What is driving the trend of corporate governance?

The fun part of this work is that people keep feeding you with ideas on megatrends. I recently met with strategy execution guru Jeroen De Flander (author of  "Strategy Execution Heroes"), who suggested me to have a closer look at corporate governance as a trend. For sure, corporate governance is on the agenda of plenty of companies. But is it a megatrend? Let's put it to the test:

• Is it long-lasting (5-10 years)?  It seems reasonable to assume that it is...
• Is it amplifying? There's certainly reasons to believe that more and more companies will (have to) adopt this practice, so yes;
• Does it have an impact, does it shift something? For sure, the move to corporate governance shifts business from some of the excesses it has adopted (due to various reasons). In other words: it does affect the notion of wild capitalism;
• Does it impact a substantial part of society? Well, arguably capitalism is governing a large portion of society right now, so anything that changes its nature would ultimately have an impact on society;
• Does it feel inevitable (not prone to fashion, tastes or lobbyists)? That's a hard one, but as my graph beneath shows, there are many factors and trends reinforcing companies to adopt corporate governance practices, albeit for their own financial interest.

So, in summary, yes, corporate governance a megatrend, and certainly worth monitoring. I've put it my my list. (thanks Jeroen.)

As an extra argument, here's an extract of an interview with the CEO of Pepsico and  the chairman of Accenture on the subject:

Changing the paradigm of education

I stated this earlier: if Western countries want to remain competitive in the new wave of Globalization, we profoundly need to change our way of educating youngsters.

The video beneath provides a compelling argument for changing the education paradigm. It's a lecture of Sir Ken Robinson I posted earlier, but in an animated version... A crystal clear logic:

How megatrends influence and affect each other (2)

In a previous blog post I was searching for effective ways to show how megatrends influence each other, how they strengthen or weaken one another, and how they might generate some unexpected consequences, due to the indirect effects they would have.

I just tried out a new way of presenting this. Hereunder is an example of how this would look like, starting from the Ageing Population trend:

The timeflow between the trends is represented by the colors connecting them (from light blue to dark blue). When the cone is growing bigger it means that the ‘receiving’ trend is being reinforced by the previous one, and vice-versa. I also tried to represent how ‘events’ (in the clouds) would reinforce or diminish certain trends.

There are probably ways to improve this, though obviously I don’t want to over-engineer this…

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome!

Brainstroming the use of crowdsourcing in a company or team

This is a presentation that I use to introduce the concept of crowdsourcing, as a start of a brainstorming session on how crowdsourcing could be of use within a company or team. Really high level, this should serve as a brain opener:

Crowdsouring corporate brainstorm

View more presentations from Frederic De Meyer

The future is made out of glass...

Chances are that you've seen this future vision already -the video has been viewed 9 million times on Youtube. But, if not, it's worthwhile spending 5 minutes on it...

Obviously it's an advertisement -Corning is producing the glass shown in this clip. Nevertheless, it offers quite an intriguing view of the future, one that's filled with glass. Certainly reinforces the thought and appeal of 'always on, always connected'.

-better not play football at home though...

...enjoy!

...

"Grown up digital" - How Gen Y is changing society paradigm

Personally, I have no doubt that Generation Y (born after 1980's) will have a different attitude towards life and work, and will find other, more innovative ways to deal with major megatrend challenges.

In the video beneath, Don Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World, provides the main reasons for this optimism and this change in attitude... the web would be responsible for a change in brain structure of the youth, enabling them to be more creative, innovative and entrepreneurial...

Quite an appealing message at first, although in the book there's very little evidence or valid proofs of point... so I'm still searching for evidence for my 'belief'...

Flexible, stretchable chips bring GRIN technologies closer

The emergence of GRIN technologies (the combination of Genomic, Robotic, Information and Nanotechnologies) might still feel like science fiction to most. The idea of having our human body constantly monitored and acted on remotely, or even automatically, for more than just a replacement of a mechanical function (a leg or arm), still looks far away.

But flexible and stretchable chips might bring this a bit closer. It could certainly monitor brain activities constantly (without wires or scans), and could stimulate certain areas of the brain (in order to repair certain functions of the body).

A flexible, stretchable chip certainly has plenty more applications in comparison to the rigid chip of today (however small these get). It’s a very interesting technological trend with much more applications than purely medical:

Innovation in the classroom, a more efficient way of teaching ?

I already posted some articles on the future of education on this Blog. The multiple challenges that lie ahead of this world will require some new form of thinking and collaborating in order to find and implement solutions, and the next wave of globalization will require a more inclusive way of looking at other cultures. Both these skills are sadly lacking in the Western education curriculum.

So why not include classes on innovation or on building new business models, why wouldn’t we teach young people how to make websites, how to collaborate through the internet, how to use social media to form an neutral, balanced opinion of what’s happening in other parts of the world? Wouldn’t that make sense? And wouldn’t this prepare the youngsters to the ‘real world’ such as it is evolving?

Why does the West seem so afraid to innovate in matters of Education? (I don’t know whether this is different in developing countries, to be fair)

This doesn’t necessarily require a revolution, as this speech of Salman Kahn at a recent TED conference shows. His value proposition is both simple and appealing: instead of having children learn at school and do homework at home, why not flip the two? This would enable kids to learn at their own pace, and do homework more efficiently, while collaborating with teachers and other pupils…

This looks quite appealing to me, this would enhance the kids’ abilities to learn online, and ‘do’ work in a collaborative environment.

Food for thought…

Assessing the impact of megatrends on your company (slideshare)

Some generic slides of my presentation on the why's and how's of using megatrends to find new opportunities and threat for your company, and how to take them into account to ensure a successful and sustainable future!

Assessing the impact of megatrends on your company

Definition and examples of crowdsourcing...

I've been talking about crowdsourcing a couple of times on this blog, but I realize I have never provided a clear definition yet... rather than inventing my own, it's probably better to leave the word to Jeff Howe who basically introduced the word (not the concept though):




I'm currently going through some examples of crowdsourcing... there's quite a complete list to be found on the crowdsourcingexamples website, but for a more dynamic taste of the phenomena better subscribe to www.crowdsourcing.org.

As to my personal favorites so far...:

Marketing:
www.crowdspring.com
www.namingforce.com
www.creatad.com

Innovation:
www.crowdworks.net
www.quirky.com
www.chaordix.com

...to be continued, undoubtedly...

The increasing role of sustainability in corporate world

I was presenting about megatrends at the West Flemish Chambers of Commerce last week, to an interesting mix of Flemish owners of medium-sized, international companies. When presenting findings on sustainability and the influence of 'conscious buying', some interesting discussion followed.

Most of these entrepreneurs thought the whole trend towards sustainability is over-hyped, although some were indirectly affected by it (for instance, one producer of frozen vegetables was part of a Life Cycle Assessment of one of its customers, and as a result had to make sure there were toilets available on the farming land of its suppliers). My counter-argument was that customers increasingly demanded it, so the trend could be used as a marketing or branding message, but more so it offers some specific opportunities for innovative, new revenues as well.

Apparently this has been discussed at the WEF meeting in Davos 2011 as well. In this video, Daniel Esty, professor at Yale, comments on some discussions about sustainability in Davos. According to him businesses increasingly use sustainability arguments and initiatives to drive revenue and build on their brand image.

So, whatever the reason (and there are more to be found than the above), my take is that sustainability will become increasingly important within the corporate world...

Visualizing the impact of a megatrend on your company

In a previous post I already showed how to plot megatrends in order to make the conclusions for your company visible. One of the ways discussed was to plot the megatrends on a chart with, on the X-axis, a timeline (has the trend started, is it nigh, or for the unknown future?) and on the Y axis the impact on your company (high vs. low).

However, I just found a better way to plot the trends, with:

• X-axis: Context vs. Core
  Is the (mega)trend touching our core activities, our reason of existence, or is it only influencing our environment (customers, employees, providers, ...)?
• Y-axis: Manageable vs. Determined
  Is there any means for us to influence or act on the trend, or can we only stand by and watch?

By plotting trends against these elements, you obtain 4 quadrants:

• 'Aware': The trend is affecting your environment but there is no way for you to act on it... obviously you should be aware of these trends, since it influences your stakeholders, so you should track the changes it creates with your stakeholders and assess whether it can influence their behavior; 
• 'Monitor': The trend affects your core activities but there is no way you can act upon it. You have to closely monitor this trend and build 'early warning signals' to spot whenever certain thresholds are nearing.
• 'Influence': The trend is affecting your environment and there are ways for you to act on it... well that's rather a good spot, you can become a star with your customers or suppliers, if you act in their best interest; 
• 'Action': The trend affects your core activities and you can act on it. Careful planning and a thorough understanding of the trend, with all its impact, is needed here. These trends will be crucial to develop a successful future strategy.

How old is old? Huge perception differences across countries

Researching on Generation Y and the aging population for my book on Megatrends, I came accross an interesting study from Nielsen 'The Global impact of an aging world' (which you can download for free after registration, click here).

The first thing that stroke me was the differences of the perception of age (or oldness) across geographies, although after a closer look this isn't too surprising:

(From Nielsen) "In the 14 oldest countries surveyed (median age of 42), 70% think old is over the age of 70, with nearly one
in three thinking old is over age 80. In the 14 youngest countries surveyed (median age of 27), 27% say being in your 60s is old and an equal percentage believe that 70s is old. Less than 1% in the youngest countries surveyed say you’re not old until your 80s.

A person’s own age is also a strong predictor of what age is considered old. Globally, nearly half of those over the age of 60 think that being old means over the age of 80. Of those under the age of 60, there is an interesting three-way divide.Fully one-third think old is being in your 70s, 26% believe old is in your 60s and 27% consider old as over 80. As age rises, so too does the perception of how old is old".

Second thing that I found striking was where people intended to spend their money on when retired... A nice looking future for the travel and airlines industry:

Interesting report, and the Nielsen website in itself is worth exploring once in a while.