Stand Up for Your Future Keynote by Steve Sammartino Summary notes prepared by Kate Hall
Summary We need to embrace uncertainty and become accustomed to a state of flux. The best way to prepare is to form daily habits that are change-centric. We need to deliberately do things differently, so it becomes second nature. This is less about technology and more about us as people. We all had to do this as a part of the COVID pandemic. Now it’s important that we don’t fall back into the habits of yesterday as work normalises. Hack your own mind to improve at changing gears by using different approaches to work and life. Treat different situations differently – adapt your style and messages in different forums. It forces an internal shift and helps you cope better with changes that are outside of your control.
Key Take Aways: 1. If you can change, everything can change in your favour - Moving between gears doesn’t mean we throw out the skills we have. Instead, we should change how they are used and interpreted in our market segments. The more gears we regularly employ, the more future-proof we become, ready to respond to anything the market throws at us. 2. Technology on its own is never enough! It has its limitations and will always need the human interpretation to achieve the best results. Every day we already see humans augment their senses (smart phones, smart glasses, wearables, watches and earpods) all enhancing our cognitive ability. Simultaneously technology is being developed to create ‘fake bodies’ we can wear in the form of exoskeletons so we’ll be able to run faster, be stronger, work harder, move for longer periods or play totally different and weird sports we can’t even imagine yet. The trend isn’t us versus the robots – it’s us evolving into them. 3. Emojis are the world’s most used language. Why? Because we all understand them. Connection and knowledge are the drivers. We are currently in the middle of the transition to a global language, the written version at least. Something seemingly childish is about to entirely transform the written word: emojis. Now that the technology exists where the click of a single button can be translated into an entire sentence or deep emotion, our species has taken to the form with abandon. Is this part of your communication and language as a business? 4. Take something dumb and make it smart. This has already been done with smart phones, fridges, washing machines, etc. Ask yourself– how do I make things smart? Add ‘smartness’ to your company goals and planning. 5. Products that you put in the market reflect who you are as a business. It’s your DNA. Decide what you stand for and DO THAT – The products and services you put in your business represent the DNA of your company. Know what business you are in. Know what problem you solve.
6. Concept of two-way traffic: atoms to bits and real to digital and in reverse. The Yellow Pages morphed into Google. CDs transformed into MP3s. As newspapers became websites and apps, their financial assets became eBay, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, REA and Carsales. The entire video store evaporated as streaming put every movie ever made on our TV, available to watch on demand. The process of turning the physical into digital has largely already been done and won, at least from an investor’s perspective. Now this process is about to go into reverse. The best example is the 3D printer. Once we start truly manufacturing in a digital manner, we won’t need to change production lines — just lines of code. 7. Digital twins – Imagine trying to repair a car that’s in Sydney – when you’re in Melbourne. This is the problem NASA faced 50 years ago with Apollo 13. They fixed it way back then with ‘Mirror Systems’ of the craft they had on earth. In doing so, they unwittingly gave birth to The Digital Twin. We can expect every industry over the next decade to start building out the digital twins of everything they own, make, sell, do and manage. Every company worth its salt needs to be developing a digital twin – and those who get really good at it can end up potentially controlling a platform and maybe even being a supplier to their competitors. 8. Consumers do not want too much choice; society is overwhelmed by the choices they must make every day. People want confidence instead. For example, Netflix – it can take as much time to choose a show on Netflix as it does to watch it! And the solution….“Play Something”. Is there something in your practice that is overwhelming for patients that you could remove the need to choose? 9. We exist in a Dichotomy Economy so it’s important to decide what you stand for. Don’t choose the middle ground. Which one are you: Amazon Go or Apple? Costco or Tiffany? Amazon Go is a ZERO HUMAN store vs Apple stores that have more staff in-store than any other company in the world. Both successful operations, but there is no middle ground. Choose one or the other. 10. Storytelling - What story do you tell yourself? The story of your capability, where you are going, and why you belong there? Customers believe what you believe. The market looks to your story – the one you tell yourself first. By inference, this will be the same story you are telling them, and often they put a value on that story. Stories are what humanity buys into, simply because anything physical in nature starts as an idea or blueprint first. The story is always more profitable than the truth. Example: The market value of Tesla is greater than the combined market value of the ten next biggest car companies. While Tesla had an early lead in EVs and autonomous vehicles, it’s now clear they have very little, if any, advantage. This is the financial value of story. Tesla is the world’s first trillion-dollar story. If you had the choice to own either Tesla or Toyota, which one would you choose? Toyota outsells and has more experience than Tesla, they produce over 10m cars annually compared to 1.5m Tesla vehicles. Yet the Tesla story is worth more because people believe in it.
11. The business we are in is the problem that we solve. Innovation will never end. Just when we thought the wetsuit solved all the problems it could (cold water / sunburn, wax rash) a human need takes it to the next level. Now it’s vision, so what are the problems we solve? Is it information, knowledge…
*The World in 2030 in Steve’s eyes https://stevesammartino.com/2019/04/11/your-world-in-2030/