple thing all technology does is any increases human productivity. And that is always good for everyone. And if you challenge that, if you disagree with that, consider the alternative where you pass the law that said everybody has to work with one arm tied behind their back, what would happen? Well, you would create 100 jobs, because you need twice as many people to do anything. But the jobs wouldn’t pay very well, because productivity went down. And so it’s always good to increase human productivity. That’s the story of why we live so much better lives and even our great grandparents lives. Absolutely. Let’s break some misconceptions here. I’ve worked with a lot of industries, myself, you’re out there, you’re doing amazing work of it, what you do, you often hit a roadblock, when you tell people hey, here’s five different things, five different new technologies are ways to create efficiency in your organization, whether it’s an accounting firm, a manufacturing company, a doctor’s clinic, and the first thing they think is Oh my God, is my job going to be done Am I going to be done and probably the first few thoughts that go to their head, or like, I’m going to lose my income, I’m gonna lose my house, I’m gonna lose my kids in car and my wife’s gonna leave me, my kids and all that whole barrage of negative thoughts. How can we really convince people that technology is actually good for us? I mean, the proof is all around us. How do we get to to these people? Well, I would say it this way, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out the half life of a job. And I think it’s 50 years or put another way, I think, every 50 years, we lose half of all the jobs. It’s been going on for about 250 years. And what’s interesting in this country, with the exception of today, and the Great Depression, unemployment, it’s never been over 10%. We know it’s not over 10% now because of technology, nor in the depression. So you think about all these technological changes that came along, and you can’t see them in a graph of unemployment, you replaced all animal power with steam and 22 years can’t see it that an unemployment, you invented a kind of artificial intelligence known as the assembly line, you can’t see it. Here’s the kind of conceptual thing that I think maybe helps people a little bit. They say to me, Look, there’s a range of jobs whose jobs at the top that are high paid high skilled jobs, and their jobs. Were at the bottom that are low skilled, low pay, like order taker, fast food. And they say, look, technology’s great at creating these new jobs at the top like a geneticist, but it destroys the jobs and the bottom line, order takers, fast food. And then here’s what people say. And I think this is what freaks everybody out. They say, you really think that person who was the order taker at the fast food place can learn to be a geneticist? Can the people who are losing their jobs, learn to code or whatever? And the answer is no, that isn’t how it works. Ever. What happens is a college biology professor becomes a geneticist and then a high school biology teacher goes into the college job, then a substitute teacher gets hired on full time at the high school all the way down the line. The question isn’t, Can people at the bottom do the new jobs that are created? The question is Can everybody on this planet do a job a little harder than the job they have today? So anybody listening, can you do a job just a little harder. There. The job you have today, if so, that’s 250 years of economic history in this country for 250 years, we technology creates jobs at the top, it destroys jobs at the bottom, and everybody shifts up a notch. And that’s why we have 50% of the jobs lost every half century, but rising wages, and it’s for that reason, there is not a person listening, I would wager, who is absolutely out there mental and physical capacity. And I have found that most people want to do more if they make a little more money. And that’s what the future looks like you use technology to multiply what you’re able to do you increase your productivity, and you’re paid more for it. Absolutely. also believe that and I completely agree with you, I think majority of people in the world undermine their capability of creating some change, sometimes maybe they don’t connect with, you know, when people come out and say, Hey, I’m going to change the world. And there’s all the naysayers who say, yeah, we’ve heard that before they’re going to fail. But you know, what there’s, there’s there’s a middle ground here, right between the super motivational people to the super D motivated people. There’s people who are creating change right now, by taking action, creating plans, creating strategies executing on their tasks, and there has to be a systematic process of notching up. There’s got to be systematic process. And I think there’s a disconnect there, where people don’t understand that process. And they give up, they just, they just give up on themselves, which is not great. No, I think to just add to that, I think the number one jobs skill in the future is the ability to teach yourself new things. And the good news is, everybody can do it. If I went I’m 52 years old, if I went back to high school, I went to school in the 80s. And I could there’s only one class I could have taken back then that would be useful to me today. And that was piping? And who would have guessed. And so it’s like everything, you know, for the most part you didn’t learn at school, you taught yourself or somebody taught you and so your capacity to learn more, and to do what you’re saying have an impact is without question and everybody has that’s what makes humans different than other creatures. Absolutely. Now, it’s been so interesting doing this book aftershock, because john reached out to I think all of us and said, Hey, write about future shots. This book was written 50 years ago by Alvin Toffler 50 years ago, it’s so far back. And then you’ve got to brush your old copy of Future Shock and say, Okay, let’s see what’s in. Let me have a read. And there you find Alvin Toffler writes about things, 50 years forward, amazing things, very accurate things in the state of the world. Like he got it right, so many different times in so many different things. What were your initial thoughts? When whenever you read that book, or looking at Toffler and his work, felt somewhat inadequate? You know, it’s, I wasn’t even sure I was going to contribute, because it’s such a guest company. But I’ll come right back and answer that very directly. But if you go back just 25 years, that’s when the mosaic browser came out. The first, you know, the consumer web. And if you went back 25 years ago, half that time, half of 50. And you ask a very smart technical person, hey, what’s this browser thing going to do to the world? They would say two jobs, they would say, look, it’s gonna probably get rid of all the stockbrokers get rid of all the travel agents get rid of all the Yellow Pages, all the newspapers are gonna have trouble. And they would have been right about everything. But what nobody would have gotten was everything that would create it, Uber, Etsy, Airbnb, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, all of that. And that’s where the fear comes from is you can always see what it’s going to destroy. But none of us have imagination to see what’s going to create and Toffler did, and that’s, to me, what’s different, we all get nervous about what technology is going to take away or change that we don’t like on namas. None of us can look at everybody could in 1995 see that there would be at CDA and all that it would have been started in 1996. But they weren’t, you know, it took a decade or more before these really kind of core companies even came into being because it just takes a while to kind of get with the flow of the technologies. Oh, I could sell what’s in my attic with this thing or what have you. So I think that’s what’s so impressive about Toffler is, is he could I mean, nobody’s perfect, but he could see both sides of the equation. Well, yeah, I can have a lot of faith that the other side of the equation is there, but I don’t purport to see it. Yeah. You know, I think, you know, my kids are gonna be short Wranglers. And you know, all these made up words I’m just making up because I don’t know what they are. But they’re gonna be something is different. But it’ll come out to be but I don’t know what it is. And thank you so much for that. They say that we are living in an era of exponential growth. And there’s all bars, charts, data that exponential growth in the world in technology is happening Wait, Moore’s law has been broken by 2025 or 2045 will be a new road race and we’ll have implants. How much of that do you subscribe, like, what’s your vision of where we will be realistically in the next 25 years? Here’s the next 25 years. Well, I’m, I’m not a singularity. And I don’t believe that our computing that once computers become, you know, smarter than us, then two years later, they’ll be twice as smart. And then four times, and then eventually they won’t even know what we are. I think that viewpoint is based on a, I used to host this podcast on AI, that’s my shtick. And I had 120 guests, and I would ask them all the same question. And 95% of them answered this question. Yes. And then I give lots of speeches. And I ask audiences the same question and only 15% of audiences say yes, and the question is, are people machines? Are you a machine? And people in AI are, you know, normally say, Well, what else would we be? And at some point, if we’re nothing but machines, we’re gonna build a mechanical person. And then two years later, that will be twice as good and, and they’re entirely right. If we aren’t machines, for whatever reason, scientific, spiritual, whatever you want to pick biological quantum, then there is no machine that will ever do what people do. And therefore I don’t think that those kinds of nightmare scenarios are even possible, until I, unlike my 95% of my guess, I don’t believe we’re machines, or it hasn’t been proven to me that we’re machines, we have brains, we don’t understand that give rise to minds, we don’t understand. And we have consciousness, which means we don’t, a computer can measure temperature, but you can feel warm. And that difference is often called the last scientific question. We don’t even know how to pose scientifically. And so I’m convinced computers, and I think they need all three of that I think they need a brain in mind, and first person experience. And I’m convinced I don’t have that much faith, they do that, that we’re going to build that. So to me, if I believe as I do, increase productivity is always good for people, all this technology is just going to increase our productivity. I mean, I wrote a book called infinite progress because I believe that you know, our destiny I look in the night sky sure looks like there’s a lot of room out there for us to expand into doesn’t feel crowded at all. And I imagine a day you know, is a billion people on a billion different planets, each with a Mary Curie and each with a Leonardo and each with a JK Rowling and each with a Lynn manual, Miranda, you know, all the rest. And that’s the world I believe in not, oh, we’re just machines, we’re going to build a better version of ourselves, and it’s going to rule over us and i don’t i don’t believe it. Thank you. Now in 2020, we’ve seen something unprecedented, which is COVID-19 never saw it. Never were expecting it. Like everybody was going about their business. What can you say? It’s unprecedented? But do you really mean that? It’s never I mean, that that is probably the most common thing in human history, isn’t it? famines? I mean, pandemics are more common than wars. But go ahead. My point was that I don’t think an average person was expecting to undergo what we went in 2019, let’s say the lockdowns and people are getting sick, and many people succumb to this pandemic. So there’s there was a lot of unknowns that hit an average common person. What should we expect from a world should we always expect in a world that’s full of technology? In a world where human relationships are not what they used to be 20 3050 years ago? And also looking into the future a few years? What should our expectations be from the world that we should always expect change, we should always expect and be ready for events like this. And I want you to hear it from you as an as a leader, because you inspire a lot of people, how do you go about understanding what the world needs you? There was a time they think genetically based on the genetic diversity of any to humans, they think there was a time 75,000 years ago that we were down to 800 mating pairs of humans that was it $800 million? I mean, we were an endangered species. And somehow we who would have bet on us then by the way, who would have said, Oh, no, that those are those are the ones that are gonna take over and, and our history since then, has been one of continued, you know, advancement. We even created human rights and trial by jury and democracy and individual liberty and all the rest. And we also and we did it through technology, and through technology, we learned to control our environment better. And that’s really what we’re trying to do even now. We’re inherently a fearful species. We come by that honestly. Someone said once that back in the day, it made more sense for us to see a rock think it was a bear. Oh, it’s a bear run away and run away then to see this bear that it’s probably just the rock and get eaten. And so we’re these kind of tentative frightened creatures. So that’s our history. And we have that we have a predisposition to fear and all kinds of things play on it. A lot of I think a lot of people want people to be afraid and you know, profit by your fear and all that The rest. But if you say that you still only be 100 pairs of us, we get nothing. And look at all we did. And along the way, by the way, we created art, and music. And we we learn to care for the weak among us. And I mean, we’re doing pretty well. And so I would encourage people not to understand that, you know, in our heart, we’re still like, it could be a bear. But know that and to say we, every day have more mastery of our world. And tomorrow, we will have even more. And finally, we’re fundamentally good, because if we weren’t, we never would have made it this far. The only way we got to hear from way back then, is because we learned altruism, and we learned to work together. And there are all kinds of people who are bad in the world. I’m not denying that. But the way we got here is because more people want to build and destroy and more people want to work together than destroy. And so in our hearts, we’re we’re good. I believe in us like, we’ve got this barn. Thank you. I know we don’t have a lot of time with you. I do appreciate you jumping on board for a quick podcast episode. As a final question. What advice would you give all our listeners and viewers and people out there in the world who are trying to make a good living trying to do the right thing? What should they do in three steps? maybe one or two or three steps? What’s your advice to the world? How do they go about their life? What should they expect from the future? I don’t like to tell people what they should do. But I can say what I do. And you were talking earlier about how technology creates new jobs at the top and destroys one at the ones at the bottom and everybody shifts up a notch. I tried to apply that to my life. I tried to say what aspects of my life can technology create great new opportunities and great new experiences? Where am I an order taker at a fast food place? Like I do a ton of things like that in my day to day life? Where can I use technology to destroy those jobs those parts of my life I can I use it to destroy so I don’t have to do them. And that’s just like philosophically how I look at my day. I want to use technology to either automate mundane things, I don’t have to do them or create new opportunities. For me, technology really is this thing. It’s it’s not magic, but it behaves like magic. It multiplies what you’re able to do. It makes you you know more than you were before. It comes with its pitfalls, but it’s very powerful when when applied correctly. Incredible. Byron Hey, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Folks. aftershock is one of the books where Byron has gone muted. Byron tell us where people can find you get a copy of your book, learn more about your incredible work. Oh, thank you. I’m an easiest person in the world to find. I’m Byron Reese on everything. I’m Byron Reese on twitter.com. Just type that in your search engine of choice and you will have many options. Alrighty. Well, Byron, thank you for sharing your time with us. Really appreciate it and hope to see you very soon in the future and keep inspiring people. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Hey, friend, this is Ian Khan. If you like what you saw on my video, then please subscribe to my YouTube channel and be inspired every single day with innovative content that keeps you fresh, updated and ready for the future. For more information. Also visit my website at Ian khan.com

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Patricia Lustig , Ceo Of Lasa Insights, Bestselling Author In Conversation With Futurist Ian Khan

by Ian Khan | Feb 10, 2021 | Ian Khan Blog, Ian Khan's Blog, Podcast

Patricia Lustig , CEO of LASA Insights, Bestselling Author in conversation with Futurist Ian Khan

In this episode, I speak with Patricia Lustig, a globally recognised Futurist and CEO of LASA Insights. She is also a co-contributor to the recent book “After Shock”.

Bio

Patricia Lustig is the Chief Executive of LASA Insight Ltd. Specialist in Strategy and Foresight, Change Design and Community Engagement, she has over 30 years of experience in the corporate, not-for-profit and public sectors from Board Level to the factory floor. She has worked in Europe, Asia and the US. She uses strength-based approaches to change.

She has published two books, Beyond Crisis: achieving renewal in a turbulent world, John Wiley & Sons, 2010 and Here Be Dragons: navigating an uncertain world, The Choir Press 2012. Her latest book Strategic Foresight: learning from the future was published in July 2015 by Triarchy Press.

Learn more about Patricia at https://www.lasa-insight.com/

About After Shock

The world’s foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shock—and look ahead to the next 50

Contributors include:

Publication Details
ISBN Print: 978-0-9997364-4-9
ISBN eBook: 978-0-9997364-5-6

Hi friends this is Ian Khan and you’re listening to the Ian Khan show. In this episode we’re going to have a conversation with a co contributor to the book aftershock. My guest today is Patricia Lustig, who leads lassa. Inside limited and a strategic foresight company, Patricia uses foresight, horizon scanning and futures tools to help organizations develop insights into emerging trends, develop a successful strategy and implement that change. He’s also author and co author of four books and numerous articles over Patricia Lustig.

Welcome to the Ian Khan show. I’m so thrilled to have you. How are you today? Very good. Excellent. So we are talking because we’re both contributors to aftershock book put together by a good friend, john shorter tons and tons of really nice articles that lightning that are invigorating. I’ve read what you and Jill have written in aftershock. And I’m we’re going to talk about that today. In this episode, tell me a little bit about what you do, Patricia? Well, I’m what’s called a futurist. So many of the people in this book are and the thing I’m really about is helping people to think more long term, because individuals and businesses and organizations tend to think very much in the short term and not enough long term, and it will come and bite them in the bum as it is doing right at this very moment. It’s very interesting as people are realizing it. Absolutely. And one of the things that really stood out for me when I as I read your piece is our ability to cope up with change how we’re coping up with change, and we’re going to talk about that a little bit. You also have a co contributor, Gil ringland, who couldn’t join us today. And Jill has really amazing career. Both of you are contributors to multiple publications and multiple books. How did this collaboration come about? We both worked for ICL, and we started by writing an article together about scenario planning. And we have been writing partners and I’ve written three books and we’re on our fourth together in the last 20 years. That’s incredible. And it’s hard writing me someone else’s very hard. But when you get used to it, we write very well together we have what is called robust discussions, a lot of argument, and we get much better stuff out because we’ve got two of us working on it that way. Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk about some of the things that you’ve written. Let’s talk about Toffler. And if that was an influence for you, or what your thoughts were about future shock, when you first read it, what do you think about Future Shock? 50 years after it has been written? You still feel some of the things and were bang on? Some of them were not how do you think we’re living today? As you know, written in Future Shock so many years ago? Yeah, I think, well, it really excited me when I read it. So I must have known I was going to become a futurist. But I think the thing for us is the thing that we wrote about, which was that he just made an assumption, which was easy to make, in the time that it was written that people were not going to be able to cope with the amount of change that was coming. I don’t think he underestimated the amount of change. But I don’t I do think that they underestimated together because we mustn’t forget, he wrote it with a writing partner as well, with Heidi, we mustn’t forget the time he was in, and that we look back. And we always think that less change has happened and really has happened. And we think looking forward that less change will happen, then will really happen. And human beings can cope, and most of us do. But as we said in the chapter, it is more difficult for older people, the older you get than it is for younger people. And so why is that? Is it because we’re holding on to our mindset? Or is it because we have access to some new things. And you’ve written a lot in the article about some of the newer things that are happening in the world, some of the revolution, some of the social things, some of the crowd sourced things that are happening? Let’s talk about that. You talk about Greta Greta Thornburg, you talk about the earthquake in Nepal, help us understand how people have coped with change, or maybe lived in a different way right now than they were in the past. And those examples, what happened was they embraced the change better, I think, or more easily than some older people. I mean, I can I’m two generations before them. You know, we were talking about people born after 1980. So my kids and I don’t automatically think about using social media in the way that these kids who have had it for most of their adult lives, do it. It isn’t that I can’t use it or that I don’t eventually think of using it. But what is the case is that I don’t think of it First off, it just it was a no brainer, as you would say that they would use this and that they would use it in this way. And, you know, in particular, I I did know quite a bit about the Yellow House because I was involved. They just, they just did it without seeing that this was different or new. Whereas for me, somebody who’s older, it is different than you and I have to think about it, I have to struggle to think about it. It’s not as automatic. And for them, they grew up with it. And I think we probably had that with every generation going forward. It’s just the change happens more quickly, and in shorter cycles now than it used to. I hear you on that. And I think there’s definitely that aspect of, and I don’t know, if it’s not just technology, that people are not technology savvy, it’s not that anymore, because we all are using technology, computers, they’re just part of life. I think maybe the reason could be that where it you know, it’s not embedded into us, like, I have a four year old son, and I’ll tell you a personal story. And his entertainment when we allow it is maybe spending time on the iPad playing a game or you know, doing some work. So he’s already working with technology from from such a young agent, all kids today are, at our time when I was growing up, we didn’t have an iPad, we had those small Nintendo games with a black and white screen, or we’re coming up. And so I think it’s generally what are we exposed to in our environment? Now you talk a lot about, you know, how people are, can do more in with what they have and reach more people and create more change of RV becoming bigger value creators today, because we have access to all of these things. That’s a typical one. Yes. And there’s another piece to it because we are capable of creating more because of it. And you can say, is it a big step or not, you can look at the steps that happened before they were big, too. I mean, just look at the step that happened, the real watershed when the printing press was invented. And the thing that’s different now is that those sort of watersheds happen much more frequently. And it is what your story about your son shows is that it is what we are used to. So what we are used to is front of mind. And with me who didn’t I mean, the computers when I was growing up, didn’t even have transistors, they had those lights, you know, like old television sets did those tubes. That’s how it was. So we didn’t see any of those. So for us, although I worked in it, it wasn’t given as it is for a child now working with an iPad. So you have to go through to a different depths in your brain, I suppose to use it. It’s not the first thing that comes up. It isn’t. I won’t say that it’s not normal, because it is normal, but it’s not front and center like it is with our kids and grandkids. Now, when you’re a futurist, you have a foresight as an area where you work help us understand what can an average person who in order to really look into the future, and I’ve spoken with so many amazing people over the last couple of months, all of whom have been contributors to to aftershock. I’m drinking from the firehose, I’d love to know your perspective on, you know, how do you go about helping people understand the process of proactivity, creating the future or understanding the future or foresight, help us understand? Well, in very, very simple terms, you need to understand that there isn’t a future there is most people think of the future as a continuation of the past. And that’s not real. That never happens. So the best thing you can do is think about different uncertainties that you face. And if this were to happen, and uncertainties use a continuum from, you know, say inclusive government to exclusive government and say, Well, if it was inclusive, what would that mean for me? And if it was XClusive, what would that mean for me? What would be different so that you aren’t just making a plan for the future? A because that’s the one you think, you know, the continuation business as usual, you are saying, Okay, well, we could have different futures, there’s a range of them, what would I need to do to be successful in each one of them? And how would I know that one of them was happening, and you can read science fiction, although most of it seems to be dystopian and negative? Because that sells, you know, you’ve got Star Trek? That’s, that’s a very positive future. And you can look at those and say, that’s an example of the future. What would I need to do to be successful and enjoy living in that future? An individual doesn’t necessarily have the time to go into all the research and look at all the trends and say, Okay, here’s a future that’s plausible and probable, but you can by watching science fiction on television, by reading books, and by actually giving it a bit of thought, think of some different ones, and figure out how that would be thing. So here’s an example. And I love what you just said. Here’s an example if we watch a lot of let’s say, movies, or Hollywood, there’s so many movies that are sci fi, the you know, going from 10 2050 years to scenarios that that are just mind blowing, right? movies with time travel, movies, with so many different things that it’s impossible to under Right now now today as of right now, we’re living in the era of COVID-19, where we’re battling something that has come out of nowhere. Humanity is not ready for it. We haven’t been enhanced. So many people have died and they’re struggling with with COVID-19. Hopefully, it’s going to go away soon. How do you deal with things that just hit you like a rock, you’re you’re planning your future, you come up with your scenarios? How do you deal with, you know, so called Black Swan events? If this is a black swan event, and people are arguing that as well? How do you deal with events that come out of nowhere as a disrupter? Well, I would, what I what I do. And what I teach is that you always play with a wildcard event, a black swan, is something that has that exists somewhere. And this is a black swan, but I’m not so sure that it is because we knew. And I’ve never written a scenario where we didn’t say there will be a pandemic, we just don’t know the year it is something we know. And it’s been ignored at people’s pedal. But what we do is we pick, we put together a crazy, wild card, and we play with, what would we design for that? Not because it’s going to happen, their high impact but low probability. But because it’s sort of exercises your foresight, brain, you force that muscle, just to try to see what would happen if you got hit by something totally unexpected. What would you do? And how would you make that work? And where would there be advantage? And what would you need to mitigate and adapt to, if you’ve done that once, you might, it might be quicker off the mark for you when it really happens. So foresight is not just about predicting the future, it’s not just about coming up with it’s not ever about predicting the future, because you can’t. So it’s really about helping understand where you could go, let’s talk about business leadership, you know, business leaders that want to understand where their organization will go in the next two 510 1520 years, they can sit down and do the process of foresight, figure out scenarios that can arise right and go through this process with people such as yourself. And many of the amazing exploits that are in future shock to kind of lay out that here is here are four things that can happen tomorrow, because of the decisions we take or not take because of market disruption because of an event a black swan event that we never knew would come or an event that we know, potentially would come in. And so it’s a way to plan your response to what happens in the future. Two things that can happen. And then you you go with one, do you then go with one of the scenarios? Or what do you do? Well, it’s two things, you by looking at the different scenarios, you can figure out where you can do something and where you come. So where do you have influence? How can you you know, we all have a preferable future that we’d like how could we make that happen, because there’s some things you can do something about. And there’s other things you can’t you don’t none of the futures when you make a set of futures, however many it is none of them will come true, all but a piece from this one will come true and a piece from back from will come true, right? And you learn you you talk to how you would know which future you are at. And then you identify Oh, it’s this part of that future. And when that happens, we needed to that’s our plan for this part. And then another part of the future another future comes you have a plan for that. So it’s not going to be I have scenario a and I’ve got my plan for scenario a, you’ve got your plan for the parts of scenario a and if you recognize one of them happening, you do that part of the plan. Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. It does make sense. What I’m trying to do is I’m trying to help our viewers and listeners understand what foresight is that the process of foresight is so that they can think about it and get used to it. Now, are there some specific tools that we use? I know a lot of people generally will take a marker user whiteboard, post it notes, there’s so many, you know, very low tech ways of doing it. And I think those are the ways that that are really nice, because you’re very flexible. Are there any tools that you specifically use or not? Well, it rather depends on the client and the need what the need is, but one that we use a huge amount of time is a tool called three horizons, which looks at Where are we now? And what are the trends we see now? Where do we see? That’s the first horizon that’s kind of managerial, and then we’re visionary. We look 30 to 40 to 50 years out, what do we see happening there? That’s the horizon three. And then we look at what’s the bridge between so where’s an assumption that we’re making today? That is challenged by one of the assumptions from far out, that’s just not a great big piece of butcher paper with, you know, stickies, little posit notes, and we developed a game for a game board for doing scenarios. The two by two matrix, a two by two matrix is something we can use. There are very many tools. I’ve written a book about this, that people can use and they depend on who the group is what they want to do. How much They’ve got, you know, there’s just a whole list of them for tools, I think you could go to the Association of Professional teachers, it’s called ap f.org. And I’m a board member. So I have to hold my hand up and say that and there are lots of things in the open domain on that, you know, you should be able to find some tools there are lots of people use different tools. I mean, there are tools that can help you do horizon scanning, that can mind for data, there are tools that can use that use an AI to take the data and do something with it. So there’s a huge amount of things you can you can look for. And it really depends on what the outcome is its desired. And the one thing I would say is that in an organization, certainly, when you’re doing foresight, it needs to be participatory, it means that a lot of people need to be part of it. So that you have lots of people on the lookout, as well as helping you with the plans, of course, want to read something from the book from your chapter, in the book, where it says, The combination of powerful technologies, and prosperous economies and genders choice that’s empowered, the luxury of choice includes the way we build our networks, to energize our respective communities in order to get things done. And this is what I wanted to ask is, and you mentioned it as well, is the power of community is the power of consensus is the power of getting other people involved. So futurism or foresight cannot just be done with just one person, you’ve got to engage other people and make them part of the process. And that also helps you with your creativity and innovation around it not just in thinking about different potential futures, but also in how could we create advantage out of this? How can we navigate it, navigate our way from here to there to that future, particularly if you have a specific thing you want to happen? A preferred future, or preferred way for it to go to you need? You can’t do it on your own? There isn’t anybody who can make a future happen by themselves? Good. You mentioned that you mentioned your books. Tell us about your books up at Fisher, I’d love to learn more. I’ve written one that’s won some awards. And this is for people who are not futurist. It’s called strategic foresight, learning from the future. And it explains how you get to think in the way that teachers think. And is this book available online within PBS on Amazon? Okay, it’s on Amazon. Okay. Yeah. So what it does, I’ve taken so explain them the way you think and how you move your mind out of our normal mindset into being more open and thinking much longer term. And identifying because we all have different envelopes, is what I’ll say for what we think about and how to expand the envelope. And then it gives examples of tools that you can use. So the three horizons is one of them. And the two by two matrix is another. But there are lots of different tools. And it’s not all the tools. It’s just here’s a project, and there’s a case study in it. And here’s the tools you can use as you move through the project from start, where you’re doing your research and your horizon scanning, to finish helping implement the changes that need to be implemented. I love it. I’m going to post a link to your book in the description of this video. So if people want to buy it, you can go to the Amazon link and buy it. I haven’t read it yet, but I’d really recommend all viewers and listeners to check it out. It’s always valuable to gain this knowledge and information. We also have aftershock I believe aftershock is also available on Amazon and it’s available wherever you are. And I’m highly recommending everybody to buy a copy and start reading end to end chapter one to the last chapter. Producer. I know we’re short on time, but I’d love to speak with you for a longer time. We know you have other things to do. Tell us where people can find you look up your work, look up Jill’s work and hopefully get in touch with you. The best way to get in touch with the two of us is through the website, www. Global mega trends calm. But I’m also reachable through www dot lazur l a s a dash insight calm. Okay, so two websites global Mega trends.com and Lhasa insights.com. And I’ll know as insight one plus insight.com. I’ll post links to those two sites in the description of this video. Any last thoughts on where we’re headed in the next five to 10 years generally, as we come out of this shock that COVID-19 has created on the world it’s definitely shocked us What do you anticipate in the next five to 10 years? Well, for sure it will not be the same. This has been a watershed moment and a watershed moment is when what happened before and what happens now is different. There’s one moment and everything changes. What’s going to be interesting is to think about what will stay the same and what will change. So we think travel will change we think so many people are living at home or living at home with working from home now. And you know, they may not want to go back to work. And we may find that this is a better way to do it. And what do people do already, the investment funds that work in the area of real estate, at least in the UK have stopped trading for now until they can figure out what’s happening. I think that’s going to be a shake up. Because I think office space is going to be it you know, and especially in big city centers, like London is going to diminish a great deal. And travel is going to change. You know, I mean, look, I don’t know where you’re based us. I’m in Toronto, Toronto, Canada, Toronto, sorry, I Oh, no, see me. So Toronto, so you’re not that far in time away. But we can have this discussion. And, you know, 20 years ago, that would have been quite difficult. It was possible, but it would have been very difficult and very expensive. It changes the way we work, the way we work and what we work on is going to change. I know a lot of people are really frightened. And of course, it’s frightening that people you know, are going to die. I can’t tell you what that’s like, and you have kids, and I have children and grandchildren. And it scares me silly. But I do think that what’s going to come is going to be very interesting and can actually be something quite good if we make it that way. Thank you, Patricia. I really like how you ended it tomorrow. Well, we know it will be different, but let’s hope it’s good. It’s best for us or friends or families and humanity in general. Keep inspiring people and keep helping us understand where we’re headed. Thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it and wish you all the best. Okay, thank you. Hey, friend, this is Ian Khan. If you like what you saw on my video, then please subscribe to my YouTube channel and be inspired every single day with innovative content that keeps you fresh, updated and ready for the future. For more information. Also visit my website at Ian khan.com

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