Navigating the Future: Essential Characteristics and Strategies for Leaders

In an ever-changing world filled with uncertainty, business executives often grapple with the responsibility of anticipating and adapting to emerging trends and technologies. In this article I aim to provide guidance on how to focus on the most critical elements in the age of digital transformation, as well as how to cultivate a forward-thinking mindset.

My first piece of advice is to prioritize what matters most. Amidst the noise and distractions, it's crucial to identify the most important factors for your organization. As Donald P. Coduto wisely said, "The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing." Embrace this principle to maintain focus and ensure success.

Understand the game you are competing in.  Understand your competition.  Master the rules of digital transformation. To excel in today's competitive landscape, it's essential to understand the dynamics of the digital age. Key elements to consider include:

• Data as the modern commercial battlefield
• The pursuit of information dominance
• The importance of optimized information logistics systems
• The value of speed, analytics, and operational tempos
• The necessity of real-time operational tempos
• The competitive edge of quick data analysis and action
• The exponential increase in competitive advantages through data-driven strategies
• The benefits of situational awareness in innovation and efficiency
• The growing economic value and innovation opportunities through data collection and analysis
• The diminishing value of data over time and the importance of timely utilization
• The multiplier effect of contextual information and timely delivery
• The emphasis on digital twin capabilities and strategic information use over sheer size

The businesses of tomorrow will compete on decision-making.  To win, decisions must increasingly be automated.  As the world becomes increasingly data-driven, organizations that automate decision-making processes will dominate. Invest in technologies that streamline and enhance these processes to stay ahead of the competition.

Leaders must focus on and cultivate a "futuristic mindset." Rather than attempting to understand every emerging trend and technology, executives should focus on developing the essential characteristics of a forward-thinking mindset. This approach allows leaders to effectively navigate and adapt to the evolving digital landscape.  The following are some of the essential characteristics focus on.

1. Embrace data and AI: Leverage data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to gain insights, make better decisions, and enhance efficiency.
2. Automate processes: Explore and implement automation to improve your business and customer experience.
3. Capture and codify expertise: Record and digitize human knowledge for use in automation and decision-making.
4. Enhance visibility and information access: Utilize technology to gain better insights, situational awareness, and decision-making capabilities.
5. Adopt digital twins: Use digital twins for remote sensing, action, and scenario simulations.
6. Use networks to innovate: Upgrade your strategies, business models and user experiences as networks enabled new capabilities.
7. Align strategies with technology: Ensure your strategies evolve in tandem with emerging technologies and customer expectations.
8. Understand and navigate time dimensions: Balance human, digital, and future time to optimize performance and prepare for the future.
9. Encourage innovation and adaptability: Foster a culture of innovation and adaptability to maintain a competitive edge.
10. Focus on customer experience: Understand customer interactions and design inspiring journeys for them.
11. Define your purpose: Develop an authentic and inspiring purpose to motivate employees, customers, and stakeholders.
12. Build and engage with ecosystems: Collaborate with partners and stakeholders within your industry ecosystem to create more value.
13. Prioritize learning and adaptability: Continuously learn about and adapt to new technologies and trends.
14. Simplify processes: Reduce complexity to improve agility, speed and innovation.
15. Assess and adapt to future scenarios: Utilize frameworks and models to anticipate future changes and adapt accordingly.
16. Consider generational perspectives: Understand and cater to the different perspectives of each generation.
17. Improve human experiences: Strive to make the workplace and world more fulfilling for human beings.
18. Foster purposeful thinking: Encourage and invest in thoughtful decision-making and innovation within your organization.
19. Establish a unifying doctrine: Develop guiding principles to unify your organization and provide a basis for action.

To wrap things up, leaders must adapt to the rapidly evolving landscape by leveraging emerging technologies and reevaluating their strategies to stay ahead of the competition. Embracing data-driven insights, automation, and AI will be essential for making informed decisions and enhancing customer experiences. Moreover, fostering a culture of innovation, understanding the importance of purpose, and prioritizing human flourishing will ensure that organizations remain resilient in the face of change. By incorporating these 19 key concepts into their strategic approach, leaders can most effectively navigate the complexities of the digital era and harness the potential of future technologies for the benefit of their stakeholders and the broader ecosystem.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

What the Metaverse Could Mean for Retail

My wife and I are enthusiastic backpackers.  We buy gear that is ultralight and designed to take the abuse of rugged wilderness environments.  For many years we have frequented the outdoor equipment store REI to purchase our clothing, gear and supplies.  Recently, however, REI has stopped stocking their stores with a full range of products.  They only seem to stock a small selection of sizes and colors, and refer you to their website for all other options.  

As an example, on a recent trip to REI, I had a shopping list of four items. Each time I asked a customer service person about one of the products on my list, I was given the same answer, "Visit our website... we don't carry it in our stores."  

On the way home I felt disappointment. The trip seemed both a waste of time and fuel.  Is the disappointment I felt shared by tens of thousands of other customers?  If so, will this shared disappointment lead to the demise, or the transformation of physical stores?  

The Future of Our Human Experience

The world is increasingly a place that is both unfamiliar and unfriendly to our brains.  Global networks, complex digital systems, massive volumes of data, digital speeds, automated decision-making and persistent communications have all emerged this century and they are challenging the quality of our human experience. Already nearing our mind's limits to absorb change, we must quickly find ways to adapt.

The relatively slow speed of our physical and mental evolution over thousands of years seems to have been left behind in an instant by the unimaginable speed of digital evolution.  How are today's humans to adapt in only a lifetime?

It appears likely that our brains will increasingly be fed on digital stimuli.  It doesn't take a futurist to look around and see that we are all being irresistibly drawn deeper into the digital world.  The results being our future will increasingly involve our brains, and those of our children and grandchildren, being formed, influenced and sustained on digital stimuli.  Is this stimuli good for us?  Will it make us healthier and happier?

Precision as a Competitive Advantage

Throughout history military leaders have suffered from a lack of knowledge.  They often were desperately searching through the "fog of war" to find the answers to seven key questions:

1. Where are my enemies?
2. Where are my own forces?
3. Where are my allies?
4. Where are everyone's supplies, materials and equipment?
5. What condition are they in?
6. What capabilities are available at a given time and location?
7. What are the location and environmental conditions that might degrade capabilities?

These great “unknowns” impacted the strategies and tactics leaders used and the results of battles throughout history.  Leaders were forced to expend massive amounts of resources just defending themselves against the inherent risks of these unknowns.  

While military leaders of the past were handicapped by a lack of tools for gathering insights and intelligence, today we have many. With sensors of all kinds, wireless and satellite networks, mobile technologies, drones, analytics and artificial intelligence the “fog of war” can be greatly reduced.  Precise, real-time data from around the globe can be instantly aggregated, analyzed and results distributed to all relevant groups nearly instantaneously through network centric operations.  The resulting reduction of unknowns, releases leaders and resources to be focused more on strategies and solving problems based on knowns.   This is a monumental development in history.

Sensors extend our senses beyond our physical reach and act as our globally distributed digital nerves. These new capabilities significantly impact how businesses can operate, and offer new opportunities for competitive advantages for business leaders.

W. Edwards Deming, the father of quality improvement, once said, “The biggest problems are where people don't realize they have one in the first place.”  These “blind spots” – the unknown status of a process, schedule, delivery or available resource, for example – should be a relic of the past. Today, we have the ability to remove conjecture and work with precise data.

Many companies have yet to evolve from legacy business models based on the “unknown and imprecise” and continue to throw good money after bad by following "estimate-based" models. Many companies have yet to implement a comprehensive digital nervous systems.  As a result, these organizations have yet to update their strategies and tactics to support new models of real-time precision. Ignoring today’s “revolution in precision” is unacceptable, and would be like a manufacturer ignoring the “continuous quality improvement” movement in manufacturing. Leaders must recognize both the micro and the macro-trends impacting their markets.

Deming also said, “It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory.” Taking advantage of precision is a must if surviving is in your plan. As automation increases due to advances in sensors, bandwidth, artificial intelligence, algorithms and machine learning, precision becomes not only possible, but necessary.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Speed Impact on Businesses

Roman Roads

The concept of speed as an advantage is not new. Over the course of 700 years, the Romans built and maintained a system of roads extending over 55,000 miles.  They built it to enable speedy communications and the quick movement of troops and supplies across the vast expanse of their global empire.

Today, our perception of time and speed is being shaped and confused by technologies. A person might say they live five minutes from town, but is that calculated by walking, riding a bike or driving a car.  In the roman era, their military calculations were determined by a standard measurement based on how far and fast a soldier could walk on a stone road carrying their equipment.  It was about 20 miles per day.

Today, digital technologies compress our perception of time, speed and space while expanding our expectations of what can be accomplished in a given time period. We expect to complete the equivalent of one hour of shopping in a supermarket in five minutes online.  These changes significantly impact the way businesses must operate in a digital era to compete and remain relevant.  

In a shareholder letter from a few years ago, Jeff Bezos identified one of Amazon's key competitive advantages as high-speed decision-making.   

In one research project I worked on, many of the participants were from technology and consulting firms.  As a group they identified the pursuit of speed as a key motivation for digital transformation.  In particular, those surveyed identified the following areas of need:

• Speed developing - new products and services to meet customer demands

• Speed going to market (GTM) - with new products and services

• Speed responding - to changing market conditions and customer preferences

• Speed adopting and implementing - new innovations and technologies

When asked about the biggest challenges their customers were facing with digital transformation, respondents in another survey answered using all kinds of references to speed (or lack of speed) issues: legacy systems (are too slow), iterative approaches (are too slow), technologies are evolving too fast to react (and responses are too slow), business strategy alignment (was too slow).  The consensus among the technology leaders surveyed, however, was that the biggest mistake leaders make - was moving too slow.  

We learned four key points:

1. Technology Performance

Most executives felt their IT infrastructures were a disadvantage to their business.  The limitations of their IT infrastructure limited the speed they could respond to changing conditions.  They saw their internal systems as a hindrance not a help.

We also found a series of "Legacy Rules" inside the data:

• The longer an organization is in business, the more complex the technology infrastructure becomes, and the more difficult it is to change. They lose agility and speed the longer they are in business.
• These limitations prevent businesses from changing at the speeds required to remain relevant.
• Limitations often impact a business' options and their potential strategies.
• The size of a company’s IT challenge is directly proportional to the number of legacy and custom (non-standard) solutions they use.

2. Organizational Agility

The speed at which an organization can change directions - its agility - is critical to success in a fast changing digital world.  The lack of organizational agility has real world consequences. “We missed [revenue] opportunities,” said one of the participants.

Agility doesn’t happen by accident. An agile organization must be purposefully developed to act and react with speed to changing market conditions and consumer behaviors.  Agility requires a business model, platform and ecosystem with the right organizational culture, and IT infrastructure capable of responding with speed.

3. Leadership Decision-Making

It takes real-time speed to support real-time interactions with real-time digital customers.  Decision making must be automated to support these digital speeds and environments.

4. Customer Alignment

Fast-changing customer behaviors were identified as a top motivation for digital transformation.

Consumers today are changing their habits and behaviors at an extraordinary rate.  An executive we interviewed said, “Our customers’ expectations are always three or four steps beyond us...we are always behind.”

Businesses today must measure and track the speed and pace of changing consumer preferences and behaviors, and align resources and priorities to ensure they are transforming, if not at the same pace, at least at a pace ahead of their competition.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Winning with Speed and Fridays

"The size of competitors and the longevity of their brands, are less predictive of future success than the importance they give to data, the speed in which they act upon the data, and their operational tempo." 

In 2013 the volume of data created, captured, copied and consumed worldwide totaled approximately 9 zetabytes.  This year the total will be 79 zetabytes.  By 2025 there is projected to be 181 zetabytes of data.  Inside these fast growing masses of data are the answers all businesses need to succeed.  The data tells them what their customers want.  It tells them the prices customers are willing to pay.  It tells them when the products are most in demand.  This data, however, has a shelf life that rapidly diminishes over time just as consumers change their preferences with the changing seasons.  It is up to every business to be able to exploit the data fast enough to be meaningful.

In an always-connected world where consumers and their needs are transient, timing is everything.  In order to capture competitive advantages and contextual relevance before the shelf life of the data expires, enterprises must deploy optimized information logistics systems (OILS) and lean on AI to help analyze and process fast enough to deliver value.

In digital interactions with customers today, they expect instant access to information.  IT infrastructures must be able to support these real-time interactions, and this need requires we solicit the help of AI and our robot friends.  It also takes rethinking business models, organizational structures, decision-making and business processes.  It requires new ways of operating, employee training, and often automation and our own robot Fridays.  

In Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe rescues a native from cannibals and names him Friday after the day in which they met.  The native stays with him and ultimately becomes a highly valuable companion to Crusoe.  If not already, we will soon all need robot Fridays (aka automation) to help process data and information fast enough to support these real-time interactions.  The following list is what digital winners invest in:

1. Optimizing their information logistics systems
2. Implementing effective sense and respond systems (IoT, IIoT, automated data collection systems, sensors, customer experience monitoring etc.)
3. Utilizing automation to gain speed, predictability and quality 
4. Achieving real-time and future time business operational tempos
5. Increasing cultural agility
6. Using contextual relevance to personalize digital user interactions and experiences in real time

The purpose of these investments is to capture the value of data fast enough to gain competitive advantages through fast decision-making and delivering the best possible customer experiences.  Speeds should be maximized in the following 6 areas to accomplish these goals:

1. IT systems
2. Business processes
3. Decision-making
4. Business alignment/transformation
5. Customer alignment
6. Cultural alignment 

Businesses that embrace hyper-digital transformation will optimize their organizational structures and business models to support the operational tempos demanded by customers.  By tempos we mean the speed at which the organization must operate to compete successfully.  Digital consumers demand real-time responses - rightly so.  To support real-time responses requires an enterprise to move beyond “human time” and into the realm of “digital time”.

  
Humans are biological entities that operate at a pace governed by our biology, the sun, moon, and the physical requirements that keep our carbon-based bodies alive.  These requirements and mental limitations make scaling human productivity beyond the limits of the Circadian Rhythm impossible without augmentation.  Augmentation takes the form of a robot Friday - automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning and algorithms.  Robot Fridays have the advantage of being able to work 24x7x365, and don’t as yet ask for holidays and sick days.

Once the business is running in digital time, the challenge becomes business agility.  Agility is the speed at which a business can recognize, analyze, react and profit from rapidly changing market conditions. Businesses that can accurately understand customer demand, and the strategies of their competition, and then respond faster will soon dominate those, which are slower.  The military strategist John Boyd called these competitive advantages, “getting inside of your competitor’s decision and response curves.”  This means your actions and responses are occurring at a pace that surpasses your competitions’ ability to understand and react.

To succeed today leaders must have a business capable of competing.  They must develop a company culture where change is viewed as an opportunity.  They must transform their businesses to operate at real-time tempos and move beyond “human-time” limitations to algorithm and automation supported “digital-time.”  They must understand that rapidly changing consumer behaviors mandate companies operate in a more agile manner capable of rapid responses to new opportunities and competitive threats.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Greater Good - Technology on Purpose

Adam Smith wrote about the concept of rational self-interest, which posits we work together for the greater good when it benefits ourselves.  Is this argument valid in the context of robots, automation and employment? I think so.

I believe most of us would agree that replacing large numbers of humans with machines that result in wide scale unemployment and suffering is not in our rational self-interest. Having massive numbers of jobs terminated by the Terminator does not result in a safer, healthier civilization or vibrant economy; therefore, it is not in our best interest.

Just because something is possible, does not mean it is good. A powerful ruler that takes all the food, property and means of production away from his people resulting in their suffering, quickly becomes a target of community wrath.

Businesses that replace human workers with machines and software, out of self-interest, will over time find it increasingly difficult to sell their products to their unemployed or underemployed consumers. At what point do businesses seek to expand employment opportunities out of a rational self-interest rather than decrease them through automation? Is it a realistic option for profit maximizing businesses to seek the greater good?

In the short-term, factories hope to benefit from automation faster than their competition in order to gain advantages, while there are still sufficient numbers of consumers employed elsewhere to provide a market for their goods. In the mid-term, entire industries will automate and terminate large numbers of jobs, but hope other, slower-to-automate industries will employ their consumer base. In the long-term, however, when digital transformation has swept through all industries, who is left to employ the consumers and provide them living wages, and who is left with capital to buy goods?

As jobs that require little training or education diminish in numbers, we have important choices to make, 1) Increase education levels to equip our population for the digital future, or 2) subsidize the unemployed and underemployed with a sufficient income to survive and maintain their dignity. 3) Fund infrastructure development in areas that employ people and benefit the common good.  If there are still not enough jobs for those that work hard to increase their level of education, then we are reduced to only two choices.

There are plenty of problems left on this planet to be solved. Solving these problems could employ many. Today, however, not all of these problems have economic values assigned to them. Fresh water sources, clean air, forestation, peace, better health, better education, etc., all of these have the potential to generate enormous economic benefits, but they need society to place a value on them and reward innovations and employment in these areas.

A vibrant economy, and a safe and secure society depend on healthy employment numbers, adequate wages, property ownership and rights, hope, peace and purpose. Digital transformation must foster these goals or risks accelerating a break down in our society and economy – two things that can diminish our future.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Speed and a Doctrine for the Future

Throughout my career in the high tech industry I have often heard the business maxim, “First, develop a business strategy and then find the technology to support it.” My experience over the years, however, has led me to believe this maxim is misguided.   Let me explain by asking several questions.

What came first digital commerce or the Internet?  Mobile payments or wireless networks?  Commercial airline travel or the airplane, knights in shiny armour being used as shock troops, or stirrups?  Trivia answer: Stirrups!  Technology has a long history of appearing first, and then strategies are formed later.

What we are learning is if our outdated business strategies are dictating the speed of our technology adoptions, then we are in big trouble! The world is moving much too fast and we must align the tempo of our business strategy evolution with the pace of technology innovations and our customer adoptions of those technologies.  We need to invest in future oriented thinking and the exploration of how new technologies and trends will alter the manner in which we interact with customers and operate our businesses.

"Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the latter than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

Speed and Transformational Leadership

It took Magellan’s crew three years sailing ships to circumnavigate the earth.  Today, at hypersonic speeds of 7,680 MPH, it takes just over three hours to circumnavigate the earth.  Data on the Internet, however, travels at 670 million mph, which means it only takes milliseconds to circumnavigate the earth.  In this age of digital businesses and digital interactions, companies must digitally transform to work effectively in a world where global business and information moves at these mind-blowing speeds.

It's not just IT systems that are impacted by the volume and speed of information.  The creators of business processes that were designed and developed in an analog area, simply never envisioned a business environment that would require these operational tempos.  Analog business processes were designed to have humans involved.  These dependencies were designed to slow down the process to ensure accuracy, compliance and accountability.  Today, however, operating at the slow speeds of an analog, human dependent business process, will doom your company.  Analog business processes must be quickly automated via robotic process automation using artificial intelligence and machine learning to effectively interact with impatient digital customers and B2B partners.

The Role and Future of Information with Futurist Alex Whittington

In this deep dive discussion with the brilliant thinker and futurist Alex Whittington, we explore the topics of data monetization, social media, facts, information/disinformation and the future of data driven economic models.  I hope you enjoy!  

To watch or listen to more of these interviews with insightful futurist, business and technology leaders please remember to follow us or subscribe!

Did you remember to follow or subscribe?

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The University "Campus" of the Future

During this pandemic year many university students were sent home to study online.  How will this pandemic experience change the design of the university campus of tomorrow?  In this episode, I ask this question to four brilliant experts in higher education.

• Renee Altier, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Business Education and Careers at Wiley
• Greg Morrisett, Dean and Vice Provost at Cornell Tech
• Mark Bramwell, CIO at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
• Susan McCahan, Vice Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education and Vice Provost, Academic Programs at University of Toronto

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Creating a Valued University "Experience" both During the Pandemic and Post-Pandemic

In this interview compilation, we take a a deep dive into the post-pandemic university of tomorrow. In Part 2, I ask the question, "How will universities continue to provide a valued “university experience” when increasingly classes are moving online?"  Learn from experts:

• Renee Altier, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Business Education and Careers at Wiley
• Greg Morrisett, Dean and Vice Provost at Cornell Tech
• Mark Bramwell, CIO at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
• Susan McCahan, Vice Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education and Vice Provost, Academic Programs at University of Toronto

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The University of Tommorrow with Expert Susan McCahan, Vice Provost of Innovations for Undergraduate Education and Academic Programs at the University of Toronto

Recently I had the great privilege of interviewing Susan McCahan, the Vice Provost, of Innovations for Undergraduate Education and Academic Programs at the University of Toronto. In our discussion we took a dive deep into the pandemic experience, digital transformation, and what the university of tomorrow may look like. We covered a lot of ground and I hope you will find it enlightening.

Watch more interviews on the future of higher education here.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

University of Tomorrow - and the Role of Technology with Cornell Tech Expert Greg Morrisett

In this series, I interview experts on the future of higher education.  We take a dive deep into the pandemic experience, digital transformation, the future of university campuses and what the university of tomorrow may look like.  In this episode, I interview Greg Morrisett, Dean and Vice Provost at Cornell Tech.  

Watch more interviews on the future of higher education here.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The University of Tomorrow - and the Role of Technology with Expert Mark Bramwell

In this series, I interview experts on what the future of higher education might look like.  We take a dive deep into the pandemic experience, digital transformation and how universities are likely to change as a result.  My guest in this episode is Mark Bramwell, CIO, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.  Mark has recently been voted one of the top CIO's in the UK.   

Watch other interviews with experts in higher education here.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Post-Pandemic University Experiences

Last month I interviewed professors, deans, provosts and futurist on the future of higher education, and the university of tomorrow. All of them believe that the Covid-19 global pandemic will change universities forever.  The move to virtual learning environments has forced universities to adapt and learn new ways of operating.  It has also emphasized how much both students and parents crave an in-person university experience.  Both want a thriving social environment involving regular interactions between students, professors and classmates on a university campus in a park like setting with culture, sporting events, art, music, entertainment, class projects, clubs and student governments.  The pandemic, of course, has caused major interruptions to these experiences in 2020, and students are desperate for there to be a return to normalcy, but as we have all come to realize there is a very new and different normal ahead of us. 

Parents have long carried big expectations when they send their kids off to the university.  They want universities to help them transform their obstinate teenagers into cultured, skilled, self-sufficient, educated and responsible adults.  Students, as one might imagine, have some of the same goals, but prioritize them differently.  They are seeking friendships and transformative educational and social experiences.  It is during these experiences that many lifelong relationships and professional networks are formed.  In addition to classroom experiences, a wealth of valuable knowledge and experiences are gained from being coached, mentored and challenged in classrooms and during extracurricular activities by adults and classmates that don't carry the title of parent.

Reimagining Higher Education with Professor Jack Shannon and Futurist Frank Diana

In this compelling episode we take a deep dive with futurist Frank Diana and Professor Jack Shannon into the future of children, the future of work and the future of higher education.  We then discuss how the pandemic and emerging technologies have impacted all of them and explore what possible future scenarios may look like.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digital Transformation, Caring for Students and Meeting Expectations during a Pandemic at Tuskegee University with Dr. Jack Crumbly

This year has been like no other.  Join me as I interview Professor Jack Crumbly from the historically black Tuskegee University.  In addition to the rapid digital transformation already taking place in higher education, 2020 introduced the Covid-19 pandemic and social unrest.  Learn what it is like to chair a department in this vortex of change while working to provide the best student experience possible.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Rethinking the Future of Higher Education with Futurist Alexandra Whittington

Join me as futurist Alexandra Whittington helps us rethink and expand our perceptions of what the future of higher education might look like.  The notion of a "traditional university experience” may no longer apply to the students of tomorrow who have different requirements, dreams and aspirations.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Higher Education and Pandemic Inspired Digital Transformation with Professor Bill Griffiths

In this episode, Professor Bill Griffiths of St. John’s University, who has over fifty-two years of teaching experience, shares how the pandemic has made the year 2020 different from all others.  We explore the impact of the pandemic on higher education in general, professors, and students.  We discuss the digital transformation journey of universities over the past decade, and how this pandemic experience has accelerated change and may have a long-lasting impact.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.