ben damiano 1/17/21 ben damiano 1/17/21

Art & Technology

Art is technology infused with human creativity.

And as technology relentlessly advances the possibilities of art, artists and those that interact and participate with art are greater than ever.

It is no longer a fission of left brain (science) versus right brain (art) but their fusion that will be the future.

From the earliest discoveries of fire to modern computing devices and cloud-based software, humans have bent and leveraged technology in creative ways to express themselves and connect with each other and the wider world.

Fire did not just keep us warm, enabled the cooking of food and forging of new tools but it also let people turn clay into hardened ceramic pots and vases, useful for carrying and storing food, water, or other items which were then shaped and decorated in ways beyond their functional use.

Today like never before technology is enabling artistic and creative endeavors by a) fueling new art forms, b) enabling far more people with a variety of tools to express themselves creatively and c) scaling the ability to share, display and connect with potential audiences and patrons.

1. Photography

Today photographs are the most widely created and distributed art form.

They have been turbocharged by camera phones bursting with mega pixels and magical software. The ensuing images are then scaled and distributed via social media feeds algorithmically optimized to maximize engagement.

A long way from Ansel Adams and the stationary bulky camera but also a significant distance from a portable film Leica used by the great photojournalists and creative photographers in the latter half of the 20th Century.

Some folks pine for the days of old.

They need not pine since they can use a medium or very large format camera loaded with black and white film and wait for the ideal moment. But their efforts will pale in comparison to someone using a modern digital Leica Q2 or M10 or even an iPhone12 Pro Max and then tuning the result in Adobe Lightroom.

The aforementioned Ansel Adams himself spent hours optimizing photographs in the dark room and were he alive today would probably be an expert at Photoshop!

While technology enables the possibility and potential of artists it does not necessarily make an artist. Similarly, the refusal to leverage modern possibilities and hold to traditional ways does not cause one to be a more “genuine artist”.

2. Film

It is in film industry that we often encounter the battle between “the way it was and should be” be versus the future.

Not only is the movie theater increasingly a container of the past but the two-to-three- hour film itself is just one way of modern film expression.

A case can be made that in today’s streaming eco-system artists working in film have far greater ways of expressing and creating their art then when they were limited to movie and television studios of the past. Why be constrained to three hours when the better idea maybe a series (Queens Gambit was originally a movie idea)? Why be limited to what can fit in the few theatres or is curated by some mysterious coven of coastal “taste makers” when a world of possibilities can be sampled and global audiences reached via a Netflix, Acorn, Eros, Criterion and much more?

The ability to determine how to release (weekly, all at one time, in phases) one’s work, the global scale of audiences reached, the creative freedom and new economic possibilities have made streaming television the new high art form of film versus the movies.

Most theatrical movies are now commercials for the eco-system of spinoffs and merchandise that follows. And many of the truly artistic films which may be more edgy, risky and artistic movies from Roma to The Irishman to One Night in Miami are now funded and launched by the streaming channels. They are not crushing but unleashing creativity like never before on a global scale.

A reason “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ has resonated so well is the fact that it has the space to build its world and story versus being Star Wars 10: The Emergence of Yoda.

Not surprisingly, talent is rushing to streaming and companies like Disney while verbally mollifying and blowing kisses to the theatrical industry, are betting their company on streaming.

With larger and cheaper OLED screens, audio spatial software bringing surround sound to headphones and improvements in discovery, every technology advance in film is taking place in personal and home viewing spaces.

Theaters only advancements as they copy Alamo Draft House will increasingly be to morph into restaurants and bars to socialize and go out on date night with a film on the side.

3. Music

While there is a recent resurgence in vinyl among the diehard aficionados the future of music is streaming.

Most of joy of vinyl is in the ritual rather than the result. There is a certain joy in placing vinyl on a turntable, perusing the liner notes and accompanying art that the physical format enables. Then there is the romanticizing of the crackling hiss of mechanical impurity brought to life by the scratches that is all about a memory and a story. A memory and story separate from the “warmth” of the music that only vinyl can supposedly re-create.

The great American audio gear firm, McIntosh, with its old-fashioned transistor quality has seen the future and has been releasing their wonderful gear with its glowing green dials optimized for headphones connected to digital music.

Streaming music via Tidal (much higher quality than Spotify), with a great pair of headphones and digital amp is absolutely stunning.

The benefits of streaming not only include the convenience, catalog depth and curation (both software enabled and curated by other subscribers) but increasingly the curation and community provided by artists and emerging artists.

Bandcamp and Soundcloud are two excellent sources for a different independent and less commercial take on music than those of Spotify and Apple Music.

The other area of great advance in music is in automobiles. Today it is very likely that the best sound system most people have is in their cars. The major audio companies now combine hardware and software design working in tandem with the auto manufacturers as the cars are being designed (McIntosh has partnered with Jeep). The new Mercedes S Class has speakers in seats that vibrate to music at certain software settings to create a 4 D sound experience!

To understand the power of how modern technology can unleash and enable music check out Digital Concert Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic which among other things has one of the best user interfaces and discovery engines I have interacted with. Any company waxing poetic about “Brand Experiences” should check them out (unfortunately most of the functionality requires a subscription which I would highly recommend even if for just a month to truly understand what is possible)

What makes the Digital Concert Hall amazing is that when the new physical orchestra hall was constructed in Berlin it was built not just to optimize sound for the live audience but to record high quality audio and video from multiple angles for home subscribers and streaming audiences. As a result, you feel you are sitting in the orchestra and watching and hearing the music in ways that enable a new level of appreciation.

They built and anticipated for a global and digital and a new demographic future where the next generation of concert subscribers might wish to engage on demand from home and that home maybe in Japan or India and not in Berlin.

Because of their foresight, the Berlin Philharmonic continues to perform all through the challenges of Covid-19 for the world and their subscribers even though they are playing to an empty orchestra hall.

And for the aspiring Mozarts and Dylan’s of the world there are new ways to learn instruments and much more. For instance to understand the depth of what is possible if you wish to learn (or teach) guitar take a look at Truefire Studios.

4. The Written Word

Before photography, film and recorded music came the word and its most popular containers the broadsheet newspaper and the bound book. Both remain with one (the physical newspaper) in deep decline while the other (physical book) continues to grow and prosper.

The broadsheet after being continuously diminished in its size and heft has been increasingly replaced by its digital manifestation while the book has been complemented rather than be replaced by its audible and electronic representations.

Why has the vinyl of reading, the humble book, continued to grow? Is it because the form allows for disconnection so one can immerse in a world of imagination and the focus of deep learning? Or is the ability to underline sentences and scribble in the margins arguing or agreeing with the author something difficult to replicate in a digital format? Or is it that when you are reading a book in many cases you are both everywhere and nowhere and the silence of print is particularly enabling to this reverie? Or it just might be books make great artifacts to decorate a room or office or signal learnedness and taste?

While the book prospers the written word has also burst out its containers of the past with new formats including blogging platforms like Wordpress and Medium or newsletter publishing from Substack, Scrollstack and others.

These are some of the on ramps for emerging talent and off ramps for established talent to and from the world of newspapers, magazines and books.

5. Museums.

The world’s greatest Museums are no longer in Paris, New York, Chicago, London or Florence. They are in the Cloud and probably best portal into the amazing world is Google Art and Culture Page (Openculture.org is another great portal)

Here, the full power of modern technology to support, promote and celebrate art and culture is in full display. Walk through museums, get microscopic looks in high definition to a small part of a painting, rotate and move sculptures and much more.

Travel across the world doing deep dives into the landscapes outside museums, the interiors of the museum and all the art that lives there.

Yes, they do not replace a visit to a museum.

They may have surpassed the museum!

And for most of the world it will be the only way they get to a museum.

6. Mongrel Media.

Digital is like hydrochloric acid.

It burns through constraining containers.

This is true in business and art.

Podcasts:Take the intimacy of the written word and marry it with digital sound and the access of cloud-based delivery and you have a wonderful recent form called the podcast.

TikTok: Take modern AI, the ubiquity of the mobile phone and combine it with the creativity of people and you have a fast growing, highly addictive, new content form called TikTok.

New York Times Digital: Take world class journalists and photographers and combine them with digital artists, software experts and remove the constraint of space or being limited to the printed word and you have New York Times Digital.

Gaming: Take hardware, software, film, music and story telling and fuse them and you get the 165 billion dollar gaming industry which is larger than the film, music and publishing businesses combined. Starting on low powered consoles it has spread to hand held consoles, cloud based delivery, mobile phones, consoles with the power of super computers and much more.

Jimmy Nelson’s Homage to Humanity: Take a world class photographer who goes miles into the wilderness to photograph our disappearing heritage with heavy large format cameras and combine him with a nine person crack digital team and you have a mix of book, video, music, and virtual reality (leveraging enclosed cardboard glasses) that take a book to where no book could go, and you to places you did not know existed while creating art that refuses to accept limits. Explore here: https://www.jimmynelson.com/homagetohumanity

The future does not fit in the containers of the past.

The pipes to the future are laid by modern hardware and software plumbing.

But it is the human connections and art and meaning that this plumbing enables that makes life worth living.

Let us not fixate so much on the plumbing that we forget the poetry.

ben damiano 1/10/21 ben damiano 1/10/21

Management Lessons

In the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to address the leadership teams of a couple of Fortune 500/FTSE 100 companies on some of the best management practices I have come across.

To prepare for these opportunities I reviewed a piece written eight years ago to mark the 2012 retirement of a boss and mentor, Jack Klues, which was called 8 Management Lessons from a Great Boss.

Almost a decade later the lessons still resonated and rang true. All they needed were a few edits and additions to incorporate the passage of time.

1. There is no substitute for hard work: Talent matters but is not enough. Hard work, focus and persistence are what makes for success. Never “call it in”. Tim Ferris and all those books of 4-hour workweeks and stuff are fantasies. If you want to do well, you have to work your butt off. Period. Even if you are supposedly smart.

When you see people, you admire do things effortlessly, it is because they have practiced, continuously iterated, and learned. As a result they have sculpted intellectual and emotional muscles that now make their performance second nature.

2. Constantly learn and keep upgrading your skills: The best managers are perpetual students constantly growing. They exhibit three traits:

a) Exploration: They explore new areas outside their category knowing that the future of their industry is likely to come from outside of it. They seek guides and experts to help them navigate what they do not know. They travel to meet start-ups and to different nations to understand other perspectives and new approaches.

b) Engaging provocateurs/ jesters: Often it is only the clown that can convey the truth to the Crown. Rather than have “yes women and men” chant about the greatness of the dear leader they retain challengers and questioners.

If you want somebody to reflect what you say, it is far more cost effective to replace a senior manager with a full-length mirror.

c) Setting aside time for learning: Their calendars have time set aside to learn. Usually they are prolific readers and intensely curious. As Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, notes they display a “learn it all” mindset versus a “know it all” mindset.

3. Integrity, truth and your word are everything: Winning is important. But never at any cost. Integrity, fair play, and transparency are key.

If you make a commitment keep it. No ifs or buts.

Trust is the critical currency in business and relationships and your reputation is the issuing bank.

If you have trust you also have speed.

And you do not build reputation and trust without principles and sticking to them even if it is inconvenient to your career.

Build your reputation by speaking truth to power if appropriate.

Sometimes this may mean going against the grain and what is majority opinion.

By being fearless and calling things out (politely, calmly and often with humor) versus bending the knee to the powerful, the moneyed and the in-fashion.

Realize that people who go with the flow even when the flow is not the way to go are not leaders, but opportunists and schemers.

The lack of an internal compass has them leaning in any direction where the magnetic force of power, money and fame lures.

This eventually finds them lost.

4. Be accessible and encourage challenges: Regardless of how powerful or famous or busy you are, make sure that people can get to you easily and feel safe and free to speak what is on their mind and in their hearts.

Whether it be a student, a startup, someone who sounds like a nitwit with a crazy idea, it is important to find time to meet these folks. Be wary of over relying on a bevy of executive assistants to filter and shoo away people. To grow it is essential to meet new people, to listen, and to be available.

Encourage people to challenge you. Work to be respected and admired, not feared.

5. Always take ideas, insights and imaginative new ways to grow to clients and never be scared to tell them what you think: While it is critical to have operational excellence in the day to day and to drive the results whether in performance or cost savings promised, it is key to take insights, ideas and initiatives to help Clients build business.

Any world class Client always has someone calling on them with new approaches and if you are reduced to just day to day delivery, you will find yourself increasingly irrelevant and commoditized. If there is a better way, a faster way and smarter way to substitute what you are doing with another approach, you should adopt it and or take it to them. Even if it hurts your bottom line.

Respect Clients. Listen to Clients. But never fear them. Provide them with perspectives, POV’s and provocations. Sometimes you have to choose your spot and time to push back, but never be reduced to just an order taker or a task rabbit.

6. Your success is mostly not because of you: Your success has to with many factors and most of them are not you.

First, it is the talent around you. Second, it is the company you are working for (the company comes first and never imagine you are irreplaceable or are bigger than the company), third it is the prestige of the Clients you get work with and finally a lot of it is chance, luck and timing.

Be wary of supposed “superstars” or “rock stars” who think they achieved it all themselves and take themselves too seriously.

Never forget where you came from and all those who helped you.

7. Celebrate the team and make stars of your people: The best leaders teach, empower and build legions of talent by giving them opportunities, having their back when things go wrong, and training the spotlight on them when things go right or when there is a big success.

Often, some of your most talented people will leave for better jobs due to their skills and renown. But if you have done your job right, they are less likely to go to direct competitors but rather a part of the larger eco-system of platforms, partners, and affiliated companies where they can be advocates. As importantly, the continuous success of people who worked with you will attract even more talent.

8. Put others first. Be generous. Be human: Always think of others. Give generously. Help people especially those who have lost jobs or are in career transition or may never be able to help you.

The Beatles sang “ in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give”. When you help people the math is even better. The help you get is often multiples of the help you give since you feel good and the person you help feels gratitude and will always remember your help.

Finally, never forget that it is in the human interaction that memories and relationships are built and sustained.

Let me end with a story.

About 15 years ago there was a critical new business pitch. Due to weather all flights had been cancelled from Chicago and Jack Klues had got a private plane to fly us out from Urbana Champaign. I finished attending my elder daughters middle school graduation late in the evening and caught a train to Urbana where I arrived at a fog bound station at midnight.

This was before smart phones. Before Uber.

At that time Jack Klues was the number 2 executive of the Publicis Groupe in charge of all the media and digital assets of the company globally. He was responsible tens of thousands of employees and billions of dollars of revenue.

In the gloom and cold of the deserted station sat Jack Klues who said, “After this long trip I thought you would need a ride to the hotel”

ben damiano 12/20/20 ben damiano 12/20/20

Growth and Change are about People.

1. Organizations grow and change only when people grow and change.

Photo by Richard Thompson III — **Photo by** **Richard Thompson III**

Organizations everywhere are struggling with change and seeking new ways to grow.

Many specialists help them on the way forward.

A cavalcade of consultants convey and communicate with countless charts potential choices to the C-Suite.

A flurry of futurists frame, focus, and filter the way forward with the finesse of fortune tellers.

Masters of the Universe market M&A moves that might make multiples move upwards and mean many more millions in market-cap.

PR professionals produce and promote points of view that provoke the press to perceive with pristine perspectives.

And while many of these will be essential ingredients to a recipe of change and growth none of these will work without helping grow and change the people in the organization.

Because while firms are a collection of ideas, technologies, patents, brands, ecosystems and people, it is people who are the the key since they create the ideas, technologies, patents, brands and eco-systems!

Michael Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face”.

Boards and leadership of firms come quickly to the realization that everything is easy until people get in the way.

Telling people that change is good, threatening them with job loss if they do not change or creating communication materials and slogans to goad them into a cult like devotion to the new dear leader or the way forward rarely works in the short run and will likely fail after the threat of flagellation fades.

Because if there is nothing in it for them, people will out-wit, out-wait, out-pretend, and out-maneuver “management”. Until then they will fill the time genuflecting and bowing and going through the monitored motions of attending the right meetings, muttering the motivational mantras and stating the slogans required.

If you want your organization or team to grow and change you will need to deliver answers to four questions to your staff:

Why are the recommended changes good for them?

How can it help them grow ?

What are the monetary or other incentives to change?

When and where will training w be provided to help them learn the new skills needed?

Change does not happen because of M&A, Press Releases, Re-organizations or a new Leader, all of which undoubtedly play a role.

An organization changes and grows when the people in the organization change and grow.

2. There are two ways to change an organization: Get people to change or change the people.

What are the key ingredients that helped drive successful transformation of companies including very large ones like Walmart or Microsoft?

Both firms had “lifers” take over as the CEO after years of each company roaming in the wilderness. They both succeeded in rejuvenating their firms by combining two different approaches.

A) Upgrading the mindset of a majority of the people at the firm.

This is best seen by the changes Satya Nadella has made at Microsoft which including moving from a “know it all mindset” to a “growth mindset”, a focus on enterprise and business professionals, a focus on openness and cloud (into which the Xbox strategy neatly fits) and the elimination of the Windows Operating division. He also engineered a move away from a prickly approach of a “We vs the World” mindset to the embrace of the everything in the world including Linux with the purchase of GitHub.

Along with these initiatives to upgrade the people there was the leveraging of new talent brought in via “LinkedIn” and some nip and tucking in other key areas.

Through it all the focus has been on new behaviors and mindsets of people including top level and key talent.

B) A recruitment of key outsiders and high-level leaders to bring in new skills and thinking.

This can be seen at Walmart which had fallen behind Amazon in the world of E-Commerce. Doug McMillon made two huge purchases in Jet and FlipKart, putting their leadership in charge of the re-vitalization of their online efforts. While there continues to be “silo-wars” at Walmart there is little doubt that the company is a newly armed and respected player and is seen as a future force and not just a huge operator from the past.

What is central to all successful changes is that companies that grow combine revitalized/new leadership, a re-defined strategy and or organization with an emphasis on growing and helping as many employees as possible transform themselves.

A new strategy, a new leader and a new organization are often necessary, but they are never sufficient to regain growth and manage change. To achieve this aim it is critical that the rank and file needs to be communicated with, incentivized and trained to change and grow.

3. The Six C’s Required of Modern Talent.

Today like never before we are living in a world of rapid transformation and change.

New industries rise and fall and the inter-connected unstoppable forces of globalization, demographic change and technology twist and toss all of us.

In this landscape how do we train talent or hone our own skills?

What will remain relevant and in demand in an age of shorter and shorter half-lives of firms and business models?

Six key skills will be essential in the future. Three of these have to do with the individual (Cognition, Creativity, Curiosity) and three how we connect with each other and the world outside our minds (Collaborate, Communicate, Convince).

Cognition is simply learning to think and keeping your mental operating system constantly upgraded. This requires deliberate practice and sustained work. Improved cognition is achievable.

Creativity is connecting dots in new ways, looking beyond the obvious and this skill will be key as AI powered computers, data crunch and co-relate faster than we ever will. To be human is to be creative. We need to learn and feed this inside us.

Curiosity is simply being alive to possibilities, questioning the status quo and asking what if? Today the key competitor or opportunity in any category comes from outside it. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but the lack of curiosity killed the careers of many people.

But being cognitively gifted, creative and curios will not be enough since we are living in a connected world where eco-systems, teams and linkages is how ideas are born, value created, and long-term careers forged. For these we need to hone and build and train for three other skills.

Collaborate: Collaboration is key to work in a world where API’s (Application Protocol Interfaces) are not just about handshakes between software/hardware but between individuals with different skills, teams in different countries, partners, suppliers and much more.

Communicate: Learn to write. Learn to speak. Learn to present. It may be so old school but watch the people who succeed, and they are good at communication. And all of these can be taught and learned.

Convince: Every one of us is a salesperson regardless of what we believe our title is. This is true even if we do not sell anything at work. We have to convince colleagues of our points of view. We have to convince our partners to join us on our life journey. Learn to convince and learn to sell.

4. The Four Keys to Evaluating Experienced Hires Before Letting Them In.

It is rare that a company can avoid hiring significant talent from outside if it is serious about transforming itself to change and grow. New skills, new mindsets and new blood enhances the corporate genetic pool.

But these hires are particularly fraught, and experience indicates that focusing on four key criteria can minimize the risk.

These are a) Mental Agility, b) Integrity, c) Impact and d) Fit/Chemistry.

Two of these filters Mental Agility and Fit/Chemistry require multiple interviews (Zoom or in person) and two of them —Impact and Integrity —require deep investigation (background checks, references).

Mental agility is key to lead a team or a company in a world of change and only in an interview can one test for this. Similarly, chemistry matters. Too many companies bring in a wunderkind who either fails to adapt or is chewed up and spit out by the organization. While “Culture” may eat strategy for breakfast it honed its chewing skills by gnawing on the bones of outside talent.

Integrity and the Impact needs to be evaluated over time and requires in depth research.

Integrity has never been more important and in today’s correctly sensitized environment this is not just about financial trust but dealings with people of different backgrounds among other things.

Impact on Business can be measured through financial results but as important is how the individual has built teams, grown people and dealt with long term periods of stress or setback.

Ex-bosses and ex-direct reports rather than colleagues and industry experts are usually the ideal people to interrogate since they can provide perspective, put things into context and provide a multi-faceted picture of the person.

5. How to change and grow yourself.

In the end we will only change and grow, if we ourselves want to change and grow.

There will be many reasons from lack of time, to looming retirement, to the pain of the new that we will transform into more elegant sounding excuses. But change will come, and change will not care. And if we want to stay successful and retain our jobs and remain relevant, we will have to change.

Three ways to change

a) Invest an hour a day learning: Just as we know daily physical exercise will extend our lives so too will daily mental growth extend our career, relevance (and can provide joy)

b) Grow yourself by developing a new skill or upgrading a skill every few months: It might be a passion like photography or mountain climbing, learning a new language or building competency in one of many areas. Doing and deliberate practice will result in your mind being re-wired in new ways.

c) Build a case for the opposite of what you believe is true: It is critical to look for dis-confirming versus confirming evidence. Today, due to polarized media and a retreat into like-minded groups we often suffer from incestuous thinking. This means we will miss

Change might suck

But irrelevance is worse.

And if we want to grow, we will have to change…

ben damiano 12/7/20 ben damiano 12/7/20

A River of Change

*Photograph: Nickel Tailings #34 Sudbury Ontario, 1996 by Edward Burtynsky*

A river of change is burning through time, forging new landscapes as we enter 2021.

This river finds its source in multiple headwaters and is powered by the gush of many tributaries.

*Photograph: Shipyard #5, Qili Port, Zhejiang Province, China 2005 by Edward Burtnysky.*

1. A New Asian Influenced Globalization

Globalization will continue to thrive despite the hand wringing of Western institutions and periodicals. However, it will no longer be a unipolar form of Globalization driven by the West, but a multi-polar mix significantly impacted by Asia, primarily China and India, who between them account for a third of global population and possibly half of future growth.

By the end of 2018 only 2 of the busiest container shipping ports in the world were in the West (Rotterdam in the Netherlands at Number 12 and Los Angles at Number 18).

At current fertility rates Africa’s population will increase from 1.2 billion to 2 billion in 2050 and 4 billion in 2100 becoming home to almost half of the world’s population.

Just as Earth is not the center of the Universe, the West is not the center of globalization that the world revolves around.

*Photograph: Nickel Tailings #31 Sudbury Ontario, 1996 by Edward Burtynsky*

2. The “ Three Divides” of Race/Geography/Age

Most nations are going to grapple with the adjustments of “Three Divides”:

a) The Divide of Race/Ethnicity, b) The Divide of Urban and Rural and most significantly c) The Divide of Generations

These “Divides” in the US were most recently seen in the United States during the presidential election. Look carefully and it was not “Red State” or “Blue State” but rather Urban/Rural, Caucasian/Non-Caucasian and Young/Old.

The most significant and not as well understood of these divides is the worldview differences between those younger than 30 and those older than 55. These differences are replicated in almost every nation as new generations brought up with mobile and social Internet, a lack of assets and lower expectations plus a dramatic difference in values and goals from climate change to capitalism come to express themselves and enter the workplace and politics. In the US this generation will in the next 10 years inherit 30 trillion or 30% of all US Wealth( most of it going to a fifth of them) and this will add fuel to their burning belief of the need to change.

From financial products ( Lemonade, Robin Hood, Square, Bitcoin) to fashion (Virgil Abloh, Kylie Jenner) to media usage (Twitch, TikTok), a new language and infrastructure is being forged which will be turbo-charged like never before due to the disproportionate and long term impact of Covid-19 on these younger generations. (Not since the Great Depression have so many young adults lived with their parents. In July, 52% of young adults ages 18 to 29 years old resided with one or both of their parents, surpassing the previous peak in 1940, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. )

Their voices do not ring today in boardrooms or councils of power (almost all of whom are much older) but make no mistake the drumbeats of their reality will soon throb in the bloodstream of every business and political discussion.

But in the US, it is not just the young but the older to whom not enough attention is being paid.

Every day 10,000 people turn 65 years old and due to modern medicine will live active lives for 15 to 25 years. A segment of them control most of the wealth in the US while a larger group has no significant assets to retire on. Ageism, Medical Rationing, and many more issues will likely create some intriguing inter-generational dynamics.

These divides occur in every nation. Watch Japan as its population declines by over 25% in the next 30 years unless they allow Immigration or Fertility rates change, or China grappling with the aging population due to the one Child Policy, or countries like India and Egypt grapple to find jobs for their youth.

*Photograph: Nickel Tailings #30 Sudbury Ontario, 1996 by Edward Burtynsky*

3. The Expansion of an Algorithmic and Automated Society Driven by the Third Connected Age

In 1993/1994 we entered the First Connected Age where we were connected to information via what would eventually be Search (Google/Baidu) and connected to transaction via what would grow to become E-Commerce (Amazon/Alibaba).

Around 2007/2008 we entered the Second Connected Age where due to smart phones (Apple/Samsung) we were connected all the time and due to Social Media (Facebook/We Chat) we were connected to everybody.

These first two “Connected Ages” have impacted everything from Elections to a re-ranking of the Fortune 500. It has created great wealth and benefits to people and also brought about the destruction of many livelihood and the middle-class jobs. It has enabled Uber, AirBnb, Dollar Shave Club.Remember when Facebook paid just 1.5 billion dollars for Instagram with its handful of employees ? That was worth more than the Eastman Kodak market cap on that day when the Kodak had tens of thousands of Employees. Kodak is now worth half a billion while Instagram is probably the most valuable part of the 800 billion market capitalization of Facebook ( A 1.5 billion dollar acquisition now worth probably 200 times what he paid less than a decade ago.The single biggest genius move of Zuckerberg.)

But we have not seen anything yet as we enter the Third Connected Age where we will enjoy four new types of connections as data connects to data and writes software (AI), and all our devices are connected to Supercomputers (Cloud), with much faster connections ( 5G) and new interfaces to connect (Voice/AR/VR).

The age we are going to enter will be both magical in what will become available to us as individuals (AI capability is supposedly doubling every 6 months vs the old Moore’s law of 18 months) but challenging on a Society level (anything a machine can do it will do and more and more things will be done by machines)

While it is some years from Self-Driving cars imagine the impact on everything from the dramatic decline in the need for Insurance Actuaries and Body shops (fewer to no accidents) and removal of the largest job creator (drivers of every type). Many drivers are not necessarily going to magically become coders or afford to live on or be interested in Nursing or Massage Therapy.

Some suggest Universal Basic Income. But will it work? And even if it does what about the meaning, purpose and camaraderie of work?

And with more powerful algorithms which will make today’s sinister newsfeed look childish fueled with the power of facial recognition, will we be entering a utopian or dystopian society or more likely a combination?

These and many issues are going to have to be dealt with. Every leader will need to grapple with these issues. The future is closer than one thinks, and the technology is so distributed across the world and seen as a key to the future by China and and other nations it cannot be slowed down.

*Photograph: Shipbreaking #9A, Chittagong, Bangladesh by Edward Burtynsky*

4. In the US a Reckoning for Three Key Industries Escalates Dramatically in 2021

The first significant scaled disruption of the three industries (Education, Finance and Healthcare) that account for over a third of US GDP. This is due to a perfect storm of new behaviors and expectations ( post Covid Experience Mindsets) combined with the rise of Third Connected Age Technologies ( AI, 5G, Cloud and Voice/AR/VR.)

These three massive industries suck in significant capital and assets and are so friction filled and rent seeking that post Covid they will be wracked, with some companies wrecked by change.

Education with 7% of GDP whose inner emptiness has been seen by parents and students in real time as the classes came home and the pedagogy was found wanting especially given the sums being sucked from payers !

Finance that accounts for 8% of GDP whose friction-filled ways and fee grabbing for no clear benefit (in many cases there is a clear benefit but in many there is not) will be hacked by new upstarts, increased transparency and a generation of inheritors who have grown up with Free Trading, Digital Mindsets and Robo-Everything.

Health Care (18% GDP) whose sphaghettiness of complexity and tortoise speed process– where for every 1 doctor, there are 6 supporting health care workers but TEN administrators–will meet an overstretched government and populace who realize with the Covid Vaccines that a bit of urgency and focused incentives can accelerate progress!

Great wealth and power creation and destruction will ensue all over the world. And it will be a key to politics. Just see what happened to Ant Financial earlier this month which was going to be the largest IPO in the world and was personally pulled by President Xi ( it was not just because of a critical speech by Jack Ma.)

Finance, health, education are intertwined into the fabric of society as they twist into new shapes so will a lot more of the landscape, politics and culture around us.

*Photograph: Oxford Tire Pile #5, Westley, California 1999 by Edward Burtnysky*

5. Global Warming/Climate Change/Environment in a Connected World.

It is not surprising that President-Elect Biden has placed a person of John Kerry’s stature to oversee the United States initiatives on climate and made it a national security level job. In China, President Xi watches and monitors the smog in Beijing and hotels in New Delhi, India which often has the worst pollution of any major city post air quality signs in the lobby to let you know if it is safe to step outside.

Denying climate change is like denying gravity. It does not matter what we “think” for just like if we reject gravity, it will not prevent us from becoming a symphony of broken bones and goo if we step out of a multi-storied building to broadcast our “beliefs. “

Science is reality.

Science does not care what you or me or a dog named Boo thinks or what our mind-corroding social media feed projectile vomits at us.

Everywhere I “Zoom” these days it is heartening to see Business and their Boards/ CEO’s take a leadership role on all forms of Sustainability . They do this not only because it is the right thing to do but because without it no “Purpose Mantra” rings true and as importantly their customers and their employees demand it. Big investment firms like BlackRock monitor it.

The climate is interrelated with everything including mass migration of people.

We can expect over the next decade protecting the climate will be a part of all major political, economic and social discussions, as we move beyond “if” it is a challenge to “how and what” to do as the globe to address it.

Modern Science at speed has shown us a light at the end of the Covid tunnel with 2 and possibly 3 vaccines showing 90% efficacy.

If 2020 is known as the year of Covid and its impact, I believe 2021 will be the year of the Vaccine Drive and its impact.

The logistical, political, ethical, economical and societal effects of the next year will be dramatic.

For instance:

*Photo: Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin, China, 2005 by Edward Burtynsky*

1) Which countries get access and which populations in a country get access first? Is a European life worth more than an African life? What happens when people of means who got covid-tests on demand ensure they and their families jump the line to get vaccines?

2) Will businesses insist that all employees get a certificate of vaccination before they can return to work? Will employees sue about this interference in their health? Will a cottage Industry of fake certifications like fake driving licenses arise? What if the star employee insists on working primarily from home even after vaccine because they have realized that in a distributed world demand for their skills is global.

3) What happens when side effects of the vaccine are weaponized against vaccinations on social media? What happens with regard to adulterated vaccines?

Never before has anyone dealt with anything like this.

Seven Billion people around the world. Multiple vaccines. A Chinese vaccine. A Russian vaccine. The biggest producer of vaccines is in India, but they produce for the world. Will the Indian Government “nationalize” the output of production for their own people?

The Reason to be Optimistic.

The scale of these changes may want you hit pause and to step out of these raging waters.

Change can be scary, but History provides a hopeful plot to the twists in the River

If one looks back at the world 20, 40 or 60 years ago most people would rather be alive today.

Despite all the challenges and tragedies, the world is better off for humanity as a whole (though there are winners and losers.)

Change is nothing but questions seeking and pointing the way to the answer.

And the river of change will feed the tide of growth and the current of life!

If you enjoyed this post please join thousands of others and subscribe to my free weekly thought letter at rishad.substack.com and get posts like this every Sunday.

ben damiano 12/6/20 ben damiano 12/6/20

The Future of Work

Photo Art: Robot 2010 by Bára Prášilová — *Photo Art: Robot 2010 by* Bára Prášilová

Work is central to the Human Experience.

It provides income, identity and meaning.

The trauma of a job loss is second only that to the death of a loved one.

Three inter-acting forces are sculpting a new terrain for the future of work.

1. Globalization which while creating wealth on the whole can be devastating for communities and industries in many regions. Both globalization itself and a backlash to it will shape the contours of opportunities (or their loss) for everyone

2. The three A’s of technology (automation, algorithms, artificial intelligence) which accelerate middle-class income job loss at speeds far greater than jobs they create. Another major factor will be how mobile devices and advanced measurement will change how work is compartmentalized and distributed.

3. Covid-shock driven behavioral and structural change: After more than a year of dispersed work forces, plummeting travel replaced by Zoom/Teams, the expectations, and behaviors of bosses, employees, and clients are going to be dramatically different. Like a champagne cork that once opened never fits back so too there is no going back to December 2019 but imagining forward.

The nature of work, how it is done and where it is done will be dramatically different in the coming years.

1. The nature of work: We are all going to be gig workers.

The only difference is that the lucky ones will have longer, higher paying gigs with better benefits like a consultant at McKinsey or members of a movie/television crew who come together for as long as the project takes and then the disband and recombine in new ways on the next project. Many others will be working for Uber, DoorDash or on contract for tech and other companies (Google has many more contract workers than full time employees already and the divergence is growing).

The reason for this is three-fold:

Making costs variable: First, companies in a world of change are beginning to see that making costs variable is a key to success. The ability to shed costs with changing demand is what makes an Uber (which owns no cars, and its drivers are not employees) does better than a Hertz (which owns the cars and has employees on its payroll). Flexibility, Fluidity, and Optionality are three words I am hearing again and again which basically means how do we ensure we keep as many costs’ variable versus fixed.

The re-aggregated organization: In the early days of the World Wide Web, I explained the difference between Analog Media and Digital Media as the difference between Segmentation and Re-Aggregation. Traditional media takes large audiences and slices it into segments. Think broadcast television and narrowly targeted cable television or particular shows. I said its like taking a cow and hacking at it till you get a steak. The key with digital media is everyone comes to it one at a time. Millions of people do not show up at the same time on the same page or post. So, when you bid for say “Toyota” on search, you bid for one person at at time who searches for “Toyota”. Re-aggregated media is when you start with a piece of mince and get enough to make a hamburger. (Apologies to my vegetarian and vegan readers). Increasingly in a world of change and zero-based budgeting and with new companies starting with a fresh sheet of paper the modern organization is Re-aggregating skills at scale rather than hiring generalists and training them to be specialists. And based on demand it adds and subtracts what it needs.

One driving force of this are platforms. Not just the platforms that we are familiar with of Facebook and Amazon but also internal corporate platforms that allow a company to give employees everywhere training, connections but importantly opportunities they may not have had in their market. Companies now can re-aggregate customized solutions by choosing individuals from everywhere. Platforms are double edged swords. They open a world of opportunity and if you are not good they also offer Clients and your Employer a world of substitutes! While your opportunity is no longer limited to your market neither is the person who can do a better job than you! If you are good this is amazing. If you are not continuously improving watch out!

The diminishing half-life of skills: When I speak to students at schools, I share two key beliefs: 1) They need to prepare for 40-to -50 year careers since they will likely live healthy lives past their 80’s and for reasons of financial need, identity or pure joy they are likely to work for many decades. Therefore, it is important to frame all decisions with this in mind versus hopping from job to job every year or two (try if you can to stay at least 4 to 5 years (or 10 percent of your long term career) at a company to truly learn and have impact)or getting upset at a bad patch at work and 2) A company today remains in the S&P 500 for less than 14 years ( less than a third of their career) as the world changes quickly. They should make sure they invest in constant learning, so they do not get obsolete. The world is changing so fast that if you do not spend at least an hour day upgrading your skills you will be obsolete. Unfortunately, so few people especially in middle and senior management keep this in mind. Thus, more and more companies need to plug and play with external talent that brings to it modern skills.

Please take the long-term perspective to your career. Like long term investing it is the only thing that guarantees great returns. It is probably why the most popular thing I have written -with the exception of my book- is 12 Career Lessons where I share key insights from people who have had successful multi-decade careers. You can read it here: https://rishad.substack.com/p/12-career-lessons

2. How work is done: Almost all work will be instrumented and technologically augmented.

Today everything is measured including page views and interactions with each piece written by an online writer, time spent answering a tele-marketing call or billable time spent by doctors in seeing patients or lawyers in seeing Clients. If there is an emission of data it will be used to stack, compare, enhance, iterate, and improve.

Photo (Measures) by Montgomery Bass

Earlier this week Amazon announced Monitron which they describe thus: “Amazon Monitron is an end-to-end system that uses machine learning (ML) to detect abnormal behavior in industrial machinery, enabling you to implement predictive maintenance and reduce unplanned downtime.” Now add to this that all of us the reality that we are getting work done through technological augmentation whether it be our mobile phones or computers or online resources. All of these are measured so you are tethered to “machinery” and your “abnormal behavior” will be measured and remedial plans will be put into action to “reduced unplanned downtime”, including sending you down to the Unemployment office for an unplanned loss of a job.

Today we may be people using machines. Tomorrow we will be helpers attached to machines to do what we can do more cost effectively like pick produce and enter a building to drop things off or add a bit of empathy so we can connect with other analog, carbon-based feeling appendages of digital, silicon-based, computing machines. The machines will advance at the rate of improvement in chips and machine learning which means getting twice as good every six months to eighteen months while we humans improve far slower.

3. Where work is done: The ‘office” of 2019 will become like a typewriter did three decades ago in the age of computers and Microsoft Office.

*Photo: Three Men Tied to Trees, Brunswick, Georgia 2001 by Rodney Smith.*

A collectible and a romantic notion of a time past.Or movie theater chains believing that people will flock back to their locations to see movies at the same frequency as before despite every blockbuster being available at home the same day as part of subscription service.

The future does not fit the containers of the past and the old office tower with open seating or cubicle farms where we did email and edit documents with headphones on to block out distractions is going away like the dodo bird.

Work was already dispersed as the increasingly advanced and miniaturized machines and communication devices we use (computers, sensors, smart phones, connected automobiles) allowed us to do work away from the office. The Third Connected Age ( AI, 5G, Voice/Augmented Realty and Cloud Computing) is going to dramatically scale the distribution and dispersion of this trend.

Covid has forced every company not only to invest in remote work at scale and see its impact over a one-year period but has broken the inertia and habit that kept us moving our meat-encased brains in carbon-burning, time-wasting, stress-inducing rituals of going back and forth to work like some hamsters on a wheel.

If someone were to design how work should be done in 2020, it is very unlikely they would replicate the current office structures which were developed in the 1950’s long before computers, the Internet, smart phones and cloud computing.

Photo: Three Men Tied to Trees, Brunswick, Georgia 2001 by Rodney Smith.

Covid has allowed every company to re-think the nature of where work gets done and many firms are considering whether to return to the old way versus starting with a fresh sheet of paper. Some firms worry that as new entrants enter the arena or competitors use this crisis to re-think their structures they might find themselves at a competitive disadvantage with inflated cost structures or an inability to retain and attract top talent. While some employees are eagerly looking forward to returning to work many others have found a new freedom and productivity in not having to go to a physical place of work every day.

Every firm is likely evaluating their future plans.

In most cases there will be a role for offices and in some cases the need for lots of office space, but companies should be grappling with three simple questions:

a) Why do we need people to congregate in offices? Early indications from these Covid months point to the need for training and skill building (particularly younger folks), collaboration/relationship enhancement and access to specialized tools (eg. manufacturing equipment, medical instruments, editing rigs)

b) How much time is needed in the office?: If training, collaboration and access to tools is what offices are for can this be done once every two weeks or once a month or one week a quarter? Companies from Automattic to Basecamp have for many years combined remote work forces with periodic physical gatherings for training, ideating and relationship building and have created offices and protocols for these three areas. Culture, training, retention all have remained intact. Do read Remote by Jason Fried to understand why many excuses as to why remote working does not work do not hold water.

c) Where should offices be? Many companies no longer need to have stacks of floors in an urban central downtown area. Maybe a couple of beautifully designed floors designed for Client Meetings and Team Meetings is enough and many satellite offices (or WeWork/Regus/Convene) contracts closer to where clusters of employees live may be more beneficial to employees who need to be outside their home, but now can do so without major commutes and remain close to their children. The savings in Real-Estate costs (which can be as high as $15,000 per year per worker in a major city) can be distributed between investing in upgrading capabilities at home (specialized training, technology and broadband support), or providing employees with an “office stipend” that they can use to rent space from a co-sharing space. (Clearly, given long term lease commitments the evolution to a much smaller/distributed office footprint will take both time and some painful write-offs but a sunk cost is a sunk cost and cannot be an anchor that holds back the future.)

Clearly, the need for offices will vary not just by the nature of Industry but Country. In many Asian countries a combination of culture and very limited living space at home will require a larger role for offices.

4. What every individual should do to prepare for a gig like, tech augmented, distributed future of work?

When I conducted research for my book a question that I asked is why do people work and who are the most fulfilled people at work? Initially people work for three important motivations: Money, Fame (Recognition), and Power (Autonomy).

The people who succeed in the long run also seek and find three other motivations which are Purpose (alignment with the goals of the company, finding meaning at work), Growth (learning, becoming better, new skills) and Connections ( Connection to people they work with and the communities they work with)

My advice would be to focus on these three latter goals because they are most Human and everlasting, and in the Second Machine Age when we need to work alongside machines what we add is uniquely human. To gain and seek connections you need to be collaborative and empathetic which will allow you to plug and play in a distributed and re-aggregated economy. To grow you need to keep learning and expanding your skills. To find purpose in a goal besides getting a task done is something no machine will compute.

To be a great leader do things that do not compute. People choose with their heart and use numbers to justify what they just did. So said Blaise Pascal a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer and Catholic theologian.

Also remember that even if you are in a company of thousands and plan to stay forever in a company of thousands (I did very happily and successfully for 38 years), you need to operate as if you are a company of one in building a reputation/brand for yourself, be responsible for your own continued skill enhancement and learning and be a world class team player. These skills will allow you to thrive in the company you love because you will be more valuable to them and at the same time because of these skills should things change in ways you do not like you will never be forced to stay at the firm. The more options you and your employees have the more loyal people turn out to be.

To help those interested in specific ways to optimize your growth here are three small e-booklets (each a 10-minute read) that I have put together. Each with six actionable steps that you may find useful. (They have been praised not only by students and people who are at the early or middle phases of their careers but even by many CEO’s of Fortune 500/FTSE 100 companies. They also are easy to share and wonderful to look at due to the design skills of my colleague Ben Damiano).

6 Ways to Grow Yourself: https://spark.adobe.com/page/zASIWWv1Z3Wx

6 Ways to Grow Your Career: https://spark.adobe.com/page/v5Vm3Adj4wZNY/

6 Thoughts for the Next Six Months: https://spark.adobe.com/page/dMocYiB0zlhag/

The future is bright and the future of work can be far more full filling than ever but it requires us to keep growing and learning and changing and chasing possibilities…

*Photo: Gary and Henry Chasing Butterfly. Beaufort. South Carolina, 1996 by Rodney Smith*