When it comes to professional communication, you often only need one powerful idea – but it needs to be a good one.

A little while ago, someone asked me how I structure my keynote presentations – how do I decide on the themes I build them around? The truth is, I don’t have a dozen themes. I have one. It’s a single idea that has shaped how I think about business, leadership, and life.

It came to me many years ago in a place far removed from boardrooms or strategy offsites: a refugee camp in northern Uganda.

Many years ago while reporting in Africa, I witnessed an event that made me reassess exactly what it means to have a good life. I’d been visiting a refugee camp in Northern Uganda, which at the time was a hotspot for activity of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) under its leader, Joseph Kony.

As we made our way back to Gulu (the regional centre) that evening, I noticed dozens of people walking into town. The longer we drove, the more the numbers increased, even as the light faded.

These were the “Night Commuters.” Each evening, they faced an impossible choice: stay on their farms and risk abduction or attack or walk for hours into Gulu to sleep in makeshift community shelters, then return home the next morning. Neither option was good. But one offered a better chance of safety.

Neither choice was a ‘good’ choice, but it was easy to see why they chose one over another.

As a journalist, I’d spent much of my career reporting on businesses that struggled – or failed – to adapt. Many didn’t collapse because they made spectacularly bad decisions. They collapsed because they made no decisions at all. They delayed. They hoped. They waited. And as time passed, their choices narrowed. Eventually, they were left with a bleak version dilemma: “Do we end it today, or do we end it tomorrow?”

The key difference, of course, is that the Night Commuters’ situation was imposed on them by circumstance. The businesses, on the other hand, created their own lack of options through inaction.

The choices we make today shape the choices available to us tomorrow. Failing to choose isn’t neutral – it’s a decision with consequences.

Leaders who act early, thoughtfully, and decisively keep more doors open. Those who stall or hesitate often find themselves backed into a corner with only bad options remaining.

The ability to make good decisions isn’t luck. It’s a skill – one built on gathering and synthesising information, weighing risk, and acting before the window narrows. It’s something individuals and organisations can learn. And it’s something they must learn if they want to thrive over time.

Because in business, as in life, the most dangerous place to be is where the only choices left are the ones you never wanted to make.

And this is what I talk about in keynote presentations.

Amidst all the discussion regarding generative AI brought on by the release of ChatGPT and its cousins, another intelligence-based technology may well have an even more profound impact on human life.

Like AI, neurotechnology is a field of research which has existed for many decades, and which has also made some fundamental leaps forward in this decade. Chief among these have been breakthroughs in the use of electronic sensors to detect and decode human thoughts, opening new possibilities for direct control and communication with digital systems, and unleashing a plethora of moral and ethical considerations.

For example, in 2021 researchers demonstrated a system which implanted neurotechnology into a person who was paralysed and non-verbal, and which enabled them to use this brain control interface (BCI) technology to communicate at a rate of 18 words per minute with up to 94 per cent accuracy.

Such technology holds enormous promise through providing new communication options to those who can’t speak, or command and control capabilities to those with limited physical ability, or perhaps one day to give sight to the sightless. This technology can also enable a range of sensations in remote communications, such as bringing a sense of touch or smell to interactions within virtual worlds.

Importantly, these are not possibilities of a distant future – some are being tested today – and as interest and funding grow, so too will the speed of the breakthroughs.

But while the underlying technology promises incredible benefits, it is not hard to imagine less savoury use cases, such as the delivery or novel forms of coercion, or for extracting information and confessions from alleged criminals or political dissidents.

The rapid emergence of neurotechnology and its implications for ethics and the law was the key focus of a world first seminar hosted by Jewelrock in Sydney in December 2022 and supported by the law firm Baker McKenzie. During the session numerous global experts on neurotechnology discussed recent breakthroughs and the implications, highlighting the enormous work required to understand and prepare for the future that neurotechnology will deliver.

A second seminar is now planned, as part of a series that will continue through the year and into 2024.

I was fortunate to be invited to write the official report for the event, which you can find by clicking here.

While the true impact of neurotechnology is hard to fathom, one thing is clear – while artificial intelligence may have the spotlight today, we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to technology’s impact on human intelligence.

There is a common fear that accompanies the emergence of almost every new technology that its introduction will put someone out of a job. While this is undoubtedly true in some instances (modern sewers put the nightsoil collectors out of work, for example), what is also true is that new technologies also create new jobs.

We can see this in Australia today, where the digitalisation of the economy is creating shortages of related skills, especially in fields such as analytics and cyber security. And while even some of these jobs will eventually be automated, it is highly likely the new skills will be required along the way.

The key question then for any individual that wants to have a long and interesting career is to ask what these new jobs will look like, and what skills will be needed to perform them.

I recently had the pleasure of putting this question (and many others) to a panel of experts for the Monash University Tech Talks series. I was joined by the Director of the Centre for Learning Analytics at Monash (COLAM), Professor Dragan Gasevic, along with Digital Architect and Advisor Rita Arrigo, and the Head of Service Delivery at the Silicon Valley-based AI company SKAEL, Ragu Mantatikar.

Together we discussed how are AI and data are being used across different industries, whether AI will really replace jobs, what new jobs are emerging from our world’s obsession with AI and data science, and what skills professionals need to gain to future-proof their careers.

If you want to watch the replay, you can find it by clicking here.

We can’t yet begin to accurately estimate the impact that COVID-19 will have on the Australian economy or our society, nor can we realistically guess at what 2021 will hold. With much of the economy being propped up by stimulus payments, and the threat of the pandemic likely to linger in our consciences for many months yet, there are simply too many variables in play to allow anyone to accurately model the behaviours and outcomes we will see in 2021.

But there is nonetheless plenty we can do to prepare for what lies ahead. The strategies for managing crises are well known, and there are plenty of signals we can examine that will tell us at least what lies on the near term horizon.

This week I had the opportunity to explore some of these themes in a presentation for DXC, as part of its webinar Adapting to customer channel disruption during a crisis. Hosted by the Director of Customer Experience at DXC Oxygen, Marco Formaggio, and with fellow guests including BGW Group Services’ General Manager David Dean and Suntory Frucor’s Fernando Battaglia, we discussed the importance of investing in both people and technology as a means of delivering great experience.

The need to deliver great experiences for customers is unlikely to diminish any time soon, even if our ability to invest comes under pressure through having to tighten spending during the looming post-COVID recession. One possible outcome is that the next six months will provide the impetus many consumers will need to switch brand loyalty to better value options. We are already seeing consumers holding back spending, and more of their purchasing journey now will start and end through digital channels. All of this tells us we need to think differently about customer experience, brand value, and customer journeys. It is also possible that the post-COVID world will lead to the emergence of new customer segments and new behaviours. Managing through 2021 will require a fine balance and some careful planning as to where investment dollars can best be deployed, and that means that having a strong capability to sense the state of the market and the intentions and moods of customers.

The rising preference for great experiences has been a common theme for B2B and B2C organisations alike over the past decade. But providing the best possible experience under normal circumstances just won’t cut it in any more. Great CX is not about what an organisations delivers in the main – it is about what that organisation does to step up when things go wrong. That is where the strongest relationships are formed, and right now, there is a lot that can go wrong.

I was the third presenter in this webinar, and my contribution starts around the 30 minute mark. It contains a snapshot of a much larger body of work I’ve been compiling as I’ve been discussing strategies for 2021 with numerous organisations – something that I’ll be building out over the next few months.

One thing is certain – for all the talk of the ‘new normal’, we are still many months away from reaching what might be classed as a steady state for the Australian economy. The current post-pandemic period is the artificial creation of government stimulus spending, and we have no idea what life will be like once that is wound back totally in 2021.

What we do know is that for most organisations there is plenty of hard work ahead, despite their workforces already being fatigued by the events of the past six months. But by investing in people, building a sensing capability, and giving themselves the best possible opportunity to make the right investment decisions, they will be able to find ways out of this.

Unfortunately from an economic and societal perspective, things will get worse before they get better, but they will get better. Just how well positioned an organisation is for those better times depends greatly on the work it does today.

When it comes to the future of work, the key question that everyone wants the answer to is whether their work has a future.

Automation promises/threatens to make many roles that exist today unnecessary, leading to somewhat scary outcomes for a number of careers.

But perhaps there is a different way to think about the future of work – one that is based more on human preferences and behaviours rather than technical possibilities. And it might just help us find where the new opportunities will be, or at least evolve what we are currently doing into something that is a little more future-proof.

Let me start by first placing some definitions around two important words – ‘want’ and ‘need’.

Let’s say for example that I ‘want’ to go to London. In order to get to London, there are certain things I ‘need’. For starters, I ‘need’ a method of transportation. I also ‘need’ a ticket, a passport, and potentially a bunch of other things – just so I can get what I ‘want’.

Now consider what I would have ‘needed’ to get to London a couple of decades ago. Firstly, I needed a paper ticket. To get one of those, I needed a travel agent.

Thanks to the internet, all I ‘need’ now is few minutes online. The time and effort to get from what I desire to what I want has been compressed by the removal of that step. I still need a passport (for now) and a mode of transportation (at least until someone invents the Star Trek transporter). But any airline that still only accepted paper tickets issued through travel agents would not be long for this earth.

This pattern is repeating itself over and over again. Decades ago, if I ‘wanted’ a book, I ‘needed’ to go to a bookstore. I didn’t want a bookstore though, I wanted a book – cue the demise of many booksellers. If I ‘wanted’ to watch a movie at home, I ‘needed’ to rent or buy it from a store. I no longer need to do that. Cue the demise of the video rental industry. And so on.

That same logic is putting pressure on many other professions. If I ‘wanted’ investment advice I might have ‘needed’ to speak to an investment advisor. Now AI-based robo-advisors can play that role.

What this means for each of us is that even if we are currently essential to helping a person get what they want, there is probably someone, somewhere, working on a solution which will help that person get what they want without us.

And if they can do so at cheaply enough, you’re looking at a limited professional lifespan. Bye bye to the ticket issuing function of travel agents. Bye bye to investment advisors, accountants, lawyers, etc. etc. If we are not providing the actual ‘thing’ that the person wants – – advice, business compliance, legal advice – but simply providing them with something they need to help them get it – we could be in trouble.

That doesn’t of course mean that all bookstores have died. There are instance where I might ‘want’ to go wandering through a bookstore, perhaps simply for the pleasure of it, or for the serendipitous discovery that can take place. I might ‘want’ to talk to a travel agent about where to visit in London, rather than simply turning up. I might also ‘want’ to speak to an investment advisor because I value their specific experience, or feel more comfortable speaking to a person (at least for now).

Also, there are many tasks that are needed that may prove too difficult or expensive to eliminate – at least in the short term. Getting to London quickly without an aircraft is unlikely to happen in my lifetime, for instance. Unless perhaps I am happy to ‘go there’ in a virtual reality experience without even leaving my home …

To stay relevant in the future of work, you need to really think about whether you are giving your customers what they want, or just what they need. If you are in fact a ‘necessary evil’ when it comes to why your customers are spending money with you, there is a good chance you won’t be necessary forever.

But if you can give a customer something they really want, they might keep you around a little longer.

Last week I had the pleasure of addressing local startup Airtasker’s first annual Community Summit in Sydney. I’ve been following Airtasker and its founder Tim Fung’s progress almost since the beginning, and it was great to hear how he and his crew slugged it out to get to where they are now. It was also great to chat to a number of the people for whom Airtasking has become a signficant (and in some cases, sole) source of income.

In my speech I talked about my own journey from fulltime employment to freelancing – a lifestyle I have been embracing now for close to 13 years. What I love about the way I work now is the flesibilty to work across multiple projects simultaneously and assert some direction over my life – much more so than I ever felt I could in fulltime employment. Its something that many Airtaskers – or freelancers generally – struggle with, especially when freelancing is dismissed as a euphemism for being unemployed.

Hence my speech touched on the need for Airtaskers (and all people really) to plan out their lives and where they want to get to – and start thinking about the steps they will take to get from where they are now to where they want to be. I also spoke of the need to think of themselves as entrepreneurs – even if they are only ever going to manage a company of one employee – and learn some of the lessons of the startup community in terms of running a successful business.

One of my key lessons was the need to envision the future, and stay ahead of the disruptive changes the are eating away at the fringes of many professions – retailing, accounting, law – and of course, journalism. Often it takes a major event – such as a zombie apocalypse or the collpase of revenue from display advertising sales – to motivate us to change our skillsets and head in new directions.

But as anyone who has ever seen a zombie film knows, waiting for the apocalypse offers you little chance to avoid it.

As a researcher, speaker and writer I spend a lot of time considering the future and the changes that might impact our lives. It is a fascinating pastime, and something I encourage all people to think about in my presentations on managing for change.

But there is one problem that emerges when you talk tabout the future. It’s a little like talking about a foreign country – a fascinating place perhaps, but one where people have no relatives or business ties. It might be interesting to them, and possibly somewhere they might like to visit someday, but it is not a topic that is relevant to the problems they face on a day-to-day basis.

With luck they will have learned something new and interesting, but how can they use that information? How will it help them when it comes to dealing with the problems they face today?

Thankfully, there are ways to harness the future to help in the present, although it took a science fiction author’s words to make me realise it.

The American writer William Gibson was the first to coin the term cyberspace, but he also once uttered one of the most powerful quotes I’ve heard when it comes to understanding the state of the world today: “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed”.

Put plainly, there is so much already happening in the world that we are not aware of, because it is not visible within our immediate experience. While it is vital that we think about the possibilities that the future might hold, it is equally vital that we ensure we are taking advantage of all the tools and processes that are actually already here.

In my presentations to community and industry groups I strive to ensure that each audience member takes away at least one concept or idea they can put into practice that very day. Whether it is using the plethora of web-based tools that can help us run businesses more efficiently, or tapping into the online global labour market for skills and services, or any of the thousands of ways new technologies and processes can pull cost out of our businesses and extend our reach … there are simply so many options available to us that can impact our lives today, long before we need to embrace any of the amazing ideas that the future holds.

And the beauty of many of these tools and processes is that the dividend they yield is the one commodity that most business owners find so precious – time. Many of these tools are free to try, and designed to be used with the minimum of training. And if they can shave an hour or two from the working week – particularly in administrative tasks that add no value to the business – they easily pay for themselves.

The future might be dazzling and bright, but you don’t need to wait for the trends of the future to create a positive impact for you and your business today.

For more information check out my profile page at Saxton Speakers Bureau.

Last year I signed up to be a Champion for the Infoxchange National Year of Digital Inclusion initiative, which seeks to raise awareness of the one-in-five Australian adults who are not yet online. As such I’ve been seeking out opportunities to discuss this issue, and seek out solutions.

Yesterday’s Communities accessing Technology Forum in Geelong was a great opportunity to so exactly that, as it bought together representatives from across local government and community services along with other interested parties to learn about and discuss digital inclusion. As the MC I was also asked to give a brief opening address, and I’ve pasted in the text below.

Communities accessing Technology Digital Inclusion Forum

The Importance of Digital Inclusion

I’ve been lucky to spend the last two decades studying the impact of technology on business, society and individuals. I’ve seen the pitfalls and the benefits, and I’d have to say the benefits easily outweigh the negatives.

To write about technology is to live somewhat in the future. But to quote the science fiction author William Gibson, the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.

I’d like to alter Gibson’s words today in the context of digital inclusion, to say that while the benefits of digital technology are here, those benefits are not evenly distributed.

We’ve long spoken of the concept of a digital divide, where society is classed into two classes of haves and have-nots – the information rich and information poor.

I’d also like to re-categorise that divide along the lines of the ‘access rich’ and the ‘access poor’, as being a participant in the digital age is about more than information. It is about access to services, on a 24/7 basis.

The divide can also be categorised from the perspective of skills. Without the skills necessary to act in a digital world, then the benefits of digital will also remain out of reach.

Today around one in five Australians do not have access to the benefits of digital services – that’s an estimated 1.1 million adults who have never accessed the internet. Throughout Australia there are pockets of society that the digital revolution has not yet touched – especially the age bracket of 65 and over, with 32 per cent not going online. For other groups the barriers are in terms of affordability, or access to infrastructure based on geography.

You’ll hear more stories later today on why this situation emerges, and about the factors that are creating these new classes of the access rich and the access poor. You’ll also be hearing success stories from those who are finding ways to tear down these barriers, and of programs that are designed to build on these successes to build a more digitally-inclusive society?

I’ve devoted a good part of the last few years exploring these issues, as a Champion for the Infoxchange National Year of Digital Inclusion initiative, and as an Ambassador for the Broadband for the Bush Alliance Forum. I’ve appreciated hearing stories firsthand from those who are living on the network’s fringe, such as how their kids’ education suffers when it rains, as the satellite signal can’t get through the rainclouds.

I spent last week in central west Queensland running a digital strategy workshop for the Queensland Government’s Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation, working with small business owners to help them plot their own path forward.

The lesson that emerged for me was the importance of having skills resident in the local community. It struck me that the best solutions to the issues of digital inequality in society are those that are community led.

So I want to emphasise the importance of having community leaders who participate as role models, espousing their beliefs, and also enacting them. For a community to move forward it must be able to see the role models that are leading it forward, otherwise the concepts can be rejected.

But why is this important? Its my view that access to the digital world is becoming one of the key determinants of success in modern life, alongside other basic but essential services such as healthcare and education.

To live in this world without access to digital services is to live a life that is drifting farther and farther from mainstream society. The digital world provides access to a raft of services that are otherwise unattainable, in education, employment opportunities, and the the social fabric of society.

That list is constantly expanding, as more and more services migrate online. The current push by governments to a ‘digital first’ stance will only serve to highlight the disadvantages of not being online.

These changes on the whole will benefit society, but will these benefits be available to the whole of society?

Ultimately, that’s up to us.