Industries: Aging Services

The Future Requires Engaging in Situational Unawareness Training

”Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out.”—Thomas Cardinal Wolsey

Question: What two colors are the yield sign?

Did you say yellow and black? That answer would have been correct if Marcus Welby, M.D. was still the top-rated TV show; Richard Nixon occupied the White House or NASDAQ had yet to become a leading stock market index. The yield sign, though, has been red and white since 1971. Interestingly, a large number of people—including many born after 1971 - still erroneously believe the yield sign is yellow and black.

This phenomenon demonstrates that once a thing has been learned—even something as common as the color of a sign—it can be very difficult to unlearn.

Compare this situation with the actions of computer industry executives in the 1980s who had learned about computers in the era of mammoth mainframes and were accustomed to producing their own proprietary hardware and software and then having internal sales teams market and sell the expensive products they created.

With the advent of the personal computer the rules suddenly changed and companies began relying on microprocessors and packaged software and using third parties to distribute and sell the product. A handful of computer companies adjusted but many others such as Digital Equipment, Wang and Burroughs did not because either they didn’t unlearn the old rules or were late in adjusting to the new signs.

The same situation occurred more recently in the telecommunications industry. Prior to the creation of the iPhone, providers dominated the telecom industry and dictated to phone manufacturers the terms of agreement. The creation of Apple’s multi-touch, gesture interface and “apps"--laden device flipped the industry on its head. In a matter of months, millions of people switched providers and began using mobile devices to access the Internet (with a user--friendly browser), watch videos, read books and, together with the growing universe of software applications, do everything from locate their parked car at an airport and identifying obscure birds and songs to keeping their child mildly amused with an easy-to-download “fart app.”

In each case, the signs of change were not immediately obvious but they could have been picked up on if industry leaders had engaged in some situational “unawareness” training by stepping outside their industry’s existing paradigm and scanning the environment for subtle changes in technology, consumer behavior or the competitive landscape. For example, in the automotive industry, new advances in nano-materials and battery power could lead to radical new designs; the continued growth of social networking may demand the cars of the future to maintain constant connectivity and improve the driving experience; and advances in robotics and rapid prototyping could transform both the manufacturing process and the supply chain. In each case, automotive professionals will have to unlearn what a car looks like; how it is made; what it is expected to do; and who they will have to partner with in order to build the car of the future.

Homework Assignment: Using Starbucks as a case study, indentify three emerging trends in technology, consumer behavior or the beverage/food industry that may necessitate company officials to unlearn some aspects of its current business model.

Extra Credit: Identify at least two things which have contributed to Starbucks past success but that it should consider stop doing? (Hint: In 2009, the company dropped its name from a store in Seattle and replaced it with a name that more closely resembles a neighborhood corner coffee shop.)

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The Future of Health Care is All About Unlearning

My friends at MedGagdet have been doing a bang up job of covering the recent health care conference at TED. I invite you to review the proceedings from Day 2. The one thing that struck me is how—although unstated—the theme of unlearning underlies so many of the talks.

For example, the first speaker addressed how new virtual reality tools and high-speed digital/Internet connections may soon make “surgical collaboration” the new norm and lead to better surgical outcomes for patients—provided that is today’s surgeons can unlearn their “go-it-alone” style. The second speaker discussed why the current paradigm for diagnosing cancer (i.e. tissue-based diagnosis) may soon give way to more precise molecular diagnosis. Next, Aubrey de Grey talked about why aging should be viewed as a disease and not something that is inevitable. (I’ve written about this topic before and if de Grey is correct it will unleash a wave of unlearning.) Finally, Eric Dishman provided a glimpse of a new home-based health care delivery system.

My point is this: The technological advances which are driving these changes are real and they portend a better health care future for all of us. Unless leading professionals are willing to unlearn their current paradigms, however, many of these benefits will be unnecessarily delayed.

I have said it before and I will say it again—unlearning can be a matter of life or death, literally!

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The Future of Social Networking & Genetic Testing

Last month, I explained why social networking was the future of health care. One reason I feel strongly about this trend is because of the accelerating pace of technological change. More specifically, I don’t think doctors and other health care professionals can possible stay abreast of the latest developments. Nowhere is this more true than in the field of the genomic sciences.

To this end, it was recently reported that genetic tests puzzle most doctors. One possible solution is for patients with rare genetic profiles to begin communicating with knowledgable individuals who suffer from the same genetic disorder. Social networking offers the best medium for finding these individuals; communicating with them; and, ultimately, compiling a database of information which will be useful to both future patients and healthcare professionals.

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The Future of Aging is About to Get Easier

I speak frequently to aging services associations around the country and I always like to show them the latest videos of where various technologies might be headed. To this end, I invite you to watch this two-minute video on the future direction of robotic technology. Be forewarned, however, the idea of a robotic bed that turns into wheelchair sounds cool (and it is) but, as this article explaining how a man recently got arrested for drinking-and-driving in his motorized Lazy-Boy lounge chair demonstrates, the concept is not without some risk. 

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A Walk Into the Future

Last week I had the pleasure of giving a presentation on how emerging technologies will transform the aging services industry. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, I was unable to show the audience a series of videos which demonstrated—in vivid fashion—some of the more promising technologies.

The pace of change is accelerating so quickly in the field of robotics, however, that the video posted below wasn’t even available. (The technology was just unveiled by Honda this week.) I invite you to watch the 50-second video and then imagine how this technology may soon help thousands of seniors maintain their independence for a few additional years by easing the strain on their legs and backs. Or, alternatively, imagine how some nurses and other professional care-providers may be freed up for other work because they won’t be needed to assist elderly patients as much.

As I said at the end of my presentation I sincerely believe that the aging services industry is going to be at the forefront of incorporating many of tomorrow’s emerging technologies into everyday life. Why? Because, in many cases, senior will be the first to walk into this new future because these new emerging technologies will give them a greater degree of control over their lives.

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Jump the Curve Strategy #15: Mandatory Recess

A mandatory recess might not sound like a sure-fire path to prosperity, but providing employees a period of unstructured free time to pursue activities of their choosing can be very beneficial. A handful of companies have already instituted such policies. Among some of the better known companies are Google, Genentech, and 3M.

All three companies have policies that allow some of their employees to spend anywhere between 15 percent and 20 percent of their time pursuing independent projects of their own choosing. In essence the companies are giving their employees permission to play.

3M has been a proponent of this practice for the longest period of time. According to company officials, the practice dates back to the 1920s when an employee reportedly disobeyed an order to abandon a project and ended up creating Scotch masking tape--one of the most successful products of all time.
One of 3M’s better known and more recent success stories is that of the Post--t Note, which was developed by an employee who, because of 3M’s policy, was free to pursue the project.

The benefits, though, go beyond these isolated successes. 3M has an incredible history of developing new products. For years the company has publicized the fact that 50 percent of its annual revenues can be traced back to products that were developed within the past five years.

One of the reasons it has been able to regularly achieve this goal is because employees have been encouraged to innovate and have then been given the freedom to pursue new ideas. The mandatory recess policy has not only reinforced the idea that continued innovation was critical to the company’s success, it has given management the confidence to stay focused on ideas that at first might have seemed either like dead ends or were too off the wall to pursue.

Another company that has embraced a discretionary time policy is Genentech. For the past few years the biotechnology company has consistently been ranked as one of the best places to work in America. There are many reasons for this, but one is because it allows its scientists discretionary time to pursue independent projects--in some cases up to 100 percent of their time. Genentech officials credit the creation of the anticancer drug Avastin--a product with over a $1 billion in annual sales--to its “discretionary time” policy.

As I explained before, the cost of the price of sequencing genes will continue to plummet due to the creation of ever faster computers and more sophisticated gene sequencing techniques and tools. As these things occur, not only will new drug treatments become available, but scientists and researchers are more likely to find innovative solutions to create drugs that are increasingly tailored to individual users.

Finally there is Google. In many ways, it has the boldest recess policy because it applies to all of the company’s employees (3M’s and Genentech’s programs are limited to its scientific and R&D staffs). Among the programs company officials attribute to its policy are the creation of Google News Service, Orkut (its social networking site), and Gmail.

In addition to generating new innovative products, mandatory recess offers one additional benefit that is hard to quantify, but is nonetheless extremely important: It is a powerful recruiting and retention tool. There is a fierce battle to attract and retain talented workers. One of the reasons Google, Genentech, and 3M are doing as well as they are is their policies send a clear message to prospective employees: The company trusts them to pursue interesting and important projects that they believe are in the company’s best long-term interests.

By giving workers this freedom, companies accrue one additional benefit. Employees now have a way of not simply meeting expectations--they have a way of surpassing them.

Exponential Insight

If you want employees to jump the curve, you have to give them the time and space to jump. As I will continue to demonstrate throughout this website, there will be no shortage of wild ideas and strange possibilities arising due to exponential advances in technology. Consider just a few of the possibilities that the emerging science of nanotechnology might enable materials scientists to play around with. For instance, plastic, glass, and steel are already being made stronger, lighter, more flexible and, in some cases, self-cleaning. Soon self-healing materials, flexible electronics, and solar fabrics will be on the market. Some of these advances will lead to innovative new products and applications. Thinking up new ideas will require people to follow their hunches and, sometimes, make counterintuitive jumps in logic. Running such off-the-wall ideas by management could, at best, be difficult. Better those employees just be given some mandatory recess time to pursue their ideas.

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A Future of Black Swans … or Unlearning the Future

”Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.” Lao Tzu

This famous quote was uttered over 2500 years ago and may strike some people as odd that, as a professional futurist, I have chosen to highlight it.

My rationale is two-fold. First, as I have said many times before, the chief responsibility of a futurist is not to “predict” the future but rather outline a range of future possibilities. Second, and more important, I have highlighted the quote because it is true.

If you have not already read Nassim Taleb’s outstanding book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, do so as soon as possible. On Page 177 of the book, Taleb has an illustration of the scattering effect which artfully explains why predicting the future—especially for longer time frames—is virtually impossible.

Because I can’t reprint the figure here, I am left with Taleb’s analogy for understanding the scattering effect: the prediction of a billiard ball.

Assuming one has knowledge of the location of every ball and the speed and accuracy of the cue ball, it is relatively easy to predict the expected movement of the ball after the first shot. A person might even expect that second, third and fourth degree movements can be estimated with great accuracy due to the growing computational power of computers. The problem, however, grows increasingly complex with each subsequent movement. This is because after the ninth movement the gravitational pull of a person standing at the next pool table exerts enough of an effect to alter the trajectory of the ball. And after 56 movements even the smallest particle on the outer edge of the universe will effect the trajectory!

The bottom line is this: There are simply too many factors to consider when contemplating the future 20, 30, 50 or 100 years out. (Even a small effect today can have outsized implications 50 years hence). The situation, of course, becomes even more complicated because of Taleb’s main thesis which is that “Black Swans”—described as “high impact, low probability” events—tend to shape the future more than “expected” trends.

Therefore, whether a future “Black Swan” takes the shape of a pandemic, an asteroid, an E-bomb, a rogue terrorist attack, a North Korean or Iranian nuclear attack, an unexpected breakthrough in quantum computing or synthetic biology, or, more likely, some “unknown unknown;” the future will be difficult too predict because we don’t have—and won’t ever have—enough knowledge about the future.

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To Succeed in the Future: Unlearn Information

Unlearning information. It’s sounds paradoxical, right? After all, who in their right mind, would want less information? Well, you might if you want to succeed in the future.

Consider this quote which I came across in Jonah Lerner’s informative new book, “How We Decide”:

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

It is counter-intuitive but often having access to too much information can lead people to make worse decisions.

For example, in a classic study, one group of MIT graduate students were given access to a steady stream of financial information—CNBC, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, etc—while a second group was only given information on the changing price of a stock.

Given this disparity which group do you think did a better job in selecting stocks? Most people would assume the first group. After all isn’t this why people read the Wall Street Journal and watch the analysts on CNBC? Well, you would be wrong. The second group—the group with less information—performed better.

Various versions of this experiment have been conducted with other groups, including college counselors who were asked to predict the future success of different students. One group was provided high school transcripts, SAT/ACT test scores, application essays and were even allowed personal interviews with the students. The second group was only given access to transcripts and SAT scores.

Again, the group with less information performed better. One big reason why this occurs is because when people are inundated with too much information they tend to think of all information as being equal. In the process, they lose track of what information is really important. More problematic is the finding that with more information people increasingly confident of their bad decisions!

The bottom line is not just as Jonah Lerner says that “Knowledge has diminishing returns,” but rather as Nassim Taleb wrote in the Black Swan that “Additional knowledge of the minutiae of daily business can be useless, even toxic.”

So there you go. De-toxify your system. Unlearn. Put down the newspapers and blogs; stop watching TV news programs; and quit following everyone on Twitter—you’ll make better decisions because of it.

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To Prepare for the Future Take a Course on Unlearning

At the end of yesterday’s post on learning to unlearning (on my other website, Unlearning101.com), I posed the following question: How does one learn a new gestalt? To begin a person must start by unlearning some things. But what things do we unlearn? For our purposes, a good place to start might be to imagine what a course on unlearning what might look like.

One place to start is to imagine where the course would take place. Initially it will be--and already is--online. In 2007 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it was putting all of its courses online for free--for anyone in the world to access.

And let’s remember, the online, virtual classroom of the future is only going to get better. The Internet of the future will be streaming incredible amounts of data-rich information anywhere in the world, students will be capable of wirelessly downloading the latest information from flexible electronic books that display both the written word and video files, and new software programs will be capable of translating text from Mandarin Chinese, French, or Farsi into English--and vice versa. (See ”The Future of Reading.")

Another place a course on unlearning might gravitate toward is 3-D virtual-reality environments such as Linden Labs’ Second Life--a site where anyone can create a personal avatar of himself, meet other virtual avatars, and engage in online training sessions. As of this writing IBM, Dell, Intel, Circuit City, and Sears have all created a virtual presence in Second Life.

Interestingly, one of the initial motives of this move was not to create a stronger presence on the Internet (although that is certainly a factor), it was to achieve cost savings on employee education.

What is more interesting from the perspective of unlearning is how Second Life and other virtual-reality sites can be exploited to provide people with different perspectives. In a virtual environment, people can take on any appearance they want. While some people will undoubtedly use it for escapist fantasies, it could also be a powerful tool to help people unlearn certain habits. Imagine, for example, customer service representatives or managers being required to act as customers in one of their own online stores. The experience could provide a unique and refreshing perspective. (And, as I recently wrote, we could all benefit on occasion from unlearning everything from your perspective of color to your view of a stranger standing across the street.)

Longer term, the classroom of unlearning will likely become even more immersive. Perhaps Second Life will morph into Third Life. Among the technologies this environment are likely to incorporate will be enhanced visual, auditory, voice and speech recognition, and haptic technologies. Doctors and service technicians could use these tools to practice operations and repairs in silico before being allowed to ply their trade in the real world.

These tools will also be a boon for learning, unlearning, and relearning. People are often classified into one of three broad categories of learning: visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. Visual people learn by seeing or reading something, auditory learners by hearing it, and kinesthetic learners learn by doing it with their hands and muscles. (It is not quite this simple. Many people use a combination of different techniques for different things, but in general, most people tend to favor one of the three methods over the other two.)

A course on unlearning could exploit these natural tendencies and help people absorb new ways of doing things. For instance, instead of just reading about how a new drug works on a cancer patient, doctors could watch how it interacts with and disables a cancer cell. Other businesses could use such immersive technology to gain a deeper appreciation of what an elderly person experiences and create products that better address their needs. (See ”Unlearning Your Age.")

Many courses on unlearning won’t have a teacher. They will rather be open source in nature, and the content will not be provided by a single “expert” but rather it will be continually added to and improved upon by a vast collection of people. To this end, a relatively new wiki called Curriki has recently been created. Its goal is to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational material to anyone who needs it--anywhere in the world.

But far from being a shoddy collection of disjointed or inferior ideas, the result of these wikis will be vastly superior to anything a single expert could pull together. In the case of business wikis, they will contain advice and insights from employees, suppliers, and customers.

Among the adjustments this will require is that managers will need to unlearn their own reliance on experts. People will need to unlearn the idea that money and quality are synonymous. In the future, many of the best products will be the creation of open-source methods and wikis.

Another thing people will have to unlearn is that there isn’t always an answer. This is because so many fields are constantly evolving. An admission of one’s own ignorance may well be the first step most people will need to take upon entering the unlearning classroom of the future. Exponential executives may even have to go a step farther and accept that ignorance will be the largest element in their future educational needs.

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Prolonging the Future

”Aging is, unequivocally, the major cause of death in the industrialized world and a perfectly legitimate target of medical intervention.”

The above quote by Aubrey de Grey was taken from this interesting article (Two Mammals’ Longevity Boosted) in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.

I written about both de Grey (here) and the topic of aging (below), and I am convinced that de Grey’s theories will continue to pick up supporters in the scientific and medical communities. The result being that many of us can expect to live a lot longer than we are currently planning. The implications of shifting the paradigm of aging from something that is inevitable (our current paradigm) to something that is treatable will be huge.

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Intel Jumps the Curve

In the interest of open and honest disclosure, I am investor in Intel. One of the reasons I am a long-term investor is because I like how the company constantly and relentlessly engages the future—as this recent article entitled A glimpse at Intel’s futuristic gadgets suggests.

For anyone interested in where the future may be headed, I encourage you to read the article.

A few things caught my attention in the article. First, I was attracted by this quote from the company’s chief technology officer Justin Rattner, “We believe our mission is to take risks.” It is common for executives at many large companies to say such things but Intel puts its money where its mouth is. Consider, for example, the fact that the company is working on something called a “Dispute Finder.” It is essentially a smart software program that will call “bullshit” on an article or blog posting you may be reading if it contains erroneous (or even contradictory) information. Or, last year, the company announced it was working on a shape-shifting human-computer interface. The article also suggests it is aggressively investigating emerging opportunities in the field of robotics which, as I have written about numerous times, is a very promising field.

The second thing that caught my attention was mention of a poster displayed at the conference. It read, “Your kid’s kid’s kid won’t think what we’re doing is crazy at all.” Personally, I’d love to get my hands on a copy of that poster but, regardless, it is a perfect example of developing a future bias. Intel is not simply content to focus on incrementally improving its existing products, it is actively engaging the future in an attempt to “jump the curve.”

As an investor and a fan of the future, I wish them all the best.

Interested in reading about other corporations and organizations who are jumping the curve? Check out these past articles:

Google Jumps the Curve
The CIA Jumps the Curve
BMW Jumps the Curve
Mars Jumps the Curve
IBM Thinks Small
Lockheed Martin Jumps the Curve

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The Next Innovation: AI, Nanotechnology, Robotics

The following 4-minute CNBC interview with Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize, lends further credence to the idea that the private sector and good old American ingenuity will lead to the next breakthrough innovation in artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and genomics. (I have also posted a few related articles on the topic of innovation below the video.) For people who fear that innovation in America is either a “laggard” (as BusinessWeek recently suggested) or dead, I would only offer the immortal words of Mark Twain who, when he was asked to comment on his death, replied “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” The same is true of innovation in America. If anything the best is still yet to come.

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The Future of Association Meetings

In my business as a futurist and a public speaker, I have addressed hundreds of business association meetings. They are great networking opportunities, but it is not uncommon at these events to see a great many people stick to the safety of their pre-existing social circles. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but most people would probably agree that in so doing these people are missing out on a great opportunity to form new connections as well as gain insight from other people whom they haven’t—and might never—meet.

Well, there is a new technology brewing on the horizon which could radically alter the dynamics of future meetings and enhance the productivity of these meetings. The technology I am speaking of is known as ’smart badges” and while they have been around in a limited form for the past few years, the technology is now getting better and they are poised to have a big impact on how future meetings are conducted—especially association meetings.

For instance, if you look at the picture above it is easy to see who is talking to who. Armed with this information, it might be easier for people to make common connections. For example, if you don’t know Bob but you see that your friend Sarah does, it might be easier for you to introduce yourself to Bob. Similarly, the technology can be used to bring together people who share common interests, hobbies or who might have even read the same book. It is even feasible to draw in people who would otherwise prefer to stay on the fringe—and this could be important because these people might have something really valuable to add to the conversation.

MIT’s Media Lab and such spin-off companies as nTag are producing a variety of innovative new technologies that could revolution the field of sociometrics. When one couples this progress with advances being made in the fields of mobile communication, RFID technology and software programs and algorithms, it boggles the mind to think how much more enjoyable, informative and entertaining future business and trade association meetings might be.

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Think About the Future, Today

Effective today, June 8, 2009, General Motors and Citigroup are no longer components of the Dow 30. In and of itself this news has no great relevance, but it does highlight how fast today’s economy continues to change. As I mentioned the other day, many people think that ”tomorrow will be pretty much like yesterday.” This simply isn’t true.

One strategy I have advocated for thinking about the future is to ”develop a future bias.” As a thought exercise and to help you “jump the curve,” I’d like to suggest a second exercise: review the members of the current Dow 30 and imagine which company will be the next to be removed from the list and explain why it might go. (For extra credit, I invite you to imagine which company might replace it.) The purpose of this exercise is to force you what of your comfort zone and come face-to-face with the reality that “the only constant is change.”

To help you get started, here are some possibilities. Advances in nanotechnology could cause many of the materials Alcoa makes to become either irrelevant or obsolete, and the company will be replaced by a nanomaterial company. Or perhaps Caterpillar will not remain competitive due to advances in robotics and it will be replaced by iRobot. A third alternative is that intense competition from Nokia will wreak havoc on both AT&T and Verizon and they will be replaced on the Dow 30 by Google, which may continue to make strides in the communication field with its new Android platform. A fourth possibility is that new advances in biotechnology will render many existing drugs obsolete and Pfizer will be replaced on the Dow 30 with a biotech company such as Genentech.

Really, there is no shortage of possibilities but one of the best ways to prepare for the future is to simply acknowledge that it is going to change. And, as Darwin said: “It is not the strongest of a species that survives, nor is it the fittest; it is those that can adapt the fastest.” Are you and your organization prepared to adapt? Quickly?

If not, you could go the way of General Motors.

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Into the Unknown: A Historical Lesson from Lewis & Clark

In 2004, I wrote the book Into the Unknown: Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark’s Daring Westward Expedition. One of my favorite stories—because it has so much relevance for today’s business leaders who are looking to jump the curve—occurred during the early part of June 1805.

On June 2, 1805, Lewis and Clark approached a fork in the Missouri River. During their consultations with the Indians the previous winter nothing had been mentioned of this second river. It was, however, critical that the Corps of Discovery follow the true Missouri River. If they didn’t, they were unlikely to reach and successfully pass over the Rocky Mountains before winter. This setback would have jeopardized the entire mission.

Lewis and Clark split their team up and sent one group up the north river and a second group down the south river. After three days, both teams returned and were still unsure as to which river was the true Missouri.

Lewis and Clark being the good leaders that they were then split up. Meriwether Lewis traveled north and William Clark went south. After a few days the two men returned and they still weren’t sure.

While they were away something very interesting occurred. All 30 members of the team determined that the north river was the true Missouri. They reached this decision the following way: For the past year, the Corps of Discovery had been traveling up the Missouri River and the water was “warm, slow, muddy and brown.” The water of the north river was also “warm, slow, muddy and brown,” therefore they reasoned it was the true Missouri. It is the equivalent of saying that “Tomorrow is going to be pretty much like yesterday.”

Lewis and Clark conferred among themselves and reached a far different conclusion. In the face of complete opposition, they announced the south river was the true Missouri. They reasoned as follows: At some point the snow from the mountains needed to melt and when it did it would create a river that was cold, fast and clear.” Those characteristics matched the south river and, as history demonstrated, the two captains made the correct decision.

My point is this: Many, if not most, people think that “tomorrow will be pretty much like yesterday.” From my perch as a professional futurist, I see the trends in biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, RFID, social networking and robotics (to name but a few) are accelerating and I know that tomorrow is going to be radically different then either yesterday or today—and we need more leaders with the courage to head out into the unknown.

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Exponential Executive Extraordinare: General George C. Marshall

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An Unlearning Tutorial

Yesterday, I wrote this post entitled Why Businesses Must Unlearn on my other blog, www.unlearning101.com.

Shortly thereafter a thoughtful reader posed this question:

I like this idea of an organization doing some top-down “unlearning” of bad habits. But what new habits do they develop and put in place—how do you get a seasoned exec that’s devoted to a way of thinking to accept another view?”

It is an excellent question. In short, the questioner is asking: How does a person unlearn?

The first step—and I’ll admit this the most difficult—is to get the person to admit their ignorance. (Remember, “we don’t know what we don’t know.") One way of doing this is encourage the person to take the quiz prescribed in this post entitled Have Some Intellectual Humility. A second strategy is to invite them to start what Nassim Taleb calls an anti-library.

The second step is to get the person to at least acknowledge that there is a different way to do things. For a potential exercise, I would invite a person to Study Carneades and learn to debate both (or all) sides of an issue.

Three, as an adjunct to this exercise, ask the person to envision a future scenario that might require the person or the organization they are leading to change either their position or the direction of the organization. It has been proven that merely contemplating a different scenario (other than the one the person thinks most likely to occur) can help people and organizations adapt faster in the face of a fundamental change to underlying conditions. Two strategies I recommend in this arena are encouraging people to ask new questions and training them to see different points of view.

Four, tell stories. Personally, I am a big fan of telling stories and frequently, when addressing corporations, associations or government and non-profit organizations on unlearning and change management, I’ll pepper my keynote speeches and consulting sessions with the antidotes. I recently had this post which served as a warning to the scientific community and, last month, I put together this short four-minute video telling the story of executives at Bethlehem Steel. (If you really want to scare the person into unlearning try this post entitled Unlearn or Die. If, however, your selected audience is attune to sports try these sports-related unlearning stories: Unlearn Barriers; Why Not Granny Style; Unlearn Your Putting Game; and Practice Your Unlearning Game.

The latter four strategies work well for most people, but if the person can’t submit his or her ego to the unlearning concept; I would suggest this post entitled Beware of Growing Icebergs. It outlines why everyone should be open to unlearning.

I hope this post helps and for organizations that are interested in unlearning I now offer full and half-days seminars on the topic. Interested parties can contact me at jack@nanoveritas.com or 612-267-1212.)

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Did You Know … You Have to Jump the Curve

This 5-minute video entitled “Did You Know” has been around in various forms for a few years, but it still serves as an excellent reminders to why organizations must learn to “jump the curve:”

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The Future Will Blow You Away

Dear Readers:

I am off to enjoy this Memorial Day weekend. Here is a short video that I produced last year. If you haven’t seen it, it is worth five minutes of your time.

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May 15, 2009 Jump the Curve: Beware of Emerging Technologies

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Convergence: Brain-Control Interfaces & Robotics

Whenever I give presentations on emerging technologies or the future of technology, I stress to my audiences that one of the big themes they must keep in mind is convergence—the idea that different technologies will “mix and match” in unique and innovative ways.

One clear field of convergence I see on the horizon is “brain-controlled” robots. Although the 40-second video (below) is in Japanese, it offers an early (and admittedly) crude vision of how soldiers, stroke victims and senior citizens will soon be able to control robots by thought alone:

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Long-Term Care’s Robotic Future

Later this week, I will be giving a keynote presentation to the Wisconsin Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. In addition to these two trends which I discussed a few weeks ago, another big trend I will be highlighting is the growing popularity of robotic pets. This six-minute video from Japan offers a glimpse into the future.

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The Future Requires Unlearning

Recently, I participated in the first-ever Ignite Minneapolis event. The format stipulates that you can discuss any topic you want but you must use 20 slides and you have exactly 5 minutes to make your case. Below is my presentation on why I believe unlearning will be just as—if not more important—than learning in the 21st century. (I apologize in advance for my swearing but when you have to capture the attention of 500 (often intoxicated) 20-30 year-olds who are Twittering during your presentation, sometimes drastic action is required.)

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The Future of Aging

Early next month, I will be giving a presentation to the Wisconsin Association of Homes and Services for the Aging entitled “Jump the Curve to a New Future: 38 Ways Long-Term Care and Senior Housing Will Be Transformed in the Coming Decade.”

As a sort of preview of the presentation, I’d like to share two trends that were in the news this week. The first is that in the near future the bones of seniors will be much stronger than they are today thanks to new bone-boosting drugs now reaching the market.

The second, and somewhat related trend, is that those seniors who no longer can walk will soon be assisted by “wearable” robotics as this video amply demonstrates:

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Unlearn Your Mindset

Until yesterday, I had no idea who Ellen Langer was. Now, I find myself wanting to purchase her forthcoming book, CounterClockwise, along with some of her other books, including Mindfulness and The Power of Mindful Learning.

My fascination began when I stumbled across this article in Newsweek entitled ”Just Say No to Aging,” which profiles her new book. Two items, in particular, caught my attention. First, a group of men were asked to imagine that it was 20 years earlier. This, however, was no ordinary exercise. The men were actually taken to isolated retro-fitted New England hotel and instructed to act as though they were two decades younger. (Party like it’s 1989!)

Langer’s findings were amazing. After just one week the men in the experimental group had more joint flexibility, increased dexerity and less arthritis in their hands. In other words, just by thinking they were younger they felt younger!

This is not an isolated example. According to this article, Langer conducted a similar experiment with hotel chambermaids. The maids were separated into two groups. Both groups did the exact same work only one group believed they were getting exercise with their work while the other group didn’t. The group that thought they were exercising not only lost more weight, they also experienced a drop in blood pressure.

Both studies strongly suggest that people need only “unlearn” their mindset in order to experience real changes in their health. Or, as I wrote in my book, Jump the Curve, people need to ”stop acting their age.”

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Unlearning Disease
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Is the Health Care Industry prepared to Unlearn?
Examples of Unexponential Thinking

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iPhone + RFID Technology: A Practical Tool for the Elderly

As society grows older technology will increasingly be employed to meet the needs of our senior population. To this end, below is a cool video demonstrating how radio frequency identification technology (RFID) can help elderly people make calls from their iPhone. (Of course, voice recognition is a simpler and more elegant solution to this particular problem, but I suspect RFID technology will find other innovative uses.)

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To See the Future Look in the Mir:ror

To understand where the future is headed, I invite you to check out this 3-minute YouTube video which shows how the “internet of things” is becoming a reality:

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The Future Has Arrived: Notable Technological Achievements in 2008 and What They Mean for the Future

"The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.” The quote, attributed to William Gibson, was brought to mind as I reviewed the technological accomplishments of the past year. The quote is apropos of my job as a professional futurist because, as I often remind my audiences, I don’t predict the future—I merely outline plausible possibilities based on existing trends.

With this caveat in mind, I want to share with you a list of ten notable technological achievements which will significantly influence our near-term future:

#10: Metamaterials: The creation of a Harry Potter-like ”Invisibility cloaks” received a great deal of attention this past year and the breakthrough portends the day when the Defense Department might be able to hide a person or a tank in broad daylight, but a more plausible near-term application of a metamaterial resides in the prosaic application of a noise-abating material which will make life more pleasant for citizens who must deal with annoying sounds such as airplane noise.

#9: Digestable Pills: In December, Phillips announced the creation of the iPill—a digestable pill that can be taken orally by a patient and which will dispense medication at a specific location and a rate pre-determined by the patient’s physician. In addition to being an impressive technology which will soon become mainstream, it is a wonderful example of “convergence”—in that the pill combines a tiny computer, a wireless transmitter and a series of sensors.

#8: The Personal Supercomputer: In September, Cray announced the creation of a $25,000 supercomputer. The machine is obviously beyond the reach of most consumers but a growing number of small to medium-sized businesses are now using the tool to create new materials and products as well as redesign their packaging and determine the most optimum route to deliver packages. The end result is that companies using the machines are innovating at an accelerating rate and saving big money in the process. In the near future look for these supercomputers to become increasingly powerful, less expensive and more pervasive.

#7: Voiceless Communication: In one of the year’s more impressive videos, Michael Callahan from Ambient demonstrated how his company has figured out how to decipher brain neural signals and translate those signals into the corresponding words. The technology is years away from prime time but its day is coming and it will lead to a series of unpredictable applications, including augmenting human intelligence.

#6: Brain Neural Technology: To better understand just what some of these applications might be, I’d refer you to this video which shows a monkey in North Carolina controlling a robot in Japan by thought alone, as well as this 60-Minutes segment on brain neural technology that demonstrates how the technology is being used on real patients today.

#5: Voice Recognition Technology: This is hardly a new technology but in November Google brought voice recognition one step closer to the masses when it introduced its new voice recognition application on the iPhone. The day when consumers navigate on their computers using only their voice is one closer than ever. (The technology is also an excellent—albeit early—example of how technology can augment human intelligence. See # 7.)

#4: The Memristor: This fall Hewlett-Packard announced the creation of the ”Memristor”—or memory transistor—and it is expected to allow for the creation of computers that will remember what is stored in its memory when the device is turned off. In other words, within the next 3-5 years we will have computers that won’t need to be booted up. Granted, it’s not the biggest development in the world, but it will remove yet another one of those nagging, little issues that sometimes have a way of getting our day off on a sour note.

#3: Rapid Prototype Manufacturing: With little fanfare, Stratasys announced in December that it had created a new rapid prototype manufacturing machine capable of competing with injection-molding. Now, the creation of new plastic parts sans injection-molding might not seem like a big deal but as advances in RPM continue to progress look for a major-shift in the manufacturing paradigm as many products will soon be produced on location. To this end, it is worth noting that some RPM machines have dropped from a price point of $100,000 to below $5,000. (To get a better idea of the type of products which can now be manufactured via RPM, I refer you to this informative article.)

#2: The UMan Robot: Progress in the field of robotics over the past few years has been nothing short of amazing. Robots are now driving cars, conducting surgery, roaming oil pipelines, and flying into craves disguised as insects. As impressive as this progress has been, it was the UMass Mobile Manipulator --UMan for short-- that most caught my attention this year because it demonstrated that robots could learn how to use new objects. Obviously, a robot that can learn and adapt to changing conditions is a huge step in making robots more practical for a wide range of applications—including becoming helpful assistants to America’s aging Baby Boomers.

#1: Genomes for the Masses: It was only three years ago that Craig Venter sequenced his genome for an estimated $70 million. Today there is a company that claims it can do it for $5000 and, soon, the cost will plummet to under $1000. It will take some time for healthcare professionals and citizens alike to understand the implications of how all of this genomic data will manifest itself in healthcare and lifestyle decisions (e.g. changing our diet based on genetic factors, etc.), but it is evident that this day will arrive sooner than many people—including medical professionals—realize.

And that, my friends, is an appropriate note to end on. The future, as I said at the beginning of this post, is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed. It is also fair to say that based on the progress made in 2008 the future is also arriving sooner than most of us realize.

If you don’t believe me, just watch the news this month. It is quite likely that Craig Venter will announce something should shock the world: The creation of the first form of artificial life.

Interested in reading related posts from America’s most respected futurist? Check out these past articles:

The Most Significant Breakthroughs fof 2007
The Future of Education is Now
The Power of Zenzizenzizenzic
The Future is About to Get Personal

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Change is in the Air

After almost two years of campaigning, it is finally here: Election Day! Change is in the air, but not for the reasons one might expect.

Regardless of a person’s preference for Obama, McCain, Nader or one of the other candidates, I don’t actually believe they (or any politician for that matter) will be the primary instrument of change in the near future. That mantle will instead belong to technology.

Let me just provide a quick glimpse from the world of technology through the lens of a single day—today.

I began my morning by reading this article on a “solar power game changer.” The piece describes how a new antireflective coating now allows for the “near perfect” absorption of sunlight. In other words, society is one step closer to solar technology replacing a number of conventional energy sources. Politicians can clamor all they want about “clean coal” and “more drilling” but my hunch is that technological advances will render their opinions and policy suggestions moot.

Next, I stumbled across this article discussing a new ”heart-patching” technology. Combined with yesterday’s announcement by a Medtronic official that the “medical device industry is done,” it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that health care is quickly moving in the direction of preventative care.

Finally, over the weekend 60 Minutes ran a fascinating story describing the advances in brain-computer interface technology. If you didn’t see it, I strongly encourage you to watch it below. After you have done so, ask yourself this: How much do you think society will change by the time we vote again for president in 2012 and 2016?

Now, I believe in democracy and I believe it matters which individuals (and which political parties) control the White House and Congress, but our elected officials should spend less time promising that they will “deliver” change and more time helping society prepare for the change that is coming because it is going to be massive.

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Your Main Job

Recently, I came across this informative article, ”Intel Reboots for the 21st Century.” It’s an interview with Intel’s CEO, Paul Otellini. Two quotes jumped out at me. The first one was: “A CEO’s main job is to see the need to change before anyone else does.” It’s a wonderful quote because it is so true. The second quote, though, is no less valuable. Otellini paraphrases Intel’s old CEO, Andy Grove, who once said, “You won’t believe how long it takes for the change you’ve started to work its way all of the way through the rank and file.”

The reason both quotes are important is because it is not enough “to see the need for change” first. It is vital that executives “work” the need to change. And to achieve this I am of the opinion that the CEO must not only be a part-time futurist (and see what is coming next), he or she must also become their organization’s “chief unlearning officer.”

One of the big reasons that change takes as long as it does is because employees, customers, institutions and, yes, even leaders must often first unlearn what they think they know before they can change and incorporate a new idea or adjust their practices to a new way of doing things.

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Meet Your Future, Shape-Shifting Robotic Butler

One of the fun things about being a futurist is trying to understand how the convergence of various emerging technologies might lead to the creation of radically different products in the future.

For instance, consider these two articles which, on their face, appear to have little in common with one another. The first article announced that four robotics companies in Japan are uniting in an effort to create a mainstream market for robots. (For fans of accelerating technological change, please note how they hope to increase by ten-fold the number of domestic robots employed in Japan by 2013). The second article discusses how researchers at the The Franhofer Institute in Europe are making impressive progress in having computers anticipate human needs.

Now, one of the largest markets for robots in Japan is to have them serve the country’s growing—and rapidly aging—population of senior citizens. If the new alliance of Japanese robotic companies—which is known as the Federation for the Market Creation of Next-Generation Robots—gains access to some of the “human anticipation software” that the Franhofer Institute is developing, it is reasonable to believe that soon robots will not only be able to perform basic functions they will also be able to anticipate many of their owners needs.

If one further considers that iRobot is now developing a shape-shifting robot and that Hasbro Electronics is building a robot capable of serenading you, it is even possible that your robotic butler of the future will be able to sing you a catchy tune while cleaning those hard-to-reach places in your kitchen.

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Jack Uldrich Speaks on the Future

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10 Reasons Why We Will to 1000

The signs are all around us and yet, rather surprisingly, there is very little public discussion of an issue that is going to have profound moral, ethical, and political ramifications for all of society.

The issue of which I speak is the possibility of immortality. In just the past few days, however, the New York Times has run an informative article on how advances in genomics are improving the treatment of disease; the Economist has discussed the impressive progress being made in the field of gene therapy, and Technology Review covered the extraordinary advances that researchers at the University of Minnesota are making in growing a human heart.

Last week, I discussed why the future is accelerating and before that, I encouraged readers when thinking about the future to ”think 10X, not 10%”; and the more I think about health care and human longeveity, the more I think both of these lines of thought apply to this field in particular.

I recently came across this article entitled”The man who will help you live for 1,000 years.” It is about Aubrey de Grey’s new book ”Ending Aging.” To most people the idea of living to 1,000 sounds absolutely crazy. But, as I explain in my own new book, Jump the Curve, due to exponential advances in a variety of technologies the ability to do things that sound “impossible” today could very well become quite “doable” tomorrow. (This is just one reason I think we all need to develop a ”future bias.")

With this brief introduction then let me provide you 10 reasons why you could live to 1,000 years of age.

#1: More powerful computers. Late last year, it was announced that IBM had the world’s most powerful supercomputer. It is capable of 1 quadrillion calculations per second. More impressive, by 2009, IBM expects to have a supercomputer capable of 10 quadrillion calculations per second. Now, computer speed, in and of itself, will not directly lead to longer lives but what these supercomputers are learning about the human body—the brain, protein-folding, pharmacogenomics, etc.—could very well lead to some amazing medical breakthroughs.

#2 Better Drugs. I recently stumbled across this article entitled ”So You Want to Live Forever?” It discusses the progress that Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (which was recently acquired by GlaxoSmithKline) is making in testing a fountain-of-youth pill in humans. The drug may or may not work, but if it doesn’t work there are similar drugs in the FDA pipeline and it is not unrealistic to think that some of those drugs might just someday be successful at extending human life. (And with the first Baby Boomers hitting retirement age in 2008, you can bet that there will be a large market for any drug that keeps the “Woodstock” generation feeling and looking young.)

#3: Implantable Organs. I have written before about the amazing progress being made in the area of implantable organs. Today, bladders and human skin are being grown. Tomorrow, it is possible that kidneys and livers might be grown. And in 10 or 15 years (perhaps sooner given the University of Minnesota’s progress) maybe even the human heart will be able to be artifically manufactured.

#4 Stem Cell Research: In November 2007, researchers announced that they derived a new method for growing stem cells that might sidestep some of the ethical issues hindering current research. If so, advances in stem cell research could progress at faster rate than most people generally appreciate.

#5 Genome sequencing: This past weekend the New York Times ran an article describing how three companies want to make a portion of your genome available to you for less than $1000. This is extraordinary considering that in the mid-1970’s it cost $150 million to sequence a single gene! As the technology continues to improve and we learn more about how genes regulate human health scientists and researchers could easily find ways to lenthen human longeveity.

#6: Robotic surgeries: I written before about the future of health care and I am of the opinion that within the next decade amazing breakthroughs will be made in the field of robotic surgeries. In fact, researchers in South Korea are already experimenting with miniature robots to clear people’s arteries. If effective, heart disease may be a thing of the past. Robotics are also being used for a growing number of other surgeries as I recently explained in this piece.

#7: Nanotechnology: The National Cancer Institute has speculated that due to advances in nanotechnology cancer could be a treatable disease as early as 2015.

#8: Advances in proteinomics and metagenomics. How the human body operates is only imprecisely understood today. As advances in each of the aforementioned fields progresses, however, we will have a much better understanding of the human body and, thus, how to treat it.

#9: Human Desire. I understand perfectly well that a vast majority of people are terribly uncomfortable with the idea of radical life extension. Nevertheless, there are thoughtful and intelligent people such as Aubrey de Grey who are actively challenging society to think differently. Rather than accepting aging as an inevitable aspect of life, they are instead encouraging society to view aging as a disease—something to be treated. This is a profound paradigm shift, but is it any more profound than Copernecius telling people 500 years ago that they were not at the center of the universe? History has a way of demonstrating that future often turns out much different than most people appreciate and that what constitutes “conventional wisdom” in one era is laughed at and mocked by future generations. Our “acceptance” of death might be one such issue.

#10: Evolution. Lastly, I would like to submit the idea that mankind is destine to evolve towards radical life extension. In 1600, the average life expectancy was 36 years. At the beginning of the 17th century, life expectancy had inched forward to 37 years. One hundreds later it had increased to 39 years. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was 47. Only a 100 years, however, it had increased almost 30 years—to 77. What will the next 100 years hold? It is difficult to imagine, but it is important to understand that society will not simply experience a rate of change similar to the last century. Due to the accelerating rate of progress we could very well experience the equilavent of 20,000 years of progress (as measured by the 20th century rate). Within all of this progress, it is possible that we might find the key (or keys) to radical life extension? I believe that the answer is yes.

The real question then becomes: “How do we prepare ourselves and society for this seismic change?”

Related Posts

The Future of Health Care: Part 3 (Robotics)
The Future of Health Care: Part 1
The Future of Health Care: Part 2
The Coming Health Care Revolution
The Robot Will See You Now

Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.

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