Peter Fisk

Pocket-size ultrasound devices that cost 50 times less than the machines in hospitals (and connect to your phone). Virtual reality that speeds healing in rehab. Artificial intelligence that’s better than medical experts at spotting lung tumors. These are just some of the innovations now transforming medicine at a remarkable pace.

Time Magazine recently explored some of the latest ideas, inventions and innovations that are changing the world of healthcare in 2020. No one can predict the future, but it can at least be glimpsed in the dozen inventions and concepts below. Like the people behind them, they stand at the vanguard of health care. Neither exhaustive nor exclusive, the list is, rather, representative of the recasting of public health and medical science likely to come in the 2020s.

David Abney: Drone-delivered medical supplies

Since March, UPS has been conducting a trial program called Flight Forward, using autonomous drone deliveries of critical medical samples including blood or tissue between two branches of a hospital in Raleigh, N.C., located 150 yards apart. A fleet-footed runner could cover the distance almost as fast as the drones, but as a proof-of-concept program, it succeeded, and in October the FAA granted the company approval to expand to 20 hospitals around the U.S. over the next two years. “We expect UPS Flight Forward to one day be a very significant part of our company,” says UPS CEO David Abney of the service, which will deliver urine, blood and tissue samples, and medical essentials like drugs and transfusable blood. UPS is not alone in pioneering air deliveries. Wing, a division of Google’s parent company Alphabet, received similar, but more limited, FAA approval to make deliveries for both Walgreens and FedEx. And in Ghana and Rwanda, drones operated by Silicon Valley startup Zipline are already delivering medical supplies to rural villages. —Jeffrey Kluger

Christine Lemke: The biggest Big Data

There are 7.5 billion humans, and tens of millions of us track our health with wearables like smart watches, as well as with more traditional devices like blood-pressure monitors. If there were a way to aggregate all that data from even a few million of us and make it all anonymous but searchable, medical researchers would have a powerful tool for drug development, lifestyle studies and more. California-based Big Data firm Evidation has developed just such a tool, with information from 3 million volunteers providing trillions of data points. Evidation partners with drug manufacturers like Sanofi and Eli Lilly to parse that data; that work has led to dozens of peer-reviewed studies already, on subjects ranging from sleep and diet to cognitive-health patterns. For founder Christine Lemke, one of Evidation’s ongoing projects, to see if new technologies can effectively measure chronic pain, is personal: Lemke has a rare genetic disease that causes frequent back pain. Evidation is partnering with Brigham and Women’s Hospital on the project.—Jeffrey Kluger

Doug Melton: A stem-cell cure for diabetes

Type 1 diabetes affects 1.25 million Americans, but two in particular got Harvard biologist Doug Melton’s attention: his daughter Emma and son Sam. Treatment can involve a lifetime of careful eating, insulin injections and multiple daily blood-glucose tests. Melton has a different approach: using stem cells to create replacement beta cells that produce insulin. He started the work over 10 years ago, when stem-cell research was raising hopes and controversy. In 2014 he co-founded Semma Therapeutics—the name is derived from Sam and Emma—to develop the technology, and this summer it was acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals for $950 million. The company has created a small, implantable device that holds millions of replacement beta cells, letting glucose and insulin through but keeping immune cells out. “If it works in people as well as it does in animals, it’s possible that people will not be diabetic,” Melton says. “They will eat and drink and play like those of us who are not.”—Don Steinberg

Abasi Ene-Obong: A more diverse global bio bank

A major limitation threatens to hamper the era of personalized medicine: people of Caucasian descent are a minority in the global population yet make up nearly 80% of the subjects in human-genome research, creating blind spots in drug research. Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong, 34, founded 54gene to change that. Named for Africa’s 54 countries, the Nigeria-based startup is sourcing genetic material from volunteers across the continent, to make drug research and development more equitable. 54gene is conscious of the ugly history of colonial exploitation in Africa. If companies are going to profit by developing marketable drugs based on the DNA of African people, Africa should benefit: so, when partnering with companies, 54gene prioritizes those that commit to including African countries in marketing plans for any resulting drugs. “If we are part of the pathway for drug creation, then maybe we can also become part of the pathway to get these drugs into Africa,” Ene-Obong says.—Corinne Purtill

Sean Parker: A disruptive approach to cancer research

One of the original disrupters of the new economy is bringing his approach to medical research. The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, established by Napster co-founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker, is a network of top institutions including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Stanford, the MD Anderson Cancer Center and more. Its goal is to identify and remove obstacles to innovation in traditional research. For example, all of the participating institutes have agreed to accept an approval decision by any of their respective Institutional Review Boards, which “allows us to get major clinical trials off the ground in weeks rather than years,” says Parker, and at lower costs. Perhaps most important, Parker wants to infuse the project with his market sensibility: “We follow the discoveries coming from our researchers and then put our money behind commercializing them,” he says, either by licensing a product or spinning it out into a company. Since its founding in 2016, the institute has brought 11 projects to clinical trials and supported some 2,000 research papers.

In 2004, after decades of creating race-winning, record-setting running shoes, Adidas wanted to push the boundaries even further by developing a shoe that would really redefine the meaning of fast.

There was no better craftsman for the task than Japan’s legendary shoe designer Toshiaki Omori, who has helped make world-class running shoes for Adidas since 1999.

Having spent his life developing his “inside out” design philosophy, Omori believes the anatomy of the foot must always come first in the crafting process. Using molds of real feet, known as lasts, he worked to create the most perfect, streamlined fit possible – what he calls a “microfit’.

To achieve this symbiosis between foot and shoe, simplicity was essential. From the choice of materials and textiles, to the weight and cushioning of the sole, every element was carefully considered. The shoe needed a lightweight feel to maximize speed without compromising comfort. It had to be elegant, with a sock-like fit, and pace to burn. Plus, as runners know, a shoe has to look as fast as it feels.

During every step of the design journey, there was a new challenge for the team to overcome. The shoe had to be versatile and adaptable to any running conditions an athlete might encounter – kilometer repeats on the track, a 10K tempo run, treadmill interval sessions, or an ultra-marathon.

Needless to say, the design and development team had their work cut out for them.  Finally, after years of careful development, it was time to introduce the world to the adizero.

It was September 2008, the night before the Berlin Marathon. In his hotel room, Ethiopian long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie laced up the first adizero Adios prototypes. He ran up and down the hotel corridor, testing them out, feeling the responsiveness of the soles as his feet touched the ground. Impressed, he decided to wear the adizeros for the marathon.

The next day, he broke the world record in them by 29 seconds with an incredible 2.03.59 finishing time. His third consecutive win.

Since their 2008 debut, adizeros’ have collected over 150 victories in the world of elite racing. To make these wins possible, the adizero team has rigorously refined the shoe – “testing and improving with the support of athletes is fundamental in our process,” says adidas running footwear designer, Moritz Hoellmueller.

With this athlete feedback as their guide, the designers are constantly trying to harness their creativity to unlock new innovations. Each time they do, athletes are empowered to push themselves further.

Lee Ryan, current adidas Runners Dubai captain and father of two, has improved his performance along with the shoe’s evolution. In adizeros, he’s broken five world records, including fastest marathon with a double stroller. “The shoe became better over time, just as I performed better over time,” says Ryan.

Ryan couldn’t have said it better; adizeros are constantly improving alongside our athletes. Just three years after Gebrselassie’s Berlin Marathon win, Patrick Makau wore the next evolution of the shoe to beat the previous record by 21 seconds. In 2014, yet another adizero evolution broke the record when Dennis Kimetto shaved 41 seconds off Makau’s time in the adizero Adios Boost.

As more and more elite athletes started wearing and being seen in the shoes, interest in them from runners of all paces grew. adidas addressed that. Today, adizero has expanded into a range of shoes for every level. Ben Herath, a designer on the first adizero Adios, believes that “lightweight is for everyone because we all want to run fast. That was the goal, to open up speed for everyone.”

adizero has become a gateway shoe, democratizing speed for the masses. Mathilde Have, captain of adidas Runners Copenhagen, feels that wearing adizeros has reshaped her relationship with speed – “I felt faster, and that feeling made me go faster.” Like other adizero runners, the shoes made her feel more confident, allowing her to rediscover her love of running fast.

Since then there has been something of a revolution in running shoe design. The development of carbon fibre technology has enabled other brands to develop a new generation of shoes that have far greater spring-like properties, that have been claimed to improve performance by 4% or more. In a marathon that is a huge gain, whatever the level of performance.

Adidas again turned to Japanese master designer Toshiaki Omori, to find something as good, if not better.

With an all-new shape for the shoe secured, adidas then went about testing out technologies that would help runners be at their fastest and most efficient over 26.2 miles.

Another exercise in doing things ‘right’, the midsole of the adizero Pro introduces LIGHTSTRIKE for the first time on a running shoe. First debuted on the NXTLVL Basketball shoe in 2018, LIGHTSTRIKE combines energy return and stability into one of the lightest TPU foams on the market for a ride that runners will appreciate across the full distance.

Sandwiched between the LIGHSTRIKE and the sockliner is an all-new CARBITEX Carbon plate. Having been a feature of adidas shoes since the 1980’s, the newly-commissioned CARBITEX plate delivers flexibility at touchdown and a snappy toe-off for maximum propulsion and an economically guided stride.

Finishing off the new features is CELERMESH: adidas’ thinnest mesh ever, which completely locks down the foot for a fast feeling with no distractions by engineering an internal support structure within the mesh itself for lightweight lockdown. To complete the package, the iconic BOOST cushioning takes its spot in the heel to give a plush element of comfort that retains all its qualities independent of temperature, and best-in-class Continential rubber on the outsole for outstanding grip.

The adizero continues breaking records, most recently Rhonex Kipruto’s blistering 10km World Record in Valencia in January 2020. The adizero Pro will be available to everyone from May 15, 2020.

I first met Elvin Turner a decade ago in a funky, converted mill, just outside Guildford.

He was working on a project for my book publisher, Wiley, and exploring how they could improve. He clicked on the video camera and we started talking. I had lots to say. I’ve written six books published by Wiley (and the next is on its way), and it’s always been a struggle (although getting better).

We all know that the publishing industry needs a radical transformation. Innovation is urgent in everything from book formats to production, marketing and business models. Elvin was in two minds whether he dare show the video to his client. But he plucked up the courage and went back to start working with them on his project.

A decade later Elvin is a free spirit, a champion of better innovation, and has just published a great new book, with Wiley.

Make innovation more remarkable, inevitable and profitable

Be Less Zombie  brings together an impressive collection of ideas and insights into a pragmatic, actionable toolkit.

“Zombie” companies cling to what kills them: obsolete and frustrating ways of working that crush innovation and drain people’s motivation. His research goes beyond the business world – a guerrilla negotiator, a cage-fighter trainer, an X-Factor coach, a senior emergency room doctor, and a fashion designer.

Elvin’s Turn It On innovation framework gives leaders and managers tools, processes and pathways to make bolder and more profitable innovation an inevitability, not an anomaly.

The book is designed for managers who need more remarkable innovation with repeatable, scalable approaches, and explores how to:

• De-risk bolder, more profitable innovation
• Make innovation a predictable and measurable capability
• Equip managers with essential tools and skills for leading innovation and transformation
• Help teams find new capacity and energy to deliver today’s business whilst discovering tomorrow’s

In this video, Elvin looks at the connection between an organisation’s ability to discover its future (and ultimately survive), and the confidence that individual employees have in being vulnerable – taking the risk of proposing new ‘crazy’ ideas that could ultimately become important, future revenue streams .

Across many industries, very few companies do this well: CEOs make a continued plea for breakthrough ideas from their employees, yet most corporate cultures inadvertently deter individuals from doing so because of the low appetite for risk and perceived personal cost of trying something new and failing. Unfortunately that only leads to incremental innovation which is not enough to survive in today’s disruptive markets.

He says the book is for:

• CEOs who need a better, more continuous pipeline of profitable innovation
• Senior leaders who need more ideas, collaboration and energy across their divisions
• Finance executives who want to resource innovation and yet measure it effectively
• Strategy, change and transformation managers charged with delivering greater organisational agility and differentiation
• HR executives who are trying to resource and equip leaders and employees with innovation capabilities
• Organisational development managers tasked with shaping more agile and innovative ways of working
• Team leaders who need to help their people find new capacity and energy to deliver bolder ideas
• Individual employees who want their managers to stop blocking their best ideas

Free download of Be Less Zombie, Chapter 1

The future of food is about authenticity, wellness and relevance – traceability of supply chains, natural and organic ingredients, convenient and well designed packaging, and fantastic, inspiring taste

The UN estimates that by 2050 global food production will have to increase by close to 70% if we want to feed the world. This poses a real conundrum: How do we feed all those people healthy diets, in ways that don’t harm the planet?

In some cases, innovators in this space are doing what was once science fiction. The outcome of these new technologies has profound implications for the human diet, the changing climate, and the global economy.

Here are some most recent examples:

Splash out on dinner at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant, and you might find an iPod accompanies your seafood risotto. Sounds of the sea enhance the perceived freshness and flavours, and can also affect our sense of sweetness and saltiness.

Caterpillars, already popular in Africa, contain 28mg of protein per 100g, more than minced beef, and add 35mg of iron too. If you’re in search of a calcium boost, try grasshoppers.

Rising food prices, the growing population and environmental concerns make food one of the big debates for governments, and interest areas for investors. Meat production takes up huge amounts of land, consume water, diverts crops from humans, and adds to carbon emissions.

Insects, perhaps rebranding as micro-protein, could become a staple of our diets – low cost, requiring little space or water. With 1500 edible species, we could soon be tucking into nutrititous crickets and grasshoppers, ground into burgers. Wasps are a delicacy in Japan.

If you still want meat, your next steak could be sourced from a test-tube. Strips of muscle tissue using stem cells taken from cows, a little like calamari to look at, are grown in a lab, and then shaped to expectation, similar to existing meat substitutes such as Quorn. Of course you could just become vegetarian, and still get a balanced diet.

Another source of improved eating, is sensory-engineering. Scientists have shown that look and smell affect how we taste. Condiment Junkie, a sonic-branding company is exploring how certain frequencies can compensate for sugar in foods, thereby improving health, as well as enhancing the whole cooking and eating experience.

However the most significant source of future food is likely to come from algae. 145 species of green, red, and brown seaweed is already eaten in huge quantities across Asia, often as a delicacy. Ground into other foods, its strong flavour can dramatically reduce the amount of salt used, for example in bread or prepared meals. Algae farming, for food as well as energy, could become the world’s largest crop industry by 2030.

However it is not just the food content that could radically change. It is also about embracing technology to deliver more personalised service and added value experiences. A great example comes from Singularity Sushi, which uses DNA analysis to ultra-personalise food, and 3D printing to produce objects of incredible beauty.

Here are 20 case studies of companies who are shaking up the world of food and drink in profound and enlightened ways, riding the consumer trends, embracing digital technologies, with incredible new experiences and profitable new business models:

Download: Future of Food: 2025 to 2050 to 2169

Are you ready to lead the future?

The Global Advanced Management Program (Global AMP) is IE Business School’s flagship program for executives stepping up to lead the future of business.

It’s for leaders who are stepping up to become the next CEO, or maybe to join the C-suite, to run a business unit, or getting ready to do so. It’s for leaders who seek to be re-inspired, re-energised ready for an incredible future – to drive business-wide transformation, to reimagine their industry, to change the way their entire business and market works.

It’s for ambitious leaders, game changers, future makers.

If you can see yourself leading your business into the future … if you can start to imagine a business of the future, beyond that currently imagined by your leaders and peers. … then this is for you.

If you are intensely curious, positively dissatisfied, and highly ambitious … and have the courage to take on the next step, not just for you, but for your business too … then this is for you.

Our goal is to create the world’s best program for leaders like you … making sense of today’s incredible, complex and fast-changing world … and how you can have the brains and boldness to create, shape and deliver the future in your own vision.

Each year we take on a small group of 20-30 leaders and work together to help you transform your future. In the last two years, we have brought together some fantastic participants from all over the world, and many different sectors, ready to step up and shape their business, to lead their futures. They have gone on to thrive in their own worlds, and are still part of the Global AMP  community. You can join them.

Step up to lead the post-pandemic future

The Global AMP  is more relevant than ever, as the global Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted every market and business, demanding that leaders step up to think and act in new ways. As people around the world have shifted to digital technologies at home and work, we are likely to see an acceleration in new ways of working, new types of business, and new leaders.

The pandemic has acting as a catalyst for innovation, not just to survive through crisis and uncertainty, but to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Indeed it is no surprise that 57% of companies are founded in a downturn, and most innovations are born out of crisis too. Now, more than ever is the time when business needs leaders with new mindsets, new skills, and who can combine advanced learning with simultaneous business transformation.

Liquid format

To make the Global AMP  even more accessible, practical, and applied to the changing needs of you and your business, we have enhanced the format. It will now take on a much more “liquid” learning structure, so that you can continue to work, and accelerate your leadership development, during these uncertain yet important times. The program will combine online and physical formats over a longer period, enabling you to learn more, apply more, and get more practical value from the experience.

Topical, practical content

The content is entirely updated, anticipating the changing needs of business and its people as we emerge from the recent Covid-19 crisis, and through the next decade – from the megatrends that drive global markets and intelligent technologies, to the convergence of markets and emergence of new business models, new ways of working and the challenges of leading for today, and tomorrow.

We look to the companies who are shaping the world right now – from Alibaba and Aerofarms, to Babylon and Bytedance. We will learn from many different sectors – from the rapidly changing world of healthcare and finance, fashion and retail, manufacturing and technology. How are they being shaped by AI and digital platforms, by 3D printing and ecosystems, emerging markets and new consumer agendas?

Transforming your business, transforming yourself

The program takes on a more dynamic learning style, helping your to explore how to transform yourself and your business, for a world of rapid and continuous change.

We’ve structured the four weeks into a practical yet exciting journey through the world of business –  starting from the future megatrends to today’s growth drivers, exploring a world of disruptive innovations and energising organisations. In the mornings we zig, we explore all the best new ideas business, what matters for business. In the afternoon we zag. We shift venue – to a more relaxed venue – to reflect on the personal leadership challenges. What does it mean for me, my business and our future?

Deep dives, visiting some of the world’s leading businesses

Markets change so fast, that the ideas and insights of the text books rarely keep pace with reality. For that reason, we get real – taking you on a deep dive into four of the world’s most interesting businesses, one day each week.

We take you to the future of fashion, at Inditex’s innovative fast factory, to the future of banking, at BBVA’s innovation lab, to the future of manufacturing, with Airbus Industries, and the future of consumer goods, to an amazingly good vineyard!

Gamechanger project

In addition to exploring the very latest business ideas and theories, the program is highly personalised in two ways – coaching and project work. The “gamechanger” project is your opportunity to develop your own blueprint for transforming the future of your business, or a new business of your own.

You work one to one with the Academic Director in exploring and defining a new vision which you can take back, share with your business colleagues, and implement over time. It is supported by a Gamechanger Toolkit, and works alongside all modules, applying the learning to your own business, and future potential.

Personal coaching

The one to one leadership coaching program helps you to make sense of your own strengths and style, and coaches work with you to develop this, to respond to the new needs, and to prepare to step up to business leadership. It starts with an in-depth diagnostic of your leadership attitudes and behaviours, and then your coach works with you over time, independent from the rest of the program, as this is specifically about you.

Detailed structure

Modules 1 and 3 will be online, built around a 4 hour session each Friday for 10 weeks. During these sessions we will bring together the best ideas from around the business world, with expert faculty, and also take you on “deep dives” into what is happening right now in some of the world’s leading businesses.

Modules 2 and 4 will be residential, one week in Segovia, a world heritage site in Spain, and one week in the capital, Madrid. These weeks will also feature leading faculty brought together from around the world, and also enable more time for group networking and collaboration with colleagues who typically come from many different industries and every part of the world. Week 4 concludes with your graduation at IE Business School.

Start dates

There are two alternative start dates – September 2020 or January 2021 (for the online module 1), and both groups will then merge together in March 2021 (for the residential module 2, and all subsequent modules). This gives you the option of starting at a more gradual pace this year, or waiting until the new year, when we all hope to return to less unusual times).

We are really excited by this new format, and also by all the enhanced content for the program. There never has been a more urgent or important time for leaders to step up, to make sense of a changing world, and prepare to create a better future.

Delivered by some of the world’s top business leaders and thinkers

We bring together the world’s most inspiring and thoughtful faculty. This year it additionally includes

• Jim Hagemann Snabe, chairman of Siemens and Maersk, author of Dreams and Details, one of the world’s top leaders.
• Tendayi Viki, a psychologist-based innovator, author of Pirates in the Navy, and partner of Strategyzer
• Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez , GSK’s top project manager, and author of The Project Revolution
• Mark Fritz, expert in leading change, author of Lead and Influence, having worked on four continents for Kodak
• Verónica Reyero, human anthropologist exploring a more human future, and founder of Anthropologia 2.0
• Mark Thomas, social economist, founder of 99% Organisation, fighting for social equality.
• Rob-Jan de Jong, author of Anticipate, professor at Wharton Business School, and expert on leading the future
• Mikael Trolle, former national coach of Denmark’s Volleyball team, and coach to many business leaders

They add to the existing IE Business School team that includes

• Peter Fisk, academic director of the Global AMP, bestselling author of Gamechangers, and the new book Business Recoded, Thinkers50 Global Director
• Mark Esposito, technology futurist and AI pioneer, founder of Nexus FrontierTech, and faculty at Harvard Business School
• Terence Tse, co-author of the AI Republic, expert on the future of finance and healthcare, and co-chair of the Start-Up Lab
• Mia de Kuijper, Senior VP Strategic Advisor at Saleforce, and Executive in Residence at Harvard Innovation Labs
• Juan Carlos Pastor, professor of leadership at IE Business School, leading on authentic leadership
• Marcos Cajina, founder of Renewal, a specialist leadership company that focuses on the neuroscience of emotional engagement
• Steven MacGregor, author of Chief Wellbeing Officer, founder of the Leadership Academy of Barcelona, expert on executive performance.

Global participants

Importantly, the Global AMP brings together a great mix of participants from across sectors and around the world, enhancing your personal network, and learning experience for everyone.

Examples of recent participants include:

• Finance, Head of Investment Banking, Portugal
• Technology, Regional Marketing Leader, Egypt
• Healthcare, Head of Clinical Development, Japan
• Drinks, Supply Chain Director, Mexico
• Airlines, Head of Network Development, UAE
• Technology, Customer Service Director, Mexico
• Energy, Corporate Strategy Director, Spain
• Mining, Innovation Director, South Africa
• Real Estate, Founder and CEO, Portugal
• Sustainable Investment Fund, CEO, France
• Healthcare, Senior Medical Advisor, USA
• Technology, Entrepreneur, Saudi Arabia
• Manufacturing, CEO and Chairman, Turkey
• NGO, Founder and Director, Kenya

All participants then join the exclusive Global AMP alumni network, including regular networking and ongoing resources.

Idea Starters

Here are a few tasters of the expert faculty and their big ideas …

Jim Hagemann Snabe … one of the world’s top business leaders, on Dreams and Details:

Module 1: Future Lab

Making sense of change, exploring megatrends and their implications for business, today and tomorrow, and making better choices for your future direction, are all essential to successful leadership. The rise of emerging markets, new technologies and next-generation audiences is accompanied by the increasing scarcity of resources, social fragmentation and climate change. The Fourth Industrial Revolution heralds a new era for business and society, from digitalization and automation to 3D printing, machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics.

• Rocket ships: How will you lead the future, shape it in your own vision, and take your business on an uncertain journey towards a better tomorrow?
• Exponential technologies: Harnessing the potential of new capabilities, from digital and big data to biotech and nanotech as well as AI and robotics.
• Resource scarcity: Changing sources of energy, the peak of rare metals, high-tech components, patented technologies, talent and creativity.
• Human impacts: Rethinking work, education and employment, aging and healthcare, urbanization and belonging, wealth and happiness.
• Future shaping: Making sense of change and making better choices. Harnessing the value drivers and using scenario planning to shape the future you want.

Mark Esposito … the Canadian futurist explores the future as it unfolds:

 

Module 2: Growth Lab

Markets are complex, competitive and dynamic. New markets emerge, and old markets decline, as new audiences, new aspirations and new possibilities drive new growth. Focusing on the best opportunities for growth becomes key to your future, and reimagining how your business can embrace them profitably. Digital markets have no limits, and allow even the smallest businesses to have a huge impact, while accelerating the convergence of sectors and businesses.– so what is your purpose, that will guide you through the future horizons of growth?

• Growth markets: Exploring the changing the nature of markets. Creating new spaces based on new customers and solutions, driving your growth horizons.
• Inspiring purpose: Finding your north star, why your business exists, and how putting purpose beyond profit, can transform your activities and success.
• Customer futures: Understanding the changing aspirations and behaviours of customers, with deeper insight to understand and engage them better.
• Platform markets: Harnessing the power of digital networks to create new market models that bring buyers and sellers together in new ways, creating new value.
• Growth accelerators: Consumer data, digital network, and new business models enable you to accelerate every aspect of business, and your future growth.

Tendayi Viki … the psychologist innovator creates the invincible company:

Module 3: Creative Lab

Disruption is everywhere, whether it’s a start-up challenging established giants, new technologies replacing inefficient processes, simplicity outperforming complexity or customers challenging businesses to do better. The impact can be dramatic. Reputations can be made and destroyed in a matter of days, while veteran companies are wiped off the map. How can you turn the tables and become the disrupter by developing insights, ideas, innovative strategies and business models that can be delivered quickly and efficiently?

• Faster innovation: Transforming ideas into new solutions, strategies into action, embracing disruptive change, to reimagine your future business.
• Creative designs: Harnessing the power of creativity, fused with deep insight, to design better solutions – products and services, experiences and business.
• Sustainable innovation: Innovating to solve the biggest social and environmental challenges, in a way that is good for the world, and more profitable too.
• Business Models: Rethinking how organisations work to deliver innovative propositions, leveraging assets and partners to create new ways of working.
• Invincible companies: Bringing together your innovation portfolio as a source of relentless progress and profitable growth for your business.

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez  … the world’s top project manager on leading transformation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3peGiQvnxw

Module 4: Action Lab

Organisations thrive on an inspiring purpose, aligned business model, innovation inside and outside, driving change and high performance. They constantly drive change and transformation, working through projects to create seize new opportunities. People are energised by a positive culture, harnessing the best talents of man and machine, with the agility to continually adapt and respond to changing markets, develop new capabilities and partnerships, and reach new heights. How can you transform, mobilise and energise your organization with a strategy to deliver the best performance today, and create an even better future?

• Winning strategies: Defining the right direction and priorities, guided by an inspiring purpose, and harnessing the drivers of value.
• Driving change: Making better, more strategic decisions every day, turning strategy into implementation, while using the right metrics and rewards, to drive transformation and performance.
• Fast and agile: Shaping organisations and processes to be agile and efficient, leveraging strengths and addressing weaknesses both internally and externally.
• Energising people: Mobilising employees to think and deliver strategy innovatively and profitably, unlocking the power of teams and humanity in a positive culture.
• Sustaining impact: Ensuring that the organisation has the capacity to renew and adapt to deliver shared value in the short and long term.

Verónica Reyero … the modern anthropologist, exploring better human futures:

Module 5: Amplified Leadership

The best leaders amplify the potential of their teams and their business. By developing an effective leadership style, they can inspire, engage, connect and support to drive long-term direction and meet short-term goals. Leaders of the future will drive change in a way that unlocks talent and performance, constantly reinventing organisations. How will you lead yourself, your team and your business towards a better future, one that combines purpose with passion, profit and progress? This module is interspersed across the whole program, in order to connect with the many different business topics.

• Great leaders: Business are obsessed with leadership, but how do leaders really add value, engage people effectively and deliver better results?
• Authentic organizations: From corporate to personal reputations, how do you build trust and authenticity inside and outside the business?
• Talent beacons: How to attract, engage and retain the best people in an ideas-driven world – to nurture, motivate, and inspire them to create the future.
• High performance: Improving your personal and business wellbeing to drive high performance, physically and mentally, agile and resilient, with a winning mindset.
• Leadership style: Why should you be the leader? What do you have that will take your company further? And why will anyone want to be led by you?

Terence Tse … AI driving the future of business:

Mia de Kuijper … Leading the Change … Explore the power nodes:

Steven MacGregor … why you need a Chief Wellbeing Officer:

Download the new Global AMP Brochure

or Contact Marta Gibert on +34 915 689 783

I spend my life writing and speaking – writing books on business, and speaking at hundreds of conferences, workshops and seminars, each year.

The most important technique I have ever learnt in business, came in a one-day course at Sundridge Park back in 1997. I was a young consultant, and my firm wanted everybody to spend one day learning this technique. It was based on Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Thinking, and whilst the technique could get quite complex, it boiled down to a simple approach based on thinking from your audience’s perspective – SCQA – situation, complication, question and answer.

I still use the technique today. Every time I write an article, a letter to a client, a chapter of a book, a keynote speech, I think about my audience – what’s their current situation, what’s their big complication, what’s the question I want them to ask themselves, and what’s the answer I want them to consider. SCQA. And of course, if I plan the flow, I can shape the question, and then the answer, which I want them to consider. Great for selling, but also for ensuring that my key message is relevant and right.

SCQA is just one framework.

I’m intrigued by how others do it. Look, for example, at what made some of the great TED talks great. Sir Ken Robinson’s ,“How Schools Kill Creativity”, or the story of a little girl whose genius was unrecognized in school until she was allow do dance, and ultimately became a prima-ballerina. Also I remember Amy Cuddy’s “Body Language” talk on how commanding her body language changed her career.

And who can forget Steve Jobs announcement of the iPhone?

Presentations can be incredibly persuasive, and particularly in business, whether for closing candidates, pitching investors to fund raise, interviewing with the press and so on, they can materially impact the course of a startup.

But it’s really hard to tell a good story. Most of us have never studied the craft of constructing a story: how to draw the arc of the storyline, how to elicit emotions with dramatic tension, or how to entice the audience into conspiring with us in the plot.

A common framework is the Hero’s Journey, also known as the Audience’s Journey:

A popular form of structure derived from Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth from his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces and adapted by Christopher Vogler is the Twelve Stage Hero’s Journey. This is essentially a more detailed Character Arc for your story’s hero which is overlayed onto the more traditional three-act structure that many successful Hollywood movies such as Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz when analyzed appear to follow.

The best book I’ve found on building compelling presentations is Nancy Duarte’ Resonate. In Resonate, Nancy explains the three different key components of memorable, effective pitches: the journey the speaker would like the audience to traverse, the framework for creating a good story, and the mechanism to bring the two together.

Duarte argues a successful presenter convinces the audience to believe in a new idea. To achieve this goal, the presenter must deliver a compelling story that paints the ordinary world of today and contrasts it with the special world of the future.

The presenter must call the audience to embark on the adventure, handle their immediate objections to this invitation, and then establish the presenter as the mentor through the process. Those are the first four steps of the Audience’s Journey. The diagram above shows the remainder of the twelve steps through which a great presenter leads her audience.

If this feels familiar, it should. This journey forms the arc of every great story. To prove the point, Duarte created a diagram of the audience’s journey with Luke Skywalker in Star Wars and the book has many similar examples.

Next, the book introduces us to the story template, which is a MadLibs-style fill-in-the-blank for crafting the arc of the story. This template follows the Situation, Complication, Question and Answer philosophy and demands simplification of the storyline. As Duarte writes in her book, complexity kills presentations.

Last, Duarte combines synthesizes the output of these two frameworks into a spark line, like the one above for the iPhone announcement by Steve Jobs.

Time is demarcated along the x-axis. Along the y-axis, the spark line shows whether the presenter is talking about the present or the future. Along the bottom, Duarte has noted when the audience claps and laughs, and when Jobs marvels at his own product. The relationship between these four time series shows how well Jobs is able to convince the audience to see his vision and share his wonder for this product. Spark lines can be great planning tools as well as great feedback loops to improve presentations.

Great pitches oscillate between between what is and what could be. Duarte shares similar spark lines for Richard Feynman, physicist extraordinaire, and his lecture on gravity, and Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his TED talk on music, among others. In her book, Duarte dissects other great speeches including Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” and Ronald Reagan’s Challenger Disaster announcement. The best presenters contrast the present and the future throughout the presentation and when down successfully, this seesawing drives the audience t o believe the presenter’s vision.

The technological revolution affects everyone and everything, it is transforming the worlds of education and healthcare, agriculture and hospitality, as well as the more obvious communications and entertainment, retail and finance.

Once technology could be left too technologists. Now, despite its enormous complexity and intimidating language, it is a core topic for every business leader.

What is important, is to understand the capabilities of these new forces,  and their opportunities and potential impacts. MIT defines seven technological areas that will have most impact on our futures:

• Pervasive computing
• Wireless mesh networks
• Biotechnology
• 3D printing
• Machine learning
• Nanotechnology
• Robotics

These technologies unlock a world beyond our traditional boundaries, of how we see markets and businesses today, and even beyond our previously imagined possibilities.

I often say that we will see more change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years. That might seem like an easy thing to say. Another puff of futuristic hype. But think about previous revolutions:

• First Industrial Revolution (1760-1840): mechanised spinning of textiles, large-scale manufacturing, steam power, and iron-making
• Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1940): railways, the telephone, electricity and other utilities
• Scientific Revolution (1940-1970): radio, aviation, and nuclear fission
• Information Revolution (1985-present): the internet and digital media and devices

Revolutions are typically mapped out by S curves, as a new paradigm slowly takes hold, rapidly grows, and then matures. At the centre of each S curve, the point of maximum acceleration is an inflection point. The tipping point when the new paradigm becomes the new normal.

In each instance, the inflection point that marked the new revolution was the appearance of new technologies that fundamentally reshaped key aspects of the world, from manufacturing to medicine, society and the environment.

Technological Revolution

Our current technological revolution is right at those inflection points right now. Each of the 7 technologies exhibit three distinctive and rapidly evolving capabilities that are significantly different, more advanced, and larger in scope than the technologies of past revolutions:

• Intelligent … New technologies are intelligent, with the ability to sense or predict an environment or situation and act on that knowledge. This extends far beyond knowing facts or rote learning; it is the ability to “make sense” of things.
• Integrated … They connect with humanity, with the ability to align with the actions, traits, and intuitive schemes of humans, as well as the physics of nature. They embrace voice, gestures. They augment, or enhance human capabilities.
• Immersed … They are everywhere, with the ability to be omnipresent in previously discrete transactions, objects, machines, and people. These technologies can be embedded within everyday objects and surroundings.

Each technology is powerful in its own right, yet together they are transformative to a degree which is difficult to comprehend. Their combination will give rise to new classes of super technologies, that will transform business in ways we have not yet imagined, to connect activities and immerse in our lives in ways that break old our established boundaries and rules, and to solve problems – including the biggest social and environmental challenges – in new and profound ways.

The 7 Technologies 

Here, building on futures and technology research by IFTF and WEF, plus MIT and Stanford, and many others, are the 7 technologies and some insights into their power and potential:

Pervasive Computing … embedded, proactive, networked

Pervasive, or ubiquitous, computing delivers information, media, context, and processing power to everyone, wherever we are. It is characterised by vast networks of connected microprocessors embedded in everyday objects.

The way information is shared across these devices is very different from the way it has been shared in the past. In contrast to data being recorded and updated in private, centralized databases, data is now embedded and continually reconciled in public networks. This makes it more difficult to corrupt data, and it has vast implications for workflow, commerce, and financial systems. Witness blockchains. It drive the internet of things (IoT), but it is more accurate to think of it as the engine of the internet of everything. 

It is reforging established chains of business logic. It supports the creation of products with a strong informational component that can engage and be shaped by customers. 

Example: VitalConnect’s VitalPatch MD is a biosensor worn on the forearm. It has three electrocardiogram electrodes that detect and record the wearer’s heart rate, temperature, breathing, and movements. This data is delivered in real time to the servers, computers, and mobile devices of health care professionals.

Wireless Mesh Networks … high-bandwidth, dynamic, smart connectivity

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are ad hoc loops of wireless connectivity in which only one device requires an internet connection. These are smart networks of wireless devices that can form, disperse, and re-form at the user’s command. Because WMNs are created from the bottom up by connections between devices (versus top-down, inflexible network infrastructures), their self-forming — and self-healing — capabilities ensure robust and reliable communication anywhere, at low cost and without fixed infrastructure.

For 20 years, the structure of connectivity has been based on a hub-and-spoke mentality in which devices connect through fixed points and are governed by the web’s protocol. Now, devices can form their own networks off the grid. Thus, WMNs open a new frontier of high bandwidth and more efficient collaboration in processes that involve any sort of coordination between machines, people, enterprises, and products.

Example: WMN-equipped vehicles, drones, and devices will extend our geographic reach, increase access to information content, and expand business capabilities far beyond current network technologies. Already, Toyota Land Cruisers have been successfully used as WMN nodes to provide dynamic network capabilities in dense cities, as well as in Australia’s vast Outback.

Biotechnology … enhanced life-forms and systems

Biotech is the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make products. Humans have been bioengineers for thousands of years, ever since we first planted and crossbred crops. Today, advances in digital technology, genetic engineering, informatics, cell technology, and chemical sciences are greatly expanding the boundaries of biotechnology.

The continuing development of the CRISPR-Cas system is a notable example. It enables geneticists and medical researchers to edit genes, bringing us closer to the day when Huntington’s, sickle cell, breast cancer, and many other genetic diseases can be treated before they attack the people who carry them within their DNA. The notion of engineering living cells and the emergence of the life sciences industry will radically change the boundaries of health care, agriculture, and chemicals.

Example: Biotech is the basis for a new form of authentication: bio-identification, also known as biometrics. Rather than keys, passwords, credit cards, and codes, biomarkers such as retinas, fingerprints, and voice are the new gateway to information access and commerce. As bio-identification continues to evolve, other unique biomarkers such as our ears, nose, body odor, and even the patterns of our veins will provide (or withhold) access to everything from automobiles to electronic devices.

3D Printing … digitally designed, chemically manufactured

3D printing is a revolution built on chemistry that is being amplified by continually evolving capabilities in digital and machine technologies. Also referred to as additive manufacturing, 3D printing transforms a digital blueprint of an object into a physical finished good. For example, rather than ordering a part from a supplier, 3D printing enables us to retrieve a digital rendering of the part and make it. It also enables us to create a digital rendering of a newly conceived product and immediately manufacture it in almost any material. 3D printing is manufacturing on demand, on the spot.

3D printing upends the assumptions on which manufacturing is based. As the digitization of product designs, availability of 3D printers, and emergence of intermediaries accelerate, executives will rethink how their companies design and manufacture products and will reshape — or completely reimagine — their current supply chains and distribution systems.

Example: Customers will become intimately involved in product design and finished goods manufacturing. Value will shift from finished goods to the digital representations of goods. As the barriers to reaching production scale melt away, a flood of new entrepreneurial opportunities will become available to inventors and innovators, and the plants and machinery needed to manufacture goods will become unnecessary.

Machine Learning … augmented, automated data analysis

Machine learning covers a broad context of technologies and capabilities. Some scientists approach the domain purely from a perspective of computer programs that “learn.” A related perspective encompasses computer-based pattern recognition, statistical modeling, and analytics for decision-making. A third, and more holistic perspective, combines computer algorithms, statistical patterns, and artificial intelligence. Today, there are three principle technologies that when bundled together unlock key aspects of each perspective: cloud computing, big data, and artificial (augmented) intelligence (AI).

• Cloud computing is the on-demand access to computing resources, including software applications, storage, network, and other services. The advent of the cloud signaled the separation of storage and processing from the device, thereby creating ubiquitous access to software and data. It also gave rise to creative forms of collaboration (witness Pokémon Go).
• Big data is the generation and collection of massive amounts of structured and unstructured data in the search for new insights and new responses to challenges that organizations and decision-makers face.
• AI is the programming and algorithms that allow digital devices to access, combine, and share data to learn, explain, and forecast events, processes, and trends.

Example: Businesses have used data to build profiles of buying habits, prices, and other retail contexts to better target products to consumers. For example, data from store loyalty programs and credit card purchases are now used to anticipate shoppers’ needs ahead of time. In the grocery industry, data analytics are used to determine how often shoppers buy milk, condiments, or other products, and then send each household coupons based on specific purchasing habits. Across many industries, this has led to methods of product and service design that are less linear and more focused on the dynamic aspects of supply and demand, as well as the dynamic nature of customer experiences and outcomes.

Nanotechnology … engineered, super-materials

Nanotechnology, which encompasses molecular engineering, is a new and radical engineering science that is designing and manufacturing incredibly small circuits and devices that are built at the molecular level of matter, typically 1 to 100 nanometers. To put this in perspective, there are 25.4 million nanometers in 1 inch.

Dry-fit clothing, drug delivery patches, water-repellent shoes, and antibacterial bandages are all consumer product applications of nanotechnology. As we slip into our odor-repelling nano-silver socks, molecular engineers are pioneering new ways and new tools to see and manipulate the atoms that make up food we eat, the clothes we wear, the places we dwell, and even the air we breathe.

Example: Nanotechnology will support the development of molecular structures that replicate living cells. These molecular structures will be the foundation for the regeneration or replacement of body parts that are currently lost to infection, accident, or disease.

Robots … precise, agile, intelligent

Robotics is the design and development of mechanical systems (a frame, electrical components, and code) that can operate autonomously or semi-autonomously. Robotics isn’t a new technology in and of itself, and if the technology were relegated to performing narrow ranges of repetitive tasks, it wouldn’t merit our attention. But in the past decade, robotics has undergone a radical transformation driven by three traits:

• Precision: the ability to accomplish extremely exacting and detailed tasks accurately.
• Agility: the ability to accomplish a variety of tasks quickly and easily.
• Intelligence: the ability to acquire and apply new knowledge and skills.

Example: in healthcare, robotics is revolutionizing surgery. The Da Vinci Surgical System allows physicians to translate their hand movements into precise movements of small instruments inside the patient’s body. A high-definition, 3D vision system and tiny-wristed instruments provide surgeons with enhanced visualization, greater dexterity, as well as greater precision and ergonomic comfort. For the patient, a da Vinci procedure may offer all the potential benefits of a minimally invasive procedure, including less pain and blood loss