You ain’t seen nothin’ yet

Technology is bringing change faster than ever; to stay in charge, business leaders need to engage the power of imagination, creativity and innovation.

As I write I am in San Diego at the end of an amazing two-day global TEC conference, listening, absorbing information and loving it.

Once again I need to steal shamelessly, this time from one of the speakers – educator Sir Ken Robinson, who addressed the subject of the qualities organisations and individuals will need to have to thrive in the future. His key message was that organisations will need to have a culture of creativity and innovation; in fact creativity and innovation will need to be integral.

As he pointed out, Las Vegas does not need to be there but it exists because of imagination and, as he said, imagination is all we have to face the future.

His key thoughts are that we are engaged in a revolution and we cannot take anything for granted any more; we have to behave differently. His book Out of our Minds: Learning to be creative addresses the challenge and opportunity of using our imagination.

Some more thoughts from Sir Ken:

• We can all be creative. Creativity expresses itself in many ways. Apple is a creative company but so are Wal-Mart and Starbucks!
• The digital age has changed everything. Soon computers will be capable of learning!!
• Our bodies will be receiving broadband reception.
• Technology has not started yet!

Just as I thought I had conquered email and the web I realise I have to start over!

A few other interesting thoughts:

• For the first time in history 50% of the world’s GDP has come from the developing countries.
• 50% of the world’s population now live in cities.
• Mitsibishi was the world’s largest company in 1995. By 2006 it was number 127!!!

Finally, I wrote pages of notes. I suggest you look up Sir Ken on the web or read his book. Now for three things to cultivate in ourselves and our organizations:

Imagination: The capacity to bring to mind things that are not in the present.

Creativity: Putting your imagination to work.

Innovation: Putting great ideas to the test

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