Opportunities to Rock the World

Six months ago, I was humbled and honored to be included among about
30 cohorts who are collaborating with and advising and sharing with IBM,
answering the big and bold question: What is the future of work? We are
also early-user-testers on IBM Verse, their new email platform that has been
completely reimagined for a new way to work.

It has been an exciting ride! Here are my biggest Ahas so far:
Old Ahas, Reinforced… and New Ahas.

Old Ahas, Reinforced
• Friends and friendships matter: Connecting with and staying closely
connected with a dozen-plus of the cohorts over the past six months has
been a source of constant joy!
• Storytelling is universal and super-crucial: As we brainstormed and
created new possibilities, storytelling was our main tool.
• Old school will work forever: Yes, everyone was constantly leveraging
the latest apps and capabilities in their phones and tablets… And yet, when
we worked on ideas in the same locale, the real work got done with
post-its and white-boards. Low tech will always work!
• Millennials and GenZ will reimagine the workplace: When we got
together for Verse’s launch, I was thrilled to see that one of the keynoters
was 15 year-old Maya Penn, who launched her first company when she
was 8 years old. Millennials and GenZ (and those who think that way) are
not beholden to today’s ways of doing things. They are going to completely
rock our world in the coming years!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDVLVJCg5iI
Bill’s future of work insights shared at our NYC cohorts gathering

New Ahas

• Wakeup Call: I’m Just a Social Babe in the Woods. Until six months ago,
I thought I was holding my own in social media and in putting content
out there. Then I started hanging regularly with masters and social gods
like Bryan Kramer, Chris Heuer, Marsha Collier, Cheryl Burgess, Brian Fanzo,
Ted Coine, Mark Babbitt, Joel Comm, Daniel Newman, Denise Holt,
Shawn Murphy and more. Wow. I realized how much I had to learn! Not just
about how to leverage social media. But in the power of communities.
I really need to do more. Not to keep up with others, but to help others more
and also to maximize my own potential.

• Design Thinking Will Rock Our World. More than 20 years ago, no one
understood my shift from being a graphic designer to working in HR and
organizational design. I got nothing but hairy eyeball looks. And I just was
not able to explain the connections between the two that I saw in my head.
Now, mainly with the thought leadership of IDEO, the world is coming to see
what I could not explain way back when. The IBM team took us through a
half-day exercise in how they are leveraging design thinking for almost all major changes. At its core, design thinking is simply empathy. Putting yourself in the shoes of the user of your products or services. Exploring what she feels, thinks, does and says, and then designing your services from there. Design thinking is poised to make long-overdue major changes in user-centered design in most everything we use at work, play and in our lives!

• IBM is Showing Leaders How to Use Big Data.
But Will Leaders Follow? IBM’s Verse is a powerful user-centered
email program. It takes Watson’s big data horsepower and puts it at every
individual’s fingertips. So that email becomes far smarter and easier than it
it is today. In this post for IBM, I wrote about how Verse is setting new standards in tailoring information and tools to each individual’s needs and preferences —
something I called for 13 years ago in my book, Work 2.0. Technologists
have created the necessary tools. But will our leaders leverage them to their
full potential? Will our leaders create reimagined workplaces where big data
will help tailor all tools and processes to each individual’s needs?
I’m hoping! Stay tuned!

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