Tag: the future of

This Revolution, The Time Will Come.

The Future of…Law Firms

– by Nick West is Chief Strategy Officer at Mischon de Reya

The truth is that law firms as we know them don’t have a future if they don’t radically change their cultures – especially when it comes to technology.

This is bold, perhaps, but consider the reality: clients know that new technology is out there and they are hungry for change.

We are living through a new industrial revolution. A time of unprecedented tech development and tech adoption. Every person with a phone and access to the web is experiencing a sort of technological enlightenment where our very ideas about how life should be lived are being challenged.

It’s just inconceivable that law is immune to such forces.

But currently, several factors are holding back an effective law firm response, and in a serious way.

First, lawyers’ training tends to make them risk averse – they tend to see the dangers of technology before they see the gains.

Second, it is not in lawyers’ DNA to experiment – and law firms often do not invest in research and development like other businesses.

Third, lawyers have a pretty poor grip of finance and economics and often struggle to figure out a way to make new technology work for both them and their clients, financially speaking.

Fourth, law firms – because they are fearful of regulators – have over-invested in closed-system, over-customised, made-for-legal technology. This makes it harder, at least politically, to adopt technology that has long been widely been accepted nearly everywhere else.

Finally, legal training is, quite simply, unfit for purpose. Technology is not taught either before lawyers arrive at law firms or once they’re installed. Law firm training tends to perpetuate the idea that law is an artisanal industry where the only tool is the human brain.

Five strong forces against which anyone who wants to be successful in 21st Century legal practice has to fight.

Change will need to come from the top-down, and be actively ‘owned’ by Senior or Managing Partners and their boards.

In making such change, it is vital to use language that impresses upon lawyers that technology can set them free from the drudge elements of their work, enabling them to be more strategic.

It is also imperative to accept, publicly and from the outset, that failures will occur. The path is not straight and some things won’t work, but that’s okay; there is plenty of learning along the way.

Most importantly, it is vital to link technology with positive outcomes for the people who pay lawyers’ bills. Cognitive technology allows us to do tasks better, faster, cheaper. Firms need to get out there and make that case to clients; actively and vocally.

For those who do, the possibilities are endless – and hugely exciting.

For those who don’t….well….the best that might be said is that:

‘They had a good run’.

– with thanks to the author,  Nick West is Chief Strategy Officer at Mischon de Reya

Paperback Writer.

The Future of….The Written Word
– by James Lumley 

“The most rigorous instruction in prose writing that I ever received came, not from any schoolteacher or university tutor, least of all from writing school. It came from the classically educated senior officers on the top floor of MI5’s headquarters in Curzon Street, Mayfair, who seized on my reports with gleeful pedantry, heaping contempt upon my dangling clauses and gratuitous adverbs, scoring the margins of my deathless prose with such comments as redundant – omit – sloppy  -do you really mean this?  No editor I have since encountered was so exacting, or so right.”

David Cornwell (John Le Carre), The Pigeon Tunnel: stories from my life.

 

When I read this passage in John Le Carre’s new autobiographical memoir I felt empathy and joy in equal measure.

I have been reading John Le Carre novels for all my adult life and have enjoyed every page of every single one of them.

Le Carre’s real name, of course, is David Cornwell. He is, by any standards, a very educated man. He was a top scholar at Dorset public school Sherborne, before fleeing England at a precociously young age to enrol at the University of Berne, where he studied languages. National Service followed, then Oxford University. Then, a stint as a French and German teacher at Eton College before he joined MI5 in which, as well as being a ground operative, he did what many of us do every day: he sat at a desk and wrote reports.

And, as far as his superiors were concerned, he couldn’t write for toffee.

So, when he started his desk job, one of Britain’s greatest post-war novelists is happy to admit that he was just like us. This is wonderfully encouraging.

Cornwell’s anecdote exposes a universal truth of working life. Almost all of us come through school and university and start our jobs not really knowing the first thing about writing. We tend to just write, without thinking about it. Weren’t we always told we were good writers anyway? So when we get our first paid job, sit at our first office desk, and write our first report, the result will usually be somewhere between “fine” and “dreadful”.

For my first job, I worked as a journalist. Writing for publication was what I had to do from the start. As such, I had my sloppiness kicked out of me early. Cornwell’s MI5 bosses were doing to him what sub-editors have done to beardless young hacks for generations, and it helped to turn him into a writer.

Most of us are not lucky enough to be belittled at an early stage in our careers by a gang of acerbic pedants, so most people’s growth as workplace writers is more gradual.

Until quite recently most of us wrote for an audience of colleagues. If we wrote lots of reports, our writing would improve, but as what we wrote was read by colleagues with similar technical experience to us, they generally understood what we were saying. We didn’t really question our writing skills, and didn’t really need to.

Things have changed.

We now live in a world of LinkedIn posts, business website articles, corporate blogs and tweets, thought leadership, and content marketing. Almost all of us are called upon to broadcast our written words: to push them out for public consumption.

More and more of us are now called upon to write things that will be read by anybody and everybody. People who don’t know our industries inside out. People who don’t know our jargon. People who need things explained properly, without being patronised. People who are going to stop reading when they encounter writing that is dense, overblown, or unclear.

Journalists and novelist have editors. Even after more than 60 years of professional writing, every word that David Cornwell publishes will be examined and prodded by someone else before being sent to be read by the world at large. Yet most of us in the normal working world send our words out for public scrutiny without that safety net.

It really isn’t fair.

So what do I suggest?

There are a few possible solutions. Some businesses employ “in house journalist” to help them craft their message. This is no bad idea as long as that journalist has the skills to mentor corporate colleagues. There is too much writing in a mid-sized business for one person, and rarely the budget for a team.

Cornwell didn’t learn to write by going to a writing class. Neither did Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway or Shakespeare. But that doesn’t mean that most of us won’t benefit from a day’s workshop with a professional writer.

But what we can do from today is to use a basic, four step process that all professional writers use a variant of.

This process is this:

Plan

Write

Review

Share

Sketch out a plan of what you are going to write, even if is is just a couple of bullet points noting the points that you must not miss, and the conclusion. Then when you start writing, you know where you are going.

Then write. The writing does not need to be perfect. Do not agonise over every word. Go from the starting point to the destination.

Review. This is often the longest part of the process. Have you made any mistakes? What could be improved? Does it say what you want it to say.

Now share it. Print it off. Hand it to a colleague. Ask if they understand it. You understand it because you know what you are trying to say. That doesn’t mean everyone else will. Listen to your colleague’s comments. Thank them. Offer to repay the favour. Make changes to your text.

If you can build this into your working routine, your writing will improve, no matter how good you are already.

Just about every writer on every newspaper in the world does this in a formal way, on a daily basis, so why shouldn’t you? Not only is it a good disciple, it can be contagious.

Monticello LLP

All I Wanna Do Is….

The Future of….The Olympics
– by Derek Bouchard-Hall, CEO, USA Cycling 

Even the most casual observers of the Olympics will note that the Games have evolved significantly over the last couple decades.

Perhaps the most obvious is sports included. The IOC has had explicit objectives to keep the Games relevant to younger audiences, broaden their appeal, and include a wider range of countries participating – and added and dropped sports as a result.

Another commonly observed change is the professionalization of Olympic sport, with each successive Olympiad demonstrating the advancement athletes are making in developing every element of their craft through full-time focus and access to greater resources.

But in the 16 years between when I competed in the Sydney Olympics in track cycling to when I went to Rio as the CEO of USA Cycling, I have witnessed several more subtle trends in the Olympic Movement that would likely be missed by the casual sporting fan.

These trends are less obvious than new sports and the pace of breaking world records, but I believe they are actually more significant to the long term health and popularity of the Olympics.

The first is increasingly effective anti-doping efforts. Most sports fans understand that doping exists in professional sport, and the Russian doping scandal certainly kept the issue front and center in Rio.

Certainly, some have lost their passion for some sports because of associations with doping. But what I’m seeing is that anti-doping efforts are actually working, and things are improving. Not all sports are at the same place in their journey from denial of a problem to effective anti-doping, but all are on the journey and those out front are making enormous strides.

I believe cycling is the clear leader among all sports in anti-doping. No other sport is doing as much and is having as much impact. The only problem is, we’ve learned that effective anti-doping is expensive, difficult to execute, and significantly inconveniences athletes. Gone are the days when you can catch dopers by having them pee in a cup on race day.

Now, to combat modern methods that include the slight tweaking of naturally occurring hormones already within us all (vs. taking an exogenous compound whose mere presence in urine signifies cheating), regular exhaustive blood screening and unannounced out of competition testing is required.

But these methods work, and they will serve to restore confidence in what we are watching. Over time, I believe doping can and will be controlled – but it will take time and significant investment.

The second trend is the rise of women’s sport. With each successive Olympics, the women are drawing closer to men in terms of opportunity, support, and fan appeal. While in most professional sports women lag woefully and unjustly behind their male peers in this regard, at the Olympics they are much closer.

A key driver of this is focus on medals – with no difference being paid between the value of a men’s vs. a women’s earned. Many countries are therefore investing in developing their women’s sport, and opportunities are growing for women athletes. A good example is my organization, USA Cycling – we are actually now focusing more effort and resources on women’s cycling than in men’s.

The final, and perhaps most significant trend in terms shaping the Games over time, is country level sport specialization. Countries are increasing focusing a disproportionate amount of resource on those sports in which they have the highest medal hopes and, significantly, abandoning the others.

They are doing this to maximize medals earned for money invested – because countries are increasingly measuring themselves by medal count alone. Spending money on a sport whose highest placed athlete finishes 4th is considered a waste – no medal, no return.

The impact of this trend is that you are seeing some countries develop dominant positions in certain sports while ceasing to support others. Perhaps the best example of this is the UK, which has become dominant in track cycling (winning 6 of the 10 available Golds in Rio) by spending roughly 5-10x annually vs. its nearest peers.

On the other hand, it provides little or no support for a sport like basketball, which some argue would have greater impact on encouraging urban sport participation – though provide no medals (and no “return”).

If these trends play themselves out as I expect them to over the next couple decades, I see the future of the Olympics as one where doping is no longer a major story nor a major determiner of success.

I see the Olympics leading the world in promoting women’s sport and the gap between male and female opportunities shrinking. But I fear this progress will be offset by country level specialization leading to a polarization of national participation whereby a handful of countries dominate each sport.

Any given event might not feel like a competition between all nations, but instead simply a showcase for whichever handful of nations chose to focus on that event to win medals.

Like so many human endeavors, the Olympics will simultaneously demonstrate great progress and new challenges.

– with thanks to the author, Derek Bouchard-Hall, CEO at USA Cycling

You’re Such A Lovely Audience….

The Future of….The Ad Business
– by Sam Tomlinson, Partner, PwC

No advertiser wants to buy media.

This obvious truth is easily forgotten, particularly when relaxing over your third glass of rosé at Cannes Lions, the ‘festival of creativity’. The assembled masses here are absolutely convinced that every brand – be it automotive, FMCG, retail, financial services, etc. – is absolutely crying out to spend millions on a creative agency’s brilliant idea that can then be executed across multiple media types.

But that’s palpably untrue.

What an advertiser really wants is to buy performance – to buy an outcome – to buy an improvement in brand awareness, an uptick in brand trust, more sales, greater profit. Sadly, short of selling their soul to the devil, there’s no guarantees of these outcomes, so instead they settle for buying media.

At a minimum, most advertisers would like to move from buying media, to buying an audience. The eyeballs reading the newspaper, or watching the TV, or reading the poster – or indeed, the ears listening to the radio – are far more interesting than the medium itself.

At the other end of the ad business model, there’s a media owner, who wants to sell that audience. They want to answer the basic questions that underpin any campaign – ‘How many people will see my ad? How often? Who are they?’

Sadly for the media owner, their knowledge of their own audience is frequently weak – either because their content is now being distributed via Facebook, or because they can’t track consumers across multiple channels and devices, or just because culturally their heritage was broadcast media (via television or radio or newsstand sales) rather than direct audience engagement.

This lack of audience insight – lack of first-party data, to use industry jargon – is one of the main reasons underpinning the question many media owners are now asking themselves: ‘If content is king, why is 50% of my revenue leaking between what the advertiser pays, and what I receive?’

And in the middle, between the performance-seeking advertiser and the audience-rich-but-data-poor media owner, is the media agency. Actually, there’s not just a media agency – there’s probably an agency trading desk, a DSP, an exchange, an SSP, an ad impression delivery service, and a host of other incomprehensible ad tech middlemen – but let’s stick with the agency for now.

The agency wants to sell their expertise in delivering great ad campaigns, built up over years of developing media plans and analysing results, resulting in an intuitive sense of what works, and what doesn’t.

So – buyers want performance, sellers want to deliver an engaged audience, and agencies know how to bring the two together. That’s the theory…

….instead, what we find is an advertiser’s procurement function, determined to drive the media agency’s margin to 1-2% to prove they (procurement) are delivering value; a media owner with insufficient audience insight to prove value, so instead settle for offering rebates; and an agency stuck in the middle on an unsustainably low margin.

This ad business model is broken.

If Cannes Lions showed me one thing this year, it’s that there needs to be a radical shift from buying media to buying performance.

Performance needs to be defined broadly – not as click-throughs, but as real value – as trust in a brand. That performance needs to be tracked meticulously and independently, and the media owner needs to provide an engaged, attentive audience.

And if an agency successfully uses its expertise to deliver a great campaign based on strong media owner first party data, that delivers real value – real, measurable performance – then they should be well-remunerated for that.

Procurement need to allow the discussion to move from pricing to performance.

That must be the future of the ad business model.

 – with thanks to the author, Sam Tomlinson, a partner at PwC, writing in a personal capacity

 

We Can Work It Out.

The Future of….Diplomacy
– by Tom Fletcher CMG, former British Ambassador to Lebanon 

Diplomacy matters more than ever in the Digital Age because the consequences of diplomatic failure are more catastrophic than ever. The weapons of the future will make current armouries look like bows and arrows. So we don’t have the luxury of letting our principal means of preventing their use rust away.

Diplomacy is not Kodak – there is not a shiny alternative aggressively taking it on. But it must adapt fast. The ways it will do so will be like the survival tips any trade needs to adopt: disrupt yourself, be digital or dead, work out what big data means for your industry, cut out the crap and focus on where you add lost value.

The review my team has just done of the Foreign Office looks at those issues in more detail. Future diplomats will curate masses of data to analyze and predict foreign policy in far more detail. They will be able to connect with people on an unprecedented scale. There are growing threats from engagement: the smartphone with which I do core parts of my job is also the means by which terrorists track my movements. But the biggest risk is not to pile in. Other businesses aren’t debating this, they are just doing it.

The artificial barriers between Ministers being the public face and diplomats operating behind the scenes will also fall away. Foreign Ministries will build the equivalent of Wikipedia to manage their knowledge and relationships – diplopedia. They will be forced to deliver services – visas, passports, crisis response – as fast as the commercial competition. Policy making will become more democratic and transparent. Bring it on.

In the midst of all this turbulence, what is the rock to which diplomacy must cling? In my view – though this is contested – it is to promote positive global change that makes our nations more secure and prosperous.

But also, like any other industry, diplomats should not chuck the baby out with the digital bath water. Remember that people used to scoff that you could replace the Foreign Office with a fax. There will still be a need for confidentiality (see the counter terror effort), quiet negotiation (see US/Iran, US/Cuba) and a bit of occasional theatre (see state visits). And the best diplomacy will still rely on curiosity, tact, judgement, courage and the ability to eat anything and get on with anyone.

At NYU, my team (in which I’m the only person over 25) are now working on the more distant future of diplomacy, as part of a report for the next UN Secretary General. Can robots handle most of what embassies currently do? Can big data generate a better climate change deal than humans? Can Google Maps deliver disaster relief better and faster than the UN? How do we establish the new balance of security and liberty in the digital age? How do we ensure that digital transformation creates more winners than losers?

The first diplomat was the caveman who persuaded his fellow Neanderthal to put down his club and hunt together – literally, a naked diplomat. Stripped of all the paraphernalia and protocol, that is where diplomacy still adds most value. You don’t have to be naked to do it. But neither will you need to be a diplomat. This is not some obscure cult or creed. Citizen diplomats are all around us.

The great dividing line of the 21st century is coexistence. On one side are the wall builders, who believe we should live apart – ISIL, the hard right in Europe, Donald Trump. On the other are the rest of us, who understand that understanding and engaging the rest of the world is what keeps us strong. That’s a diplomatic fight that we all need to be in.

– with thanks to the author Tom Fletcher, former UK Ambassador and foreign affairs adviser to three Prime Ministers. ‘Naked Diplomacy – Power and Statecraft in the Digital Age’ is out on 2 June, and is available on Amazon.

Love Will Tear Us Apart.

The Future of….Separation
– by Pip Wilson, Founder, amicable

You’re in your early 40’s, it’s June 2016 and your marriage is falling apart.

The pressure of work and kids and the passing have time have meant you have drifted apart and after months of pain you have both agreed it’s over.

You’re sad, you’re not thinking straight and the road ahead feels long and painful, where do you start? A friend introduces you to their lawyer, the first conversation is free, subsequently it’s £300+ an hour.

You’re facing a total cost of thousands, much more if you end up in court. Surely every penny counts when faced with the prospect of supporting two households?

The lawyer, your friends and family all say you need professional support.

Maybe you can do it yourself, there is countless information available, but it seems so impenetrable: where do you start? You try and talk to your partner but it turns into a row, waking your youngest child, who sobs inconsolably “Please stop shouting Mummy and Daddy.”

Now you have to determine who is at fault. The current law in England and Wales decrees one of you must take the blame for the break-up of your marriage, what’s that going to achieve?

Everyone seems set on turning it in to the biggest fight possible, how is that going to help you, you partner or your kids get on with their lives? Surely this is a broken system?

Why has technology added so much (whether you like it or not!) to some parts of life but barely influenced other events such as divorce and separation?

Partly there is a generational aspect, the mobile generation haven’t yet reached the “peak” divorce age, so haven’t demanded better solutions.

Then there is the legal industry promulgating the view that every divorce is unique and you need someone on your side. Acrimony and protecting an individual appear to be actively encouraged and the level of emotion clouds even the most rational person’s mindset.

What is in essence an emotional process is generally perceived as being a difficult legal process. The result is that historical approaches endure, with fear and misunderstanding preventing change.

So what could the future of separation look like?

At amicable we believe that as humans we need to be encouraged to recognise the difference between the emotional process and the practical one, to allow ourselves time to focus on the sadness and grieve what we have lost.

It is unnatural to expect someone in times of great stress to be able to make rational practical decisions on a given day because that’s when they happen to be seeing their lawyer!

It’s also fundamental that if someone needs help from a professional it’s the right person at the right time. If you are struggling with the emotional side of divorce see a counsellor or even a friend; not a lawyer.

Once these two journeys are recognised the potential of technology to help with the practical side becomes much clearer. The practical side is simply a series of decisions to be made, including where you children will live, what your house is worth, where you will spend Christmas.

The majority of those questions are the same for everyone. They may be difficult decisions but they can be turned into an easy-to-follow process that breaks down the communication barriers and moves people forward in a time frame that works for them.

Technology can help individuals communicate better, it can help shift through vast quantities of data to show you precedents, it can pre-fill agreements and it can facilitate negotiations.

Why not let it do all that and let humans focus on dealing with emotions?

– with thanks to the author, Pip Wilson, Founder of amicable

Is This Burning An Eternal Flame?

The Future of….Partnership
– by Jennifer Emery, Director of People, CMS

In the fourteenth century, one of the most powerful organisations in Europe had a large office in the centre of London.

On the site of what is now Cannon Street station, the Hanseatic League built the Steelyard – a walled community with residential homes, warehouses stretching along the river, a weighing house, counting houses, and even a chapel.

The Hanseatic League was a partnership of city states across Northern Europe. Member cities collaborated for their mutual economic benefit, diplomatic privileges and protection.

They shared ships to save time and money, and protected one another’s trade routes. The League developed its own legal system and could deploy its own army.

The Steelyard was the largest medieval trading complex in Britain and a prosperous toehold for the League – so much so that in 1598, Queen Elizabeth intervened, suppressing the Steelyard and rescinding the privileges of the stinking rich Hanse merchants, in a bid to protect the rival City of London.

Seven hundred years later, the law firm I work for has its headquarters on the same site in Cannon Street.

This firm, too, is a partnership that stretches across Europe and beyond in a bid to reap the benefits of the collaboration, clout and cachet that come from sharing expertise and resources across borders.

It, too, has a long and illustrious history. In the UK, the firm traces its routes back across almost 250 years, and takes a sheepish pleasure in one of its founding partners being referenced in unflattering terms in a number of Oscar Wilde’s plays.

If this article were about the history of partnership we could go on from here to take a delightful lamplit, foggy stroll out of Cannon Street, through the City of London and beyond. The history of partnership is long and labyrinthine and full of stories and characters. But what of its future?

The very word is apt to conjure dusty, Dickensian pictures of grey old white men in dusty offices. It smacks of clubbiness and privilege – ponderous, elitist, traditional. Does this seven-hundred year old model really have any relevance for global businesses today?

I think it does, for the five reasons I’ll go on to explain below, but for a while there I think we all had our doubts. In the world of professional services over the past twenty years, in the light of various regulatory changes and in the face of unprecedented globalisation and technological change, it’s been all about ‘getting more corporate’ – more structure, more strategy, more command and control; big brands, corporate colours, logos, slogans.

Those central tenets of partnership – autonomy, consensus, personal relationships? Those slow us down. All very sweet and honorable, but hardly the basis of a fast-paced, hard-nosed twenty-first century business, right?

Wrong.

Like many of the great institutions – democracy, church, marriage – partnership has undoubtedly got a bit tangled over time with all sorts of extraneous and unnecessary rules, traditions, expectations and assumptions that hang off it and give it a bit of a bad reputation.

But when it’s pruned back hard to its essence – a means by which people can do business together, retaining a high level of autonomy but collaborating closely on stuff that matters to the parties in the partnership and their clients – you have, right there, perhaps the ultimate model for business in the twenty-first century, and a highly attractive proposition for millenials, and for Generation Z – limbering up to enter the workplace as we speak.

As an ownership model, partnership is a bracing and intimate alternative to corporate anonymity. Because it doesn’t divorce ownership from responsibility (I’m ignoring for now the legalities around LLPs, etc – my overarching point is simply that the people doing the work are the people who own the business), partnership tends to drive high levels of commitment and quality and so also, in time, build high levels of trust on the part of clients.

Partners care and clients know it. It also puts a broad range of human beings, with all their passions and messiness and all they have personally invested, right in the driving seat of the business – and that tends to mean both a tight and tenacious focus on business performance, and simultaneously a focus on much more than that.

Even the most red in tooth and claw capitalist partner tends to care about something other than profit, and so firms invest in people, in training, in knowledge, in CSR, in youth programmes, in academia – not because they have to, but because they can. For the generations entering the labour market now and in the future, this is attractive – they want skin in the game, to be part of something, to invest and be invested in. Not necessarily for life, but for a while.

Partnership as an ownership model is arguably also pretty resilient in tough and uncertain markets – partly because of the tendency of a professional services partnership to span a number of practice areas and markets, some of which provide a natural hedge for one another – but also because of partners’ generally greater willingness to bear with one another and the market than might be the case in a corporate context. The appropriate sharing of profit, risk and, candidly, power makes ‘the deal’ for partners clear and fosters commitment for the longer term.

As a decision-making model, partnership can be a slow nightmare, inching towards the lowest common denominator or – properly contracted – it can combine the best of risk-taking and risk-aversion, of autonomy and accountability.

The key to understanding much of what goes on in a modern partnership – and much of what works – is to imagine that we’re trying to replicate across 60 offices in 30 countries in 2016 the same sort of approach to decision-making that a dozen partners sitting around a board table in the City in 1916 opening the morning mail together could adopt – quick yet measured, collaborative yet taking account of personal expertise and preference, principled yet pragmatic.

As the foundation stone for a great culture, partnership feels particularly modern and relevant in the way it combines the professional and the personal. There’s the potential for real authenticity and immediacy of the sort that appeals to the new generations entering the market.

Partnerships tend, too, to lead to a fairly flat hierarchy which also appeals. There is of course the danger – sometimes been borne out in the past – that partners elect partners in their own image and so the culture becomes homogeneous, elitist and narrow.

But in a firm which is in other respects open to attracting and promoting a diverse group, partnership can actively foster diversity and inclusion by giving everyone a voice and encouraging collaboration and the sharing of knowledge and ideas. Which leads me also to consider partnership as …

As a font of creativity and thought leadership. A brief aside here. I must confess that this article has risen from the ashes of a failed one, about cultural appropriation – a topic which, I concluded (reluctantly, 400 words in), was too hot and too nuanced for my fast and clumsy pen, but one we should all care passionately about, we who cry freedom and future.

Provided our respect is deep and our intention all for good, surely cultural appropriation is how we all grow? The spark of a synaptic connection between different ideas, different facts, different histories, the laying down of something new – a collective neural pathway, a new way to experience the world. This is the corporate brain in action, the source of insight, the definition of intelligence, the basis for change.

I digress, but not entirely – because partnership done well can be an exemplar of excellence when it comes to this sort of inclusivity, and so a crucible for cultural appropriation at its dynamic best. Solutions developed in one industry sector can be modified and applied in another, partners in different markets can spot trends together and develop industry standards, partners can be supported to explore new markets or develop new products. In a knowledge economy, true mastery and new thinking are the currencies, and both can be fostered by the strength and breadth of knowledge that a partnership has within it, together with a partnership structure which allows this expertise to come readily to fruition.

Partnership, then, is modern and relevant – very much an idea of our times. Yes, there are lots of examples of dysfunctional partnerships – elitist, indecisive, you name it – just as there are lots of examples of dysfunctional marriages. But that doesn’t mean there’s a fundamental problem with the institution itself.

Granted, too, that the partnership of today and tomorrow doesn’t look exactly like partnership of yesterday – it’s not necessarily forever, for example, and it’s for a diverse group of people, not the cookie-cutter few.

But partnership’s power and tradition live on – in Cannon Street, across Europe and beyond – and its future burns bright. And as Gustav Mahler said (and The Bangles, not quite),

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the handing on of the flame.”

– with thanks to the author Jennifer Emery, CMS.

 

New Kid In Town.

The Future of….Data and Delivery
– by Clifford Perianayagam, Media and Entertainment, Telstra Global

I’ve been listening to a lot of the Eagles recently and one song, in particular, New Kid in Town.

I did a quick search on YouTube and found the Capital Center 1977 live rendition of it. It’s amazing that on a whim and within a few seconds, I can watch a crystal clear copy of a 40 year-old performance – and feel as if I was there.

But that is the world we live in now.

We get what we want when and where we want it.

In this age of instant gratification, data and delivery rules. Having, understanding and delivering using this data means traditional business models and resourcing will need to change. Take the automobile industry: an average 2015 high-end car has about 100 million lines of code, compared to the space shuttle which only had 400,000.

Globalisation blurs borders and digital technology is blurring industries. In the sector I focus on, Media & Entertainment, the challenges and opportunities for content creators to distributors are many.

But it’s not just physical to digital – recently, there have been rumours of Amazon planning on opening 300-400 bricks and mortar bookshops. (I can only dream that Netflix is going to open physical stores I can loiter in whilst waiting for my takeaway to be ready.)

So, how do you tackle this, especially if you’re currently doing well or leading in your field – do you cozy up and share secrets with strangers or go into a bunker and do it all by yourself? In a recent report, written by The Economist, Connecting Companies: Strategic Partnerships for the Digital Age, the data suggests that companies that build the right partnerships have a better chance to not just survive in the 21st Century, but to thrive.

In terms of finding this right partner here are 5 tips:

  • Take chance out of the connection – get serious about finding the right match
  • Know what your role is in the relationship
  • Admit your faults and be open to change
  • Be promiscuous but take precautions
  • Set reasonable expectations and be patient

It’s not at all dissimilar from dating, in many respects. Certainly, the wrong partner can lead to disastrous results.

But, pick the right one – and put the work in, and you’ll soon have something that is far greater than the sum of the parts.

Much like, perhaps, The Eagles themselves….

– with thanks to the author Clifford Perianayagam, Telstra Global.

 

Monticello LLP

I Know What It Means To Work Hard On Machines.

The Future of….Technology
– by Carolina Vicente, Director of Digital Marketing, Google

It’s the crystal ball moment we all love, folks. What will be?

We are all in a relentless search for answers in our everyday lives and look to the future of technology with anticipation, hoping it will bring an elixir of eternal wealth and power where the possibilities are endless. In this new world (enabled by technology), the future looks sunglass bright, promising and full of possibilities.

Technology enables the creation of data at phenomenal scale and speed. Thinking about the fact that well over 90% of today’s data has been generated just over the last 2 years, the jaw-dropping dimension of it all starts to sink in.

It’s a little like the good ol’ chicken and egg scenario, where the generation of more data is also allowing new technology to be developed – think programmatic and the subsequent incessant rise of new algorithms, businesses and products, all promising to be the solution we are looking for when it comes to having one-to-one conversations at scale over the web – or finding the answer to the elusive 360 degree view of the customer.

But I digress. There are truly impressive uses of technology being discussed at large scale within several businesses today. From renewable energy to ‘humanised’ drones – the sky is (quite literally) the limit.

With renewable energy, wind energy is possibly one of the mainstream technologies that needs a complete overhaul. Only 3% of the world’s energy comes from wind, and incremental technologies are not cutting through this reality, with only about 15% of land around the world being suitable for the next turbine iteration – in other words, we need to start over.

While it may often seem like we have a long way to go when it comes to sustainable renewable energy generation, there are a few countries that show us this is entirely possible – Costa Rica has shown the world last year how it’s done by drawing 99% of its energy consumption from renewable sources. Pretty impressive.

Biotech is in my opinion, one of the most exciting areas where technology can shine and truly improve (if not completely transform) how we live today – and how long for. Looking at the human body as a series of separate systems and addressing longevity as you would address oiling a machine (system by system), means we could be living exponentially longer in the not too distant future.

The application of nanotechnology to medicine could mean diseases like cancer will be a thing of the past. Equally, could neurohacking mean our own brains could ultimately engineer the makeup of our bodies and by definition, determine how long we live for – and what quality of life we can have?

Today we can already see companies like Google & Novartis partnering to alleviate diabetes management through the use of a microscopic technology attached to a contact lens. The gadget measures insulin levels through tears, which is ironic, as constant, tearful stabbing of one’s finger to draw blood several times a day is now not longer necessary.

Robotics is yet another trend looming in the horizon. Images of human-like creatures spring to mind – much like Atlas Robotics’ drones. This area could improve the way logistics and elderly care are conducted in the future. In fact, many companies have already acquired licenses to use drones commercially, with France and the UK leading the way. Industries like oil & gas, transportation and even Insurance are all jumping on the robotics bandwagon, all hoping to be first to the future.

All of these technologies are generating more and more data. In fact, so much of it exists and is being captured, that companies today are struggling with what to do with it and where to start.

Thinking of the customer first might be a good starting point. This is where innovation comes in. How can we change what we do today (and how we do it), anticipating what people will want next? Innovation through technology then becomes a critical catalyst to change. Making use of today’s technology, we can create solutions that did not exist yesterday.

Think of the driverless car. A fundamental economic and sociological change in the making, that made use of existing technology to address several world problems. All of a sudden, those who are visually impaired can drive and be more autonomous going from A to B all on their own.

Addressing mortality on the roads (not only from a life preservation perspective, but also with an economical lens) is yet another issue driverless cars are trying to solve. According to a recent report, road accidents cost the global economy over $500 Billion annually. Wouldn’t it be great if technology could solve this… oh wait a minute…

Changes such as these will reshape economies profoundly. Thinking not only of the driverless car but also the sharing economy, who is the end customer? Will insurance companies insure the manufacturer, the vehicle, the driver or will the sharing economy mean we will need a hybrid insurance model?

It is important to constantly question ourselves and our businesses to determine if the road to obsolete is unavoidable, or if true technological transformation could act as an accelerator to positive change.

And then there is everyone else racing to the same finish line. Former GE CEO Jack Welch said there are only two sources of competitive advantage: Know more than your competitors and act faster than anyone else. I would add a layer to this and say we need to be able to generate more ideas and encourage creativity to use that knowledge to its true potential.

Disrupting yourself as a business is key to survival. If you are not disrupting your business, chances are you are being (or will soon be) disrupted – possibly irreparably, in a “close the front door” kind of way.

Startup incubator units are a great way to ensure disruption can accelerate within traditional businesses.

In a reality where technology is already enabling exponential economic growth (more investors, fractional comparative/like-for-like costs, more wealth and 100 times more power), looking ahead no longer seems like we are gazing into a crystal ball. The future really is here, and things are only going to get faster. Successful businesses will need to lead trends, not follow. By the time you have geared yourself to follow a trend, it will already be too late.

Get in the front line of the race or risk being left behind.

– with thanks to the author, Carolina Vicente, Director of Digital Marketing at Google. Please note that the author writes in a personal capacity and her views are not necessarily reflective of the views of Google. 

Stand, And Deliver.

The Future of….Deliveries
– by Santi Clores, CEO, World’s Largest Delivery Company

Every few years, someone asks me whether technology affects my business.

The truth is that it doesn’t.

Every year, at around this sort of time, we receive literally millions of orders. Typically, those orders will be placed in writing, and the vast majority will be in the form of a (badly) handwritten list or letter: addressed to me personally. Moreover, because our customer base is so global, the orders come in all sorts of different languages.

Over many years, we have honed processes and systems to deal with it all. Don’t get me wrong: it’s hard work, but it’s all manageable. In large part, that is down to our incredible workforce, of whom I am extremely proud. They believe in our mission and are so committed and loyal.

The seasonality of our work means that it doesn’t suit everyone. We work very intensively during October, November and especially December but during the remainder of the year employees are free to choose how to spend their time, as long it fits with our overall purpose as a business. We call this system Employee Labour Flexibility (E.L.F. for short).

The real challenge is ensuring that everything that gets to the right place, at the right time – and all within the same 24 hour period (except, interestingly, in my native Spain where orders can take up to two weeks longer to arrive). In this respect, I am very hands on, and undertake most of the deliveries myself, with support from a team of specially trained, trusted animals.

One of the quirks of our customers is that they ask that we deliver presents inside their houses, but without using the front door – or even alerting them to our presence. However, they are often thoughtful enough to leave us a bite to eat, which makes all the difference on the longer journeys.

Naturally, given the millions of orders that we process we do end up making the odd mistake. Some customers are disappointed and that is, of course, immensely regrettable. Whilst we cannot, as a matter of policy, deal with returns ourselves we do have partnership arrangements with a host of retailers around the world who act as our agents in this respect.

It would be foolish to suggest that technology will never impact our business. It’s just that, for now, our system works. And I’m a big believer in ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

So for now, and at least for us, the future of deliveries looks a lot like the past – and we quite like it that way.

¡Feliz Navidad!

– with thanks to the author, Santiago Clores, CEO at World’s Biggest Delivery Company

I Don’t Like It, I Love It.

The Future of….Leadership
– by Ross Ashcroft, Filmmaker, Broadcaster, Strategist

The language we use is telling. We don’t ever ‘lead decline’ or ‘manage success’. We do the opposite – we ‘manage’ decline and ‘lead’ any success.

In business it’s binary – you’re doing one or the other. If you are in a corporate structure the likelihood is you are managing decline. If you have opted for the autonomy to write your own rules then you have more of a chance to lead a success.

We don’t have to go far to find terrible leadership. This is primarily due to people who find themselves in positions of power who confuse leadership with management. So we are clear about the difference let’s define both practices:

• Management is the process of dealing with or controlling things or people.

• Leadership is the action of leading a group of people or an organisation.

The differentiator between the two is that one is a stipulated process whilst the other is a largely untested action. One is based on protocol the other is based on (timeless) principles and the present moment. Process is limited – action is limitless. And exciting. And creative.

The world is currently over-managed and under-led.

Sadly today some of the best leaders aren’t leading and tragically some of the best managers have been rewarded with leadership positions.

“We always lose our good people”

Humanity is now preoccupied with control, process and frameworks. We can all recall when we have been hired to do a specific job only to be waylaid by a manager who ‘reins you in’ so to ‘keep control of the process’. It’s a daily corporate occurrence and one of the reasons creative agencies and marketing teams are increasingly defunct. This is also why organisations reliably lose their best talent – many of them are reduced to mere operators.

The three fields where the leadership fail is most pronounced are ironically the three ‘industries’ that – according to psychologist Oliver James – attract the most dysfunctional personality types. They are media, banking and politics. We only have to look at the state of those fields or their practices and products to realise that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

The outcome? A media that has lost all credibility, a banking system that has reflated the biggest credit bubble in human history and a political class who have peddled institutional deceit to accommodate the media and the banks. An unholy trinity.

Many of these problems can be traced to putting management (and the diffuse responsibility that poor management often relies on) ahead of leadership. Proper leaders, for instance, embrace delegation but retain responsibility for the task. Poor management identifies scapegoats.

The lesson is simple: frameworks and control cannot – and do not – replace critical thinking, intuition, creativity and responsibility.

What happened To The Long Game?

Unfortunately business, like politics and banking, has embraced short termism to solve long-term issues. This has indoctrinated many into thinking in narrowly defined, self-interested silos. Thinking in silos instead of holistically breeds a mentality (and culture) of scarcity. It also means that in most meetings everyone feels they should know everything.

A necessary digression: the two most confining words in the English language are ‘I know’. This closed mindset does not allow new information to be converted into knowledge then into value and – only then – into money or results.

So here is a leadership idea: why not open the next presentation or meeting with this: “No-one really knows – but collectively we have the ability to discover a solution and create something to serve a real world need.”

Think about what you have just done with that statement…

You have just engaged the people who you’ll need to make good strategic leadership decisions. Why? Because the critical thinkers in the room will respond to that honesty and the implicit challenge to create something useful. These people want to be trusted and nurtured so they can solve difficult problems. If you are lucky enough to have them in your meeting – use them – do not manage them to fit your limiting expectations or a meaningless big data scrape.

Another digression: the words “I don’t know yet” – far from being an admission of weakness or naivety – are actually full of potential.

Brain Drain

Many organisations that demanded academic excellence for their people ‘to lead’ now, ironically, face a well-publicised ‘war for talent.’ This is because most of their ‘best people’ have been educated out of the leadership skills necessary to respond to an increasingly transparent world. When IBM recently surveyed 1,900 CEO’s they all cited creativity and adaptability as the two most important qualities future leaders must possess. Culturally most corporations aren’t configured to nurture or develop these skills.

If we want better leadership we have to go back to basics and work with raw talent that has not been trained out of their intuition so to fit an increasingly obsolete system. This cannot be done theoretically. You have to learn by doing and failing and winning daily.

At Ease With Uneasiness

If you are successfully leading the chances are you have hired people better than you at their jobs and you are holding a space in which they can thrive. If you are managing decline the chances are you’re inundated. You’ll have unconsciously created and politicised a chain of command. You’ll be making all the decisions and impeding the natural inclinations and talents of your team.

If the future is going to be better led, and therefore better managed, we need to accept that management is secondary. We also have to accept that we should all be working daily on our personal leadership and ourselves because no effort in in this area is ever wasted. This means rediscovering timeless leadership principles and being at ease with the natural uneasiness that leadership brings. This will begin to reinvigorate the art (not science) of leadership.

And with that art restored, everything else then becomes manageable.

– with thanks to the author, Ross Ashcroft of RenegadeInc

I’ve Got The Power!

The Future of….Energy
– by Guy Winter, Partner, Addleshaw Goddard

In 1974’s noir classic Chinatown– arguably Hollywood’s greatest-ever movie about the ‘Water-Energy-Food Nexus’- Jack Nicholson’s character, hard-boiled PI J.J. Gittes, says of supply from LA’s Water and Power corporation: “Before this- I turned on the faucet, it came out hot and cold, I didn’t think there was a thing to it.”

Now Jack- and his fellow Californians- know all about the value of water. Since the Western U.S. Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001 and, more recently, prices at the pump that have already fluctuated by nearly a buck and a half per gallon in the last 12 months, they know all about power uncertainties too.

What is still less well-known is how intertwined their- and the world’s- water and energy futures truly are. To understand how the Water-Energy Nexus works, you only need to drive your 1937 Buick 85 miles down south from Chinatown.

When the Carlsbad Desalination Project opens in 2016, it will be the largest ocean desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, purifying 50 million gallons of drinking water a day for thirsty San Diego County.

This is a conventional reverse osmosis plant that smashes 100 million gallons of seawater a day through state-of-the-art membrane filters. The salt and other nasties are left behind, leaving Greater San Diego with all that lovely freshwater- plus the bill for 38 megawatts of average continuous energy (let’s say, US$50 million per year).

To put that power demand in context, a modern, commercial-scale wind turbine- the type you may see in the British countryside, and cuss at if you’re Donald Trump- has a maximum generating capacity of 2.5-3MW. And- as Donald will doubtless tell you- only generates that intermittently.

So that’s the rub: you can have as much water as you have the power to desalinate (or to pump from somewhere else). Oh, and you can only have as much power as you have water to generate it with.

Here in the UK, the electricity generation sector is by far the largest licensed abstractor of water of all sectors of the economy, including public water supply. Meanwhile, our water industry uses up to three per cent of total energy used in the UK, treating and transporting water and wastewater.

And that’s in this watery isle- desert kingdom Saudi Arabia burns 1.5 million barrels of oil every day to desalinate water. Even at today’s oil price (which we’ll come onto), that’s a water bill of US$70.5 million per day- US$25,732,500,000 per year.

If their water consumption continues to grow at its current rate, by 2040, they will be burning all their oil just to satisfy domestic freshwater consumption. This is what brings empires to their knees; that changes the economic geography of the world.

Coal-fired generation supplies 70% of China’s electricity needs, much of it via old-fashioned water-cooled facilities. But since there’s no water in the arid, industrial north of the country where the energy is needed, China simply can’t build the new coal-fired capacity it needs to power projected growth in energy consumption of 60% by 2035 (Source: BP Energy Outlook 2035). In fact, BP projects that by 2035, China will become the world’s largest energy importer, overtaking even resource-constrained Europe.

All of this sets the scene for a future that will prize both water and energy (because they’re kind of the same thing) hugely more than at any time since the Industrial Revolution began to tap the world’s resources with unprecedented voracity and technical prowess.

2015 was the first year in which water crises took the top spot in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report. Whilst in Africa, with its growing middle-class and a young population which will form 23% of global workforce by 2050, only 290 million out of 915 million have access to electricity- and the number without is actually GROWING.

I had the incongruous experience of sitting in the first world splendour of one of Lagos’ finest restaurants (unfair to name it, since this could have happened anywhere on the island), talking to excited Nigerians about their country’s boundless possibilities, only for the lights to cut out three times before our starters arrived.

And Nigeria has the ninth largest proven natural gas reserves in the world (US$2.5 billion dollars of which is literally burnt off as a waste-product from more lucrative crude oil production every year- because there aren’t the pipes to transport it or the power-stations to sell it to).

For now, Nigerians pride themselves on their expertise in tinkering with their (exorbitantly expensive) diesel back-up generators at home.

In the West, almost all economic activity over the last 250 years has been massively subsidised by cheap energy from fossil fuels and (since the Age of Steam may be over for the railroads, but it certainly isn’t for the power sector)- water. That game is up.

As I look at my screen this morning, the spot price for Brent crude is under US$50. In theory this represents a value transfer from net oil-producing states back to net oil-consumers (such as the UK).

The reality is that this is no longer a zero-sum game, but part of a long-term structural change that will see the costs of finding, producing and transporting Oil & Gas creep relentlessly upwards- until ultimately some of it is simply left in the ground.

There may currently be quirks of supply and (in China’s case) plummeting demand, but paradoxically the present glut of cheap oil is deferring final investment decisions on new Oil & Gas projects (estimated by O&G gurus Wood Mackenzie to be worth around US$1.5 trillion), storing up an investment shortfall that guarantees a volatile future for the medium-term market. So Oil & Gas won’t be subsidising anyone indefinitely.

US shale oil and gas is not necessarily cheap to produce- but it is developed by hugely flexible, innovative and incentivised operators, in exactly the right place to sell it into a vast and lucrative market.

That’s why the US shale producers are the new “swing producers”, replacing OPEC- which now seems to have let the supply-side genie out of the bottle forever. US shale is the bogeyman to OPEC (itself once dubbed ‘One Purely Evil Cartel’ in the land of the free) because it now represents an effective cap on the oil price.

Nimble (i.e. non State-controlled) oil companies can ramp up production in the Eagle Ford, Bakken or Marcellus Shales very quickly when prices for sweet, light crude pass the break-even for given fields, and consistently drive production costs down by squeezing the supply chain for greater efficiencies and innovation.

In the wider world, over 40% of global electricity is still produced from coal- but with the International Energy Agency warning this year that without further action on emissions from coal-fired power plants, nothing can reverse global warming beyond the 2 degree threshold for irreversible dangerous climate change and the G7 aiming to reduce fossil fuel emissions by up to 70 per cent by 2050, coal-fired generation capacity in Europe and North America is falling off a cliff.

What then does the future look like, without Old King Coal and JR Ewing to prop up the bar? As always, it is already partly with us:

1. All retail and consumer-focussed companies will be energy companies too: the need for predictably-priced, reliable energy and the financial and reputational cost of large residual waste footprints is already driving the sector to innovative, small-scale renewable energy and Energy-from-Waste projects (solar panels on the factory and car-park roof; wind turbines on the industrial estate; on-site anaerobic digestion, gasification and pyrolysis Energy-from-Waste treatment processes).

2. Existing assets will be sweated more: why not use the idle back-up diesel generator your hospital is required by law to maintain, to off-set intermittent renewable energy from nearby wind and solar generation?

3. Demand-side energy and water management and technology will slash consumption- that means smart meters, smart appliances (smart fridges!), electricity storage (maybe even via Tesla electric car batteries), efficient domestic boilers and telemetry systems to identify and help fix leaking pipes. On the idyllic western shore of Lake Como, our client Xylem Inc. helped the local pumping station to cut energy use by 30 per cent, with an intelligent control system that automatically adjusts the rotation speed of the pump impellers, to deal with the changing composition of the input water.

4. Big thermal power stations and their iconic, brutalist cooling tower stacks will continue to dwindle in number- the new Hinkley Point 3.2GW EPR nuclear power station in Somerset bucks that trend, but at a projected cost of £24.5 billion; almost certainly we will need a new generation of Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power stations before renewable energy is ready to keep the lights on; but unless vital, exciting but criminally-ignored Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology is developed at scale to catch CO2 from fossil fuel-burning power stations and send it by pipeline for burial in depleted North Sea gasfields (or somewhere), the energy landscape will have to change dramatically if the UK is to hit ambitious G7 and EU emissions targets.

5. It looks like being another American Century- the US Shale Revolution is an incredible vindication of America’s innovation and the economic invigoration of freedom (as well, perhaps, as the precept that fortune favours the brave). We still don’t know the full extent of the economic boost American industry will receive from the chemical feedstock (especially ethane, for ethylene cracking) to be found in “wet” shale gas plays. China has huge shale gas reserves too (more, by volume, than the US), but not the rigs, technical data or water to exploit them. But necessity may yet be the mother of a Chinese 22nd Century, as China’s vast investment in renewable energy (and watch Germany too, with its extraordinary, trillion euro Energiewende blazing a remarkable renewable energy trail in Europe) could build a low-cost, reliable energy supply to power its manufacturing sector- just as America and the rest of the world finally hits the hydrocarbon wall.

6. It may or may not mean UK shale gas development, as a “transition fuel” into a truly renewable future. But that’s almost too close to call right now, with a huge glut of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) about to hit world energy markets, and pent-up, low-cost supply wreaking havoc with hydrocarbon prices for the foreseeable future. The great allure of UK shale is arguably not the prospect of Blackpool or Preston turning into the Dallas of the North, so much as security of supply in the event of political upheaval in Russia or the Middle East- and that chemical feedstock to keep the crackers at Grangemouth and Teesside running competitively.

7. Most likely of all is that if we can just go a bit easier on the world- put an end to slash-and-burn energy and water use, manage demand and use transition fuels such as natural gas and renewable energy more shrewdly- then technologies that we are only scratching the surface of now will save it. A friend of mine (and of the editor of this series) has recently been involved in the successful £22.7 million funding round by First Light Fusion, a spin-out from the University of Oxford, which has discovered new implosion processes that can achieve the high temperatures and compression necessary for nuclear fusion reactions. If they (or any of the rival and complementary technologies being developed in the UK and around the world) can get to commercial application- then that changes everything.

As Eddie Redmayne / Stephen Hawking says in The Theory of Everything (Hollywood’s greatest ever movie about the resilience of science?): “While there’s life, there is hope.” Water and energy are the essence of life, and there is definitely hope.

– with thanks to the author, Guy Winter, Partner at Addleshaw Goddard.

You Can Check Out Any Time You Like.

The Future of….Service In An Online World
– by Tamara Lohan, Co-Founder & CTO, Mr & Mrs Smith

Ten years from now, I am woken by the closest possible approximation of natural light gently illuminating my room until I find myself fully alert, sleep cycle complete, at the time I had specified before I drifted off. Continue reading “You Can Check Out Any Time You Like.”

Say My Name, You Know Who I Am.

The Future of….Media Management
– by Susannah Clark, Global VP Communications at King

I have a confession to make.

I really love trashy American reality TV. Continue reading “Say My Name, You Know Who I Am.”