Now showing items tagged Futurist

In the early 50s, a doomsday cult called the Oak Park Study Group thought the world was ending. Members of this particular cult had predicted that a massive flood would occur on December 21st of that year and destroy all life on Earth. Oak Park Study Group members were taught that on the eve of the cataclysm, an alien being from the planet Clarion would come to rescue the true believers from the fate that awaited humankind the next day.

At the time, Stanford University social psychologist Leon Festinger became intrigued by this group’s rise to prominence. Having infiltrated the group with a group of colleagues under the guise of being true believers, Festinger uncovered some fascinating psychological findings about the nature of cognitive dissonance.

Oxford Dictionary have announced their word of the year, and you will be forgiven if you have no idea what it means, if you have even heard it at all. The word of 2023 is, ‘Rizz.’

If you haven’t heard of it, ‘rizz’ is a slang word derived from ‘charisma’, defined by The Oxford Dictionary as, "Pertaining to someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm, or attractiveness."

“Rizz” is one word among many proliferated primarily through Gen Z’s social media presence – Gen Z being the 2 billion people born between 1995 and 2009.[1] Other key words in the lexicon include, “slay”, “sus”, “drip”, “simp”, “stan” and “cap”, all commonly used among Gen Zs but completely opaque to the untrained ears of older generations.

Following the recent Senate enquiry, now ex-CEO of Optus Kelly Bayer Rosmarin resigned with a name now tied to two of the biggest tele-communications crises of the last few years – last year’s data breach and last fortnight’s network outage.

While crises will inevitably occur, they do not need to come at the cost of credibility. However, so many leaders and companies fail to exhibit the qualities that the public expects during a crisis, and because of this they forfeit the trust that undeniably equates to currency in today’s sceptical marketplace. This most recent network outage crisis offers leaders and organisations some lessons on precisely this front.

Creatives are at a crossroads.

A few months ago, a letter signed by over eight-thousand authors made the news as it asked the leaders of companies like Microsoft and Meta not to train their AI systems on the authors’ work without consent or compensation. Published by the Author’s Guild and signed by names like Margaret Atwood and James Patterson, the letter made the case that real authors have worked to produce the intellectual property which is being used to feed the AI, and should be appropriately compensated.[1]

Technology often advances faster than the infrastructure and regulations needed to support it. As AI tools have proliferated exponentially over the past year, the legal issues of intellectual property, copyright and plagiarism have only become more complex. As big companies are profiting of the creative work of people who have spent decades committed to their craft, the ethical injustices are clear.

Can you explain the difference between ‘used cars’ and ‘pre-owned vehicles’? What about ‘wire tapping’ and ‘electronic intercepts’? Or ‘impotence’ and ‘erectile dysfunction’?[1]

The difference? Semantics!

We all like to believe we put our mind over matter. Overall, we are rational agents with free will who have control over our bodies, impulses and sensations. However, more and more studies are emerging that prove this belief to be far from the truth.

Researchers across disciplines and cultures are showing that our bodies are far more involved in our thinking than we like to believe. Our cognitive processes are embedded in a system that involves various parts of the rest of our body, from our heart to our gut.

Earlier this year, a cereal brand faked a whole set of endorsements and got away with it. The reason? They explicitly stated so, right beneath the pretend endorsement. UK cereal brand Surreal’s campaign featured a whole series of ads which all read along the lines of:

“Serena Williams* eats our cereal.

*She is a student from London and we paid her to eat it but the point still stands.”

Each statement came with an asterisk, leading the eye to the ‘fine print’ beneath the endorsement which acknowledged that it wasn’t actually the celebrity who gave the endorsement, but a random individual with the same name that they had paid for the glowing report. [1] The campaign went viral across social media, with the public appreciating the ironic humour and sarcastic self-deprecation.

American author, speaker and pastor John Maxwell practices what he preaches when it comes to leadership. Over the years, he has been a strong proponent of the critical importance of credibility for individuals and organizations.

“Credibility is a leader’s currency…” he suggests, “With it, he or she is solvent; without it, he or she is bankrupt.”

In my work with leaders across a range of industries, I have found that there are three characteristics that typically add up to make a credible leader or organisation. 

Since the advent of ChatGPT last year, few things have dominated the public discussion in the tech and business world more than generative AI and chatting with robots. This comes as no surprise considering how genuinely revolutionary the technology is and radically fast the uptake has been within the public.

Comparing ChatGPT’s success to other major companies gives some indication of how monumental it has been. Within 5 days it had reached 5 million users – for Netflix, acquiring this customer base took 3.5 years.

However, ChatGPT is not even the tip of the iceberg when compared what else is out there and what else there is to come. There are over 11,000 AI apps built on language models like ChatGPT, which successfully achieve tasks all the way from planning logistics to creating artworks.

But beyond ChatGPT, AI is already serving us across many arenas of life, all the way from serving as a round-the-clock doctor to keeping online customers happy customers.

Columbia University economics professor Joseph Stiglitz once said, “It is trust, more than money, that makes the world go around.”[1] While this has, perhaps, always been true, it will truer than ever in the coming decade.

Whether in our personal relationships or our interactions with big brands and institutions, trust is the foundation of loyalty, engagement and affinity - and this foundation has taken a pounding in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this environment, building trust is more difficult than ever – but it’s also more important. According to the recent Trends in Customer Trust report released by Salesforce Research, 95% of customers are more likely to be loyal to a company they trust while 92% are more likely to purchase additional products and services from trusted businesses.[2]