A 3-layer cake worth sharing

Posted by mattpoy on April 18, 2017April 18, 2017 Posted in CompTIA, Future of Work, Ideas, People, Skills, Technology Tagged CompTIA, Future of work, Future Technology, People, Robots, Skills

I recently returned from participating on a global advisory board on education and certification and we debated not just the future but how we can pin it down long enough to be able to describe it and build a strategy around it.

Tech refuses to stand still and while it isn’t quite the bedlam that the comedy series Silicon Valley portrays, it isn’t a million miles away. On my journey back I deliberated and concluded one thing for certain – the larger the audience we try to reach, the simpler the message has to be, otherwise it flies over our heads along with the rest of the information box labelled “overload.”

So what is the next wave? I summarised it as a 3-layer cake with all manner of ingredients built around intelligence, security and people.

The first, top layer, a segment called ‘intelligence,’ is the topping that will propel us into creative new spaces – AI, AR, VR, 3D, (already too many acronyms), drones, robots and my favourite internet of things. This will lead us towards everything cloud, everything connected and everything mobile.

The foundation or base is the security that will be necessary to hold things together, protect the safe business transition to the above and without which we can expect a myriad of challenges that could well hold back progress.

The flavouring in the middle, always the best bit, is where we come in – the people and the skills that underpin the change, the brainpower to drive it forward and the mindfulness to ensure things are done correctly, competitively and for the long-term.

Hewlett and Packard: the difference

Posted by mattpoy on March 24, 2017March 24, 2017 Posted in Culture, People, Technology Tagged Future of work, People, Skills, Talent

I blogged about Intel a couple of posts ago and today I will blog about another IT-industry stalwart, Hewlett Packard.

Quite simply, this is a brand that I have always liked. I have only ever bought HP printers and I like the story of the founders, William Hewlett and David Packard (take note, no shortening of names taking place here – the two gentlemen deserve full name spelling). They started HP in 1939 out of a garage in Palo Alto where the company was born.

What really stands out, however, is their reaction to the market soon after the war began. Not surprisingly, the government labs were shutting down and the engineers leaving their employment. But Hewlett and Packard saw the opportunity. Although they were going through staff layoffs themselves, they realised that the greatest opportunity their company ever had wasn’t that of technology.

So instead they went out and hired those engineers.

Make our jobs better

Posted by mattpoy on October 24, 2016October 24, 2016 Posted in Future of Technology, Future of Work, People, Skills, Talent, Technology Tagged Future of work, Future Technology, People, Robots, Skills

The General Manager of Deloitte UK, said “We should automate work and humanise jobs; give the mundane to the machines and the purpose back to people,” as part of Deloitte research called Essential Skills for Working in the Machine Age.

We need to make our jobs better (different) and add more value to the human side of what we are truly good at. It is not simply a case of putting technology in place of people; Starbucks could quite easily replace people with robot coffee machines in its outlets, but the conversation that takes place in a Starbucks shop, the smell of coffee beans and even the individualisation of your name written on a cup, is part of the carefully crafted Starbucks experience.

We must learn to understand what technology can do for our business and then use it to enhance the customer, but also the employee, experience. Every company has the opportunity to apply technology to make it better.

No question that both customers and employees will be better engaged.

Humans: a case for the opposition

Posted by mattpoy on October 14, 2016 Posted in Future of Technology, Future of Work, People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Talent, Technology Tagged Future of work, Future Technology, People, Robots, Skills, Talent

The Future of Jobs report from the World Economic Forum highlighted that over 7m jobs will be lost to redundancy, automation or disintermediation, although they did also state that some of this loss will be offset by 2m jobs in new areas.

We know that as industries evolve and technology puts its arms around a business model and disrupts it, that jobs are created elsewhere, just as retail and services have replaced the factory and manufacturing, so the message to us as employers is invest in the skills of our people, rather than hire more workers, as the key to managing disruptions to the labour market long-term.

Jobs aren’t going away, they’re just changing. We know that softer skills like empathy, communications and prioritisation are essentially human. The future of work is not about jobs going away, it’s about redesigning what we do to make better use of the tools and technology at our disposal.

My point? Robots and technology are already in place. They trade on the stock markets, they drive cars in some cities and they are persistently recommending what we buy next. What they can’t do is serve the delicious loaves of bread in St Albans market with a chat on a Saturday morning or provide that extra bit of care and attention when you’re not feeling at your best – so work with the humans in our teams to find the things they are good at, the tasks and roles that require thinking, judgement and emotion.

Finally, is Nike really launching self-tying shoelaces on sneakers/trainers? Isn’t learning to tie a shoelace an important step in our childhood?

Technology and impatience

Posted by mattpoy on August 30, 2016August 30, 2016 Posted in Big Data, Customer Service, Future of Technology, Technology Tagged Customer Service, Data, Engagement, Future Technology, Futurology

We are losing patience with technology and it is putting pressure on companies to provide services at record speeds, yet it seems as though it is never enough.

I always felt one of the greatest wonders of technological change was how organisations put services into the hands of the customer and we marvelled at this as great service – for example, checking ourselves in for a flight and printing our own boarding passes. They made us do the work and we thanked them for it.

I use a 10-second video to make my case of a young girl less than a year old who is given a copy of a magazine to keep her occupied. Within moments she is swiping the magazine because she thinks it operates like an iPad and when the magazine shows no sign of responding, the girl is crawling away having lost interest.

Today, the tables are turning on technology and we are becoming ever more unsatisfied – I thought technology was supposed to be the next utility but when Wifi was down for a while at the house this weekend it caused much consternation and one of kids declared they “couldn’t function.” When networks are down, we criticise the technology, when a store runs out of a product, we complain that they haven’t mastered big data and when online banking is not available we ask why they couldn’t update their systems when we are asleep.

I have seen “internet”, “wifi” and “phone battery” all added to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and it isn’t always in jest. It is one thing technology progressing leaps and bounds to give us new ways of working and shopping and learning – but can it match our ever-increasing standards?

Final score: People 1-0 Spreadsheets

Posted by mattpoy on March 31, 2016March 31, 2016 Posted in Communication, Future of Work, People, People Skills Talent, Technology Tagged Investment in people, People, Talent

I recently returned from a trip where I met with the most senior heart surgeon in the country and I was hugely impressed by his humility and leadership. Very few possess the combination of exceptional business acumen plus the people skills to lead from the very top. He certainly had those and he was also keen to innovate and lead from the front. Meeting him and his team, being encouraged by them, talking about the past and visions for the future, are what makes business tick, but also why people never fail to inspire.

Working in a technology-led business it reminded me of the importance of fundamentals in doing business and why people can never lose out to tech in the development of relationships. We have a philosophy which is when you are seeking long-term business relationships (contracts, agreements, partnerships), you have to earn the trust of the economic buyer (read: Miller Heiman selling skills) in some cases a year or two before they have even decided they want to make a purchase.

Technology can certainly go some way to impressing a prospect buyer that you have the tools and the solution to their needs, but in a world where we will see more contractors around the table, more crowdsourced services and just about most things moving to mobile, it will be the people telling the stories, shaking hands, drinking tea and building rapport that ultimately win the day.

This has been going on since time immemorial. Tech can’t match that.

A return to simplicity

Posted by mattpoy on March 7, 2016March 7, 2016 Posted in Big Data, Future of Technology, Ideas, Marketing, Technology Tagged Future Technology, Futurology, Ideas, Marketing

Technology is no silver bullet and better technology doesn’t automatically mean better education.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that across more than 40 countries, students who use computers for their schoolwork, but for a slightly lower-than-average amount of time, do better than average on reading exams. Students who spend an above-average amount of time on computers at school scored lower than students who don’t use computers at all. Like everything, how helpful technology is depends on how you use it.

It has also been highlighted how job roles that require empathy, for example doctors and nurses, are better positioned to withstand the changes that technology is sweeping along its path, and with 36% of the workforce in jobs that have a high risk of being automated by 2030 (via a study by Oxford University) we need to de-mystify the confusion and complexity that technology often brings to our day-to-day existence.

This leads me to a paragraph of hope – during my recent travels I read about the declining numbers of subscribers to cable television. Executives in the industry believe “skinny bundles” might be one solution to halt this decline, and I picked up on that – wouldn’t skinny everything help us in the long term? Offer consumers a menu of options and let us piece together only what suits us – move us from mass production to mass customisation.

That way we get what we need, we are satisfied with what we pay, and we don’t spend hours filtering through unnecessary material. Or maybe we just shut down the TV networks at 10:30pm and ask society to read a book for 30 minutes before falling asleep.

Dispel the Myth

Posted by mattpoy on August 19, 2015August 19, 2015 Posted in Next Gen, People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Social Media, Talent, Technology Tagged Education, Future of work, People, Skills, Social Media, Talent

Within 10 years, 75% of the global workforce will be from the ‘next generation’, so are we prepared for a different style of management, perhaps a different type of human?

A number of studies have looked into the workplace needs of the next gen and it is reassuring to learn that they are not that much different to previous generations preparing for work. Yes, they have grown up in the digital era, and yes, they live and breathe social media, plus there is a new emphasis on corporate social responsibility magnified by social spaces and platforms (not such a bad thing) but are they allergic to being managed the traditional way?

In reality, the race for talent is no different than it always was, except that there will be fewer skilled people to take the ever increasing number of jobs, and the millennials’ attitudes to work are as conventional as they ever were.

They want to be given a chance and they want to be rewarded for their contributions. So what is the formula for the future? Combine the classic reward system with openness and transparency, help them attain skills that are relevant and give them the opportunity to flourish. And because they are so good with technology, allow them to be creative with it for the betterment of the business. And as my friend Martin Bean, Vice Chancellor and President of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, always told me – companies that ask, “What if I train and certify my people and they leave,” you have to reply, “What if you don’t train and certify your staff, and they stay!”