The Future of Climate Risk with Expert Stephen Bennett

Each of us are experiencing the effects of extreme weather, so I reached out to Stephen Bennett, the Chief Climate Officer and Co-Founder of The Demex Group to learn how businesses and markets should strategically think about and adapt to them. A fascinating interview!

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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***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.

An Optimistic Futurist

At any given moment, there are events within our control and out of our control.  There are areas we can influence, and areas we cannot.  As an optimistic futurist, I read and analyze the positive with the negative, and then I seek opportunities to influence a positive outcome. 

The global COVID-19 pandemic is a timely point of reference.  I read all the distressing news and projections like everyone else, and then look for opportunities to both mitigate the risk and to achieve the best possible outcomes.  

Imagine if you would sitting in a canoe full of your dearest family members.  The canoe is drifting quickly toward a dangerous waterfall.  Our choices are to focus on all the possible negative future scenarios of going over the waterfall, or focusing on influencing a positive outcome.  What will it be?

We need the clarity and wisdom of recognizing all the possible negative scenarios and consequences, but once we have that recognition, we should focus on shaping the outcome to something purposely positive.  Wouldn’t you agree?  Some might say futurist are better off being objective spectators, but I want a futurist to throw me a rope.

Doomsday futurist are often secretly hopeful they’ve got it right.  They sit back and wait for the canoe to go over the waterfall...as they predicted.  Optimistic futurist, identify, reverse engineer and rehearse both positive and negative possible future scenarios to learn what needs to be done today to purposefully influence our path to achieve the best possible outcome.

Future

My Futurist boss here at TCS, Frank Diana, always says, “It is impossible to predict the future - anyone who tries is on a fool's errand.”  There are simply too many building blocks of the future including, science, technology, societal, geopolitical and economic converging together, plus catalysts of change (think pandemic), mixed into this giant pot of stew we call the future.  Exactly what comes out can be guessed at, but not predicted.  At best we can identify a range of possible and plausible future scenarios to consider and rehearse. 

Given that we can’t predict the future - let’s identify the future we want and do everything possible and purposeful to achieve it.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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***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 Future of Safety

In this interview with Autoliv's expert, Christoffer Malm, we take a deep dive into the Future of Safety.  We explore the role of digital services and how they have created a revolution in safety, not just inside vehicles, but for all vulnerable road users.  

The complexity of our journeys is increasing.  We might take an e-bike to a train station, then take a train into the city, then we take an e-scooter into work.  On the way back we might take an Uber to the train station, or ride an electric unicycle or skateboard.  All of these modes of transportation need traditional and physical safety systems and digital safety systems protecting us.   

Join us as we dive into the future of safety.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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***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.

A Plausible Future for Higher Education with Expert Dr. Paul J. Bailo

In this episode, I explore the future of higher education with expert and Adjunct Professor Dr. Paul J. Bailo.  I present him with 16 different future scenarios and ask if they are possible, plausible, impossible or implausible.  Join us for some deep thinking, insight, laughter, and a look into the future.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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***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.

A Review of TCS's 2021 Global Financial Leadership Report with Expert Paul J. Bailo

In this episode, we take a deep dive into TCS's newly released 2021 Financial Leadership Study and discuss its implications with financial expert and professor Dr. Paul Bailo.

The full report is available to read here.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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***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 Future is Where Everything Happens!

A rip current is a strong flow of water that pulls floating objects out to sea before dissipating in deeper water.  Swimmers who are caught in a rip current often panic and exhaust themselves by trying to swim directly against the flow of water, rather than with it.  The future is not unlike a rip current.  If you fight against the future you will exhaust yourself and ultimately fail.  

Change is uncomfortable, and time brings change.  Many people have a deep resentment against time and all the changes it brings.  These people often look at the future with dread.  All they can see coming is a rising tsunami of change and discomfort - physical, mental and emotional.  They point to today's problems as examples of what yesterday's future brought, and they don't want any more of it.  Often, people don't realize that the seeds of the changes we see today were planted long ago.  It is the past that brought us to today - for good and for bad.

It is the season of planning.  We are all busy looking ahead and planning for 2022.  The reason I get so excited about the future is we can influence it for good.  We can improve upon the past.  It's our opportunity for a next version - a version 2.0.  We can't change the past, but the future is our's.  What is our life's purpose anyhow, if it is not to build a better tomorrow?

Innovating, inventing, planning, creating, designing, developing, growing, starting, birthing and building are all future oriented terms.  They point to what is to come.  The future is a new place.  Let's bring forward from the past all that is good and improve on the bad.  Let's all work together for good so the future can be our gift to generations to come.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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***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.

Leadership Advice from a Futurist - A Reading

Leadership is hard.  So for all the leaders and want-to-be leaders out there, here is some advice that I hope you will find useful.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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***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.

Intelligent Customer Experiences With Verint CMO, Celia Fleischaker

In this episode of FOBtv we explore the evolution of marketing and customer experiences and dig deep into the concept of intelligent customer experiences with Verint's CMO Celia Fleischaker.  We explore the role of AI, NLP, chatbots, ML, and the other technologies involved and how these all contribute to a better customer experience.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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***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 Next Big Think Podcast: Is Data the New Gold?

My guest today is Susan Cook, CEO of Zaloni.  In this podcast, we explore the massive growth of data and the impact it will have on all of our lives.  We then take a deep dive into the complications involved in managing and securing these giant quantities of data.  

Susan Cook has nearly 30 years of leadership experience in enterprise software sales, strategy, consulting, and with a specialization in Data, Analytics, and Business Intelligence across technology giants like HP and Oracle.  As a data management expert, she believes information can grow in value only if protected and managed well. What does data need in order for it to be preserved well?  Listen to us discuss data as the new gold in this episode of The Next Big Think!

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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***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 Next Big Think Podcast: Why Industry 4.0 is About Industrial Automation

Our guest in today's podcast is Daniel Raj David.  He figured out as a student engineer in university that asset monitoring and maintenance, especially in legacy-led industries like oil and gas, was complicated. So, he and a bunch of friends devised a plan to make it simpler.

Daniel Raj David is the co-founder and CEO of startup Detect Technologies, a company that is part of TCS' COIN™ Accelerator program. Detect Technologies focuses on industrial AI and SaaS, and is reimagining global industrial productivity. In this episode of The Next Big Think!, we delve into Industry 4.0. Daniel demystifies legacy transformation in industries like oil and energy, construction, and manufacturing. The conversation also explores how technology’s primary role is to digitize, de-risk, and automate business. Listen in to know more about how AI, IoT, drones, and ML are freeing up human capital to think, ideate, and design, and why ‘the next big think’ is industrial automation.

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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.