Meeting Charlie Ang - Business Futurist

Last night, I learned something:

There are no facts about the future because it hasn't happened yet.

What that means is that everything you hear about the future is opinion.

We can, of course, make educated guesses and predictions. We can base them on past experiences and present observations, but they will still be nothing more than guesses.

That said, it doesn't mean that we don't need to prepare for it.

That's why I attended Charlie's event.

Charlie shared a great deal of information, backed up by statistics and articles, about what he sees the future will be.

Of note are the following points:

1) The Information Economy will make way for the Intelligence Economy, which will be slow at first but will improve exponentially.

When this happens, we can expect a greater disruption than when the Industrial Economy transitioned into the Information Economy. This is partly due to the fact that information itself is inherently passive. It cannot act on its own but only in tandem with other factors.

As with all fledgling technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is in its stage of infancy. It can do simple tasks now, but will pick up speed in the coming years until it 'suddenly' makes a breakthrough, one that will allow its ascension into the foremost technology of its time.

2) Preparing for the future requires us to IMAGINE the future

If there is one thing we can do that machines cannot, it is the ability to dream, imagine and envision.

If we don't first imagine a future that we want to live in, someone (or something) else will. And when they create it, we no longer get it a say in it.

3) For businesses, disruption can come in two forms: Supply Disruption and Demand Disruption

Supply disruption is the easier one to look out for. For example, instead of hiring an insurance agent, peer-to-peer insurance may develop and take over the market. Personal AI Assistants may also become so proficient at weighing between policies that they can recommend the most cost-effective solution.

Demand disruption, on the other hand, tends to be harder to spot, unless you are adept at joining all the dots. In the same example of insurance, self-driven cars of the future may make the roads so safe and, because they are not owned by any one individual at a time, may need little to no car owner's insurance at all. In the same vein, if disease prevention becomes so powerful that people almost never get any diseases, health insurance policies are going to see a dip as well.

There are so many factors and forces that are at work that it is very difficult to predict what will happen and even more difficult to see what will happen because of what happens.

For now, it is becoming ever more important for businesses to explore new avenues even as they are exploiting the markets of today.

Thank you, Charlie, for sharing your thoughts and knowledge on the subject. It has sparked a lot of thoughts and, I imagine, many future conversations.

A Creative, Millennial-friendly Workplace of the Future?

Last Thursday, I attended the 138th APTS Networking and Training Workshop.

Our first speaker was Dickson Tang (of Ideaschap), who spoke on Creativity and its importance in the future of work.

Though we are, inevitably, marching towards a future of automation and artificial intelligence, there are things that machines and computers cannot do well. As good as they are at analysis and logic, they cannot solve creatively.

In that, we have our advantage over them. To that end, Dickson shared 3 things that will be important in an automated future:

An INDIVIDUAL MINDSET that is creative and, instead of saying, “Cannot!” asks “Why not?”

A team INFRASTRUCTURE that is held together by making and learning from mistakes and strives to become well-versed in multiple disciplines.

A bank of IDEAS derived from figuring out how we can add to, subtract from, multiply by or divide up our current thoughts and methods.

He encouraged us to take time to ponder over these points and apply them to what we are already currently doing.

After a short break, we had our second speaker – Vivek Iyyani who spoke about Motivating Millennials at the Workplace.

 He shared the identity and motivations of the Millennials and, true to the Millenials’ embrace of technology, he made use of an audience-interactive online service that allowed us to immediately post our thoughts on the presentation screen.

He reminded us that, though the Millennials are often portrayed negatively, they are a product of previous generations and they still look to their elders for wisdom and feedback.

In order to lead Millennials, he emphasises that the previous generations have to appeal to their values and take the time to understand and mentor them. It is in the interests of superiors in the workplace (especially bosses) to make the work environment conducive to the Millennials using his 10F Model. I'll just mention a couple of them briefly:

FUN – to appeal to and cultivate their passions

FLEXIBILITY – to aid in work-life integration

FORTUNE – in benefits, not necessarily money

As a Millennial myself, I would certainly be more attracted to a workplace that has these things in place.

Once again, thank you, Dickson and Vivek for sharing your expertise and for making it such a fruitful evening.

Presentation Advice for Trainers / Educators

Every good presentation is a result of following 3 S’s:

Steps

Simplicity

Story 

Steps give your presentation a smooth flow – a result of proper planning, preparation and practice. 

Find out about your target audience and customise your presentation for them. Decide what information to present, then prepare any visuals, handouts, materials, and equipment that you will be using. 

Familiarise yourself with the content by practising your delivery and timing. Any instructions should be clear, concise and specific. Remember to allow time to carry out your instructions.

Simplicity ensures that your session is understandable but not ‘dumbed down’, challenging but not too difficult to grasp.

To do this, use:

1) Short sentences

2) Everyday words instead of jargon or technical terms

3) Personal pronouns, like ‘I’ and ‘you’

4) Active verbs instead of passive verbs

5) A little humour

Story helps make your presentation memorable. After all, we are all wired to pay attention to (good) stories.

A typical story flow goes:

1) Connect (with audience)

2) Create (scenes in audience’s minds)

3) Characters

4) Crack

5) Conflict

6) Climax

7) Clearing (of prior messes)

8) Conclusion

Apart from full-fledged stories, you can share anecdotes and human interest stories. Just make sure that they are relevant to the topic of your presentation.

Meeting Dean Shams - Communication Strategist - Again

I first met Dean at an APTS meeting in July last year, when he was the speaker.

I wrote about what he taught us here:

At the end of that evening, I got his book - Speak Smart, Make Your Mark - and found it very useful. It presents the process of getting your mindset right about communication before going into the details and methods of making your communication more impactful and effective.

We've been in contact since then and I met him again as a speaker at the Up Your Game Conference late last year.

His topic was 'Up Your Profile', for which he taught the audience how to raise their profiles and build credibility and trust with others.

He spoke as a Communication Strategist, shared his experience in the industry of PR, and reminded the audience that the media doesn't necessarily improve a person's image or brand. It merely amplifies it. 

What that means is that we are responsible for improving our own images / brands.

He gave 4 Key Points:

1) Know your message
2) Know your audience
3) Know your space
4) Know your style

One of the memorable points he made was 'Don't Be Humble'. Specifically, it means to stay away from false humility and to have confidence in your own ability and expertise - a point that I definitely agree with (a topic for another post, I imagine).

At the end of his presentation, he reminded us that a great public profile begins with us managing ourselves.

Dean's style of communication is direct and practical. We share a common belief that substance doesn't need to be fluffed up to be appealing, and I unhesitatingly recommend his expertise to anyone looking to improve their or their company's public profile.

You can look him up here: