Airport security is a sham

My team and I travel a lot. We have literally millions of air miles between us over the past decade. And we all hate airports and airlines. We mainly hate them because they lie to you. It can’t be that difficult to keep passengers up to date with what is happening when things don’t go according to plan. And “the flight is delayed due to operational reasons” means absolutely nothing at all – and they know it! But that’s another thought for another day.

Today I want to moan about the security controls in place at airports around the world. I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent, and I get paid to come up with mental frameworks that make sense of the world for other people. But airport security baffles my brain.

If you really wanted to, you can get pretty much anything onto a plane. The controls in place could be easily circumvented by anyone who travels more than once a month. If you don’t believe me, then read the wonderful article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic in which he spent a number of months showing how bad airport security actually is. Priceless stuff!

He proves what I have often thought – that airport security is much more about making people feel that “something is being done” rather than actually doing anything useful. Hugo Rifkind in a recent Spectator magazine article goes further and suggests that “airport security is a giant exercise in arse covering – and it doesn’t work, obviously” (and that’s just the title of the article!).

Well, yes. Obviously. The new short hand for this is: #fail

It would be nice if some sanity prevailed somewhere, sometime and we got back to rational and useful security sometime soon. I doubt it, unfortunately. But I do live in hope.

How Gen Y sees the Gen gap

The 11 March 2010 edition of the TIME magazine had a great cover article on “10 ideas for the next 10 years“. In the same edition, Nancy Gibbs (who has often written on generational issues for TIME), wrote an interesting short piece on how young people perceive the generation gap these days. It’s an interesting mix of articles, as it actually helps to prove the point she’s making.

At one level, there is less of a gap than ever before. Parents and young people today wear similar clothes, listen to similar music (even go to concerts together), watch the same movies and use similar technology. But, Gibbs argues, there is a big divide in world views – maybe bigger than there has ever been. It’s about how we see the future and how we embrace it, too. It isn’t just what technology you use – it’s also how you use it, and why. That’s where the biggest divide comes.

Read her article here, or an extract below.

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What you could get away with… if you were a corporation (by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show)

The Daily Show, by Jon Stewart, is one of my TV habits. It’s a satirical news show, that specialises in showing up the political and corporate establishments for their hyprocrisy. Their staple diet is to take sound bites from the day’s news, and then contrast this with archive footage from the same person a few years earlier – typically making precisely the opposite point.

While some of the humour can be puerile, underneath the veneer of Comedy Central lies Jon Stewart’s insightful and incisive depth of understanding of the political scene in the US. His interviews are genius, and some of the pieces on the show are breathtakingly brilliant in their analysis.

One of the best I’ve seen in a while was from Tuesday’s edition, in which Jon tried to help us see the depth of corruption and hubris found on Wall Street. The segment was called “In Dodd We Trust”, and you can see the 10 minute video here or below (if you’re not in the UK, that is). (Get past the first five minutes or so, to reach the truly great bits!)

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Africa’s Gift to Silicon Valley: How to Track a Crisis

A report under this title appeared in the New York Times on 12 March 2010. It’s a great example of a few things, but especially of the power of social media, and the fact that innovation (and competition) can come from anywhere these days.

Read the story of how technology developed in the aftermath of Kenya’s disputed elections was used in Haiti to track responses to the crisis there. You can read the original at the NYT website, or read an extract below. (As an aside, you’ve got to love how US journalists can always rely on the “war on terror” to grab attention).

The company states that “the Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Our goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response.” The company’s website is http://www.ushahidi.com/ – check them out.

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Lessons from Kraft shutting a Cadbury factory

Today, Kraft executives came before the British Parliament to answer queries about the closure of a Cadbury’s factory near Bristol with the loss of 400 jobs. The reporting on this by the news media is sloppy and sensation-seeking. Kraft is positioned as the “evil empire”, too arrogant to even send its CEO to the hearings.

Yes, Kraft “promised” before the Cadbury’s takeover that they would not close any factories. And, yes, it is tragic that another few hundred people will be out of work by the end of next year. But, there is no surprise here, and Kraft should not be seen as the (only) villian.

Firstly, Cadbury had already announced the closure of the factory in 2007, planning to move production to Poland. Secondly, over the past two years, Cadbury has reduced their staff count by 7,000 people (that’s halving their workforce – according to the FT). Kraft it could be argued has, in fact, stemmed the flow of retrenchments from Cadbury. Why is there no mention of this today?

Notwithstanding the talk from headline seeking journalists or nationalistic Brits who can’t stand to see American firms take over “British” companies, there is actually no surprise over the way workers are being treated by Kraft/Cadbury. Until we fundamentally change our mindsets, the relentless pursuit of profit at any price will inevitably lead to workers being treated badly, and losing their jobs.

It’s no use moaning about this unless you’re prepared for the consequences of the alternative. As we approach Easter, would you be prepared to pay more for your chocolates knowing that you were securing 400 jobs at a factory near Wales? Would you pay a premium for Cadbury chocolates? Seriously, would you? It’s easy, for example, to moan about how the greedy bankers led us into a recession with their easy credit. But if you have an interest-only mortgage, or have a “portfolio” of properties that you have financed on cheap credit with the dream of filling them with tenants and selling them when their values escalated, you are as much part of the problem as any banker was. Ditto if you drive a car you can’t really afford, but were able to finance on cheap credit.

Until we, the world’s consumers, tell companies to change their behaviour, their only rational approach is to continue to cut costs. And we send that message by what we buy. If you join in with the general indignation at Kraft in Britain today, then take a few minutes to ask yourself what you will do to make your feelings known. Otherwise, it’s all just bluster.

A Radical Proposal for Executive Pay

Everyone agrees that something must be done about executive pay. One of the major contentious issues emerging out of the financial crisis is the way that senior executives and manager, especially in the financial industries, are remunerated. These days, executive pay often seems to be unrelated to the company’s performance, and in many industries it seems out of proportion to the value the company adds to society.

A century ago, executives earned anywhere between 3 and 20 times what the average worker in their factories earned. According to research by global human capital and risk management firm, Towers Perrin (now Towers Watson), in 1965, CEO pay was 26 times that of their average worker. This is looking at the total packages, rather than base salary. By 1980, this had risen to 40 times. In 1989, it was 72 times. In 1999 it had risen to 310 times, and by 2004 CEO pay had reached 500 times that of the average worker in their firm. In some companies by 2010, this had jumped to over 1,000 times. (In pure salary terms, in 2008, US executives took home 319 times more than the average worker, according to a report linked to the Guardian’s salary survey).

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Why do corporates act like machines when dealing with clients?

I am a big fan of Lucy Kellaway, a Financial Times journalist who is on a mission to expose and expunge the stupid and idiotic practices of the corporate world. Having been doing it for many years, she now has many eyes and ears around the UK, and is constantly sent excruciating examples that she writes about in her regular FT column.

In one of her most recent columns, she talks about Deloitte UK’s staff calendar, which has instructions to staff to make connections with their customers. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but as Lucy points out, the methods and messages in the calendar are completely confused and confusing. The imagery is all wrong, the instructions seem forced and false, and the result will probably be a very artificial connection between Deloitte staff and their clients. Good intentions, but mangled by a corporate machine.

You can read Lucy’s column online here, or an extract below:

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Facebook killers?

Today, the UK press is full of headlines about Peter Chapman, the rapist and murderer sentenced yesterday to 35 years in jail. He has been labelled the ‘Facebook Murderer’ – and that really irritates me.

He connected with unsuspecting young women through Facebook, wooing them and trying to lure them into face to face meetings with him. But he also used email and text messages to do the same thing.

The victim he has been jailed for killing was 17 year old Ashleigh Hall. She thought he was a teenager, and on the fateful night of her murder, she believed she was receiving text messages from a teenage friend who told her ‘his father’ was coming to pick her up. That ‘father’ was Chapman himself.

So, why have the press not labelled him the SMS killer?

Then, on the train home, I was flipping through The Evening Standard and saw a story about Paul Bristol, a 24 year old who had been in the Caribbean when his London-based girlfriend announced she was dumping him – by way of Facebook. He flew back to London and stabbed her 20 times until she died. The headline of his story also shouted “Facebook” and “killer” in the same bold type. Do the journalists and headline writers really think Facebook is the problem here?

The media has real issues with social media. Is this victimisation of Facebook because the media has seem deep seated antagonism towards social media and blogging and all things digital that are undermining and destroying their industry? Or is it just lazy journalism and sensationalistic reporting?

Either way, it winds me up. Big time.

Why Gen Y isn’t buying from you

I was recently sent this extract from an article entitled: “Why Generation Y isn’t buying your products”. I think it was originally published in the “Retail Customer Experience” magazine.

It is a reasonably good insights into how we need to be thinking if we want to connect with a different generation of young people, especially in middle class suburban areas. It’s not true for everyone, everywhere, but it is something that might get your marketing team into a good conversation.

As a 23-year-old consumer, I can tell you this: my attention is short, my demands are great and my purchases are diverse. I live in a day and age where social media apps, slogan tees and even Nike sneakers can be customized to fit my lifestyle.

I represent Generation Y, or Millennials as we are often called. While we may seem fickle, limited and spoiled to most retail professionals, we’re quite the contrary. Our lifestyle and shopping habits will determine the sales revenue of the retail industry, affecting everyone from big-box retailers to mom-and-pop stores, for the next 15 years. We are responsible for the return of our nation’s thriving economy.

To put it bluntly, if you’re uncomfortable with marketing to Generation Y, or refuse to understand our unique demographic, your store will not see 2020. To understand Generation Y is to overcome many obstacles in the retail industry.

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New climate change research verifies human causes

Since the so-called “Climate-gate scandal” that erupted just before the Copenhagen conference last year, journalists and those denying human causes for climate change have felt quite good about themselves – as if the “Climate-gate scandal” had vindicated their position. If you don’t believe that there is a link between human activity and climate change, then before you read further, just ask yourself this: “what was the essence of the climate-gate scandal?” I have found that most people don’t know. (The answer, by the way, has very little to do with actual data on climate change).

But the issue underlying “Climate-gate” happened in 2007. Science hasn’t stopped since then. Now a new series of studies has been released, showing even more evidence of the role of human activity in global warming and climate change. The New Scientist has just released a nice list of these bits of research. You can see them here, or an extract below.

Climate change deniers are going to wake up one day and be very embarrassed. They’re like those who denied links between cancer and cigarette smoking. And they’re similraly being well manipulated by big corporate money (why did the Climate-gate scandal only come out weeks before the Copenhagen conference?).

The evidence continues to mount… We must change the way we live on this planet.

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When social media grows up… it will change everything

Download a copy of this article in PDF format – right click here. The contents of this article can be presented as a keynote or a workshop for your team. Contact our UK or South African offices to find out how.

Twitter recently hosted it’s billionth Tweet and Facebook had over 500 million users by the end of 2009, continuing its trend of doubling every nine months or so. It is difficult to continue to argue that social media is nothing more than a fad, and an increasing number of companies are starting to make use of these technologies.

But most of these companies are merely using social networks as a means to communicate (mainly with customers, but sometimes with staff as well) or to market their products and services. These are simple – and obvious – applications, and soon you’ll just be another voice in cacophony of online noise. Unfortunately, most “social media experts” focus only on these aspects of online social networking, and are overhyping the benefits and underemphasising the cultural shifts required for companies to truly benefit. They are missing a really important trend with huge implications for every organisation in every industry and sector.

The reason that social media has taken off so quickly is that it is more than a fad. It is, in fact, merely the technological expression of a values shift that has been taking place for a number of years. It will therefore be a shaping force in the world over the next decade. It might not be the answer to all your problems as many social media pundits are predicting. But it will definitely change everything, and more and more companies are starting to see the benefits it offers. A revolution awaits us.

You can hardly turn on a TV news channel or read a business magazine these days without being overwhelmed by requests to “follow my tweets”, “check out our blog” or “send us your videos”. Social media has gone mainstream. But most business users and organisations are treating it like a gimmick, and only gaining a fraction of the value they could. If they understood the true nature of what is happening, they’d know that social media is merely an expression of a deeper trend that has the potential to change everything. And they’d realise that the first companies to grasp this will have the opportunity to gain phenomenal competitive advantage in their industry. In fact, some companies have already started to do so.

Social Media 101

If you’ve missed this trend and are not sure what I’m talking about, here’s a quick primer: social media are the tools you can use to do social networking on the Internet. This involves connecting with other people, and sharing information with them digitally (yes, it’s just networking and connecting with others online). The most used tools are:

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Gen Y are not a pushover

Miranda Devine is a Sydney Morning Herald columnist, and recently wrote an excellent piece on Australia’s Gen Y (young people now in the teens and early 20s). She had just witnessed a group of 400 of them grilling Kevin Rudd, the Aussie PM – and they had given him a rough time.

It’s well worth the read. The original is here, or you can read an extract below.

Trust savvy gen Y to smell a rat

February 11, 2010

Two funny things happened this week – the Prime Minister was punked on ABC TV’s Q&A program by 400 sharp-tongued gen Ys who looked as if they had “cynic” stamped on their foreheads. And history’s most watched Superbowl game featured an Audi ad about “green police”, which satirised environmental zealotry.

If you wanted proof of a shift in the zeitgeist, these two video exhibits would win the case.

Both point to a new attitude towards ”the greatest moral challenge” of our time, which found its tipping point at Copenhagen, set against the backdrop of Climategate. But more than that, they give us a glimpse into the future, as the children of the baby boomers, generation Y, born in the ’80s and ’90s, begin to flex their muscles.

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Relationship without investment – the example of online dating sites

My business partner, Barrie Bramley, has come up with a fantastic phrase to describe one of the foundational principles of social networking: “Relationship without investment“.

I think he’s spot on with this. That’s why the Oxford Dictionary voted “unfriend” the word of the year for 2009. It’s easy now to become someone’s “friend” (I have over 3,000 such “friends” on Facebook and about 1,000 “followers” on Twitter). But there are no requirements for this friendship. Engage if you want to, don’t if you don’t. And if you don’t like the group you’re currently in, just start a new one, and find those people who share your precise, niche likes or dislikes.

I do not share the concerns of those people who say this is destroying community and relationships. Of course, it has the potential to. Anti-social people can be truly and fully disconnected from the “real” world. But then, they are anti-social people anyway. People who think their Facebook friends are real friends need to wake up – it takes more than just watching someone’s status updates to build a relationship with them. But surely that’s obvious to everyone.

Social networking technologies are simply that: technologies. Technically that means that they are “enablers” (there isn’t a universally accepted definition of “technology” by the way, but most agree that it defines something that enables or provides a solution to a problem). What I mean by this is that they can be used to create community and to destroy community or relationships. The choice is ours.

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Role models for a new generation of young women?

I am the father of three pre-teen daughters, which is why I am very interested in the role models currently fighting for the attention of adolescent and pre-pubescent girls. So far, Miley Cyrus is a clear winner. I’m happy with that – old fashioned family values, Christian heritage, sickly sweet country-inspired music with inspiring lyrics, and seriously rocking concerts… what’s not to like?

But, on another extreme somewhere is the apparation known as Lady Gaga. So far, I’ve just tried to ignore her (but 18 million album sales says that’s not a clever strategy). But then, I read an article by an elderly editor of a conservative Catholic magazine in The Spectator, and he had a different take. Altogether different, and he gave me pause for thought. I think I need to check out what Lady Gaga is doing. It might not be that bad for my girls after all. Read for yourself…

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A breakup, bowiechick, webcams and Logitech’s increased sales

I am currently at the F-Secure partners conference in Vienna, Austria, and have been listening to Richard Gatarski speak about a passion for social media. One incredible story illustrates the power that new social media forms have to influence brands, and how little many established companies (even those who sell products and services that are designed for this new world) know about this.

In March 2006, Melody, a teenager better known by her YouTube name, “Bowiechick”, was feeling pretty depressed. She had just broken up with her boyfriend. So, she decided to record a vlog (a video blog entry). In order to cheer herself up, she experimented with some cool software that came with her webcam. By the end of the 75 second video, she had had a bit of fun and was feeling better. She posted the result at YouTube (see it here). This clip has now been viewed nearly 2 million times!

As you could anticipate, a few of her friends saw it, and wrote notes to her, encouraging her to cheer up and move on. But then people started asking her about the software she used to make the video itself. More and more people asked, so she created a little video to explain how her Logitech webcam and software worked. This 2 minute video has been viewed over 3 million times. Watch it here.

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Something strange has happened on our blog site. This post has been moved to here. Sorry for the hassle of another click…

Mandela’s release is announced – 20 years ago today

1989 was a momentous year all around the world. I wrote about it last year, as each month we rolled through the “twenty years on” anniversaries of everything from Tiananmen Square (June), the Ayatollah’s funeral chaos in Iran (June), hands across the Baltic Way (August), the Berlin Wall (November), Prague’s Velvet Revolution (November), Ceaucescu trial and death (December) and the banning of the Communist Party in Russia (December).

In my home country, South Africa, it took a few extra weeks, but we added our own amazing memory to this list.

On Friday, 2 February, 1990, FW de Klerk, the State President opened Parliament for the new year. In his “State of the Nation” address he stunned the world, and all of us in South Africa, by very calmly and simply saying the following:

“People serving prison sentences merely because they were members of one of these organisations, or because they committed another offence which was merely an offence because a prohibition on one of the organisations was in force, will be identified and released.”

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3-d TV is here

This weekend, Sky TV in the UK will become the first to broadcast a live sports event in 3-d. This is a preview of regular channel that will be launched by Sky in April. It will be available at no extra cost to anyone with an HD box.

Read the press release here.

The way we access data and engage with media is changing rapidly. The (horribly named) iPad was launched yesterday, amidst much hype (Apple knows how to do this, don’t they?). Small, portable, handheld devices, with unbelievable resolution and engaging visuals are the way of the future. 3-d images form a big part of that, too, I am sure.

How to keep your staff as the recovery begins

The UK is officially out of recession, as are most countries around the world. You couldn’t call it “bouyant” yet, but the recovery has started. Over the next few months and years, it will gain momentum. One of the unintended consequences of the recovery will be that many companies will lose their best staff. We have spoken about this before.

In reading an article from Deloittes again, I thought that it would be worth repeating the advice they gave for how to stop your best staff leaving in the next year.

When economic conditions improve, a certain amount of voluntary turnover is inevitable. But if addressed early and managed correctly, the turnover doesn’t have to be debilitating. Here are some small steps to consider taking now to avoid big problems later:

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America must act now to set up the next 50 years of economic growth

I first saw Elizabeth Warren about 6 months ago on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. She is the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to monitor TARP (The Troubled Asset Relief Program – central to America’s bailout). In the few minutes she had on the show, she gave an overview of American economic development that was elegant and stunning. I like her a lot. (If you are in a part of the world that can access Stewart’s videos on his website, then check out that interview here – part 1 and part 2).

This past Tuesday night, she appeared on The Daily Show again (see video here – it’s also available (for now) on YouTube here – in my experience this will be deleted soon).

Her message was simple, clear, and vaguely frightening. She believes that right now the American economy is being rebuilt. What we do in the next few months will set a foundation for how the economy works for the next 50 years. She believes that the American middle class is allowing Wall Street and big business to destroy it. She said: “It is simple. This is America’s middle class. We’ve hacked at it and chipped at it and pulled on it for 30 years now. And now there’s no more to do. Either we fix this problem going forward or the game really is over.”

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A banking revolution?

Accenture recently put out a report entitled, “Banking 2012: Preparing for a revolution”. How I’d love to believe they are right. The executive summary says that the banks that will succeed are those that focus on transparency, simplicity and renewed customer-centricity. Amen to that, I’d say. But there is more to this report than just those obvious statements.

The very foundations of the industry of banking have been shaken. The institution of banking is changing. The rules for success and failure have been rewritten, and legislation is now being crafted to push that even further. These are unprecedented times. This report by Accenture sheds some light on the very immediate future, and is well worth a read. Read the summary at Accenture’s own website, or right click here to download a PDF from their site. Or read extracts from it below.
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Generations and Culture

Generational theory attempts to explain some of the differences between young and old people, and how they act, react and interact in different environments. Our value systems are shaped by factors such as culture, religion, gender, personality, class and socio-economics. But they are also shaped by the era in which we are born, and moulded by our peers and the world events that define our formative years. But can generational theory apply equally across different cultures and in different countries? Best selling author of “Mind the Gap” and an international, award winning presenter on the issue of the generation gap, Dr Graeme Codrington, provides his personal perspective….

It will probably be useful to you to know some of my credentials right at the start. My company, TomorrowToday is one of the world’s leading generational consultancies. An important part of our suite of services to clients is an understanding of the generation gap. Our approach is based on multiple sources of research and practical application, including access to the originators of generational theory, Neil Howe and William Strauss, who work out of the USA. We have also done our own extensive research, and have access to country-specific data for South Africa, New Zealand, Mauritius, England, Russia, Hungary, Estonia, Iran, Chile, Australia, China, Japan, the USA and an increasing number of other countries. Our application to different countries is constantly expanding as our team of experts is invited to present and consult around the world – in over 20 countries every year. We have presented in over 50 different countries, covering all the continents. … Continue Reading

Hollywood, explain this… (Avatar breaks two very different records)

In almost every country it is being shown, James Cameron’s latest movie, Avatar is breaking box office records. It has already made over $ 1 billion, and is well on its way to being the best selling movie of all time.

It is already listed in IMDB’s top 50 greatest movies of all time.

But, in its first week, it was also the most pirated movie of all time with 980,000 illegal downloads of the movie. Hollywood (and the music industry) claim that illegal downloads will destroy their industry and steal money from producers.

So, Hollywood, explain Avatar!

The problem is not with illegal downloads. The problem for you is that quality is now judged more democratically – and more brutally. Good films, and good music, will still sell well. James Cameron is proof of that! Stop whining and fix your industry.

Good leaders share the pain with their teams

This coming year is likely to see continued difficulties in most companies. Recovery is on its way, but it will be slow, and profits are likely to be low. In this environment, many companies are going to ask staff to forego salary increases (and even possibly accept decreases) and bonuses.

Unfortunately, their bosses are unlikely to do the same.

In the past two decades or so, a two-tier system of reward has emerged, where people at board level and in senior executive teams are treated differently from general staff. When cuts are made, they are asked to contribute much less. Paradoxically, this often happens precisely because the senior executives “pretend” to be treated equally. But let’s be honest: to ask someone earning £ 1,000 a month to take a 10% cut is not the same as asking someone earning £ 12,000 a month to do the same. The more you earn, the more you should be expected to cut. That would be fair.

Worse still, senior executives are not rewarded for the health of the company (which affects long-term growth), but rather for short-term results. They typically attract performance bonuses for cutting costs out of the system – and that can involve pay freezes and redundancies for general staff.

In some companies this year, the basic salaries of all staff will be frozen, including the CEO and senior Execs. But the Execs will have access to bonuses, whereas most other employees cannot look forward to the variable performance pay available to their bosses. Their rewards are not treated the same. This, too, is not fair.

I read a recent report on a particular company that is experiencing just this, and the conclusion was succinctly stated: “Equity is a quality rather like justice. Justice must be seen to be done; equity must be experienced; it must run through an organisation from top to bottom.” I’d put it this way: A good leader shares the pain with his or her followers. If you don’t, they may just stop following.

I still believe that the real people carnage of this recession lies ahead of us, not behind us. What are your thoughts?

Get used to the cold and blame global warming

This is just a short comment on something I can’t believe I keep hearing in the media. Well, to be honest, I only hear it from those that hold ludicrous beliefs to start with. But I have heard a few times in the last week that “so much for global warming”, or “they said global warming was a problem, hah!”.

The cause of these comments is the longest and coldest period in many decades in the UK. With temperatures in Scotland reaching a frigid -23 Celcius, and London having highs below zero for the last few days, and snow and sleet forecast for next few days, this is a real issue for the UK. It’s cold, and the government is not coping with it. They don’t have enough stock of salt and grit to clear the streets, for example.

Everyone needs to get used to colder winters. They will get more frequent. That’s what “global warming” does. It makes summers hotter and winters colder. “Global warming” does not refer to how it feels to us all year round. It refers to average temperatures over land and sea. “Climate change” is a better phrase to use to describe the problems we will actually experience. Cold winters. Hot summers.

This is not your parent’s future… This is something new. And it’s something we need to deal with. That’s what COP15 was supposed to be about. I hope the winter chills remind the politicians that we need a real, workable, lasting solution. Quickly.

Five upcoming changes in the way we work

Tammy Erickson, Harvard Business Review contributor and author of multiple books, including Retire Retirement and Workforce Crisis, has written about the five key changes she is expecting in the workplace in 2010. What do you think? Do you agree with her?

1. Two-job norm — More people will maintain two sources of income than ever before. Instead of relying on the onetime holy grail of employment — a salaried job with full benefits — workers will create a series of backup options. For many, especially those in creative or knowledge-based work, this is likely to include becoming entrepreneurs. A second job or even a small entrepreneurial venture provides a safety net, giving workers a small measure of control over their fate in an increasingly unstable environment.
2. Less “off hours” work — Recession-management approaches that made full-time employees take a day a week “off” planted some new questions in the minds of employees who had been working virtually 24×7. What is a “day?” Eight hours? Twenty percent of the time I normally work each week? For many, these questions lead inevitably to: If they only want me to work four days a week, why am I working more than 32 hours? Many companies have come to rely on very long work weeks as staffing cuts lead to more work for the remaining individuals and technology facilitated round-the-clock work. I expect to see more push back this year — in part because many individuals will be spending time advancing their second work option.
3. Competition for discretionary energy — Engagement has been a hot topic in talent management circles for the past decade. But its benefits have focused primarily on attracting and retaining employees. Increasingly, managers’ focus will shift to competing for an employee’s discretionary energy — competing with other priorities in the employee’s life, including other options for work — but also competing against employees who are only “going through the motions.” More and more of the work in today’s economy cannot be done rotely — success requires a spark of extra effort, creativity, collaboration, and innovation.
4. More diverse arrangements — By now, most companies have put a variety of flex work options on the books. In 2010, I believe these arrangements will begin to take hold in significant ways, driven by employee preferences, facilitated by new technologies, supported by new managers who themselves are more comfortable with virtual work.
5. Transparent, “adult” arrangements — My favorite change is the growth in what I like to call “communities of adults” — a philosophy of recasting the employment relationship from one of paternalistic care to adult choice. A simple example is offering a menu of benefit options and letting employees choose those that work best. Further along the spectrum would include encouraging employees to “own” their own feedback process or even set their own compensation levels. These sorts of changes won’t settle in this year, but they’re coming. I expect we’ll see more examples as the year progresses.

Source: HBR blogs

A looming retirement crisis for Boomers (with lots of opportunities)

We have argued many times on this blog that the Baby Boomers are going to redefine retirement (for example, here, here and here). In fact, we even thought we were very clever using the phrase “retyrement” to describe what we think will actually happen. We’ve had a presentation called “Prime Time” about it. And one of our colleagues started her own consultancy called the refirement network.

We’ve been saying this for at least the last 6 years, so it’s got very little to do with financial downturn of the last two years. Although the recession allowed us to add one more reason why Boomers were not going to retire in the way we think of retirement now. But maybe the recession will cause some Boomers a big headache in this area.

Because many companies will need to find ways to strip out costs over the next few years as the recovery slowly begins, they will think of removing the high remuneration costs for senior staff. The weak economy could very well result in job losses that will force more people to retire early. This would severely scupper Boomers plans to continue working longer.

However, we would argue strongly that this will simply see Boomers become entrepreneurs. We cannot imagine that they will retire gracefully to the “do nothing” state often associated with retirement. Some will move into the voluntary sector. There is therefore a huge opportunity for charities, non-profits, and faith-based organisations to target recruitment campaigns at this generation. I’d say this could work for any organisation that could use more volunteers, from local schools to the World Cup Football competition.

But, many of the Boomers are likely to try and start up their own companies. The opportunities here are boundless. This is a generation that loves consultants – and they’ll be very happy to use some of the early retirement payout to buy consulting services. They’d pay for anything from IT support to virtual secretarial services, and from business mentoring to outsourcing of warehousing and deliveries. Many of them are used to having teams of people do their bidding, and they’d probably pay to have this setup again in their startup businesses.

Given just a few good experiences, they may be able to get their heads around virtual support (such as eLance), but in general, they are a “hands on” and “face to face” generation.

There are huge challenges ahead for the Boomers. This next decade is likely to be a very frustrating one for them. But there are amazing opportunities as well.

What are your thoughts?

It’s 2010 – where are the flying cars? (OR how you predict the future)

Here we are. It’s 2010. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick brought us “2001: A Space Odyssey“. In 1984 (yes, Orwell would have been proud), Arthur C Clarke’s “2010″ made it to the cinemas. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, “near future” movies tended to be set sometime in 2001 or 2010. Well, here we are. And there are no flying cars. No apocalypse. Sure, we have the Wii, the iPhone, HD TV, surround sound and McDonalds sells salads. Oh, and there’s Dubai.

But trains, planes and cars all go roughly the same speed as 30 years ago (and let’s face it, the biggest advance in that industry in that time has been the hybrid, and the Prius is just plain ugly). Our energy still comes from the same sources, and we don’t wear silver cat suits.

I recently reread the 1970 Toffler classic, “Future Shock“. It’s still the best book of predictions I have read. Not because he predicted the future (he didn’t anticipate the Internet or mobile phones, or even home computers). But rather because his basic thesis was superbly accurate – and defining of our age. He said that the defining feature of the decade after 2000 would be constant change. How right he was.

But all this got me thinking… How do you predict the future? How do you go about predicting the trends that will shape the world in the next decade? This is an important question, because it’s what I do for a living.

In a turbulent world, it is more necessary than ever to have some means of anticipating what the future will be. Anticipating – and responding to – future customer demand, industry competition, legislative constraints, resource availability, labour supply, and all manner of other changes, is an absolutely critical task for every organisation everywhere.

… Continue Reading

Free video course on Managing Generation Y at work

In December 09, Graeme Codrington recorded a series of short videos on Managing Generation Y at Work. This was done with Success.tv in London. These videos are now available for free:

The videos are:

• The New World of Work – an introduction to what we do, and the concept that drives our thinking
• The New Generation
• Managing Young Talent
• Personalising the Workplace
• Managing Meetings in the digital age

Feel free to use these videos in your companies. But, if you’d like more details or have one of our team speak live at your next event, why not contact us and make a booking enquiry.

After Shock interview podcast

One of our most read blog posts of all times has been “After Shock” – a look at the five forces that will cause disruptive change in the next decade. Since we posted it in December, it has received huge interest and has had numerous requests for republishing and extracts.

One request came from Peter Clayton of Total Picture Radio in the USA. The radio interview ended up stretching over two shows, and is now available online as a podcast (two MP3 files). The T.I.D.E.S. of Change, Part One: Introduction and Technology, and then Part 2: What Do You Need to Know to Be an Winner in the New Normal?