Book Of The Future

Lots of people get stuck on the big idea, whether it's for a new business or a next step at work. It's easy to believe that what separates the successes from the failures is that moment of inspiration. But the reality is that the answer often lies much more in execution. In hard work. It's that cheesy but accurate Thomas Edison quote: it's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Loads of people have good ideas. But they will remain just ideas unless you learn how to execute. How to take that idea from your mind, beyond a powerpoint presentation or a business plan, to something real and functioning. Helping us to explore this topic in this episode, we have someone who has taken their ideas and made them real to great success, not once but twice. Jennie Jonson MBE is the CEO of My First Five Years, the next-generation parenting app designed to combat anxiety and give parents evidence-based tools, knowledge and support. Within a year of founding in 2021, MFFY had raised over £1.5m in seed-funding and is now growing at a fantastic rate.  Prior to My First Five Years, Jennie founded one of the UK's largest nursery groups, Kids Allowed, running it for 17 years before successfully exiting in 2020. She was the first female to win the UK Private Business Awards CEO of the Year and was voted UK's Businesswoman of the Year in 2019.  We took loads away from our conversation with Jennie. Here are the top tips for making it real: Validate your ideas with your personal experience - or someone else's. Sense check: will this work?Check what's already there: is someone else already trying to solve the same problem?If they are, that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't do it - maybe it's validation of the need. But maybe you should work with not against them.Find your 'brains trust': who's experience and talent can you leverage?Work fast: minimise wasted time and effort by filtering ideas quicklyAccept feedback: Listen to what people are telling you. You don't have to agree with everything you're told but sometimes you need to accept the weight of feedback and make a change or walk awayCan you make it real on your own? Or do you need a co-founder or sponsor?Make it simple: you need to be able to explain your idea very quickly and in a way that people can just 'get' whether it's in a few sentences or a couple of slides (and maybe even just one line)Be resilient: Take feedback, change as needed, but don't be dissuaded if you still believe there is the core of a good idea.What's your measure of success? Set yourself some goals and targets that you can benchmark against.

A critical part of the creative process is the ability to refine things, whether your own or others. Whatever it is you are creating, there's almost zero chance that the first draft will be perfect. It doesn't matter whether you're writing, drawing, designing in 3D, making music or a video, the editing process is absolutely critical. But it's not necessarily one that comes naturally. We get very attached to our own creations. And it's not always easy to tell other people that their work needs improvement and change. No-one likes to hear that their baby is ugly! So it's hugely important that we think and talk about this skill, and train ourselves to improve it as part of our career development. To help us learn how to refine our ideas, as ever in this episode, we have a real expert. Sarah Butler is the acclaimed author of Ten Things I've Learnt About Love, Before the Fire and Jack & Bet. Her writing has been translated into fourteen languages. She is a part-time lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and works with publishers and authors, reviewing and developing new work. We learnt so much in the conversation with Sarah. Here are our key takeaways: As Hemingway said, "The first draft of anything is shit." Don't expect perfection first time!Get something down on paper or into some form you can mold. As Sarah says, it's clay to work with.The creative process is also a learning process: you're not just pouring out things you know. What you know is evolving as you produce, so accept that there will be iterations.The creative process can be like farming: sometimes you're sowing, sometimes you're harvesting, but sometimes there will be fallow moments as well. Accept that sometimes you need some fallow days and you can't always force progress.For big ideas you probably can't hold the whole thing in your head. Break it down into manageable chunks but make sure you keep a holistic view. Work on individual components but remember how they fit together.Appreciate the value of feedback. It can be scary sharing your ideas but the once you overcome that fear the benefits are enormous. Share ideas early with a diverse group - you might get different types of feedback from different people.This is much easier if you can grow a culture of sharing inside your organisation, so that everyone gets used to sharing their ideas - and gets practice at giving feedbackEdit other people's work by asking questions. Don't try to impose your approach.Be generous and kind. No-one wants to hear that their baby is ugly!

In this episode of Future Proof Your Career we're looking at recombination: how to bring old things together to make something new. To help us to get our heads around mixing and remixing, we have a real expert in the studio today. Graeme Park has been one of the biggest names in the house music scene since the late 1980s. Well known for his residency at the Hacienda and long stints on a number of major radio stations, Graeme remixed tracks by the likes of Brand New Heavies, New Order, Eric B & Rakim, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.  Graeme has most recently been one of the founding forces behind Hacienda Classical, bringing together classic dance tunes with a full live orchestra. He has even found himself behind the microphone, going back to his musician roots. Here's what we learned from Graeme: Remixing is a creative art! Just because you're working with existing components, it doesn't mean this isn't real innovation. Recombining things can fulfill that creative urge.Seperate the technical skills required to remix something from the relevant domain knowledge. You may only have one or the other. For example, you might understand the business processes you're working with, or the industry sector. But you might not know the technology or have the political clout to build something new. Partner with someone who does.Play with your tools and components. Get to know the things that are at your disposal. What can you draw on in terms of resources: people, data, partners, platforms? And what can you use to stick them together? Software, systems, or just a telephone and some bits of paper?Agility: respond to what the audience wants. Don't set out with a singular vision and keep pursuing it without showing it to anyone. Get it out there early and change direction based on feedback.Collaborate. Bring in different ideas, perspectives and skill sets. You don't want design by committee but you're more likely to succeed with two heads than one.

Just before we take a break for the summer, we jumped on a call to chat through what we have learned from the season so far. we're about half way through and we've learned from some incredible people. Our first segment was all about Curation: how to discover and qualify information. The BBC's Chris Warburton joined us to talk about how to ask good questions.Psychologist Dr Simon Moore taught us about all the different ways of listening.Dr Lauren Kirwan helped us to understand empathy better - what it is, and what it is not.Gemma Milne talked to us about the importance of scepticism and our responsibility to challenge and ask questions.Elections analyst Professor Rob Ford helped us to understand the meaning in people's words - even when they don't say what they mean.Finally, data scientist Caroline Keep taught us how to extract meaning from numbers. Then we kicked off our segment on Creation: how to make new things. Fashion designer Supriya Lele shared where she finds inspiration.And start-up investor Jon Bradford talked to us about iterations and pivots. Coming up we have loads more great guests. Superstar DJ Graeme Park talking about remixing, acclaimed author Sarah Butler on the editing process, and the brilliant Bec Evans on how to write. Listen in to find out what has really stuck in our brains so far. And what we've got coming up. Even though this was a very short episode, it had a lot of outtakes. And we thought they were pretty funny. So just as a one-off, we thought we'd share them at the end. Have a great summer!

In this episode of Future Proof Your Career we speak with Jon Bradford about iteration: how do you take an idea and improve on it? Jon Bradford is co-founder & managing partner of Dynamo Ventures, an investment fund focused on supply chain and mobility. Jon is one of the most experienced early stage investors in Europe and launched the first accelerator bootcamp outside of the US in 2009. He went on to launch many more start-up programmes, earning him the title “Godfather of European Accelerators”. Between this work and his own entrepreneurship, Jon has helped to refine many raw ideas into successful businesses, so he's the ideal person to talk to us about this part of the creative process. Here's what we learned from Jon: Every proposal, every idea is a promise. You've got to make it and then deliver on it.Delivering a whole idea in one go is too much. Break any vision down into bite-sized pieces - each of which is a little ‘promise' you can keep in its own right.At every ‘chunk' there's an opportunity to do things differently. Separate the objective from the approach.People should be measuring the progress of your project on ‘lines not dots', as per this Mark Suster article. What they're looking for is progress.Steer using feedback - and the most important feedback comes from your ‘customers' - who will be buying or using your product/service? Your mum doesn't count as a customer for feedback purposes. She probably isn't objective.Constant feedback will allow you to make small changes frequently and not pursue blind alleys: ‘fail fast', as the saying goes.Don't be afraid to pivot though: make a radical change of direction. The highest potential team in Jon's portfolio have done at least two major pivots.Make sure you set the bar for testing each stage of progress appropriately. Know what is a stretch goal, but don't set your sights so low the test isn't meaningful.Sometimes the problem isn't the idea itself, it's the market around it. Sometimes - as Tesla did - you have to build the ‘full stack'

This is the first episode in our six part series on creativity and everything that entails. We're starting with inspiration: where do original ideas come from? And how can you have more of them? We're convinced that inspiration is not something innate. It's a skill that we can develop by exercising it. And we need to. We operate in a noisy market of ideas, where original thinking is required to stand out. Where machines can knock out facsimiles of other people's ideas fast and cheaply. So we have to keep creating new ideas to stay ahead. As always, to help us understand the skill we're focused on, we have a special guest who relies on their skill for their own success. Supriya Lele is a fashion designer described by The Face as “one of the UK's brightest design talents” and her eponymous label counts Dua Lipa and Bella Hadid as clients. Her style has spanned noughties nostalgia, rave-ready party wear, and inspiration from her Indian heritage. Here's what we took away from our conversation with Supriya: Be opinionated! Creativity is self expression. Don't be afraid to be bold. Learn through play Supriya learns through experimentation, deliberately trying new things that might seem odd, like turning the clothes back to front or upside down. Play keeps the brain 'loose and flexible' and stops you being too rigid. Make mistakes Don't be afraid to get it wrong. As long as you learn from those mistakes. Start with research Inspiration comes from all over the place. Supriya accumulates imagery, sounds and objects that help to create a sense of direction. Curate your story Once you've got lots of research, sort it to tell a story. Find patterns and coherence between the ideas. For Supriya it might be common patterns, colours, cuts and shapes, but for you it might be common words, design elements, behaviours etc Self-reference Don't forget that you can be your own source of inspiration. Look to work you've done in the past to see if it can be reapplied or inspire a new answer.  Never stop listening Research is a continuous process. Keep a watchful eye for things that might inspire a future project and store them away. Compound effect Inspiration can be a build up of influences. It doesn't have to come from one thing, but can rather be about the intersections between many. Separating influence from inspiration Even original ideas have influences. What's critical is having a good measure for how much your inspiration moves things forward. There's no hard and fast rule but you get a sense of it over time. Everyone gets blocked Creative exercises are hard to programme in to a 9-5. Sometimes it just doesn't come. Don't get frustrated. Do something different. Step away and come back fresh. That said... Deadlines can be an incredible motivator! Even if they are artificial. Collaborate Creativity doesn't have to be a solo exercise, all about you personal vision. Get other people involved. Hobbies can help Don't just have one creative outlet. Do something else you love, but without pressure. You can learn from it and bring that learning to your main discipline. And it can allow you to release pressure when things aren't going well on a project. Accept vulnerability Putting your creative work out there can be nerve wracking. Because really great work will usually take you somewhat outside of your comfort zone. It can be a vulnerable moment so prepare for it.

In putting this podcast together, we had a whole range of fascinating conversations, not all of which fitted into the standard format for this series, where each episode is focused on a particular skill. One of those conversations was with Korn Ferry, the global consulting firm.  Korn Ferry works with companies and leaders to help them put in place the optimal structures, roles, and responsibilities, hire the right people to fill those roles, and advises them on how to reward and motivate their workforce. So as you can imagine, it's a company that has a huge amount of interest in, and expertise on, the subject of this podcast: how to future-proof your career. And they've kindly agreed to sponsor this special episode as well. Joining us from Korn Ferry for this episode to share their expertise are Ben Frost, who works with the company's clients on issues like pay and talent management, and Sue Simonett, who leads the company's technology practice. Listen in to find out what these two experts think about: What is driving the current skills crunch?How employers might respondThe impact of AI and automation on the present and future of workChanging expectations for employers and employeesWhat Ben and Sue think of our Three Cs - Curation, Creation, CommunicationHow to maximise your future career opportunities

In this episode of Future-Proof Your Career, we speak to Caroline Keep, a data scientist, a teacher, a maker, and a researcher in machine learning. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Times Education Supplement teacher award, and a founder of Liverpool Makerfest. We spoke to Caroline about how you extract meaning from data, and how we can all be more engaged in the effort to decipher the world around us. Here's what we learned. Data is the real world, quantified Don't think of data as just endless spreadsheets and numbers. It's a representation of the real world and the things that matter. Understanding the data is a way to understand the world. Understanding data is a process Caroline talked about multiple steps in the ‘data cycle': Start with discovery: play with the data at your disposal to get a feel for itCreate a hypothesis: what are you trying to test?Discuss your idea with other people and gather perspectives, check your reasoningClean your data: the real world is messy and full of bias and noiseTest your idea: does your hypothesis hold true? Build domain knowledge  Understanding the space you're exploring is critical to give you a reference point. Otherwise you won't know if the results you find are nonsense! If the data you want doesn't exist, you can get it There are lots of sources of interesting data, but the Internet of Things makes it cheaper and easier than ever to collect data that doesn't exist. Whether you want to track temperature, movement, light or pollution, or anything for that matter, simple sensors and cheap computers like the Raspberry Pi allow anyone to experiment (see links below) Caroline referenced some great resources and projects, including: Kaggle: a data science community - https://www.kaggle.com/NodeRed: a drag and drop IoT platform: https://nodered.org/Kettle Companion: A connected kettle that helps carers keep an eye on vulnerable people - https://kettlecompanion.com/Rstudio: software for data science - https://posit.co/products/open-source/rstudio/Python: a powerful but accessible programming language - https://www.python.org/Jupyter Notebook: https://jupyter.org/

In this episode of Future-Proof Your Career, we speak to professor of politics at the University of Manchester and frequent contributor to the BBC and other media, Rob Ford. Rob is the co-author of Brexitland with Professor Maria Sobolewska, and the author of The British General Election of 2019.  We spoke to Rob about how you extract meaning from people's words, even if they don't always say what they mean. Here's what we learned. Think of leaders as politicians Business leaders and politicians have a lot of the same pressures, particularly when they are trying to satisfy multiple audiences. It's one thing leading - and championing - a single team. You can be absolutely partisan. But when you have to satisfy people across the company, customers, and shareholders, and deal with lots more information, it's a very different situation. So people in senior positions are likely to be more conservative, more political.  Who is the audience? Think about the speaker's audiences. Who do they need to impress or please? This will shape a lot of their message. If you don't like it, you might not be their intended - or most important - audience. Social desirability bias People moderate their language because they're trying to appeal to you or because they don't think you will like what they really think. This might disguise negative feedback, people's real opinions or positions. We all have a hidden motive We're human beings with lots going on, both inside and outside the workplace. Accept that everyone has multiple motivations for their actions. Sincerity is powerful - even when it's faked While we can't recommend lying, the lesson from politics seems to be that we believe people who can perform sincerity. So try to be sincere in your message. But keep an eye out for those who might not be quite so sincere as they appear. Separate the message from the packaging Flowery language can disguise different intent. Take time to look behind the words and see the meaning. Repetition, repetition, repetition If you think you're missing something, or you want someone to reveal a potentially hidden motive, get people to repeat the message until you get clarity. Use variations on a question to extract all the missing pieces of the story. Foghorns, dog whistles, dead cats We talked about some of the terminology of political communication, much of which can be applied to the business world. A ‘dog whistle' is language designed to appeal to a particular group without making explicit statements that might attract public scrutiny - often where a policy might be deemed racist or otherwise offensive. Business leaders might signal to the markets that they want to downsize a business without explicitly talking about job cuts, though most people recognise what ‘rationalisation' really means now.  Sometimes there is no dog whistle and it's an outright foghorn instead, and the message comes through loud and clear. Some leaders are incapable of subtlety or just choose to avoid it. ‘Dead cats' are stories designed to distract from the bad news. And we see these in business all the time. CYA Often people will be motivated by CYA: Cover Your Ass. They will try to ensure that they are not left responsible if something goes wrong. Be particularly cautious about this if you are an external supplier - I speak from experience! Personality not policy Ultimately, remember you're dealing with a human being and in most cases, you will want to maintain a civil working relationship. You may not like what they're saying, but they may not like it either. In the long term, it's the relationship that will count.

In this episode of Future-Proof Your Career we're talking about scepticism, the willingness, and the discipline, to question what we see and hear. And to have the skills to find the facts amongst the opinions and beliefs.  As always, we've invited an expert guest to speak to us, and this time it's Gemma Milne, writer and researcher, and author of the excellent book Smoke and Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It.  Gemma gave us loads to think about, in terms of how we improve our sceptical skills. Here are a few of the key takeaways from the conversation: The skill of scepticism has never been more important There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there. And it's not just on social media. We need a level of awareness to all the places that people through motivation or ignorance might share hype or inaccuracies. Scepticism is accessible. It's something we can all do You don't need deep expertise in a subject to be sceptical. That's not to dismiss expertise or experts - this is very much a podcast that believes in those things! But there are some basic questions we can always ask and things we can do to get a sense of truth. Separate emotion from fact We have to recognise that a lot of claims and ideas, and the stories around them are designed to play on our emotions. Can we step back from our emotional engagement and ask some logical questions? Simple questions We can always ask, even if just to ourselves: ‘What does this claim depend on?',  ‘How do you get to that conclusion?', ‘What is the underlying evidence?' Big claims need big proof It's a good rule of thumb that if someone is going to make big claims, they need strong evidence to back it up. How good is the evidence? Be empathetic Understand why other people will reach certain conclusions. Why do certain ideas appeal to them? And what makes them so committed? Be sensitive to this when challenging someone's beliefs. Scepticism is a responsibility If we want more facts and less hype and misinformation, then scepticism is a responsibility for us all. Before you share that chart, paper, or meme that confirms your beliefs, do some sceptical checks. 

In this latest episode of Future-Proof Your Career, we tackle the tricky topic of empathy. What is it? How do you use it? And can you grow - or shrink - your empathy?  We all think we know what empathy is, but as ever, we ask a real expert. Dr Lauren Kerwin is a Harvard- and UCLA- Trained Psychologist with over 20 years of experience treating borderline personality disorder, autism spectrum disorders, depression, anxiety and trauma in teens and adults. Lauren also has lots of experience in a corporate context, providing executive coaching and organisational psychology support to highly successful start-ups through to their public listings, with a particular focus on employee selection and training, information sharing, and interpersonal interactions. Understandably this incredible CV has seen Lauren featured on CNN and the Today Show, and in Forbes, HuffPost, and the New York Times, to name but a handful of news outlets.= We learned loads from Dr Kerwin, so here are the top tips that I took away: Empathy is about understanding, not emotion: though compassion is important, you're not trying to feel what the other person is feeling. You're trying to understand why they feel the way they do. Perspective adds value: no position is less valid or valuable because they're seeing it through a different lens to you.  Don't walk in their shoes, keep one foot in yours: While trying to empathise don't lose your own perspective. You need to try to retain some balance and objectivity. Everyone has an answer: the role of a leader is increasingly to uncover those answers and give people the confidence to share them. Respect not agreement: you don't need to agree with someone to empathise. Sometimes the most important time to be empathetic is when you disagree. Show people they are valued: even if you ultimately disagree, be clear that the other person's position was appreciated, otherwise they might not share it in the future.

Thanks for listening to this episode of our Future-proof Your Career. After each episode I'll be collecting my notes from our guest here. In this episode we spoke to Dr Simon Moore. Simon is a doctor of Psychophysiological Psychology and a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society. He leads a team of researchers at IB, a business he founded to help brands to better understand their customers and employees. Here are my key takeaways from the conversation: What are you listening for? Simon highlighted that we often go into a conversation or interview situation with a bias. We're not neutral as listeners, we often want something from the conversation. Be aware of this. Consider your biases and your own objectives and try to see the conversation through that lens. There are different modes of listening Sometimes you might be listening in an informational mode, looking to fill in the blanks on your mental questionnaire. Sometimes your mode might be more empathetic, where you're trying to extract or understand the emotional context behind the words Think about which mode you're in when you're going into a conversation. Which one should you be in? What information are you missing by being in one mode or the other? What's behind the words? Though we have to respect what people say, it's worth sometimes being a little sceptical and questioning the drivers behind those words. Look for signals beyond the vocal for what's really going on: gestures, behaviour, visual cues from both the person and their surroundings. What can you take from the objects and pictures with which they surround themselves? Who are you listening to? Simon talked to us about four different categories of people - categories that help us to understand their desires and their behaviours. Planners, adventurers, sociables and individualists. These categories are laid out in more detail in this interview with Simon that is well worth a read: https://insidebe.com/articles/interview-with-simon-moore/ Shut up and count to ten We talked about a variety of techniques for listening, not least enforcing a little silence - especially on yourself, if you're prone to fill in every gap in the conversation. Give people room to speak and expand by making yourself count to ten in your head before you speak. Make a movie If you really want to understand someone, try Simon's technique of making a movie in your head of what they're saying. It's comparable to how writing things down can help you to learn them. But making a mental movie of someone's story won't just help you to understand the details, it will help you to empathise with their situation - putting yourself in their shoes.

Thanks for listening to this first episode of our new season of Talk About Tomorrow, focused exclusively on how you can Future-proof Your Career! After each episode I'll be collecting my notes from our guest here. In this episode we spoke to Chris Warburton, award-winning BBC journalist. radio presenter and host of a series of excellent podcasts including Ecstasy: The Battle of Rave, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, The End of Days, and most recently, Bugzy Malone's Grandest Game, about Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto. Chris covers a huge range of topics for the BBC, from major sporting events, to politics, to once even a live heart transplant. So he was the ideal person to talk to us about how you ask good questions. Here are my key takeaways from the conversation: Create a personal editorial policy Think about how your own behaviour and presentation when you're asking questions. Do you maximise the chance of getting the right answers? For example, think about: What tone should I be using?Do I have the right level of formality or informality?Am I using the right language to ask questions? E.g. jargon? Prepare in advance Do your research. You might not be an expert in the subject - that's why you're the one asking the questions! But you need to know enough to shape your questions appropriately and ensure that you're asking the most important ones. Think about the audience for the answers too: are you asking these questions on someone else's behalf, and if so, are you getting the answers that they need and in a format they can understand? Have a game plan Don't just think about your questions, think about the answers that you might get from the person you are speaking to. How will you respond to those answers? What is your follow-up? Switch modes - the ‘red light moment' Chris talked about the difference between the off-air conversation and the on-air conversation - when the red light goes on to tell everyone that the mics are live and that you are broadcasting. Before the red light goes on, you might be putting the other person at ease, asking them social questions and building rapport. Once the light goes on, it's about getting answers. Think about this in your conversations. It's fine to switch modes between the social chit-chat and the important business. But think about the transition. And just because the red light is on, it doesn't mean anything goes. You can be forceful but you want to be able to end the conversation on good terms. Listen and take notes Take notes of the other person's answers throughout the conversation. It shows you're listening, ensures you capture the answers properly, and helps you to structure the rest of the conversation. You can always refer back to them if you want to explore a particular answer in more depth, even if it was much earlier in the conversation. Use open and closed questions Open questions allow the interviewee to return long form answers that might be packed with information but that might be vague. Follow these up with closed questions that have a fixed range of answers to lock down critical details. For example, an open question might be “Tell me what you want to achieve with this project?” whereas a closed question would be “What is your budget for this?” Useful reading: https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-surprising-power-of-questions https://www.forbes.com/sites/goldiechan/2021/02/01/why-asking-questions-is-good-for-your-brand-and-your-career/?sh=6f0cff751c23 https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/how-to-do-life/202102/the-art-of-asking-questions

Welcome to Future-proof Your Career, your guide to the most important skills for a long, successful working life. This special season of the Talk About Tomorrow podcast will explore in depth the idea of the Three Cs, three skill groups that are critical to success, in a business or as an entrepreneur. The ability to curate information, create new things, and communicate ideas. In each episode we explore a facet of one of these skills, alongside a guest.

Tom and Katharine talk about laziness: as a motivator for innovation and as a challenge to wasted effort. Are you lazy enough to be useful? Plus, it's the end of this season for the podcast. Five seasons now! All very different in length and format. But this has been the first with a co-host and though we're biased, we think it has been great! We'll be back for season 6 tackling some new topics in a few months.

Katharine and Tom discuss the concept of Net Luxury - an approach to addressing climate change based on the continuing reluctance of many people to make real change. Can we convince people to cut back? Or can we make saving ourselves (the planet will be just fine) seem even more appealing than you'd think it ought to be?

The shape of the most successful organisations is changing. Companies are shrinking and distributing their work across partners and semi-autonomous units, giving them scale, agility and reduced risk. As usual, Tom explains and Katharine interrogates!

The shape of the most successful organisations is changing. Companies are shrinking and distributing their work across partners and semi-autonomous units, giving them scale, agility and reduced risk. As usual, Tom explains and Katharine interrogates!

Tom and Katharine discuss our response to the explosion of choice faced by the modern consumer: the return of the intermediary, offering advice, direction and editorial input. Why do we value influencers? What role for AI in the future of our decisions on music, travel and finance? Find out in this episode. Note: the book reference in the episode is Barry Schwartz's 'The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less' from all the way back in 2004: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

We've spent the last twenty years trying to eliminate friction from the interactions between brands and customers. But is this always the right approach? In this episode we talk about the concept of 'good friction', those moments where you want to slow and deepen the conversation.

How do we prepare our children for the future? It's the question I am most commonly asked after speeches. And I always give the same answer. I believe there are three critical skills we all need for future success, in our careers and beyond. I call them the Three Cs. The ability to Curate (discover and qualify information), Create (bring new ideas to life or improve and recombine old ones) and Communicate (to sell your self and your ideas). In this episode, Katharine and I address questions like: What is more important, knowledge or skills? How do you teach creativity?Why is scepticism so important now? Read more at https://tomcheesewright.com/future-skills-what-to-learn-and-teach-for-success-in-tomorrows-world/

In this season of the podcast we're going to explore a few big ideas in a bit more depth. These are ideas or theories that keep coming up in my work with global 500 brands and government departments around the world. The first topic is what I have termed 'extended adolescence' - in short, are we now experiencing a longer childhood? The ages at which we cross key (traditional) milestones in adult life have been shunted back by a decade. People now learn to drive, buy a house, find a partner, get married, have kids etc perhaps 10 years later than they did in the relatively recent past. We try to answer:  Why is this happening? Is it a good thing? Should we be expecting young people to grow up faster? Are we babying them? What does this mean for companies/brands? Check out the blog post here for more information:  https://tomcheesewright.com/extended-adolescence/

Tom and Katherine round off the recent episodes with a broad discussion of the Metaverse: what is it? What are the implications? And should we be scared or excited? Original story: https://tomcheesewright.com/entering-the-metaverse

John Keefe is one of the founders of Draw and Code, a content studio building immersive entertainment for the world's biggest brands. Tom speaks to John about the evolution of immersive media across augmented and virtual reality, the state of the art in hardware, and how big the coming revolution will be.

Tom talks to fellow futurist and Magic Leap alumnus Cathy Hackl about the Metaverse: the coming together of physical and digital worlds through augmented reality, the internet of things, and more. When is it coming? And what does it mean for brands? Find Cathy Hackl online at https://cathyhackl.com 

Tom speaks to Professor Steven Cleveland, educator and filmmaker about his work on Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's time in Hawaii and the lessons from the past about the future of social equity. Find out more about Steven's project at https://akinginparadise.com/ 

Tom speaks to Steve Sinclair, Senior Vice President of Product and Marketing at Mojo Vision, the company building smart contact lenses for a future of invisible computing. This sci-fi prospect is fast becoming reality, another piece of the puzzle in the next big shift in our relationship with computers. Find out more at https://www.mojo.vision/

Tom highlights the collapse in funding and student numbers in further education in the UK, and Katharine points to the risk of a 'skills timebomb' this presents for the future. Original story: https://tomcheesewright.com/further-and-higher-education-the-dividing-line/

Tom and Katharine discuss the G7's moment of harmony, the solution to what Tom calls a 'small world problem'. What does that mean? And what is a 'big world problem'? Find out in this episode of Talk About Tomorrow. Original story: https://tomcheesewright.com/small-world-and-big-world-problems

Tom and Katharine talk about the future smart home: transforming furniture, shared energy, and communal living. And about the pitfalls of smart tech, especially when it interacts with pets.  Original story: https://tomcheesewright.com/the-future-home-a-smart-green-machine-for-living-in/

Tom argues that the declining trust in media, politicians and experts is down to distance. We are too far from power and too unequal in wealth and education. Katharine brings the data, and connects questions of trust in our employees, our children, and in each other. Read the blog post here: https://tomcheesewright.com/the-trust-gap

Season four of Talk About Tomorrow begins with an introduction to Tom's new co-host, Katharine McNamara, and a story about the gamification of life in both fun and less fun ways. In the first episode of this new format, Katharine questions Tom about digital inclusion and social credit, and coins the phrase 'digital Top Trumps'. Tom says 'you know' a lot in response (he promises this will stop). The story on which this episode is based, replete with links and references is here: https://tomcheesewright.com/all-the-worlds-a-stadium-and-all-the-men-and-women-merely-gamers

Why a return to austerity would be a disaster for the post-COVID economy, and where we should spend some stimulus money. Plus, why relationships are a window on the future. Original posts:  - You can't dig yourself out of a hole: https://tomcheesewright.com/you-cant-dig-yourself-out-of-a-hole/  - Relationships are the future: https://tomcheesewright.com/relationships-are-the-future/ Download the Console Connect report referenced in 'Relationships are the future', "The Interconnected Enterprise": https://info.consoleconnect.com/en-gb/resources/console-connect-interconnected-enterprise-report

For the second interview in a series focused on the future of healthcare sponsored by Sony Professional Solutions Europe, Tom speaks to Dr Rachel Jenner, consultant in paediatric emergency medicine and associate medical director for quality and safety at Manchester Royal Infirmary. Dr Jenner speaks about healthcare through the pandemic and the lessons learned, and about her work with the Violence Reduction Unit, tackling knife crime. Links:  - Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit: https://twitter.com/gm_vru

Tom explores the ethics and etiquette of resurrecting our loved ones as chatbots, following a recent patent filing from Microsoft. Plus, a longer listen about two key technologies that will affect the future: 5G and mixed reality. Original posts:  - https://tomcheesewright.com/digital-life-after-death/  - https://tomcheesewright.com/long-read-5g-and-mixed-reality/

Tom talks to Ludger Philippsen of Sony's European Healthcare practice about the paper they have authored on the future of healthcare. How are organisations in this sector responding to the lessons of lockdown? How is technology transforming the operating environment? And why is it critical to shift their focus from optimisation to adaptation. Read the paper here: https://pro.sony/en_SE/insight/digital-transformation-healthcare-insights/tom-cheesewright-whats-next

Tom explores the sci-fi trope of the brain in the jar. Can we really divorce our minds from our bodies? Plus, replacing the car: how do we tackle all its downsides while keeping its advantages? Original posts:   - The brain in the jar: https://tomcheesewright.com/the-brain-in-the-jar/  - Replacing the car: https://tomcheesewright.com/replacing-the-car/

This week Tom asks what happens to our high streets, companies, and jobs, when half our money is spent online. Plus, disrupting housebuilding: an essay on an alternative model for construction. Original posts:  - https://tomcheesewright.com/when-half-our-money-is-spent-online/  - https://tomcheesewright.com/disrupting-housebuilding/

To be ‘a Jack of all trades’ has been variously a compliment and an insult, and most recently, an attack on expertise. But is it what we need to be? Plus, how to develop a distributed workforce Original posts:  - Jack of all trades: https://tomcheesewright.com/jack-of-all-trades/  - Developing the distributed workforce: https://tomcheesewright.com/developing-the-distributed-workforce/

Laziness motivates us to find better ways to do things. Far from decrying ‘lazy’ home workers, we should be celebrating their instincts. Plus, why it's important to remember that we're still human in an age of digital communication. Original posts: - It's good to be lazy: https://tomcheesewright.com/its-good-to-be-lazy/ - We're still human: https://tomcheesewright.com/were-still-human/

How global communications technology has fractured our society into smaller and smaller tribes. Plus, why class is a critical conversation in this age of uncertainty.  Original posts Hypertribalism: https://tomcheesewright.com/hypertribalism/COVID has highlighted continuing class divides: https://tomcheesewright.com/covid-has-highlighted-continuing-class-divides/

Tom shares an extended version of the argument he made on Radio 4's Moral Maze for the future of cities. Plus, the four horsemen of disaster that will define the next few decades.  Original posts: The city is dead. Long live the city: https://tomcheesewright.com/the-city-is-dead-long-live-the-city/A race between the four horsemen: https://tomcheesewright.com/a-race-between-the-four-horsemen/

The latest population forecasts show an incredibly rapid collapse in populations across Europe. How will we respond? Plus, why robots don't take jobs  Original posts: The population implosion: https://tomcheesewright.com/population-implosion/Robots don't take jobs: https://tomcheesewright.com/robots-dont-take-jobs/

Tom speaks to Dr Anastasia Dedyukhina, about our relationship with technology. How conscious are we of our reliance on our devices and our connections through social networks. Are they good for us? And what do we need to change? Anastasia is the bestselling author of Homo Distractus, and founder of the London-based tech-life balance consultancy and first ICF-certified digital wellbeing coach training company Consciously Digital. She is a frequent speaker at global conferences, such as Mobile World Congress, and she has appeared numerous times in the national and international press, including BBC, ITV, Metro, Guardian etc. Anastasia's TEDx talk Could you live without a smartphone? has been viewed more than 200,000 times on Youtube. Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/anastasiadedyukhina Twitter https://twitter.com/conscidigital

Can we grow plants in space? Plus, Tom reveals his own challenges of working remotely: the need to always be in performance mode.  Original posts: Will we grow plants in space? https://tomcheesewright.com/will-we-be-growing-plants-in-space-by-2100-askafuturist/The price of performance: https://tomcheesewright.com/the-price-of-performance/

Tom cautions that we must understand two types of change: plastic and elastic. Only one snaps back. Plus, will Strictly go on forever?  Original posts: Plastic and elastic: https://tomcheesewright.com/change-separating-plastic-from-elastic/Will Strictly go on forever? https://tomcheesewright.com/will-strictly-go-on-forever-askafuturist/

Our companies are slow to change, failing to adapt to the rapid evolutions in their markets. Why is this, and how can we change it? Martin Lindstrom has proven to be one of the most impactful commentators and consultants on business change, working with some of the world's largest brands and producing best-selling books like Brand Sense, Buyology, and Small Data. His new book, The Ministry of Common Sense comes out this month and tackles the issue of bureaucracy, how it strangles innovation, and how we cut through it. You can find out more about Martin, his work, and his books, at https://martinlindstrom.com.

Our digital identities are a mess, with ownership, control, and rights all unclear following the early 'wild west' years of the Internet and social media. Can we get our digital identities under control and if so, what is the right way to think about our personal data? Sarah Clarke brings her extensive experience in cybersecurity and data governance to bear on this critical future challenge. You can find Sarah at @infospectives on Twitter and her writing on digital identity at https://infospectives.wordpress.com

Tom takes a look at tomorrow's car, following his work with Auto Trader. Plus, what will the future world be made from? Original posts: https://tomcheesewright.com/your-next-new-car-might-be-a-new-brand-and-a-new-shape/https://tomcheesewright.com/what-will-the-future-world-be-built-from-askafuturist/

Will fake meat ever replace the real thing? Plus, more #AskAFuturist answers: will nuclear energy replace fossil fuels? Full show notes and references at https://tomcheesewright.com/podcast

Tom answers the trickiest #AskAFuturist question yet: what have you been most wrong about in the past. Plus, why we need a new blueprint for the future. Full show notes and references at https://tomcheesewright.com/podcast