The forces of disruption are shifting fast. Most leaders are very aware that this brings new opportunities as well as risks. The problem is that we live in a sea of noise and separating the signal from the noise is a huge challenge… we get it… we do this for a living.
Using our FORCEcasting framework, we’ve helped hundreds of leadership teams to help figure out how to harness the forces of disruption to their advantage. In the process, we’re constantly exposed to fresh thinking about new or shifting forces, so our thinking is constantly evolving.
EXECUTIVE BRIEFINGS
We don’t want to add to the noise by posting even more links (you’ve already got more than enough of that from other peoples blogs). Instead, we go deep on specific forces, distill the learnings down to ‘first principles’ and capture that in a formal executive briefing (with a clear & actionable so what).
Part of our motivation is to hone our thinking, but it’s also about sharing openly and learning along the way, so we welcome comments (including push-back:). If you like what you see, we hope you’ll follow us and join in regularly.
WANT TO LEARN MORE?… lets talk
BRIEFINGS
Strategic Storytelling
Our main focus these days is helping leaders adjust their vision & strategy to thrive in the coming generativeAI era. This makes sense, because genAI is so profoundly disruptive that rethinking the vision and strategy has become mission critical for almost every business. But here’s the thing… as soon as you do figure it out, the need to tell a compelling story becomes more important than ever (because helping people see what you see is step-one in aligning your organization, your partners and your investors with the new direction).
Fortunately, strategic storytelling is a core competency for us* and our simple, proven approach is remarkably effective. Normally we are hired to work directly with the leadership team to help craft and produce a compelling story (and we still do that) but not everyone can afford the time and cost, so we decided to share the framework so anyone can use it.
Why are we doing this? … because:
a) its our mission to help entrepreneurs and change makers any way we can
b) the need for strategic storytelling is about to skyrocket as leaders recalibrate their vision & strategy to thrive in the generative AI era (we’re going to release some things to try and help with that too)
*we’ve had the honor of helping over 200 companies simplify their story and tell it in the most compelling way possible (we always ask if they’d recommend this to their peers and we’re still at a 10 out of 10)
If your business collects &/or analyzes data, Googles’ recent decision to eliminate cookies and personal web tracking from their ad products will have a direct impact on your company’s valuation and ability to raise capital.
From what we’re seeing, this shift did get a lot of coverage, but the debate has largely missed the real story. People seem to be focused on whether or not the technical approach is an improvement over cookies, and while that’s a worthwhile question, it misses the fundamental shift in Googles’ business model related to collecting and monetizing data. If our thesis is correct, this is a tectonic event with the potential to quickly impact the value of your company and your ability to raise capital. In this video, we deconstruct what Google is doing, how and why they are doing it, and why that matters for you.
THE PUNCHLINE
Google is making a massive shift to on-device machine learning and it has the potential to completely change how & where value gets capture with data. The current model, where investors assign a value to those companies that collect and monetize data (centralized data-model) will remain, but we’re now seeing a second model emerge, where investors increasingly assign a premium value to companies that carve out a central role in data-driven insights and value while avoiding the costs and risks of holding the data itself (decentralized data-model).
SHIFT TO THE LEFT
First COVID, now generativeAI. Nothing accelerates radically accelerates the speed of adoption like a crisis. Of course, not everything changes… and some things that change in crisis remain changed forever while other don’t. If you followed our work on Agile Scenarios, you know that getting this right, and adjusting your strategy & execution for next-normal, is the key to emerging from crisis stronger than ever.
As you can imagine, all this scenario activity has me reading a lot of next-normal thinking lately. Most of it is just noise, but when I run across things that are actually helpful, I intend to share them. This brief was originally inspired by a CB Insights post. The concept is simple (crisis pushes the adoption curve to the left), but there are three implications that are super helpful for teams that are evolving their thinking and adjusting strategy & execution for Next-Normal (see Agile Scenarios).
It’s a short brief with some three simple but actionable takeaways… I hope it’s as useful for you as it has been for me.
Federated Learning – MicroBrief
Federated Learning is a paradigm shift in AI. it's moving very fast and has the potential to significantly change the value-capture point for many sectors, so there is a good chance that it could impact your thesis &/or strategy.
In this briefing, we cover the basics of what it is, how it works and why it matters (0819).
THESIS… a story
This is a great story that also happens to demonstrate why it's so valuable for startups and enterprise innovation leaders to get their thesis right (plus it's just a cool story)
THEY JUST DON'T GET IT - Incremental vs. Transformative Innovation (and why that matters to your success)
This video is about accelerating adoption of your game-changing new product or service (no fancy theories, just simple common sense with a clear and actionable SO WHAT). It's for anyone trying to accelerate the adoption of a radically new / radically better way.
WHY?… as a strategist focused on transformative innovations, I can say with conviction that slow adoption is the biggest challenge that entrepreneurs face. I am a big fan of agile, but it frustrates me a blind faith in iteration & product/market fit discourages innovators from thinking about the human side of adopting a bold new solution. In my view, this is a huge problem… in fact, it’s literally why I became a passionate believer in thesis-based strategy.
This video is my way of sharing a fresh way to think about the adoption journey. It’s for anyone who is investing their heartbeats to help make the world a better place (I hope it helps you make your dent in the universe:)