A holistic approach to global sustainability

Interesting perspective at the World Economic Forum's idea lab. The argument of Johan Rockstrom is that the earth's sustainability level is now in a 'danger zone', but the solution to it can only be holistic, involving many other areas than just global warming or the ozon layer... and, according to Johan, it can be done even with an open economy.

Everything is connected, and hence the solution to the sustainability challenge can only be found through the willingness of global leaders...

Not sure if this last thought makes me optimistic though...

How MORE cattle reverses global warming...

We all know cows are extremely polluting, right? Less of them is good for the planet, right?

Well, think again... Seth Itskan argues we need more of them ! Cattle is actually a solution to global warming, and one that takes local farmers at the forefront of this solution.

or how conventional thinking is not always the right thinking:

The (future) fight for the arctic region...

The melting of the arctic ice is going much more rapidly than predicted -some scientists expect all ice to have disappeared by 2040. Bad news for the arctic (and perhaps global) ecosystem, good news for the economy: this would open new -shorter- navigation routes (in itself bad news for the economies of the South), and new oil wells will unravel (not sure if I like that one).

Thing is, this trend is self-feeding: the more territories become ice-free, the more human activity will establish in them, which in turn will lead to more melting of surrounding ice. From what I read this trend is already over the point of no-return.

But, more crucial, is its impact on geopolitical balances. The 6 countries at the border of the arctic (Russia, US, Canada, Norway, Iceland and Denmark-Greenland) will obviously try to put their hands on these 'new' territories, and China is trying hard to raise its presence in some of these regions as well. Russia is undoubtedly the best positioned right now (it has the highest level of activity in the region already), but the stakes are so high that all countries concerned are raising their attention to the region.

No doubt this will reshuffle some geopolitical cards, but the ultimate outcome is hard to predict...

Augmented reality devices getting mainstream

The future is 'augmented', especially if it's seen through ultra-slim glasses... I'm not necessarily in favor or against it, just wondering whether I can imagine any application that will make me want any of these...  The automatic translator sounds useful enough:

The future of business organizations, can every function be virtualized?

Last couple of weeks I’ve been giving a number of speeches about the future of business organizations. At the start of the talk I ask the question whether one can imagine a completely ‘virtualized company’, in other words: ‘could a company of, say, 40B$ turnover be managed and operated by one single person?’

Well, could it?

In each of the corporate divisions we can actually see some trends emerge that, if taken to the extreme, would signify a complete virtualization of this function;

• R&D? think about what effects open innovation, open sourcing or consumer driven innovation would have…
• Manufacturing? just imagine if every family or community would own a 3D printer… not at all science fiction
• Marketing? aren’t trends like crowdsourcing and social buying making this function a bit irrelevant?
• IT? think of the consequences of DIY technology, cloud and consumerization…

And so on.

But obviously, the future is rarely extreme. What all these trends really imply is that the world increasingly becomes part of your operations, and hence it is the nature of all these divisions’ responsibilities and competencies. Grossly put the near future looks like this:

The full slide-deck is now available on slideshare!

Don’t hesitate to contact me to have this presentation ‘live’ for your team, company or industry event !

Tips & tricks to use megatrends for strategic innovation #5/5: 'consider anti-trends'

This might sound counter-intuitive, but some trends can lead to counter-movements. This obviously doesn't apply to all trends: however hard you try to oppose ageing population, I don't see how exactly you would succeed at it. But take another example: the digitization of society -the fact that we're increasingly 'connected', always and everywhere. It's not so absurd to think that an increasing amount of people will choose to opt out of technology? Question then is: does this represent an opportunity for your business?

By way of example of these trends versus anti-trend discussions, this is a brief summary of a debate at a meeting of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia. The speaker discussed five megatrends that according to CSIRO would have the biggest influence on society in the coming years. A consultant from Bridge8 who attended the conference argued that each of these five trends could lead to the contrary. Here is a brief summary of these arguments:

When discussing megatrends internally, don't forget to discuss the potential anti-trends as well and see whether they constitute an opportunity (or a threat) to your business.


(You will find more tips & tricks, as well as a discussion of more than 20 megatrends in the book 'The impact of megatrends on your company' available on Amazon.com)

Tips and tricks to use megatrends for strategic innovation #4/5: 'communicate extensively'

If you’ve come all this way through the megatrends exercise, you will have collected a vast amount of valuable insights. Not all of these will be used for the conclusions or for the communication of the decisions that were based on this exercise. However, the pieces you don’t use might still be relevant to specific means.

• Your sales people might use them to have a better comprehension of the specific challenges and opportunities of the industries they’re in. A thorough understanding of the megatrends affecting them would enable more meaningful discussions with your customers;
• The insights gained through this exercise could help marketing to sharpen some of your key messages and reinforce the image of your company as a partner to your customers;
• Internal divisions would be better prepared for the trends affecting their activities and gain new ideas for innovation.

All stakeholders could benefit one way or another. Get the maximum out of the exercise and communicate extensively !

(More tips and tricks, as well as a study of the impact of more than 20 megatrends on businesses can be found in my new book 'The impact of megatrends on your business: How to assess the impact of long-term trends on your company and adapt your strategy to ensure future success ', available on Amazon.com)

Tips & tricks for using megatrends for strategic innovation #3/5: 'map the trends'

The most important part of the whole megatrend exercise is to draw valuable conclusions from it. Throughout the exercise you will have gathered tons of opinions and insights, but how do you make sense of all these?

You could write a lengthy report or presentation with all the valuable facts and conclusions, each developed through multiple angles and argumentations. Chances are that your stakeholders will be happy with all this information. They might even find the time to read it. Just before they put the report on their shelves, only to be retrieved at the next desk cleaning effort.

Better is to visualize the insights. And there’s no better way to visualize things, but to segment them.

You could for instance segment trends based on the impact they have on your company (Y-axis) and whether they have developed already, are doing so now or will do somewhere in the future (X-axis). This gives you a good idea on which trends you need to act on urgently:

A more sophisticated way would be to assess whether your company has any influence on the trends or on their consequences (Y axis) and whether they relate to your core business or not (X-axis). While the trends in the top-right box require immediate action, it is the trends in the top left box (‘influence’) that will be the most crucial for you from a competitive and innovation perspective. Think about it for a moment... And if you still don’t know why drop me a mail.

Another good way to visualize conclusions are heat maps. Say you list all the major customer segments you serve (rows) against major megatrends (columns). By coloring based on whether these segments are being threatened or can benefit from these trends, you obtain a valuable overview of the major challenges and opportunities your customers (and hence, indirectly, your business) are facing.

If you need to communicate just one thing from the whole megatrend exercise, it would be these type of graphics. Print them, put them on the walls in the offices of your stakeholders, on the landing page of your intranet, whatever. But make sure people think about these conclusions. 


Click if you missed the previous tips & tricks #1 'Look beyond the obvious' #2 'Discuss internally'

Tips & tricks for using megatrends for strategic innovation #2/5: 'discuss internally'

In the previous post of this series I discussed the selection of megatrends to include in the strategic innovation exercise.

The next step in using megatrends for strategic innovation is to brainstorm them internally. Don’t let any external consultant direct you into their opinions or convictions. Your people are the best judges on how to turn external market shifts into concrete opportunities for your business, so it makes sense to leverage all this internal knowledge.

However, to get the maximum out of these discussions, you’ll need to take a couple of rules into account (and, eventually, get some assistance from external people):

Organize ‘think tanks’ of 4-5 people per subject (demographic trends, geopolitical trends, climate and sustainability, etc)

• Include people with different background,  functions and levels of seniority in the discussions… diversity enriches !
• Take +/- 30 minutes discussion per trend;
• Structure the discussion (impact on industry, impact on customers, impact on channels, …), for instance using the business model canvas; 
• Brief the participants on forehand with a light, easy to read introduction to the trends that will be discussed –for instance with the megatrends fact sheets produced by i4fi.

Good thing is: people really appreciate to have discussions about the ‘bigger picture’ for their company –instead of the weekly commits and the day-to-day problems. It increases their involvement and commitment to the future of your business. In that sense it is also an excellent topic for part of your team meetings…

Tips & tricks for using megatrends for strategic innovation #1/5: 'look beyond the obvious'

Understanding long-term trends and their impact on your business is vital for the long-term competitiveness and –hence- survival of your company. To understand these trends and draw the right conclusions from them in terms of strategy and innovation, i4fi suggests a simple, 4 step approach:

1. Select the trends you want to discuss 
2. Brainstorm them internally 
3. Draw conclusions 
4. Communicate conclusions (extensively)

This looks simple enough but, as so often, the devil is in the detail. Hence this short series of tips and trick in order to make this exercise work and get the maximum out of it.

Let’s start with the first one: “Look beyond the obvious”

There are plenty of trends you could take into account in the exercise. See below for a list of 46 I usually use at the start. Most companies tend to use the trends that directly affect them. Tech companies will consider the impact of the Internet of Things or Mobility. Pharma companies will be inclined to use tends such as ageing population and climate change, for instance.

Problem is:

•  your competitors are using the same trends 
• sometimes trend have an indirect, ‘hidden’ effect on your business which you need to take into account 

So a first imperative to make a megatrend exercise lead to meaningful innovation for your business is simple: consider trends that don’t have an obvious impact on your industry or company. This will ensure you a 360° view as well as building blocks for truly competitive innovation.

PS: you’ll find a full discussion on +20 megatrends and more tips & tricks in this book:

'Transformational Entrepreneurs', the next big thing?

Interesting article in the Harvard Business Review about 'transformational entrepreneurship', a term that designate companies that combine the scalability of technology with the social purpose of social entrepreneurship. The economic impact of the Googles and Amazons can hardly be overestimated, so just imagine what would happen if they had a goal of doing social good ! (okay, some might argue that they are already doing social good, by democratizing information or by providing jobs...)

Max Marmer, the author of the article, puts the nicely in a graphic:

It doesn't take a genius to see that the 'transformational entrepreneurship' segment is relatively empty at this stage (unless you want to put institutions like the World Economic Forum in there, or -why not- TED talks), and hence might constitute an opportunity for companies.

Max then takes this segmentation one step further, expanding it with companies and institutions that have a negative effect on the economy or on society:

I know this is an ideation, but it raises some questions as far as I'm concerned:

• Why would the 'Transformational Non Profit' institutions have a negative economic impact? I know of a couple that have a very positive one, not for themselves (since they're non profit) but for the economies of the countries in which they operate, or by the very mere fact they they provide employment. The segmentation makes sense if 'economic impact' is purely seen as 'profit making', but this reduces the scope of the picture;
• Max seems to indicate that Transformational Entrepreneurship is the next big thing to solve some global challenges. They surely are, but they're not the only ones. Some challenges are very local by nature, scaling them globally might hence produce a negative effect. Also, social entrepreneurs might wish to remain at smaller scale but can lead by example, inspiring others to do the same. The movement or the idea can do global good, while the companies executing them could remain small. The result would be equally beneficiary as for the Transformational Entrepreneurs.

Nevertheless, it is a very appealing idea. Imagine a Google or an Apple focusing on social innovation -at an equal profit. It's not at all a lunatic thought, they have the means and the power to do so....