Bulletins via News from the Future: Gamers Win?

Office-verses and Gamers are here. 

From:  IFTF News from the Future  

IFTF Distinguished Fellow Bob Johansen, Joseph Press, and Christine Bullen co-authored:  "Gamers Will Have An Edge In The Officeverse,"     for Chief Executive (2/6/23).

Book: Full Spectrum Thinking

Good thoughts by current and longtime colleague.    

CURRENT BOOK: Full-Spectrum Thinking: How to Escape Boxes in a Post-Categorical Future

Full-Spectrum Thinking:  How to Escape Boxes in a Post-Categorical Future    By Bob Johansen

Download Sample Chapter

Leading futurist Bob Johansen shows how a new way of thinking, enhanced by new technologies, will help leaders break free of limiting labels and see new gradients of possibility in a chaotic world.

The future will get even more perplexing over the next decade, and we are not ready. The dilemma is that we're restricted by rigid categorical thinking that freezes people and organizations in neatly defined boxes that often are inaccurate or obsolete. Categories lead us toward certainty but away from clarity, and categorical thinking moves us away from understanding the bigger picture. Sticking with this old way of thinking and seeing isn't just foolish, it's dangerous.  .... '

Innovation Ecosystem

Brought to my attention, the Innovation Ecosystem.

What is the Innovation Ecosystem

We believe passionately in the power of ecosystems to achieve outcomes not possible in isolation. So we created the Innovation Ecosystem to help organizations and leaders improve their innovation results.

How we do this: 
We deconstruct world-class performance of remarkable and thought-provoking people on the topics of innovation, leadership and change in the worlds of business, academia and sports. We then bring ecosystem members carefully curated strategies, insights and practical tools they can use straight away.

Through the Ecosystem we aim to bring together innovators and leaders from established organizations to equip them with the skills and experiences necessary to become more innovative and so better able to respond to the myriad challenges their businesses face. .... " 

Bob Johansen Books

I was reminded that Bob Johansen, former colleague, also at the Institute for the Future (IFTF) and frequent consultant to us, writes at Berrett Koehler Publishers, is in the process of writing a new book.  " ... I’m writing a new book that starts off where my 2009 book, Leaders Make the Future left off. ... " .  Looking forward to it.   More on his books, some of which I have reported on here, at his BK Site. 

Center for Creative Leadership

CCL:  Achieve What Matters Most
Leadership development is ALL we do. For more than four decades we have leveraged the power of leadership to transform individuals, teams, entire organizations and societies to achieve what matters most to them — with results that are powerful, measurable, and enduring.

Our innovative solutions are steeped in extensive research and experience gained from working with tens of thousands of organizations and more than a million leaders at all levels — across six continents and more than 130 countries. We draw from a world of experience across cultures, industries and disciplines, helping you with your real world challenges, and measuring the impact of our work.

Financial Times
Ranked among the world's Top 10 providers of executive education by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Financial Times, you can be confident we will deliver the results that matter most to you. .... 

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has named IFTF Distinguished Fellow Bob Johansen as their H. Smith Richardson Jr. Visiting Fellow for 2016. This prestigious fellowship is a great honor for Bob, who teamed with CCL on the second edition of his groundbreaking book Leaders Make the Future: 10 New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World. CCL President and CEO John R. Ryan wrote the foreword for the book, which includes a CCL self-assessment and other original content.

Big Data Blurring Industry Lines

In Forbes,   Morphing of analyses and businesses. Expect more of this.   And the partnership aspects, note the book Reciprocity Advantage , by colleagues Bob Johansen and Karl Ronn  previously mentioned, on this topic

" .. By way of example, let’s examine a well-known company being driven into multiple new industries through analytics. If you asked 100 people randomly on the street what Nike does, you’d probably get 98-percent or more telling you the company makes sneakers or sportswear. That’s true enough, but Nike has also become a pioneer in smart, wearable technologies, from its Nike+ running app in 2006, to the 2012 release of its FuelBand fitness tracker and its potential wearable tech-focused partnership with Apple. Products like the FuelBand contain sensors that automatically measure things like your sleep patterns and the number of steps you take each day.  I’m among the 3.3 million Americans who use FuelBand, or other devices like it. And, while Nike has plans to discontinue that particular physical product, wearable technology is helping Nike’s business model morph in new ways.  ... "

The Reciprocity Advantage

Reading The Reciprocity Advantage: A New Way to Partner for Innovation and Growth.  by Bob Johansen and Karl Ronn.  Nicely done with real life enterprise examples, including IBM, TED, Microsoft, Google Apple Store and more.

I like in particular an outline about how each company partnered and what the partnership exchanged.  Also what assets where involved.   Then  the scaling advantage involved.  I also like the emphasis on experimentation being done to figure out what the real value is and how it will be developed.   Included in that is how 'gameful engagement' can be used to figure out how the partnership will work.   The latter parts of the book provide direct  'How to' steps.  Well done.

" ... Bob Johansen, best-selling author and Distinguished Fellow at IFTF, has partnered with innovation expert Karl Ronn to uncover what they believe will be the biggest innovation opportunity in history in their forthcoming book, The Reciprocity Advantage. Through illustrative examples from leading organizations and an eye to the future, Johansen and Ronn present a four-part model that shows how organizations can give away assets to form partnerships, leading to collaborative experimentation and scalable new business opportunities.  ... 

" ... Johansen and Ronn explain that reciprocity, an old concept, will be reimagined within a future context of connective technologies, generational shifts, and new organizational models to provide a distinct competitive advantage. To win in this world, businesses will need to  (1) uncover their right-of-way, the underutilized resources they already own that they can share with others; (2) find partners who can help them do what they cannot do alone; (3) experiment to learn through cloud-based systems; and (4) scale the results, but only when the business’ reciprocity advantage is desirable, viable, and ownable. If it’s not scalable, it’s not worth doing—and the authors describe technologies that make scaling up faster than ever. .... " 

More and ordering information.   Video.   @Reciprocityadv

Reciprocity Advantage: Innovation and Organization

New book by my two former colleagues: The Reciprocity Advantage.

" ... Bob Johansen, best-selling author and Distinguished Fellow at IFTF, has partnered with innovation expert Karl Ronn to uncover what they believe will be the biggest innovation opportunity in history in their forthcoming book, The Reciprocity Advantage. Through illustrative examples from leading organizations and an eye to the future, Johansen and Ronn present a four-part model that shows how organizations can give away assets to form partnerships, leading to collaborative experimentation and scalable new business opportunities.  ... 

" ... Johansen and Ronn explain that reciprocity, an old concept, will be reimagined within a future context of connective technologies, generational shifts, and new organizational models to provide a distinct competitive advantage. To win in this world, businesses will need to  (1) uncover their right-of-way, the underutilized resources they already own that they can share with others; (2) find partners who can help them do what they cannot do alone; (3) experiment to learn through cloud-based systems; and (4) scale the results, but only when the business’ reciprocity advantage is desirable, viable, and ownable. If it’s not scalable, it’s not worth doing—and the authors describe technologies that make scaling up faster than ever. .... " 

More and pre-order information.   Video.   I plan to read and comment here later.

Leaders Make the Future

Bob Johansen
IFTF Distinguished Fellow
Institute for the Future
124 University Avenue, 2nd Floor
Palo Alto, CA 94301

Author of Leaders Make the Future, Second Edition  Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World.

At Procter & Gamble we worked with Institute for the Future starting shortly after its founding.  They often came in to give talks to our executives, and we used their training and brainstorming methods to understand new ideas.  They were also instrumental in introducing to key Silicon Valley companies and entrepreneurs.  Bob Johansen was their CEO during many of the years we used them.  A great experience.   I just reconnected with him, and I note the second edition of his book.. More information and pointers to it above.  I will follow with more on his book.

IFTF at 40

The Institute for the Future, which I have worked with since the early 80s, celebrates its 40th anniversary. It has revamped its web site, and relocated its blog. They have a novel way of understanding change. For more about their approaches I suggest Bob Johansen's book: Get There Early, which I previously reviewed.

Get There Early

We have worked with Bob Johansen of the Institute for the Future since 1978. They have helped us in many ways, including early involvement in the concept development of our innovation centers. Bob has now written a new book: Get There Early : Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present. I received an early copy and just finished it. P&G's Bob McDonald is one of the jacket commenters.

The book is a companion piece to IFTF's ten year forecast, 2006-2016. That map is included in the book jacket. I have participated in some of the sessions that led to this map. The book contains quite a few P&G examples, most fairly well known An early one is their recommendation that P&G do a reverse mentorship in the Biotech area. I am unfamiliar with the actual results that derived from that example. I was involved with other innovation oriented work, and their input there was very useful.

The book's title idea is the same one that has driven IFTF since the 70s. You know you can't predict, so you need to forecast, so you can get get there early by sensing the future. It has similarities to scenario analysis. The book outlines IFTF's techniques, which originated with the 'Delphi Technique' at the Rand corporation. And developed and expanded more recently their involvement with VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. They apologetically trace this approach to its US military origins. The other technique highlighted is what they call their Foresight-Insight-Action cycle, a theme throughout the book.

The difference between problems and dilemmas is nicely put. It emphasises an understanding of what can be done about challenges in business. Towards the end of the book Johansen talks about after action reviews (AAR) which emphasizes learning from failures. That research is often about 'failing in interesting ways'. Something we do not do very well. As someone with engineering origins, I have always been problem rather than dilemma oriented. The book makes the case that in a VUCA world that cannot often be done. I think that is overemphasized in the book. There are problems that can be solved analytically. If we don't even try, we won't solve them. Note the relationship to other topics in vogue today .... design vs engineering and complexity vs optimization.

His view of Powerpoints is intriguing, suggesting that they be used non-linearly, the way a person uses cuts in an iPod. I like the idea, as long as the elements are true when they stand by themselves. Lots of interesting examples in this book gathered over their years of consulting.

In the middle of the book there is a large section on 'immersion', which is a broad term they use for all kinds of simulation. Nicely done in its breadth, but not in its depth. That being my own world, I would have hoped they would provide more examples of digital simulation, and some examples of how to get started. Simulation also quickly gets into the realm of the difference between forecasting and prediction. It's hard to separate the difference for non engineering management. Yet learning in simulation environments is often be more about the journey than arriving at a precise solution.

I found this book to be a fun and easy read, but I have been involved with portions of this process for years, and have an established interest. Others may find this like many business books, with no direct answers, and thus too squishy to add to the reading list. It is worth a read, and the map is worth trying to understand, the footnotes have some excellent links that remind me of related work we have followed.

Best Quote:" ... Great Managers help eccentric people produce" . Peter Drucker to Bob Johansen and A.G. Lafley ... A challenge?