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Winning The Future: A #Badgeless SxSW 2016 Recap


While I have often gone to Austin for SxSW over the past 9 years to speak about the future with thought leaders from around the world, speaking on the future was literally my purpose this year. While I was #Badgeless again, I was also speaking at two different unofficial events, the W2O Pre-Commerce Summit and Talentnet. While I was ‘working’ constantly from when I arrived on Wednesday through Friday evening, I was still able to get a great sense of the festival itself, how it’s changed and what it’s future looks like — more on that later, or skip down if you are looking for my perspective on SxSW itself.

The Future of… 

I’m finally getting comfortable with being called a futurist instead of giggling at the titular comedy of the role. I’ve definitely put my 10,000+ hours into inventing the future over the course of my life, maybe even 100,000+ hours. Even back in High School I tried to get my manager at Wendy’s to add onion rings to the menu after I cooked some up using ingredients we had on hand.

I could have simply focused on writing and speaking about the future, but I have just as often taken a run at manifesting my visions as a serial entrepreneur and now a social entrepreneur. While I have been early to market often, every single concept has later proven itself valid – from local content networks, to conversational intelligence, to human powered search, to customer experience design, to content marketing, to information appliances, to reinventing comments and more recently to reimagining work.

At the W2O Group’s Pre Commerce Summit, I participated in a panel, literally titled “The future of…”  My role was to focus on organizations and society, which is what I’ve been researching for the last several years. While a few of my comments were apparently controversial, such as my prediction that 50MM jobs will be gone forever within 5 years due to automation, AI and robotics, many were inspiring. When asked what I suggested the audience due to prepare for the future, I took the conversation into a very human direction – to love, self love specifically. You really need to listen/watch…

Facilitated by Mike Edelhart, I was joined by Julie Borlaug of the Borlaug Institute and Kush Parikh, CEO of PayByPhone. I was really blown away by all the great work Julie is doing to end hunger around the world, and more impressed by her practical yet forward thinking approach to this important work. If we were to see more people like her working towards social good, I think most of our problems would be solved by now.

You can view video of the panel here at the 1 hr 28 minute 30 second mark. From the feedback it was one of the better panels of the day.

A full recap of the pre-commerce Summit was posted by my good friend Lionel Menchaca.

#Reorg Everything: My Talentnet Keynote

Reorg EverythingWhat is the Adaptive Economy? Why do we need to #Reorg? What should be our focus? Here’s the premise…

The pace of change isn’t just fast, it’s accelerating. So many things are changing that we can no longer look at a single facet as we did at the dawn of digital and then networked computing. It’s not just the gig economy, the collaborative economy, the on demand economy or the green economy in isolation, it’s all of that and more, requiring a more holistic approach. As Darwin taught us long ago, in this fast changing world, it’s the quickest to adapt that survives.

Fundamentally we must first accept that the market is no longer a battlefield. It’s an ecosystem. Leading and winning in an economy that is oriented around creating the greatest amount of shared value is very different from one in which you are seeking to capture the most amount of profit for the organization and its shareholders. This is why I propose we need to #Reorg everything and serve the market.

How do we do it? By adopting new mindsets, methods and measures, most especially in my view of embracing some form of self management. This requires you to focus on creating alignment across the ecosystem, developing greater agility and creating a culture of accountability. We must also become more proactive and predictive.

The enemy we face today in organization’s, besides fear of change itself, is three fold – budgets, bonuses and bozos. In the real time transparent world in which we live, we need to go beyond the sort of budgeting which requires us to accurately predict future market dynamics.Being more agile enables you to adapt to the market’s needs more easily. With a culture of accountability, you will increase trust such that you will also empower more people to make spending decisions across the organization. This has been proven out and more thoroughly developed through Morningstar and several other participants of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table.

For those with the courage to move towards more of an ecosystem based strategy and operating model, there is a massive opportunity to lead the market and seize the lion’s share of the profits to be had. The more trusted a company becomes, the lower the cost of sales, the higher the likelihood of becoming the employer of choice and the higher the switching costs for partners and customers alike.

So much more to come on this in the weeks/months ahead. I’ve been running towards this future through my software company and it’s latest product Will Someone, a community collaboration tool. I’m furthering that development while going more public with the insights I’ve developed to help build a better future for all, by design.

You can hear more about the Adaptive Economy in this audio + slide deck from my keynote presentation, #Reorg Everything. I presented this for the first time on Friday March 11, 2016 in Austin TX as the keynote for the Talentnet conference in the offices of HomeAway.

We are building on this even further now, taking the work that went into this keynote and starting to write a book on the Adaptive Economy. If you are interested in contributing, have questions or want to talk about it more, please let me know in the comments.

Unofficial SxSW: #Badgeless #FTW

Wherever you went, Obama and Trump were the topics of the day.  Which I’ve been trying to avoid recently. From talking to Lord Chadlington at the W2O Pre Commerce Summit, I discovered that most voters seem to break for the winning candidate in the final 48 hours. So I realized I want to invest my time this election cycle in getting out the vote. All of this talk between here and now is important, but to make the maximum impact, I am changing my focus and I hope you join me.

There were many conversations like this that mattered deeply. Talking with Kyle Ellicot about Wearable IoT World and their new efforts in Asia while hanging out at one of the best venues of SxSW hosted by Heather Meeker Haas and her team at Zendesk; hearing more about the plans for Techfugees from Mike Butcher; getting judged as unworthy for my super casual weekend in Austin style (t-shirt/shorts) twice; hearing more about Anne Greenberg’s ideas in VR; learning about some of the Digital Transformation work my former Deloitte Digital colleagues are doing; pitching a new idea to solve some big problems; and so many more amazing people and projects that can’t all be reflected here.

The big story out of SxSW as you have heard elsewhere is VR everywhere. From Robert Scoble announcing he’s leaving Rackspace to be an EIR at Upload VR to VR experiences seemingly in every major brand activation. One of my favorite unofficial events of this year was the New York Times VR Event programming, where I was able to pick up their Google Cardboard viewers and finally experience journalism in VR. It was truly life changing. In watching their story on the refugee crisis, and standing in the middle of a UN food drop, I felt the future. The amount of empathy you can create by immersing someone virtually into someone else’s shoes is massive.

In fact, when I returned home, I shared that refugee food drop with my Mother in law who was visiting, who was equally blown away. Trouble being, she isn[t going to put the cardboard together and get in a swivel chair to make the most of the 360 degrees, so it’s still a bit too much friction for current fidelity. When Kristie tried it out, she got nauseous…

As I explained often at SxSW, despite these current challenges, I see a huge future for Augmented Reality, beyond the entertainment and experiential potential of Virtual Reality. To get all buzzy, I believe there is a huge opportunity in crafting contextualized collaboration in Augmented Reality with cognitive assistance. Or in other words, Immersive Collaboration. What does it mean? That’s a vision of the future for another day…

SxSW: The Festival & It’s Future

Obviously, having the Obama’s speak at SxSW this year was a big win for the organizers. Even still, people were talking about whether it jumped the shark or not. I think it’s constantly changing and as long as it attracts great people, which it will continue to do for the foreseeable future, it will continue to thrive.

Just prior to SxSW 2016 I spoke about this to a report reporter for this article for AdWeek. While she reflected my quote accurately, it was missing some context. I had also told her that like any event or place or time, your experience is dependent on what you make of it, who you spend time with and what you choose to focus on. What makes it worth while for me is that hundreds of friends and other visionary leaders from around the world fly into Austin for the conference or to be there #Badgeless like me. Unfortunately, until the SxSW leadership makes the conference content more accessible, I am choosing to go #Badgeless and enjoy the city of Austin fully.

What could SxSW do to earn my conference registration fee? Maybe they’d get it with reserved session seating (IMax does it here in SF and most/all theaters in London do it). Maybe they could just sell less tickets and/or shrink the diameter of the geography upon which their venues are spread. I go for the diversity of topics being covered (and the music, the BBQ and again, the people!).

This year I noticed that many of the parties and other events were not as crowded and the lines weren’t as long. I have to attribute this to a density of brand activations, both official and unofficial. There was just so much going on at every time slot you couldn’t possibly get to all of it. I tried a couple of times and was generally unsuccessful each time I tried.

This is where Scott Beale’s early advice to me about getting the most from SxSW still rings true. “Wherever you are be there. Make the most of it. You could be anywhere else, but you are where you are until you are ready to go somewhere else.”

There was also a noticeable changing of the guard, with a whole new generation of SxSW participants on the scene and many of my peers now staying home – some with ‘real jobs’ and some with new babies. I made a few new friends, and deepened some existing relationships. More importantly, I was able to get some validation on my work and now have a few new projects and prospects moving forward.

Conclusion

It seems one of the most surprising things people found with my vision of the future is how human centric it is. Many were taken aback when the key advice I gave to the W2O Group event was to practice more self love, to not tolerate bozos and to fully embrace diversity.  As I discussed the coming destruction of millions of jobs, people were really taken aback when I suggested that the job of the future might just be that of “Citizen”.

It’s clear from the state of the Presidential race here in the U.S. that we are at a major inflection point in history, with the soul of our country and indeed of the world on the whole at stake. It’s one of the reasons I was personally getting so agitated on Facebook and becoming such an ardent supporter of Bernie Sanders, but even he doesn’t fully grasp how we can support the rise of conscious capitalism and move us to a more prosperous future for all people.

I should point out here that I don’t have all the answers either, I do know we have the means if we have the will. I do know that we can let go of what has been to embrace what can be. I am also an ardent believer in finding that whatever we dream we can achieve, so therefore asking the question is it realistic will always result in the answer yes, in time.

Many thought I was pessimistic and peddling doom and gloom when I talked about the fundamental changing nature of work and looming job destruction. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I am at my heart and in practice an optimist. I believe our future is quite bright, but I also am able to see the curve in the road ahead and want to make sure we prepare for it. Because of the Internet it is a distinct possibility that we will solve many of our collective social challenges.  But also because of the internet, we face some stiff competition. Particularly from entrenched interests and the powerful few who manipulate the system for personal benefit unfettered by a broader concern for their fellow man.

I know deep down in my soul that change happens in an instant despite the glacial pace at which we observe it. Humans can literally do anything we want to do, so why not make the world work as it could for the benefit of all instead of just a few? I know that I am best off when others around me are better off. I know that working together we can make a #BetterWorld intentionally, by design.

The first challenge is one of belief. The second is one of communicating the vision. The third is activating enough people to support new behaviors and beliefs. This is what I have been working on for all my life, but particularly over the last 3 years, first with Alynd and more recently with Will Someone. This is why we are beginning to build out the Rysing Tyde as a community organization to lift all people to their greatest potential in this Adaptive Economy, in this world where work is based on gigs instead of traditional employment.

Winning the future isn’t going to be easy, but as a species, humanity can not only survive, it can truly thrive if we only find our way past our conditioning and socialization to see what can be instead of staying focused on what is. The road ahead is going to be bumpy for most of us, but for those with the courage to make the big shift today, there is a tremendous opportunity at hand.

Chris Heuer is a futurist, a serial entrepreneur and a community organizer. He consults with startups and large organizations that want to behave like startups on strategy, marketing and product development. If you’d like Chris to help your organization navigate its journey into the future, contact him today.

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CES 2014 – Technology Solutions, Not Gadgets

Bonsai LightI’ve been trying to synthesize everything I have been seeing at this year’s CES into some trends and insights on a macro level, but the pattern wasn’t clear to me till just now. I have a lot more of the show floor to see today, but I’ve talked to a lot of press, analysts, startups (IndieGogo and Kickstarter companies are everywhere) and industry leaders, so I have a fair impression at this point which started forming after my meeting with my friends at Seagate, my tour of Eureka Park and my limited time in the Lenovo Lounge (where I am co-hosting their Social Media party tonight).

From what I have seen, it feels that there is a lot more harmony between technology and our daily lives in the solutions being offered, and there are truly more solutions for life instead of technology for technologies sake. Makers, engineers, developers, designers and business folks are thinking more holistically and more focused on real world needs and applications of technical insight. No where was that more visible then in the number of solutions around controlling lighting, or creating ambiance through it as Bonsai Light does. But Bonsai isn’t as yellow as they are green, with their unique energy harvesting technology.

Chris Heuer and Rick Wootten reflected in the LaCie Christofle SphereCES started for me on Monday when I kicked off the week by visiting with my dear friend and former Palm colleague, Rick Wootten over at the Seagate lounge in the Vdara. I personally have a Seagate Wireless Plus that I take everywhere with all my media and a backup of my key files off my laptop (for the just in case situations), but have been struggling to love it because of the mediocre media browser app they offered with it. I am happy to report that the new app they are bringing out shortly (in the next month I believe) will finally solve my challenge with this. I am unhappy to report that I love the new Seagate Slim models so much, I think I need to buy one. The other major software improvement they made is a new mobile device synchronization backup service that lets you move files from your mobile tablet or phone to your storage device with one click of a button, wirelessly.

Seeing everything that Seagate is doing (they now own LaCie btw) is what got me into a solution state of mind actually. They are no longer just a hard drive company.  Seagate Central (I also own this for my home storage cloud) and their other drives now connect and synchronize with each other, making it easier then ever to have a simple to use file backup, media server and even social media backup configuration at home. I don’t think I will be getting the new LaCie Chirstofle designed Sphere myself, but it’s an absolutely gorgeous storage device as you can see from the photo of it with myself and Rick reflected in its shiny silver plated surface.

One thing I saw that I am going to buy right away, is the Seagate Rescue and Replace data protection plan (I’m still in the window to add this to my prior purchase). I suspect everyone who has been around tech for a while will also buy this with every new drive they purchase. In short, for $30, you insure your hard drive so that if anything happens to it. Whether it just fails, gets dropped into a toilet, run over by a car or chucked up against a wall in frustration at a spinning beach ball, you can get your data back and drive replaced. Apparently the team there has a 90+% recovery rate, one of the best out there, if not the best. Better still, after you send in the damaged drive, they send you back a new drive with all your data on it and do a very secure shred of the drive and destroy all copies of the data. The one time I had to recover a drive during my first startup in the 90’s it cost me $1,400 to attempt recovery of something like 10GB.

One other thing that has me impressed and thinking about the harmony between technology and life is the Lenovo Yoga Tablet, which I am going to be buying shortly if I can’t manage to get a product loaner for a while. But I need to get out to the show floor, so I will need to tell you why my long time friends and occasional client Lenovo has me thinking about something other then an iPad…

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The #WorkRevolution Has Begun, Literally

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Sony Dash and Social Media Club Tweetup

We are really excited to be working with our good friend Sukhjit from Sony’s Social Media team to host a tweetup in San Francisco on Thursday June 17 from 6-8pm at the Westfield Center downtown. The tweetup will take place next to a recently opened kiosk for their Sony Dash product on the 3rd floor near Bloomingdales.  In addition to good conversation with friends and Social Media Club members, people who register in advance will get a chance to win their very own Sony Dash (a $200 value). You can get an extra chance to win by checking in to the kiosk on Foursquare that day and showing one of the organizers, and another chance to win if you wear your Social Media Club t-shirt. (t-shirts are sent to Professional members of Social Media Club).

As a little background, the Sony Dash is sort of like a next generation alarm clock, but so much more. They call it a personal internet viewer and according to our good friend Jeffrey Sass, it’s not only cool, but is an incredibly useful social connectivity tool. In fact, when we spoke with him recently at SF Music Tech, he told us how cool it was one day when he woke up and saw our pics from our Cabo San Lucas trip show up on his Dash.  Personally, I can’t wait to get mine and set it up (very excited to be given one as part of our compensation for helping organize and promote the event).

The tweetup is pretty straightforward – Sony is setting up a sort of lounge there with adult beverages and some light appetizers. Folks will of course get a chance to check out the Dash, but mostly we will be just hanging out in the mall, just like the good old days… with a bit of modern social flair. It’s a good chance to talk about our increasingly connected lifestyles and just hanging our with friends. It’s also a chance for you to get a last minute gift for dad for Father’s Day, which is Sunday June 20.

Please take a moment to register in advance (so you can get your chance to win a Sony Dash, you must be present to win) and we look forward to seeing you there.

[disclosure, Sony has hired Kristie Wells and myself to help organize the tweetup and is a sponsor of our Social Media Club San Francisco/Silicon Valley meeting on Tuesday January 15 on Geolocation where you will also have a chance to win a Sony Dash as a door prize drawing.]

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