Peter Fisk

Nina Davuluri is an inspiring woman.

I recently met her on stage at the WIL Economic Forum in Dubai UAE. She is of course most famous for winning Miss America, celebrating diversity and her mixed Asian-America heritage. More recently her fame has taken her to television shoes, and launching her own cosmetics brand. A brand with a social impact. Perhaps most revealing however, was when she told me about her favourite reading material to save her from boredom whilst travelling around the world. The Economist.

She is currently the host and producer of the new reality show, “Made In America,” which made its series premiere August 2017 on ZeeTV Americas. The premise of the show is to empower young women to discover more about themselves through a series of challenges as they embark on a new  journey to fulfill their dreams in America. Nina first gained international acclaim by becoming the first Indian American and South Asian to become Miss America 2014; through her experiences, she realized how much of a need there was in the marketplace for this type of content to be created for young South Asian millennials.

Nina is no novice to the television and media industry. She has been featured on CNN’s Out Front with Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper 360, LIVE! with Kelly & Micheal, Fox & Friends, The View, MSNBC, The Arsenio Hall Show, NPR, BBC World, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Canada’s Breakfast Television & The Morning Show, among many other local media outlets both nationally and internationally.

Since becoming Miss America 2014, Nina has logged approximately 500,000 miles traveling across the world to address an array of audiences on her platform: “Celebrating Diversity through Cultural Competency.”  As part of her consciousness-raising efforts on behalf of diversity, Nina also launched a social media campaign, #CirclesOfUnity, to encourage constructive and civil dialogue on diversity issues. Through her social media channels, Nina asks people to share “representative thoughts and stories about their experiences on how we as a nation can advance cultural awareness.” Nina is proud to have spoken at almost 40 different universities including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University (UK), and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in both Bombay and Hyderabad, spreading her message of inclusion. Nina has also taken her platform internationally, speaking in the United Kingdom, Philippines, Canada, Kenya, and India.

In addition to her personal platform, Nina also partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Education promoting women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) related fields. She has worked with top technology companies such as Dell & Google in addition to the Sacramento Kings Foundation to further their women in STEM initiatives. Furthermore, she has worked with many charities/NGO’s in the U.S. and India advocating for equality and education–most notably Pratham, Magic Bus, Akshaya Patra, and Girl Rising. With her Indian roots and heritage, Nina was the first choice by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office to be the emcee for his historic Madison Square Garden reception in 2014.

Nina’s work in advocacy became apparent when she was first recognized by President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. In April of 2014, she was invited to collaborate with the First Lady on her campaign, “Let’s Move.” She then went on to help launch “Act to Change,” an anti-bullying campaign led by the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI). In July of 2015, Nina was invited to be a speaker at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya during President Obama’s historic first visit. She was honored to be the youngest speaker on the main stage sharing her experiences as an entrepreneur & trailblazer in the field of diversity. In March of 2016, Nina embarked on a fourteen day tour in India that was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State promoting education, women’s empowerment, and diversity. Nina was incredibly proud to return to her homeland of India and focus on key issues between both countries. The tour culminated in an invitation from President Obama to the last Women’s History Month reception held at the White House when he served his final year in office.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8DFj1qb5zM

Nina and her business partner Rooshy Roy have most recently delved into the Indian culture of beauty, science, and Ayurvedic healing for their new beauty and skincare brand Aavrani.

What started out as a startup pitch and a finalist in the Penn Wharton Startup Showcase 2018 became a reality in July 2018. Aavrani is a luxury clean skincare brand rooted in the science of Ayurvedic healing. Davuluri and Roy understand, thanks to personal experiences, the cultural sensitivities and struggles of not being the fairer complexion. It led to them using toxic bleaching products.

They created Aavrani, which aims to empower women to be confident in their skin and aims to highlight the beauty in representation and diversity. In fact, they derived their name “Aavrani” from the Hindi word rani which means queen, encouraging everyone to embrace their natural beauty and be a #YouQueen.

Aavrani extends their empowerment into their philanthropy through their social impact partner, the Shanti Bhavan School, which provides access to education and mentorship to children in India. Aavrani focuses on a preventative, long-term approach to healthy skin. They embrace the natural beauty movement by providing non-toxic, all natural skincare  derived from their Indian culture and heritage in order to #GlowAndConquer.

In a future where 75% of people live in cities, the world’s population stands at 9.5 billion and there are advances in technology that can only be dreamed about today, the Future of Rail 2050 takes a user’s perspective and explores how rail travel might change for passengers and freight.

• What are the megatrends that will influence the way people live, work, travel and consume information in the future?
• How will infrastructure and rail systems cope with the rising demand for passenger and freight capacity?
• How will rail fare in a world experiencing an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events?

In the past, we have witnessed rail’s power to stimulate and drive economic growth. In some parts of the world it’s seen as essential for economic diversification and supporting policy, and can be a catalyst for regeneration.

Download Arup’s The Future of Rail 2050 Report

As the world’s population becomes increasingly urbanised, it is estimated that the number of journeys measured in passenger-kilometres will triple by 2050. Roads simply can’t absorb this increase.

Railways, with their greater capacity for carrying more people, quickly and with greater energy efficiency, are the best bet to become our mobility backbone. Of course, engineers’ imaginations have created many alternatives to the original steel-on-steel approach to the railway. Maglev and the much-publicised but so far theoretical Hyperloop are often regarded as the ones to watch – but do they really represent the future of rail travel?

Hyperloop is an elegant idea: travelling seamlessly at 1,220kph (that’s right, 760mph – just under the speed of sound) in gracefully designed pods that arrive as often as every 30 seconds is very appealing. The concept is based around very straight tubes with a partial vacuum applied under the pods. These pods have an electric compressor fan on their nose which actively transfers high-pressure air from the front to the rear, creating an air cushion once a linear electric motor has launched the pod. All this would be battery and solar powered.

Technically it’s a challenging design, although if someone can make it happen it’s the man who proposed the idea, Elon Musk, the man behind SpaceX and Tesla. However, Hyperloop is not rail travel. It is, as Musk puts it, a fifth mode of transport (after trains, cars, boats and planes). It’s designed to link Los Angeles to San Francisco; cities hundreds of miles apart that can be connected in an almost straight line over a relative flat landscape. This simply isn’t an option in much of the world.

Ultimately, if Hyperloop happens at all it will be a stand-alone system. It’s no substitute for rail.

Magnetic levitation (maglev) uses powerful magnets to propel the train along dedicated lines that are as straight as possible. The attractive forces between electronically controlled electromagnets in the vehicle and the ferromagnetic guide rails pull the vehicle up, while additional guidance magnets keep it laterally on track. This version of the technology was developed in Germany and is currently used to link Shanghai airport with the city centre at speeds of 430kph (267mph).

However it’s perhaps Japan that is most associated with maglev. The nation that established the modern era of high-speed trains is also attempting to define the next chapter. Superconducting magnetic levitation (SCMaglev) has been in development for decades but was recently approved to run from Tokyo to Osaka from 2027, when it will complete the 500km (311 mile) journey in just over an hour. Unlike the Transrapid system in Shanghai, the Japanese maglev principle uses more powerful “superconducting” magnets and a guideway design based on repulsive rather than attractive forces.

But while maglev is technically possible, its commercial viability is questionable. There is an extremely high initial infrastructure cost – Japan’s SCMaglev line is expected to cost ¥9 trillion (US$72 billion. It also cannot be integrated with existing rail networks and has a phenomenal energy demand, during both construction and operation. This casts serious doubts about maglev’s true potential as an alternative to conventional high-speed technology.

In practice, the vast majority of us will continue to travel on trains that are not dissimilar to those that are around today.

Greater automation are expected to dominate not just rail but all types of travel. Automatic train operation is already used in some urban railways which allows for shorter distances between trains on the same line. It is anticipated that in the future all mainline trains will be able to communicate with each other, meaning significantly more trains on the track, increasing capacity and service levels. This in turn will make physical line-side signalling equipment redundant, leading to more simple layouts for new lines. Better use of energy on electrically powered intercity rail travel will likely play a significant role. For instance, energy storage systems and advanced substations will allow a shift to smarter rail systems.

Future predictions are to be treated with caution. But state-of-the-art railway investment around the globe is still largely based on the steel-on-steel principle of trains on tracks. And there’s no reason to doubt that this will be the define future of rail travel in coming decades – just as it has done since the birth of rail nearly 200 years ago.

Hydrogen trains are CO2 emission free regional trains – an alternative to diesel power. Hydrogen power works when hydrogen is burned with oxygen to produce huge amounts of energy, with the only by-product being water. The vehicles convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy, either by burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine vehicle or by reacting to hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to run electric motors.

A hydrogen powered passenger train is currently being tested in Germany. There’s also interest emerging in the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway.

Additionally, China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC)’s Qingdao Sifang announced that they have been awarded a contract to supply eight hydrogen fuel cell trams for a new light rail line. The hydrogen or hydrail train will run in Foshan in southeastern China. A 17.4km track will be built in two phases at 760 million yuan ($109.0 million) with 20 stations. A demonstration model of the trains was first rolled out in Qingdao in 2015, but the Foshan project will mark the world’s first deployment of a full-scale commercial system; the trains can travel at speeds of up to 70kp/h.

John Hansman is an MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics, heads the Institute’s Division of Humans and Automation and directs the International Center for Air Transportation. He’s climbed ice, flown planes, driven a high performance racecar, sailed boats and flown on numerous parabolic flights simulating zero gravity. Speaking while driving through New England, he offered his take on well-known futuristic transportation ideas.

“There are some concepts of what we call tethered satellites and there are some interesting things you can do with the orbital dynamics by building tethers and expanding them,” Hansman said. But even a tethered satellite would still use lots of energy. “There’s no free ride to space,” Hansman added.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbkvtp5RWuA&t=4s

And the dreams go on:

You can download my opening session here: Future Book Forum 2018

Who is the most profitable company in the music industry? Sony or EMI you might suggest, but be a decade out of date. Apple or Spotify might be the smarter choice in a digital world. Instagram or Youtube would be a thoughtful option. But the answer is Live Nation. As the music world is transformed by digital download and streaming business models, it is actually the physical experiences that do best. So much so that digital formats are largely used to promote rock concerts where the perceived value soars, as do prices and revenues.

Changing world of books

So what is the analogy for books? The parallels are quite obvious. The old world of standardised print books, challenged by the less polished world of ebooks was just the beginning of change. The real transformation comes when physical and digital formats work together, and in particular when we use the power of digital technologies to make physical experiences much more valuable. More personal, more participative, and more profitable. The printed book is not dead, but it can be reinvented in smarter and more valuable forms.

Netflix takes us a step further. Like the disruptive power of platform-based business models in other worlds – Airbnb or Amazon, Surfair or Uber – bringing suppliers (or content) together with consumers (or readers). At the heart of these approaches, lies data. Huge quantities of data about consumer behaviour. And from the this, algorithmic models enable us to profile and predict the preferences of what people want. For Netflix this becomes recommendations, movies shaped to perfection, and infinite personalisation. For books it can mean the same.

Data can transform the book publishing industry. Not just consumer data, but all forms of data from across supply and distribution. It enables us to become intelligent in every aspect of our activities, and to develop smarter business models that harness it in new ways. Developing books – from author to content, title to pricing – designed around a target audience, managing print runs and stock for optimal efficiency, targeting promotions and availability to specific audiences and events. It’s time to think radically about how to get data, interpret it, and effectively use it.

Innovative book publishing

Indeed there is a whole new generation of book disruptors utilising digital platforms with new business models to sell physical and digital, transactional and relational, book concepts … from Bookmate (the social ebook app) to Blinkist (read any book in 15 minutes on your phone), Bookabees (a subscription-based children’s book club with toys and activities) to Booksquisite Box (3 Japanese books in a box, plus 6-8 surprise accessories), Perlego (“the Spotify of learning”) and Reading in Heals (for women who “love reading, love post and love surprises”).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1znP91lcgK4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3StTpTxAxA

So what is the future of books?

Over the last 4 years, the Future Book Forum has come a long way as both a physical meeting – inspiring and interactive – but also as a community of book publishers, printers and partners. In 2014 we developed a vision for a future industry shaped by technology and our imaginations, and enhanced this in 2015 by reframing it from a consumer perspective, to meet changing aspirations and behaviours. In 2016 we explored the business models that are reshaping every industry, including our own, and last year we defined the DNA of a smarter, future book.

“Intelligent Growth” is all about technology and data to drive the future of publishing. It starts with consumers – serving them in more personal, predictive, and profitable ways – harnessing the power of big data and AI, platforms and clouds, to deliver better digitally enabled, physical experiences. The opportunity for us all is to combine our experiences and imagination to consider how we can create a better industry, so that we collectively and individually can drive future innovation and growth.

This year’s Future Book Forum, again supported by Canon, takes place in Munich this week with over 400 participants from 36 countries. I will again be hosting the forum, ensuring passion, participation and progress. Here is our schedule, bringing together some of the industry’s leading thinkers, thinking leaders, and great activities to learn and act together:

Day 1, Inspiration:  21 November 2018

It starts with the consumer – and the need to serve them in more personal, predictive and profitable ways – harnessing the power of big data and artificial intelligence, platforms and clouds, to go beyond today’s world of books and ebooks, to deliver better digitally-enabled physical experiences.

0900 – 1000: Intelligent Growth, Peter Fisk, Professor at IE Business School – how can publishers embrace the power of data to create more personal, predictive and profitable book-related experiences?

0930 – 1000: Intelligent Consumers, Nick Morris, CEO Canvas8 – engaging consumers in more intelligent ways – what are the changing behaviours of people, to how they engage with content, and around the world?

1000 – 1030: Intelligent Publishers, Mark Allin, former CEO John Wiley – the need to embrace intelligence beyond content – harnessing the power of data, platforms and business models, communities and more.

1030 – 1100: Future Book Mash Up, audience co-creation – bringing together the big issues and ideas of everyone in the room!

1100 – 1130 : Break

1130 – 1200: Intelligent Technologies, Rainer Kellerhals, Microsoft – Case study of how technology is enabling every type of business to embrace data, from clouds to databases.

1200 – 1230: Intelligent Data, Tom Betts, CDO Financial Times – Case study of how data is transforming the world of newspapers, profitable with new business models.

1230 – 1300: Where’s the Growth in Intelligent Publishing? – Mark, Nick, Rainer and Tom, answer the most difficult questions.

1300 – 1430 : Lunch

1430 – 1600: Growth Accelerator – Practical workshop for all participants exploring how they can harness growth across their business models to drive growth

1600 – 1645 : Break

1645 – 1700: The Magic of Reading, Leanne McNulty, Room to Read  – more insights from our community’s nonprofit partner, helping children around the world to experience the wonders of reading through books.

1700 – 1730: Intelligent Business Models, Dan Kieren, CEO Unbound – embracing new approaches to business that combine the best of communities, participation, digital and physical experiences, for books to do more.

1730 – 1800 : The Agenda for Intelligent Growth – Mark, Dan and Sven Fund, reflecting on the best ideas for publishers to grow their businesses in smarter ways.

1900 – 0000 : Dinner at Film Casino, Munich

Day 2, Implementation: 22 November 2018

0900 – 0920 : Intelligent Technology in Publishing, Peter Fisk with Sven Fund –  rethinking the toolkit for publishers, and how they can embrace new technologies to achieve more.

0920 – 1000 : Great Examples of Innovation –  from the publishers and printers perspectives, where the future is more about process than content.

1000 – 1030 : The Publishing Innovation Toolkit, Sven Fund – what are the innovative tools in the publishing ecosystem, and 6 great examples of companies to inspire us.

1030 – 1100 : Break

1100 – 1230 : Roundtables … The Publishing Innovation Toolkit  – each participant joins one of the eight roundtables, and then a second, for 30 minutes each.

• Increasing satisfaction – IntechOpen
• Identifying bestsellers – Inkitt
• New business models – Knowledge Unlatched
• Consumer co-creation – Moo
• Controlling inventory – Peter Lang
• Monetising assets – Building Digital Solutions 421

1230 – 1400 : Lunch

1400 – 1500 : The Publishing Innovation Toolkit, What we learnt  – each participant joins one of the eight roundtables, and then a second, for 30 minutes each.

1500 – 1530 : Collaboration and automation, panel discussion

1530 – 1600 : Baume Custom Timepieces Series – inspiring insight into the future of the watch industry, and what we can learn from it in the world of publishing.

1600 – 1630 : The Best Ideas for Intelligent Growth, Peter Fisk … what have you learnt, what will you do … ready to change the world of publishing, again.

Here are a few highlights from the last three years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_z2v9GhmWQ&t=62s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQtri5YeTCw

So why is the future female?

Well for starters, we need to address the basic inequalities, prejudices and sexism in the world. Women are equal to men. Second, diversity is not just good, but it creates better solutions, bringing together different perspectives and talents. But my point is more than this. In the new world, in particular driven by new technologies, we need new attributes to survive and thrive.

Making sense of today’s complexity requires us to rise above the data points and short-term priorities, to see a bigger picture – to make sense of a changing world. That requires intuition more than logic (intuition is more forwards looking, whilst logic looks back). To add value beyond machines and AI, we need to unlock our humanity, our creativity. That requires us to be more empathetic, to make new connections. Ideas, design, relationships are most valued in today’s business world. And to solve the big problems of our world, we need to be more thoughtful – to find more responsible, caring and inspiring solutions.

This is why “the future is female”

It’s not just about getting to a level playing field in diversity and inclusion, which matters … but even more, its about taking those attributes, those qualities, which are typically “more female” and to embrace them … both for men and women. We could go into a biological and neurological discussion at this point, but I think the point is clear. Women therefore can have an advantage, whilst for men it might require some unlearning.

The future is not like the future used to be. Being a leader of the future, is not achieved by following the traits of the past success. It’s time to look forwards, together, with a positive mindset, to embrace the opportunities of an incredible new world.

Download a summary of my keynote: The Future is Female

Human capital is a nation’s most valuable asset, and the key to its future growth. However in a world of disruptive change, we need to develop people in new ways – talent, vitality and achievement – in order to ensure a better human future.

“The world is endowed with a vast wealth of human talent. The ingenuity and creativity at our collective disposal provide us with the means not only to address the great challenges of our time but also, critically, to build a future that is more inclusive and human centric” says Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum

All too often however, human potential is not realised. It is held back by short-termism, by a blinkered focus on partial solutions, or by inequality. The World Bank’s Human Capital Index claims that the world has developed only 62% of its human capital, leaving much of the talent and dreams of people across the world unrealised.

This matters because human capital is an investment – in all of us – our personal health, talent and achievement – to sustain economic growth, and to compete in a rapidly changing world. If we don’t invest then we decline. And in today’s world, if we don’t invest then we decline dramatically.

We live in the most incredible time.

The next 10 years will see more change than the last 250 years. From self-cleaning clothes and digital personal assistants, DNA profiling to automated cars, intelligent machines to missions to Mars. None of this is new, yet we approach it with trepidation. Do we need and want this change? Change is inevitably scary and disruptive.

Whilst the last century saw huge improvements in living standards around the world – in reducing poverty and unemployment, improving literacy and health – the years ahead will see new challenges. Challenges to the dreams to which we aspired. Challenges to the current models of success. What will happen to jobs, to the aging populations, to small businesses, to emerging countries, to local cultures?

Today we see how digital technologies are transforming every aspect of our lives – how we go shop for food and clothes, how we get information and advice, how we learn and watch movies, how we travel or listen to music, how we connect with our families and friends. Amazon to Baidu, Coursera to Dalian Wanda, Kulula and Spotify, WhatsApp and WeChat – these new businesses, new products and services, emerge out of every corner of our world, to change what we can do, our expectations and aspirations.

And at the same time, we face many new social and environmental challenges. We see the effects of climate change, extreme weather and rising sea levels, its threat to Pacific islands and low-lying cities, and its impacts on agriculture and food economics. We see conflict and tension, often the result of misunderstanding or intolerance, its consequences in war but also in diverting investment. We see increasing inequality, despite the new opportunities increasingly accessible to all. And in a world of chatbots and fake news, we struggle to know who to trust.

The UN’s sustainability goals identify and guide us in individual and collaborative efforts to address these issues. These are issues that challenge life as we know it, and the potential of each one of us to achieve our hopes and dreams.

Our ability as individuals to participate in this new world, as businesses to compete in this new world, and as nations to grow in this world requires new capabilities. Most fundamentally it requires the foresight to make sense of this new world, the imagination to understand how capabilities should evolve further, the knowledge and skills to deploy them practically, the vision and empathy to work together, in every aspect of our lives, and within our communities.

Continue reading Peter Fisk’s new manifesto for humanity, launched in Paris today.

Martin Lindstrom is a great guy, a good friend. His perceptive insights into the consumer world engage his audiences through a mixture of movie star performance and very simple storytelling.

The last time we met was on a stage in Zorlu Center, Istanbul. Martin was explaining how he had gone a little cold turkey. In an attempt to overcome his addiction to his mobile phone, he was experimenting with life without it. The experience was liberating, although at times it inevitably meant he felt a little detached from the speed of everyday living.

A year later we are sat in the wonderful new Odeon Center in Odense. Martin is on a rare trip back home to Denmark, having just called in to see his father. Whilst he grew up an entrepreneurial Dane, and as a teenager became the youngest ever employee of Lego, he has gone on to feature in Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people, have his own US TV show, and write some great books.

The biggest benefit of not having a phone, he says, is that it gives you time to lift your head up, to observe all the smaller things around you. What are people doing, how do they behave, respond, look, react, interact? For somebody who makes a living from making sense of people, it makes sense. And for Martin, it means he can engage better in more meaningful conversations, when you actually do make contact with people, but not by phone.

I also asked him how he feels about being back in Denmark, where Odense has become the home of business thinking in Europe, and host of the annual European Business Forum. Whilst he loves being back (he lives in Australia, when not on a plane), he feels that the Danish psyche somehow stops it from stepping forwards with its ideas and innovations to have most impact on our world.

Here’s Martin’s keynote at this year’s Thinkers50 European Business Forum, where he tells the story of a changing consumer world, and how brands and retailers are responding to those changes. He also joins me at the end to talk more personally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTNxKcG7lP8&t=47s

Martin Lindstrom’s own story began as 12 years old kid, lying in bed with an illness that gave him a new power – the power of observation.

“As a kid growing up in Denmark, I had one main passion: Lego.  I built and slept on a Lego bed. The family garden was my very own Legoland, attracting visitors from near and far – including some Lego lawyers! Then, of all the children in the world, they gave me the first green brick in the collection! That’s what got me started in the crazy world of branding, marketing and advertising.

But the insights (“small data”) told Lego a different story. Lego learned from a 14-year Lego fan that his skateboard exploits were measured (and honoured) by the appropriate wear and tear on his shoes.  The worn look of the sneakers was a badge of honor. That’s when Lego realised that children attain social currency amongst their peers based on the mastery they displayed of their chosen hobby.

The result was that Lego refocused on its core product, and created more challenging, labour-intensive, construction challenges. Customers, it turned out, valued a challenging Lego experience.”

In a world where – according to research by McKinsey – 95% of transformation strategies fail, we need to examine why we are getting it so wrong. The answer may surprise you.

In todays world it is easy to feel overwhelmed with data. IBM reported recently that 90% of all the data we have in the world today was created in the last two years. That is a staggering statistic and explains our obsession with Big Data.

In our quest to make use of this big data, however, we often lose sight of what Martin calls “Small Data”, which he defines as the data that tells us what people like and don’t like, what they need and what they want. Big Data gives us results, but rarely shows the reasons behind them.

One example is when Martin went back to Lego, as the toy giant saw a drop in its fortunes.

Managers assumed youngsters were no longer interested in spending time putting plastic bricks together. Instead, it seemed that kids wanted the fast, easy thrill that came from video games, which were far more popular. Lego’s answer was to reduce the number of bricks in its toy sets and made the bricks bigger. Sales plummeted.

So, Martin and his team were tasked with getting into the minds and hearts of Lego consumers, and help turn around the brand.

The team visited and observed the type of kids who would normally use Lego and came across some interesting insights. But the ‘eureka’ moment happened when they talked to a boy whose prize possession was a dirty, worn-out pair of sneakers. Why was this? It seemed an unusual thing to be so proud of. The boy claimed to be one of the best skateboarders in his neighbourhood, and the sneakers were proof that he had achieved that status because the sneakers were scarred a scuffed from so much use. It had taken him hours and hours of practice, determination and application to become the best skateboarder in town, so his sneakers were like a trophy.

Kids, it seemed, were not shy of putting in the hours and the mental effort to win. Indeed, they prefer a difficult challenge that brings kudos amongst their peers.

Lego went back to the drawing board, literally, and put more and smaller bricks back into their sets. They also created a culture around the brand with The Lego Movie, and sales rocketed to an all-time high.

It was only when Lego looked past the Big Data and examined the impulses that made consumers want to use their product that the true transformation happened.

That’s not to say that Big Data is useless and should be ignored. Far from it. Martin suggests the ‘sweet spot’ comes from using Small Data to understand the causation of what the Big Data tells us. You start with the hypothesis and Small Data tells you the thinking behind it.

Over the two days of this year’s Thinkers50 European Business Forum I talked with some of the world’s top business academics and Europe’s business leaders. From Roger Martin to Whitney Johnson, Alex Osterwalder to Don Tapscott, Jim Snabe to Matt Brittin, and many more. Here’s a summary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzksDkQBB0g&t=7s

It’s easy to have a go at Google. Or should we say Alphabet? It’s a huge business, incredibly successful over the last 20 years, and relentlessly innovative in harnessing the power of information and technology, to drive progress.

Google has become the indispensable tool in our search for information everyday, so successful that it has through its own competitive performance achieved an almost monopoly in online search. From Android to Chrome, Waze to YouTube is has developed or acquired its way into an enormous complexity of ways to improve our lives. And its 85,000 employees generate $110bn revenue, driving a $733bn market cap.

Matt Brittin is Google’s top man in Europe, or more precisely President of EMEA Business and Operations.

He’s not had an easy time of late. Most famously he has led Google’s front against charges of tax avoidance. Appearing at a UK government select committee he argued that technically Google made no sales in the UK, therefore it owed no tax (which might be true as they are all routed through alternative low-tax domains, and so whilst the law remains like it does, it technically doesn’t!).

He made even bigger headlines by not being able to tell the committee how much money he earned (which again, is quite possible in a world of multiple incentive programs, where base salary becomes one component of total remuneration). Anyway, those anecdotes are just to illustrate the types of issues he grapples with.

Matt joined me at the Thinkers50 European Business Forum 2018 to talk about how business can have more social impact. We actually live in the same English town, about 5 minutes from each other, but here we were on stage in Odense Denmark, at Europe’s premier business event, bringing together the world’s top academic thinkers and European business leaders.

You can watch the video of our session here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wejKLrpy-k0

He’s actually an incredibly normal, genuine and thoughtful guy. Who wants to ensure that the organisation that he is responsible for, really is a force for good in a complex and difficult world. He talked about practical things, like YouTube’s ability to empower all of us to make things, or inspire us by accessing new ideas.

Matt also talked about the huge amount of profits which Google’s parent company reinvests in research and development – such as Google X’s array of “moonshot” projects – in areas such as cures for cancer, anticipating natural disasters, and better access to education for billions of people across the planet.

Matt joined fellow speaker Jimmy Maymann, former EVP of AOL, and myself for a discussion on the challenges for business leaders today, and how to really get the right balance between brands and media that seek to optimise their commercial impact, whilst also leveraging their power and reach for more social impact.

At the end of the session we gave Matt a huge birthday cake. On this day 2o years ago, Larry Page and Sergey Brin officially launched the Google brand. He blew out the candles making a wish for every business to be more successful in finding ways to create a more positive impact in our world.

Here is a short recap of the Thinkers50 European Business Forum 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzksDkQBB0g

Matt Brittin is also an impressive guy in his personal life. He rowed for Great Britain from 1985 to 1989, winning a bronze medal at the World Rowing Championships in 1988, and also represented Great Britain in rowing at the 1998 Seoul Olympics. Age has not diminished his sporting aspirations, and in 2011 he cycled from Land’s End to John O’ Groats.

Here are some more of his videos:

What is the best explanation of the blockchain?

What is the fundamental behaviour many of the new technologies, that harness the power of networks, that facilitate the strength of collective intelligence, through more collaborative and intuitive approaches.

From the ability of social media to shape political landscapes and new #MeToo-type consciousness, to the power of Artificial Intelligence’s potential to predict futures, and ecosystems to reshape markets, there is a new phenomenon shaping our world.

Maybe the best way to describe it is to look at nature.

In particular in the spectacular sight of a “murmuration” of starlings as I recently witnessed over the Northumbrian coast at Druridge Bay. It is a spectacular act of nature, but also a great insight, to today’s world of technology and business:

A murmuration of starlings is an amazing sight – a swooping mass of thousands of birds whirling in the sky above. A mass aerial stunt – thousands of birds all swooping and diving in unison. It’s completely breathtaking to witness.

The RSPB say that starlings do it for many reasons. Grouping together offers safety in numbers – predators such as peregrine falcons find it hard to target one bird in the middle of a hypnotising flock of thousands.

They also gather to keep warm at night and to exchange information, such as good feeding areas. They gather over their roosting site, and perform their wheeling stunts before they roost for the night.

Autumn roosts usually begin to form in November, though this varies from site to site and some can begin as early as September.

More and more birds will flock together as the weeks go on, and the number of starlings in a roost can swell to around 100,000 in some places.

Early evening, just before dusk, is the best time to see them.

They mainly choose to roost in places which are sheltered from harsh weather and predators, such as woodlands, but reedbeds, cliffs, buildings and industrial structures are also used. During the day however, they form daytime roosts at exposed places such as treetops, where the birds have good all-round visibility.

Before Medtronic’s Applied Innovation Lab existed in brick-and-mortar form, it was constructed out of cardboard.

“We ordered 40 sheets of four-by-eight cardboard,” explains Brian Bechard, of Medtronic. “Everything we wanted in the space was put together in cardboard first, before we created CAD drawings and then the physical environment.”

To create a new space for prototyping the future of healthcare experiences at home and in hospitals, why not start out with a cardboard prototype?

The Applied Innovation Lab opened its doors in September 2015, with a goal of helping Medtronic evolve from being simply a maker of medical devices like pacemakers and stents to one that is thinking more broadly about improving health and patient outcomes. In the two years since it opened, there has hardly been a quiet moment at the lab — and there has been so much demand from different groups in the company that Bechard and the rest of the team at the lab have had to create screening criteria for what they will work on.

Focus on patient outcomes

The seven-person team that operates out of the lab sits under Medtronic Chief Information Officer Michael Hedges. Team members have backgrounds in design thinking, business strategy, engineering, and clinical research, explains Scott Mark, a former Director of Healthcare Innovation at the company.

Explaining the motivation behind creating the lab, Mark says that in the years since Omar Ishrak became CEO of Medtronic in 2011, “we’ve increased our focus on patient outcomes. Omar has focused us on understanding economic value in what we do, and in being more of a solutions-oriented company, not just a medical device company.” Mark says that creating a place to practice human-centered design would be a way to help Medtronic’s various businesses move in that new solution-oriented direction.

“It put a really heavy onus on us, from the beginning, to deliver what the business units would see as meaningful value,” explains Mark. “We didn’t want to just be a space, or to just be workshop facilitators, providing a transient opportunity for people to think differently. We wanted to build up a robust internal consulting capability, with hard deliverables as an output, so that teams could bring something back and continue working on it in their business.”

A centerpiece of the 2,200-square foot space is a 360-degree video projection screen that drops from the ceiling. The team often goes out and uses GoPro cameras to gather from different healthcare environments — like a hypertension clinic in Ghana, or an emergency room in Los Angeles — which allows the lab to immerse people in what feels like a realistic patient experience. “It’s very different from putting on virtual reality goggles,” says Bechard. “You can ask questions, and have it be social. You’re there with 10 of your peers, and you’re all looking at the same thing.”

The innovation team that created the lab knew they didn’t want to create a showcase for cutting-edge technology or a “tour stop,” in Bechard’s words. “This is a working space, a team space. There’s always activity in it, and things up on the whiteboard – pictures, or itineraries for upcoming visits in the field.”

Experience design

Much of the work that happens in the lab is less about creating prototypes of new medical devices or new apps for doctors, but rather experience design and solution design. One example involves helping medical professionals manage patients with hypertension and heart failure in emerging markets – using tablets, mobile phones, and in-person interactions. Storyboards are a commonly-used tool for mapping out the patient journey, and his or her interactions with the healthcare system.

“Everything we build at the lab is a sacrificial concept,” explains Bechard. “There are going to be flaws and things that aren’t right. What we’re doing is looking for a reaction – someone who says, ‘it needs to be more of this, or less of that.’ We want to have honest dialogue. But the idea is that we don’t spend months and hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a beautiful prototype that looks like it is commercially-ready.” Instead, the Applied Innovation Lab aims for “crude and rapid prototypes.”

Initially, the lab worked on a roughly equal mix of its own projects and projects for different business units around Medtronic. But in its two years of existence, the balance has shifted dramatically. “Today, only about 10 percent of our time is devoted to our internal projects,” Bechard says. The other 90 percent involve collaboration with a business unit team, which can often involve insurance companies, technology vendors, and other outside partners

Some teams may be resident in the lab for two months or more to flesh out a concept and gather data from the market; others might come in for a more focused day-and-a-half session.

“There are times when we’re helping a team get over a specific hurdle – like doing some de-risking on a specific project – and we may plan in advance to get the background material, do some up-front field work, and just jam on it for a short amount of time,” Bechard says.

The lab crew also holds regular “office hours,” when teams from around the company can drop by, and get advice or recommendations on projects. “That’s one way to distribute our impact around the organization,” Bechard says.

It’s key, he adds, that the lab works closely with business units and “speaks the language of the business,” he adds, “so that our credibility is built up over time. They are focused on keeping the engine running – and we’re trying to provide value in ways that may not have been explored before.”

There isn’t an insular attitude at the lab of “let’s do something and then throw it over the wall to the business,” Bechard says.

Global reach

As the lab has begun to get involved in projects outside of the US, it has also expanded its team to include seven “extended team members” in regions like Asia-Pacific and Europe. So in addition to a weekly team meeting in Mounds View, Minneapolis, where the lab is based, “we’ve just begun to do a monthly call with the extended team members, highlighting specific projects in places like Singapore and China,” Bechard says. Knitting together a geographically-distributed innovation group, he adds, “doesn’t happen by itself; you have to be deliberate about it.”

As an example of how the lab is working with constituencies around Medtronic, and around the world, Bechard brings up a project that started with the company’s minimally-invasive therapies group, based in Boulder, Colorado. “They came to us to think through market readiness for a new patient monitoring solution, and they needed a first launch site or testbed,” Bechard says. “This was a solution that was potentially disruptive to our current mature markets, and so they told us that they wanted to look at emerging markets.” Two they wanted to examine were India and China. Bechard was the project leader at the lab, “and we had extended team members in Shanghai,” he says, “and the main business sponsor in Boulder. The group that was local to the Chinese market let us go into the field and talk to anesthesiologists – walk into the NICUs and PACUs [neonatal intensive care units and post-anesthesia care units] to better understand the jobs to be done and the needs there. Just understanding the complexity of [how procurement happens in China] was very valuable. For example, it can be easier to buy capital equipment in china, versus trying to sell a piece of software.”

At any given time, the lab tends to be juggling between 30 and 40 different projects. But since it opened in 2015, a queue of more than 50 other projects has built up, all vetted by the team as “a good match for our capabilities,” Bechard says. And there are plenty of other people among Medtronic’s 90,000 employees eager to spend time there. “Demand has definitely increased,” Bechard says.

So the lab has been honing its criteria around what kinds of projects it chooses to work on. “We always emphasize that we want to be involved very early — at Phase 0 or Phase 1, helping to develop the challenge statement and getting everyone pointed in the same direction,” Bechard says. Projects need to be relevant to the lab crew’s expertise and skill set. “We are also trying to focus on funded and supported projects within businesses,” he explains, as opposed to pet projects of a single employee or “science fair”-type explorations.

Bechard and his colleagues know they’re only two years into a long journey.

“We talk all the time about putting the patient or end-user at the center of our process, and developing empathy and understanding of how they work, and their needs,” he says. But in doing anything new, he says, “you’ve got to be mindful of the corporate culture. We can be very qualitative at times, and it can be very quantitative, and market research driven. So we’re chipping away at this piece by piece. It takes time to turn the ship, to develop trust, and to bring in new mindsets.”

Nordea Bank’s intrepid head of sustainable finance, who narrowly escaped Bosnia with his life at 19, joined me on stage at this year’s European Business Forum to talk about how money can be a force for good.

Sasja Beslik always knew life would not be straightforward. Born into a non-Muslim family in a Muslim-dominated city, he didn’t need anyone to tell him as much. All the same, not even a soothsayer could have guessed the twists and turns that lay ahead.

I mean, how many finance folk include “freelance war correspondent” on their LinkedIn profiles? And what kind of employee has a personal Twitter following (131k and climbing) 12 times that of the multinational bank that employs him?

“I got a Royal Order of the Seraphim from the Swedish King,” he adds. Today Sasja heads up sustainable finance at Nordea, the largest bank in the Nordic region. “In the old days, I would have become nobility!”

To those who have not met him, the statement may sound boastful, but Beslik is an enthusiast with a colourful turn of phrase and a natural gift for story-telling. And, boy, does he have a story to tell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiTObHMN7Ok

Sasja Beslik’s tale starts in 1993. The genocidal war in his native Bosnia was gearing up. Rumours were swirling of internecine pogroms. Soon, neighbour would be turning on neighbour. Beslik decided the time had come to flee. He was 19 years old.

In fast, flawless English, he outlines what happened next. The account starts with months spent sleeping rough in city parks. Next comes the narrowest of escapes from Mujahedeen mercenaries, who were on the brink of executing him. Then follows his escape to Poland.

“From there, I got a ferry to Sweden,” he says. “I didn’t mean to go there. It was just the first boat in the harbour. And I only had 100 Deutschmarks in my pocket, so I couldn’t have afforded anything else.”

Once in Sweden, he spent seven months in a refugee camp while he waited for his residency papers. Ever-resourceful, he used the time to learn Swedish. His first step as a naturalised Swedish citizen was to enrol at Stockholm University, where he studied economics and journalism.

Two decades on, his life looks very different, and he enjoys the kind of material comfort that you would expect of a highly successful Stockholm-based banker.

Don’t let the smart suit and branded spectacles deceive you, though. Despite becoming CEO of Sweden’s largest responsible investment fund in his mid-30s, Beslik has not left his old self behind.

He credits his experience as a Bosnian refugee with framing much of who he is today. For one, he has little truck with bluff or blagging. Fine words don’t put a roof over your head or food in your belly. Beslik is all about what makes a tangible difference on the ground.

So when it came to giving over a large donation raised by Nordea and its staff for refugees, he made sure it went to UNHCR and UNICEF. He knows those organisations make an impact from personal experience, he says, “because I was the one receiving food packages from them as a refugee.”

The example sounds a little trifling, until you consider that he adopts precisely that same approach when advising Nordea on the sustainability of its total investment portfolio – worth over €320bn. Investor presentations, analysts’ assessments, reports and accounts: these are all well and good. But to be truly satisfied, Nordea’s responsible investment chief likes to see for himself what his clients’ krona are financing.

While other asset managers may do their due diligence by visiting a local company rep to understand labour conditions or environmental pollution, Beslik says, “You know what I do? I go visit the local priest, I go visit the local shop-owner, I go speak to people in the hospital.”

This belief in the importance of first-hand evidence was forged first as a journalist covering wars and humanitarian crises for the likes of the Red Cross, and then as a social impact assessment expert for oil major BP in Angola, Georgia, Nigeria and elsewhere.

Putting himself in danger zones was his way of “working through” his own war memories, he says. “I was hands-on in many of these countries. I did all the dirty stuff. I know what responsibility looks like on the ground. I’ve seen companies doing it well, and I’ve seen companies mismanaging it.”

Every investment house worth its salt has a bank of clever analysts churning through research reports day in, day out. Beslik’s team at Nordea is no different. But while most investors are happy to ping off an advisory note or a subject briefing, Beslik takes a camera into the field and sends back video clips.

Another trait that Beslik carries with him from his younger days is a disregard for established wisdom, and lack of fear in giving voice to it: “That’s bullshit” is a favourite phrase.

His take on the recent One Planet conference in Paris last month is a prime example.  The mood at the climate shindig – convened by the French government to mark the two-year anniversary of the 2015 Paris Agreement – was celebratory. Centre stage went to Beslik’s peers in the investment world, who promised to call big polluters to account and to release hundreds of millions of euros in green finance.

“Everybody was like ‘Hallelujah!’ and ‘Oh my God, now everything is going to change’. But no one is talking about the elephant in the room,” Beslik says. “Everybody is doing ESG [environmental, social and corporate governance], everybody is doing integration, everybody is doing sustainability. But only about 5% or 10% of global capital is tilted towards sustainability, so the net effect is zero.”

The reason for this failure of capital markets is twofold. The first relates to data. One of Beslik’s big beefs is that the non-financial information provided by companies is backward-looking, not future-oriented. Another is that corporate data is insufficiently assured, as the Volkswagen emissions’ scandal and others like it have laid bare.

His second major concern centres on the investment horizons for asset managers. London, New York, Geneva, Stockholm – “wherever you like,” he says – managers are incentivised according to annual results. But a much longer timeframe is needed for asset managers to genuinely account for material ESG issues – and have time to see company profitability improve as a result.

“What concerns me is that if we don’t shift how we allocate capital flows, then we are never going to make anything happen when it comes to climate change or any of the other huge problems we will face over the next 10 to 15 years.”

He isn’t afraid to put his money where his mouth is. Back in 2011, while chief executive of Nordea Investment Funds Sweden, he launched the company’s new sustainability-focused Stars funds with a seven-year payback horizon.

The decision led to a boardroom bust-up, but Beslik held his ground and the Stars Fund was singled out as Sweden’s best overall equity fund in 2017, the first time a sustainable fund has been awarded such an honour.

Arguably the greatest legacy from his early years is not how this unorthodox investor does what he does, but why. Escaping Bosnia with his life left him determined to make good on the “second chance” that he felt he’d been given.

“I decided that I was going to use my life for something that is actually worth living for. I’m not doing this 9 to 5. I’m not doing this because it’s a job. I’m doing this because I truly believe it’s the right thing to do.”

But why responsible banking? Because with money comes power, he says. And power, guided towards the right ends, can build a better, cleaner, more peaceful world.

Today, this mission-minded banker has a fresh challenge. Appointed Nordea’s head of sustainable finance last August, he is charged with taking all the expertise he has built from the world of responsible asset management and applying it to the bank’s mainstream lending and advisory services.

His new mandate marks a “big step”, he concedes, but one that feeds into his passion to change the financial system. He doesn’t doubt that challenges await. But when he hits a wall, he says, he’ll do what he’s always done. “I’ll take out a big shovel and dig under it!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzksDkQBB0g&t=5s