Anticipating the workforce of the future
Keynote Only
Overview:
There may be more changes in the workforce in the next 15 years than in the previous 150 years. The deceptive slow-then-fast nature of these changes is likely to cause many great companies to flounder. How can industry leaders best anticipate and prepare for these changes?
This talk by David Wood, Chair of London Futurists, draws on 25 years of experience of fast-moving change in the mobile computing and smartphone industry, and ten years of working with senior managers in multiple sectors to plot strategic courses through uncertain landscapes of new threats and new opportunities.
The talk describes the nexus of technological and human factors of the emerging fourth industrial revolution. It forecasts implications for organisations of next generation artificial intelligence, wearable computing, flocks of autonomous drones, personalised healthcare, and consciousness engineering. The goal of this part of the talk is to provide a real-world urgency that is often lacking from scenario planning activities. The talk then describes six components of a “futurist mindset” by which organisations can acquire systematically better foresight and systematically better agility. By adopting this mindset, industry leaders can improve their ability, not only to conceive and evaluate future scenarios, but also to achieve better outcomes.
Added December 2017.