Written by guest blogger & NSB speaker, Sam Geist

As I sat down to write, it seemed to me that 2011 was both one of the most difficult and most rewarding years I’ve witnessed in a very long time.  Why so difficult? — Because reality finally set in.  My clients realized that the issues they’ve avoided addressing for the longest time, could no longer be parked.  The internal issues had to be faced.  The external pressures had to be addressed.  Why so rewarding? — Because some of them saw the writing on the wall, began to address these issues and actually see results from their effort.

While talking to clients throughout the year the question that was asked of me again and again (no matter whether these clients sold services or products) was “How do we compete successfully in this environment?”

If I were sitting with you chatting one-on-one and you asked me “How do I, how does my company, how does my organization compete in these turbulent times?”  I’d tell you these three things.

1.  To compete you must exceed your customers’ expectations.

We have a choice, we can raise our expectations of ourselves, we can exceed our customers’ expectations (that’s both our internal customers who work for us and our external customers who buy from us) — or we can do what we’ve always done and be satisfied with the results.

Keep in mind that our customers (internal and external) also have a choice.  They can remain our happy and loyal customers, because we’ve exceeded their expectations, or they can become our competitors’ customers because our competitors have exceeded expectations — while we haven’t.

In order to exceed expectations in this age of value chain deconstruction, we must create value — real value for our customers today and tomorrow — and it must be value seen from the eyes of the recipient not the provider.  One valuable way to create value for our customers is to anticipate their future needs and goal.  See their upcoming problems (before they do) and provide solutions.

In today’s business environment always remember that just satisfying customers doesn’t cut it — just satisfying is not the same as exceeding.

2.  To compete you must engage your people.

Engaged people are not afraid of tomorrow — they’re not afraid of change.  Engaged people try harder, do more.  They’re anxious to move, to succeed.  They’re the positive face of your brand.  They’re your valuable ambassadors.  They’re your secret weapon for success.

Ask yourself what you are doing right now to involve your people — to engage them (and what you could be doing in 2012 that you’re not presently doing).  Encourage your people to feel the responsibility and commitment of ownership by giving them the responsibility and trust of leaders.

3.  To compete you must execute your strategy.

Get tough with yourself.  I’ve repeated it  so many times, year after year — strategy is important, very important, a necessary component for success, but strategy without execution is stagnant — nothing happens.  Execute! Get your people to execute! Execution trumps strategy!

The answer to the question “How do compete successfully in turbulent times?” comes full circle.  It is only by taking action — by executing — that you are able to exceed expectations — of yourself, of your customers (internal and external).  It is only by taking action that you engage your people.  Leadership is an active verb.  Be the leader you need.  Create a company of leaders your customers need.

2012 is the perfect time to face our new business reality squarely by taking decisive action.

Way back In 2011 I had the pleasure of spending my second year as a program director with TEDxToronto. The day of inspiration, information and thought-provoking conversation was themed to the tune of ‘Redefinition’. After reading through hundreds of proposals from potential speakers, it hit home with me how important the ‘redefinition’ phase was to making substantial changes. When event day finally came and we had our 13 speakers on stage, one by one, each speaker delivered their vision of the redefinition required in their field of interest.  The topics were broad: ‘redefining what it means to be a citizen’, ‘ redefinition of human augmentation’ (are cyborgs a reality of the future?),  ‘redefining how we think about  hospital food’ and ‘redefining how medical professionals perceive failure’  were just a few discussed throughout the day.

Dr. Brian Goldman

Recent Toronto Mayor David Miller, and ER doctor, author and CBC personality, Dr. Brian Goldman, took the stage at TEDxToronto and shared their visions of where redefinition is necessary to move forward. Dr. Goldman tackled the culture of shame that exists in the medical field. He shared medical professionals’ systemic reluctance to address and discuss their mistakes, and how that in turn creates unrealistic expectations that perpetuate problems. Dr. Goldman proposed that our medical culture should be redefined to recognize that medical professionals make mistakes and while accountability must occur, if we discuss them and learn from them, things will get significantly better.

David Miller

David Miller took a similar approach to the theme as he discussed the mental shift that citizens need to make in order to create positive change in their communities; be it local or national. He investigated the way that politicians and the media degrade our roles in society by constantly referring to us as “tax payers”. That title has a natural connection to consumerism, but we are so much more than consumers of government’s services – we define what those services are. We are citizens, families, park visitors, neighbours, community leaders, volunteers and much more. This shift in our mindset will help propel our cities, provinces and nation forward as we better understand who we are and take a natural ownership of our role in our communities.

As highlighted by these two celebrated NSB speakers, change doesn’t always need to be rooted in a massive overhaul of actions but can be effectively sparked by redefining the issue or redefining how you look at it and taking it on in this new light. This year, as you look to make positive changes in your life, consider this approach to helping you achieve your goals. All the best to a wonderful 2012!

Guest Blog written by futurist & NSB Speaker, Richard Worzel, C.F.A.

The year ahead is going to be a tumultuous one, challenging in political, economic, and financial terms. Despite this, there are opportunities for those prepared to take advantage of them, because uncertain times mean that market share is up for grabs. And no, it’s not a coincidence that there are 12 trends for 2012. I discarded a bunch more, but it’s such a catchy title I couldn’t resist.

I’m going to approach these 12 trends with three objectives: What is important? Why is it important? And what does it mean to you?

And I’m going to start with the bad news, and end with the silver linings.

1)    Declining American influence – America’s absolute and relative influence in geopolitics, economics, finance, and the military is declining for a host of reasons: the rise of competing powers like China, India, Brazil, and others; the very expensive military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have sapped America’s willingness to engage in aggressive political and/or military action; the Arab Spring, which eliminated Middle Eastern strongmen like Mubarak who followed America’s political lead, and the continued stalemate over the fate of the Palestinians, means that America’s influence over this critical and unstable region is at or near an all-time low; the Great Recession, which has sapped America’s economic and financial clout; and the dysfunctional stand-off between Republicans and Democrats that has frequently led to policy paralysis.

The implications of this are a less stable, more dangerous world. America may have gone back and forth on whether it wanted to be the world’s policeman, even though it truly was the global cop, and it’s inability to fill that role now means that the world is a more dangerous place.

This sets the stage for sticky situations to emerge, such as the twin nuclear threats from a suddenly even less-stable North Korea, and the only slightly more stable and geopolitically ambitious theocracy in Iran. It also leaves more elbow room for the ever-ambitious China to expand its power and influence, notably in south Asia and the South China Sea. It also leaves critical global issues, like what to do about climate change, without essential leadership.

The implications of this is a world where there are more likely to be more, and more serious, geopolitical, financial, and economic crises, and greater uncertainty in virtually every aspect of life. Others may not always have agreed with American policies, but they will miss America’s steadying influence as it ebbs from their lives.

2)    Ho-hum! Just another financial crisis (European edition) – The daily drumbeat of scary headlines dealing with the financial crises in Europe have gradually deadened everyone’s awareness for how dangerous the situation truly is. In particular, Angela Merkel is juggling hand-grenades, and hoping that she won’t drop any, and that none of them will go off unexpectedly. Germany is the only European country with the potential to stop the rolling crises that are affecting Europe, and then only if Merkel acts in a timely basis. To do this, she must let Greece go bankrupt instead of propping it up, shore up the banks, notably German banks, that have bought far too many dodgy EU bonds in the past, allow the European Central Bank (ECB) to become a lender of last resort, with the ability to stop a run on European bonds, and halt the bond market attacks on other European countries, starting with Portugal and Ireland, but extending to the much bigger countries like Spain, Italy, and even France. But Germany doesn’t want to do these things, and German voters are adamant that they won’t subsidize what they see as the lazy, profligate lifestyles of southern Europeans. But if Germany doesn’t act, and in a timely fashion, it may lose the ability to act at all, and come under attack from the bond markets as well. Indeed, German bonds are no longer being bought with as much enthusiasm as they were even two months ago. If Germany doesn’t act soon, it may lose the ability to do so at all.

Remember what happened in the American financial markets in 2008? If Germany doesn’t act in time, we could see the same kind of thing happen in 2012, this time starting with a run on European government bonds. From there a run could spread to those banks – American as well as European – that hold too many of these bonds. And once such a run started, the most dangerous question of all would emerge: “Who’s next?” Investors, frightened by the panic, would look to sell any and every questionable credit, and their attention might turn to the various U.S. state and local governments, like Illinois, California, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, among many others, that are struggling with their finances.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has become the de facto lender of last resort to the entire developed world, and would undoubtedly step in and support the banks and markets with everything they had. But this time, remembering the callous, greedy ingratitude of last rescue of the banking industry, American voters and the American Congress would likely tell the banks to drop dead. It was a hard enough last time to get Congress to bail out the banks; this time I suspect it would be impossible, even though failing banks would take the global economy down with them. Moreover, the Fed doesn’t have anywhere near as many bullets today as they did in 2008, and Fed Chairman Bernanke already has some Republicans, notably Ron Paul, baying for his blood over the quantitative easing from the last crisis.

The danger here is frighteningly real, and even greater than the risks we faced in the panic of 2008. Yet, the steady drip of crisis headlines and last-minute rescues has left many people convinced that nothing will happen. If it does, it will catch people flat-footed, not because they didn’t know there was a crisis, but because they have been hearing about it for over two years now, and have tuned it out. We could muddle through, and probably will – but the risks are far higher than most people realize. It will be important to have thought out a Plan B to deal with the unthinkable, if it happens, one that prepares you and your finances for a bigger repeat of the 2008 panic. Again, it probably won’t happen – but it’s better to have a plan and not need it, than need a plan and not have it.

3)    Yes, China’s influence will continue to rise, but…  Napoleon famously said, “China is a sleeping giant. Let it sleep.” Well, China’s very much awake now, and throwing her weight around – although cautiously. If I were (God forbid) Emperor of China, I would require my minions to tread cautiously, to smile a lot at our trading partners and neighbors, and to make our gains slowly, one salami slice at a time, never appearing too greedy or overreaching. I would practice soft diplomacy, offering aid and comfort where I could do so cheaply, loudly proclaiming our respect for other countries’ internal policies, taking leadership positions in things, like climate change, where I knew I was going to have to make changes anyway, and generally trying to look like a good global citizen. I would act, in short, as if time were on my side, and I was going to be the next Big Thing.

And generally speaking, that is precisely what China is doing – except that every once in a while the mask slips, and the avarice and aggression shows, as with the boundary disputes with other countries, especially as related to the South “China” Sea, which China (the nation) seems to be trying to interpret literally as being a Chinese lake.

But China has an Achilles’ heel – several of them, in fact – and does not have (much) time on its side. Its biggest weakness is that it is aging faster than any other significant country on Earth. Because of its One Child policy, China’s population is expected to peak, and begin declining, sometime around 2020 – within the next 10 years. And its labor force is already in decline, even as the demands for higher wages push its cost structures higher.

Meanwhile, although there is a great deal of pride in China’s new affluence among the Chinese, that affluence is not evenly spread, and there is unrest among those who remain poor. Add to this the widespread corruption of Chinese officials at all levels, which often provokes revolts, like the one in Wukan, which leads to simmering dissatisfaction among many Chinese.

This will further be exacerbated by the fact that China’s factories are automating almost as quickly as those of the developed world, which threatens to slow the rate of job creation, productivity, and affluence markedly over the next 10 years. Yet, China dare not automate; to do so would mean a loss of competitiveness, which would produce even worse results as industries would move elsewhere.
So, with that in mind, what would I, as self-appointed Emperor of China, do? Worry about a future I couldn’t control, and for which I could not see a clear path forward. The next 10 years will mark the beginning of the end of China’s ascension, and if I were Emperor, I’d think about retiring to some warm, cushy haven before the revolution came. Chinese Spring, anyone?

The implications are for China to step up its attempts to increase power and influence, and throw its weight around even more actively before that power starts to wane, but as quietly as possible. Look for China to try to make this the China Decade, especially in finance, trade, and geopolitics, as it attempts to pull in as much as it can while it can.

4)    American Spring? Meanwhile, closer to home, while those on the political right like to dismiss the Occupy movement (e.g., Occupy Wall Street), the fact that the movement happened at all is the most significant part of it. Indeed, Time magazine made protestors its “Person of the Year”, and that’s not restricted to just the Arab countries. The Occupy movement and protests against cut-backs in many developed countries had many of the earmarks of the Arab Spring: protestors saying that their governments serve an elite clique and not the people; lots of people, especially young men, who cannot find work despite months or years of trying; and a belief that the political system is neither representative nor responsive. Just because winter has fallen, and the Occupy settlements have been disbanded does not mean that the dissatisfaction has gone away. And with increasingly dysfunctional government in America, the potential is there for a much stronger protest movement against the System, however that is defined. American Spring, perhaps? It sounds unlikely, but not as unlikely now as it did before, and it won’t be restricted to America for discontent will grow in all developed countries.

This is especially true as the boomers move towards retirement, only to find that their either don’t have the resources to retire and that no one is going to donate them, or that the civil servant pensions that they were promised are unaffordable.

The protest movements have only just begun, and they are going to be acrimonious, disruptive, and at times hijack the political process.

5)    Mixed signals for both weaker – and stronger – economic growth.  Europe and its prospects are dragging the global economy down. The uncertainty in Europe, combined with the painful budget cuts in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, mean that Europe is now in recession and a drag on the global economy.

Meanwhile, China, which had been concerned about inflation, and hence was hiking interest rates in a bid to slow it, has now reversed itself, which I can only interpret as concern that growth will slow more than they want. That’s a potential positive, as it will add stimulus to the global economy.

Canada, which has to date seemed to skate above most of the problems of the rest of the developed world, now seems to be experiencing slower growth, with an unexpected jump in the unemployment rate, while its housing market is looking pricey, frothy, dangerous, and much like America’s prior to the collapse in 2008, especially in condo development in its major cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary. Moreover, its consumer debt levels are exceeding the levels of American consumers in 2007, and no less a figure than Mark Carney, the highly respected Governor of the Bank of Canada, has warned consumers and banks alike to cut back on consumer borrowing. Canada could be arriving late for the financial meltdown of 2008 – but if its consumers don’t mend their ways, they will get there.

And yet, America, which until 2008 was seen as the world’s engine of growth, seems to be picking up for no specific reason. Actually, this was almost inevitable because of the natural dynamism and entrepreneurship of the American economy. What has prevented America from rebounding earlier, or more strongly, has been the housing market, which is still in horrendous shape – but slowly improving.

So how will this balance out through 2012? Assuming that Europe doesn’t crash and burn, and drag everyone else down with it, and that Iran doesn’t precipitate a significant war in the Middle East, then America will continue to recover, its jobless rate will continue to decline (slowly), the world will lick its (economic) wounds, and things will slowly get better.

Accordingly, while I continue to counsel my clients to have a Plan B in their back pocket if things do go bad, my primary advice is the prepare now for better times ahead. There are problems – big problems – ahead, and the American election in 2012 is not going to help, but for 2012 we are likely to see an improving environment, and opportunities re-emerging for those with the courage to grasp them, as I outline in Trend #7 below.

6)    Climate change accelerates – and the consequences will multiply. The most significant and portentous climate news of 2011 was the discovery of methane gas bubbling up in the Arctic Ocean off the north coasts of both Siberia and Alaska. Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and the melting of the Arctic ice cap, combined with the rise in the temperature of the Arctic Ocean, has started to release methane from the ocean floor. As well, as temperatures rise in the northern polar regions of Siberia, Alaska, and Canada, the permafrost melts, releasing even more methane into the atmosphere. The amounts of methane that could be released by both sea floor methyl hydrates and permafrost are staggeringly huge, and could dramatically accelerate the rate of climate change. If this trend continues, not only will the debate over climate change be over, but humanity will be forced to race to keep up with the potential changes.

As it happens, the vast majority of climate scientists – something approaching 95% – now agree that climate change is happening, and that humanity is at the very least a significant contributor to it. Since I speak to lots of different kinds of audiences, I can tell you that most groups now accept that climate change is happening, even those that have been among the most vocal doubters. The doubts they now raise are more along the lines of whether humanity is to blame. But from my point of view, it no longer matters: if your house is on fire, you don’t throw gasoline on the fire, regardless of how it started. That’s roughly the position we’re in now.

In 2012, we will get more information about the release of methane, and can only pray for good news. Meanwhile, brace yourself for more strange, and increasingly extreme weather. And because climate is a chaotic system (where chaos theory is a branch of mathematics), it is literally unpredictable. This means we can’t tell whether we will get floods or drought, hurricanes or tornados, or something else unforeseen. But it won’t be business as usual, either.

7)    Innovation as Steve Jobs’ legacy.  Jobs didn’t invent innovation, but he sure popularized it! Innovation has become a corporate religion in recent years, and with good reason: innovation can allow you to disrupt the marketplace, scoop up market share, increase profits, and win friends and influence people, just as Jobs and Apple have done. Yet, innovation is hard, especially because there’s a natural resistance to change and to the real risk-taking that innovation requires.

But if there is a theme for the corporate world in 2012, it is that now is the time to get serious about innovation. As an innovation specialist who runs seminars and workshops for corporate clients, I’m seeing this on a daily basis in genetic and medical research, agriculture, the automotive industry, the insurance industry and finance generally, plus just about every other sector of the economy. And technology itself embodies innovation. Indeed, the idea of a technological company not working hard at innovation seems like recipe for extinction. The world is changing rapidly, and there are lots of new opportunities – and disasters – out there. It’s raining soup, but if you just stand there, looking up in surprise, you’ll drown!

8)    Who dares, wins. Such is the motto of Britain’s fabled SAS – one of the world’s premier commando groups. But their motto applies equally to unsettled times. During such times, it’s easy and very, very tempting to hunker down, conserving cash, and wait for lazy, easy times to return. But study after study shows that companies that continue to market aggressively, and pursue research into new ideas, new products, and better results for their customers make far more inroads with modest expenditures during bad times than spending far more during good times, when everyone else is competing hard. Moreover, loyalty is won when times are bad, both among consumers, and among employees. And best of all, you can often accomplish a great deal with careful planning and foresight rather than lavish expenditures. This is where strategic planning comes to the fore. The time to be thoughtfully aggressive is when your competitors are playing turtle.

9)    The Red Invaders. The emergence of a Chinese middle class not only means upward pressure on food and fuel prices, it also means a vast invasion of Chinese tourists bearing money. For those countries and regions able to attract such tourists, it means a new source of revenue, and a big shot in the arm. And, as with all ethnic groups, it also means serving them the way they want to be served in terms of language, food, and customs. To the winner go the mega-spoils.

10) Haggling returns to North American retailing. Smart retailers are recognizing that it’s no longer enough to post a sign saying “10% off” to attract consumers, but that consumers are more demanding now, and are moving away from the traditional “no haggle” approach to buying. Moreover, haggling offers two additional benefits to consumers: it’s become somewhat of a game where they can enjoy the thrill of the hunt; and it offers bragging rights when talking with their friends. As a result, haggling has been emerging in two different ways, one passive, and the other active.

The passive form of haggling is to wait for sales. You can witness this almost anywhere when consumers see an item they like in a store, and ask if it’s on sale. When they’re told that it’s not, they turn up their noses, and say they’ll wait until it is. This might be described as “temporal haggling”, where the consumer is saying, “I’ll wait until you lower the price before I buy it. And if you don’t lower it enough, I won’t buy it.” Smart stores are responding in creative ways. Some salespeople say, “No, that’s not on sale, but it will be starting next week,” which amounts to a counter-offer. A smart consumer will reply by saying, “Can you put it aside for me until then?”, implicitly offering to buy it if they do. Some salespeople say no, others say “Sure.” The net result is that store and consumer have haggled over the price to agree on a sale/purchase. Yet the smart retailer actually has an advantage in this exchange: they get to name the sale price in temporal haggling.

By comparison, in active, more traditional haggling the consumer takes the initiative, saying something like “What’s your best price on this widget?” If the salesperson replies with the sticker price, the haggle is over and the consumer leaves. If the salesperson names a price, the consumer responds dismissively, and says, “I wouldn’t pay a nickel over $X for that”, and the salesperson can choose to respond or not. This is, as I say, traditional marketplace haggling.

If a retailer wants to capitalize on the re-emergence of haggling into the North American marketplace, they need to anticipate it, and come up with a range of responses. One might be to say, “We can’t discount this item today, but it is going on sale next week. Would you like to put a deposit on it to hold it until then?” The retailer regains the initiative this way, and moves towards a close. Or better still, the retailer should look for a way to add value rather than cut price by making a counter-offer like, “No, I’m sorry, we can’t discount that item. But we can offer you a 50% discount on a matching accessory if you buy it.”

Regardless of approach, though, retailers should be prepared to return to marketplace haggling, and have a range of responses ready to deal with it. Consumers, as always, should decide what they want, and what their bottom line is in getting it.

11) Health care magic blossoms. Putting aside the issue of cost, which concerns everyone, the ability of health care to solve problems is beginning to move at computer speeds, in part because IT is increasingly being used by doctors, nurses, hospitals – and patients – to manage health care, and in part because research is increasingly being done using smart, powerful computer tools to perform research and execute treatments. Among the changes in the immediate future of health care are:

• The rapidly rising ability to repair failing hearts and minds (or at least brains) and other organs with stem cells. Stem cell treatments are starting to move out of the laboratory and into the operating room, and 2012 will see hundreds of people receiving this kind of therapy.
• Similarly, 3D printers, which have been in development for roughly 20 years, are now good enough that they are starting to be used to create replacement organs from a patient’s own tissue. This will gradually move into mainstream medicine, with replacement hearts, livers, and kidneys being at the top of the list.
• Quadriplegics will increasingly be able to interact with the world through prosthetics controlled by thought alone, either through electrodes that interpret brain wave patterns, or implanted chips which interpret specific thought-impulses.
• Retinal implants are starting to emerge that can help blind people discern light, shapes, and some objects. The implication is that we may be able to help aging boomers improve their failing eyesight as they age – one of the biggest complaints of old age!
• Health care is increasingly falling into the hands of the patient – literally. Smartphones, which are fundamentally wearable computers with all the capabilities of what used to be called “supercomputers”, can now work with Bluetooth-enabled sensors to monitor various aspects of health, from the vigor of your workout, to the health of your heart, to the level of your blood sugar. This will lead to a revolution in health management, with consumers sometimes way out in front of practitioner.
• Likewise, as patients become more and more comfortable with researching medical conditions and treatments online; they are demanding an increasing role in their own diagnosis and treatment; becoming active, important advocates for fund-raising and acceptance of treatments; and blunt critics of health care practitioners through social media and word of mouth. Smart practitioners are accepting this trend and rolling with it. Old school practitioners are resisting, but may wind up steamrolled by it.
• Crowdsourcing of tough diagnoses, and novel solutions to the medical and financial problems of health care promise to open yet another front in the health care revolution. This follows on with the success of crowdsourcing in helping leading-edge research scientists in astronomy (galaxyzoo.org) and protein research (Foldit game softwear).
• Sequencing your genome gets cheap. Sequencing the first genome cost billions of dollars and took decades to perform (culminating in the Human Genome Project). Today it costs about $1,000 (although analysis costs significantly more). Within 10 years, it will cost $100, and analysis will cost about $500 more, and will provide you a complete run-down of where your vulnerabilities lie, and what you can do to forestall future health problems. For 2012, we will see incremental advances towards that goal, with major diseases identified, and a short list of things you do – and don’t – want to do or eat prescribed. This is the true beginning of personalized medicine, and it will revolutionize health care.

12) Technology accelerates in 2012. It’s hard to know what to leave out: electronic mind-reading? Glasses that emit sounds and smells to allow you to enhance social media? The proliferating tablets and smartphones with ever-more wondrous abilities? Here’s a partial list of things I think demonstrate trends that will become increasingly important:

• 3D printers – As well as making replacement organs, 3D printers are coming into the price range of consumers, and may mean that you can buy your own desktop factory. Need a replacement screw for a door? Make it yourself. Need to duplicate a key? Ditto. See a nifty device on TV? Download the plans and make it yourself. Of course, who knows what the ink cartridges will cost.
• Near-eye monitors – These look like glasses, but are computer monitors. They’re the lineal descendents of jet fighter heads-up displays, and will revolutionize the way we use computers, particularly smartphones, but have been hampered by high costs. Prices are starting to approach luxury consumer levels, so applications will start to appear in things like immersive gaming, personal entertainment theaters, medical imaging, and augmented reality.
• Augmented reality through your smartphone – Augmented reality is overlaying information on top of the view from your Mark 1 eyeball, much as Google Street View overlays the names of shops on a photo. You’ll be able to hold up your smartphone’s camera and have your phone overlay directions, stores, infrastructure views, or whatever else might be useful to you. This gets better when you can view the results in your near-eye monitors.
• Cloud computing explodes – Owning a computer is so 2010. Cloud computing is rapidly placing the resources of today’s supercomputers in your hands for pennies a minute. One researcher used one of the commercial clouds to try to break his password to a social media website by brute force, just to see if he could do it. Using the cloud and standard code-breaking techniques he did it in minutes, and it cost him 39¢. As the tools to harness this power get more powerful and easier to use, the potential of the cloud will be adapted by more and more users.
• Siri & copycats + babbling to your smartphone – Siri is an application of the iPhone 4S that allows you to speak to your iPhone and get it to do things for you. This might be setting a count-down timer, converting milliliters to fluid ounces, finding an address and directions from your present location, or looking up a phone number (all of which I’ve done). Apple is offering this technology as a beta version now, but every Siri request goes through Apple’s servers. This means the potential exists to assess what people want to do, and come up with solutions, improving the results really quickly, making personal avatars (also called PDAs, butlers, or assistants) much more valuable in short order. And that means everyone will rush into the field. This will lead to lots of really bad copycat applications, but ultimately a revolution in how we use technology.
• Biometric passwords – Our world is becoming so full of passwords that need to be foolproof (meaning our tendency to forget them) that biometric passwords are almost inevitable, and they are beginning to appear. They will be expensive at first, but gradually retina, fingerprint, voiceprint, and other means of making sure you are you will become cheap and commonplace, and then you will become your own password, no memory required.
• Robots – Everyday robots are here, but they are clunky, expensive, or just plain cute. That’s changing very quickly, and 2012 will see more and more of them appearing in more and more places. Typically these will be commercial settings, but health care is one place where robots make sense and will be used. Rosie the Robot won’t be washing your dishes this year, but she’s coming – if you’re willing to pony up the equivalent of the price of a luxury car.

Written by Guest Blogger & NSB Speaker, Jim Carroll

My unique job allows me the opportunity to see and hear what a lot of CEO’s and senior executives in a lot of organizations are thinking about. The  nature of my keynotes and small board / leadership meetings allows me to understand what folks are focused on. The research I do, whether for a major manufacturing conference in Las Vegas or a small corporate meeting with an ice cream company allows me to see the key trends that are unfolding right now.

Biz competes again. North American and Western European companies have lived with constant fear, with the rapid rise of China, the BRIC countries and the N11 on the world  stage. And yet, we’re now witnessing a scene from the movie 2010: “HAL-9000 – ‘What’s going to happen?’ DAVE – ‘Something wonderful.‘ My sense is that a wide variety of industries, from agriculture to manufacturing to industrial design have been going through a renaissance of thinking in the last few years, and have learned what they need to do to re-innovate, grow again, and aggressively return to local and global markets. Read my “Build-America” blog post for some of what I’m thinking here — and stayed tuned!

The rise of the tinkering economy. The future is once again being built in the garage next door. But this time, it’s the hyper-connected, innovation oriented tinkering economy which is driving things forward. Get used to phrases like “micro factories,” “hobby designers” and”personal factories.”  The future of design, business and manufacturing is being reinvented at collaborative idea factories such as Ponoko, Etsy and  eMachineShop.com. There’s a revolution underway which is being driven by a globally connected, creatively driven new generation of hobbyists, and the impact is going to be massive!

Relationships change. Everywhere around us, the relationship that we have in our lives with the things that surround is, well, changing. Our relationship with food is changing as mobile technologies come to influence what we buy, how we shop,  and how we track our food intake. Our relationship with our body is undergoing a change as we come to use those same mobile technologies to monitor our diet, track our blood pressure another vital signs. Our relationship with clothing is changing as embedded technology becomes a part of what we wear — think about GPS enabled shoes for Alzheimers patients and Zephyr’s smart-clothing — which can be used by athletes to track their performance. When relationships change, everything changes, and opportunities for growth and innovative thinking abound!

Generational re-generation: everywhere we look, there’s a massive generational turnover underway, with a change in ownership of organizations from slow moving change adverse baby-boomers to a younger generation that inhales change as a form of innovation oxygen. As family farms and ranches are passed on from father to son and daughter, the rate of adoption of new farming and herd management ideas takes on a greater degree of speed.  As older doctors and nurses who were weaned on the paper-heavy patient file head into retirement, they being replaced by new medical residents who are arriving in the clinic, operating room and by the hospital bed with their iPads, ready to plug in! A shift from change-aversion to change-is-the-greatest-drug is a trend that speeds up our world even more!

Revenue reinvention. Every company is coming to face the reality that they have to become just like Apple in order to survive. The fact that Apple generates over 60% of its revenue from products that didn’t exist 4 years ago might today be an aberration, but given the increasing velocity of business cycles, product innovation, the arrival of new business models, changing customer expectations, the impact of social networks and a series of other trends, and soon every organization will find itself in a reality in which constant, relentless reinvention of its product or service line will the crucial to future success.

The Dominance of Design. We’re on the edge of a massive new era of creativity, with a trend that we might even call the ‘IPad-ization of Life.’ All one has to do is look at the new Nest thermostat to realize that a new generation of brilliant creativity is about to remake our world. We’re not doomed to a future in which everything around us in the future is going to look just like it did in the past – Apple’s design influence is quickly going to impact everything around us – from the cars we drive to the lamps we use to the fridges we open, to the buses we catch. Clean, simple, easy interfaces and crisp, cool lines, But it’s not just the looks — its the fact that with this new era of design comes intelligence. Our future is going to look great , intelligent and interactive!

Chip-velocity! Moore’s law used to apply only to the computer industry. Yet the rule that the processing power of a computer chip doubles every year while its cost cuts in half is taking on new meaning, as your phone becomes a credit card, your car watches how well you drive on behalf of your insurance company, and your clothing talks to your doctor! All of a sudden, in the era of relentless, pervasive connectivity, innovation in every single industry speeds up when Silicon Valley takes over the innovation agenda!

Life beyond politics. While the US Presidential election and political turmoil will dominate the headlines for 2012, a new generation of leaders are focused on BIG THINKING, BIG IDEAS, and BOLD MOVES. There’s a realization that political gridlock is the new normal, whether its the Democrats and Republications staring each other down, or France and Germany looking at Italy and Greece with a mystified sense of stunned confusion. So while politicians fail to get things done, innovative organizations are casting their mind to the future trends which will really provide opportunity in the future. It’s fascinating — the future is back in vogue again! And the thinking that is driving it is that we aren’t going to fix the problems of the future by doing what we’ve done in the past. And if we do things differently with those problems – that’s how we’ll discover the next big opportunity. This is the new mindset driving activities in the world of energy, the environment and healthcare!

Leading locally. There’s something odd going on — as the world gets global, we’re all going local.  We’re seeing it with sustainability  and local foods; angst and anger at banks and moves to credit unions; and a new volunteerism – as unemployment grew to 7.6%, volunteer service grew by 16%! We’re seeing it with local business – a University of Pennsylvania study found that areas with small, locally owned business (<100 employees) had greater per capita income growth than those with the presence of larger, nonlocal firms! There’s a new focus on local co-ops — with more than 100 million people employed worldwide in some type of local co-op. Thats’ why its fitting that 2012 is the International Year of the Cooperatives, a business model that has stood the test of time for over 150 years. Where-ever you look, while we are thinking global, we’re acting local!

Strategy re-dos. The impact of all these trends? Executives quickly coming to realize that what they’ve been doing in the past isn’t to hold them forward into the future. It’s time to throw out all the old assumptions and try things that are new!

Here’s to 2012!

For far too many people, socks are a luxury they can’t afford.

So in 2009 NSB developed the “Feet First: SOCKS for the Needy” campaign as a way to give back to the community during the holiday season. We teamed up with Fruit of the Loom (Renfro Canada) who offered to give us black cotton socks at cost.

All of the money we would have put towards Christmas cards and gifts was put towards this initiative. This year we’re branching out and hoping you’ll help us give cold, wet feet a new pair of warm socks.

The socks are distributed through First United Church Mission (Vancouver) and Yonge Street Mission (Toronto), both of which run foot care clinics in the core downtown areas where hundreds of people living in tough circumstances receive treatment for foot issues. Our campaign provides socks directly to those who are treated at the foot clinics and those who need them most.

On behalf of all those who contributed in 2010, the National Speakers Bureau and our sister company, Contemporary Communications have donated over 3,000 pairs of black cotton socks.

The need is greater this year and in 2011 we would like to do more.  For those living on the street and in shelters foot problems and disease are a serious problem.

We hope you are able to support SOCKS. More information is below.

Thank you, and best wishes for the holiday season!

– The NSB Team

What is “Feet First: SOCKS for the Needy”?

As our way of showing appreciation for your business and to give back to our communities, NSB is sharing the warmth and giving socks to the needy this season. Thousands of homeless people on the streets of Toronto and Vancouver need a warm pair of socks this winter. Our goal is to contribute 3,500 of durable, high-quality, black cotton socks to Yonge Street Mission (Toronto) and First United Church Mission (Vancouver). A donation of $20 alone will provide 22 pairs of socks for those who need this essential item most. If you’d like to be a part of the campaign, we welcome your financial donation to purchase socks on your behalf or you are also welcome to bring some socks to our office!

Our contact information is below or email us at speakers@nsb.com for more details.

*Renfro Canada is generously providing us with socks at a reduced cost with free shipping and handling.

How to donate to “Feet First: Socks for the Needy” campaign?

Please make cheques payable to National Speakers Bureau and mail to:

Feet First: SOCKS for the Needy
c/o National Speakers Bureau
1663 West 7th Avenue,
Vancouver, B.C.
V5J 1S4

Contact our Vancouver office at 1-800-661-4110, our Toronto office at 1-800-360-1073, or email us at speakers@nsb.com for more information about “Feet First: SOCKS for the Needy” campaign.

* Please note: As we are not a registered charity, receipts will not be issued.

Thanks for your support and Happy Holidays to you and yours from all of us at NSB!

Original blog posted on www.futuresearch.com  November 20, 2011

The Occupy movement is most significant not for what the protestors say, but rather that the movement is happening at all. It demonstrates significant unrest, and the greatest dissatisfaction with the capitalist system that we’ve witnessed since the fall of the Soviet Union. But where is it headed? That’s a much more worrisome question.

The fuel that powered the Vietnam war protests was the draft. There were many other issues – objections to the military-industrial complex, objections to American foreign policy, objections to the money misspent on the war, dislike and disagreement with McNamara and Johnson, even objections to war per se – but without the draft, the protests could not have been as sustained or as widespread as they were.

In the same way, the fuel that powers the Occupy movement is jobs – or rather, lack of jobs. In America, and most other developed countries, the official unemployment rate is high, but the true unemployment rate is obscenely so. In the U.S., for instance, the official rate is 9%. But if you include those who have stopped looking for work, and therefore are no longer counted in the official unemployment statistics, then add those who are underemployed, the true rate approaches 20%. And if you look at the rate for young men, particularly among minorities, it approaches 40%. There is immense frustration with the lack of opportunity, and the smug, self-righteous people who look at the protestors and sneer, “Get a job!” only reveal the vast depths of their ignorance.

It’s true there are many issues embraced by the Occupiers, but without the lack of jobs, the movement would never have developed into much of anything. Americans are not generally a jealous people. If people were prospering, the middle class was expanding, and young people were able to find jobs and start their careers, they wouldn’t really have cared what percentage of total wealth is held by the top 1% of income earners. What rankles is that the rich continue to get richer through a perceived manipulation of “the system”, while the vast majority of other people suffer economically. It leads to the belief that the game is fixed in favor of those who can afford to buy the politicians. Whether this is right or not may not matter – it’s the perception that’s important here. And that perception may be explosive.

But where is this movement going? What’s next?

The Future of Work

If the future holds more jobs, and greater prosperity for most workers, then the Occupy movement will collapse from lack of fuel, and be remembered as a strange fad that came and went, like pet rocks or hula hoops. That’s not the case, because the future of work is much bleaker than people, even most top economists realize.

There are two forces that are squeezing workers in all developed countries: foreign competition, and domestic automation. One is going to get much worse, and the other is going to get slightly better.

…

This is the past and present. The future will be different.

Increased productivity comes most notably through increased automation, and we’ve all experienced that, as when we go to the gas pump, swipe our credit card, and pump our own gas, all without an attendant. But automation is about to become supercharged.

The rate of change in computing speed and cost-effectiveness is not only accelerating, but the rate of acceleration is increasing. Some technology forecasters believe that computers will increase in power by 1,000 times over the next 10 years. With this growth in computing power available at steadily cheaper prices, automation is going to accelerate dramatically, eating its way up the workplace food chain. Only this time, it’s not going to be primarily blue-collar jobs that disappear – that’s pretty well already happened – but white-collar jobs that are hard hit. Indeed, anyone who uses a contemporary computer can experience this for themselves.

With the Macintosh laptop that I’m using to write this blog, I could (if I had the talent) write a new piece of music, score it, perform it with dozens of (computerized) instruments, record it and release it for sale. I could take videos with my iPhone, download them to my laptop, edit them, add titles and special effects, add in the music that I had created, and then publish the end result on YouTube. In effect, with these two tools, a laptop computer and a smartphone, I can replace composers, performers, and an entire movie making team – and that’s using today’s technology. Very shortly, I could make an entire movie, using technology to create photo-realistic virtual actors and background scenes, dub the voices myself, then change the sound of my voice using technology, and produce an entire movie without anyone else. True, it would be a terrible movie as I know nothing about directing, editing, or acting, and not much about composing or playing musical instruments – but that’s not the point. The point is that the tools we use are becoming so powerful that high-end jobs that used to require skilled people can now be done by ordinary folk.

Likewise, computers will move into medicine, performing research using Genetic Programming, and assisting doctors to do complex diagnoses using smart computers like IBM’s Watson; performing clerical work in almost every conceivable industry, and displacing millions of white collars workers along the way; drive cars, trucks, and trains unassisted; and almost any other kind of routine work. Indeed, computer intelligences and everyday robots will move towards replacing workers in any and every kind of repetitive work, leaving only creative, innovative, entrepreneurial work – and leaving millions, or even tens of millions of people unemployed.

What Happens When Too Many People Are Unemployed?

If you look at the Arab Spring from earlier this year, it wasn’t so much a yearning for the freedom to read newspapers not approved by dictators, or the desire to vote that was the driving force that caused people to revolt, but unemployment, especially among young men – leading the inability to create a life, to feed your children, or even to be able to afford to get married and start a family – that drove the revolutions, and inspired young men to face bullets and tanks. If you look at the protests in Europe, it’s not just the anger that a lazy, luxurious way of life is being taken away from Greek citizens, but a very real fear that they won’t be able to live that drives citizens to the barricades.

Unemployment, the specter of want, and the inability to make a decent living, to have a decent life, is historically a very potent, very scary force in geopolitics, and it’s with us now. The Occupy movement is not just about fairness, but driven by the fear and anger that there is no opportunity unless you are one of the privileged class that has a job. As the number of jobs lost to automation rises, so too will the number of people who will respond to the goad of fear and anger about their future.

Worse, it’s not just about finding a job – it’s also about keeping one. Jobs appear and disappear faster than at any time in history, and someone who is a valued employee and a rising star one day can be redundant and valueless the next. A person in that position can try to retrain and find new work, but they find themselves among the multitudes of people desperately seeking work. Without the in-demand skill that got them a job in the first place, they are reduced to the same pavement-pounding, resuming-producing, faith-sapping odyssey that afflicts so many out of work people today.

…

We are, indeed, heading towards a world of aristocrats and peons. Indeed, that is precisely what the Occupy forces are demonstrating against, only they use a slightly different terminology: the 1% and the 99%. Same thing.

So where is this leading us? If I’m right, then even if the economy and employment picks up, and mollifies the Occupy protestors and their spiritual kin, the concerns will return again and again as the long-term rates of unemployment, especially among the young, continue to rise. And that way lies revolution.

What Should We Do About This?

If we lived in Naples in 79 A.D., and saw steam pouring out of the top of Mount Vesuvius, we would try to warn the residents to flee. We are in an analogous situation. This volcano won’t erupt in the next month or next year – but as things are trending, we need to take action, and soon, or we risk precisely the kind of revolution we witnessed in the Arab Spring earlier this year.

It’s no good trying to stem the tide of automation. That smacks of the 19^th century luddites smashing mechanized looms that they felt were stealing their jobs. Moreover, it would be like trying to hold back the tide, and about as successful. It is possible that politicians, under voter pressure, will seek to ban automation and the productivity increases that automation produces in order to preserve jobs. (This is also called “featherbedding”.) All that means is that countries that do not ban automation will see their relative productivity increase, their cost structure decrease, so that the jobs will migrate from here to there rather than being lost to automation.

Instead, politicians, economists, and anyone else interested in our future prosperity and stability should be taking a serious look at how to create new, better jobs that people can do best. These will largely be entrepreneurial, I suspect, and will all be creative, and focus on innovation. This also implies a complete revamp of our education system, away from rote learning and memorization, and towards creativity and individually customized education, to enable each person to emphasize the things they are best at.

None of this will happen quickly or easily. It requires a very different view of “job creation” and a very different understanding of the future of work. The “magic of the markets” won’t solve this problem. Capitalism, left to itself, will emphasize greater productivity through automation, leading to greater profits for the owners of the machines – until profits collapse because there aren’t enough consumers to by the goods and services industry produces. Capitalism will lead to a dead end.

This is not the conventional view, and many will decry my message as “socialist”, although I’ve said nothing at all about redistributing wealth. Some will pillory me for being alarmist, but without attempting to refute my reasoning. And some will just hide their heads in the sand and say “it can’t happen here.”

To this last group, I would suggest that they tell that to Moammar Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak. They were sure it couldn’t happen there, either.

Read Richard Worzel’s complete blog at Futuresearch.com

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About the speaker: Richard Worzel is one of today’s leading forecasters and futurists, who helps you first see and then invent the future you want. He challenges organizations to examine the future and plan for the dizzying changes to come. He can equip your organization with the knowledge to face changes in the years ahead, and the tools to leverage those changes to revolutionize and dominate your industry.

Guest Blog by Strategic Futurist Jim Carroll

I often wonder if the discussion about health care in Canada has come off the rails – and that perhaps we aren’t doing as well as we think compared to the rest of the world.

Over the last few years, I’ve emerged as someone speaking on a global basis about future healthcare, medical and pharmaceutical trends for audiences including the World Pharma Innovation Congress in London UK, a private CEO health care event in Munich Germany and ‘what comes next in the world of health care’ event in New Orleans, just in this past year.

Through all of these events, I’m having a unique opportunity as a Canadian to see what senior health care executives, association leaders and industry CEO’s are thinking about in terms of the future.
And the message is clear — it’s time for bold thinking, big actions, and new ideas.

Innovation, not politics.

And then I look around the world of health care in Canada, and everyone seems to be talking about the same thing today that they were talking about yesterday. “Wait times: So much money, such modest progress … - Globe and Mail, May 2011″ …..  “Wait times for priority surgeries improve – The Globe and Mail, March 2011″ …. “Lack of funding will increase airport wait times … – National Post …. July 2011″ ….. “Wait times longer for sickest patients: Poll | News | National Post, June 2011″

It’s like its Groundhog Day here in Canada when it comes to health care. Remember the poor fellow in that movie? He kept up waking on the same day, each day, and somehow had to try to break the routine.

Is that where Canadian health care is? Politicians, executives in the system, medical professionals, associations — they’re all trapped in the dogma of thinking that if we can somehow fix the ‘wait time” problem, we’re witnessing innovation in the system.

And the fact is, we’re not. With a constant focus on one metric, innovation is stifled, smothered, and never given a chance to flourish. There is so much other opportunity if we link ourselves to the major trends that are going to unfold in the future at a furious, blinding velocity.

We need big thinking, because the health care cliff in Canada is massive. Right now, we’ve got a ratio of workers in Canada to retirees of 4 to 1. By 2030, that will decline to 2 to 1. Most of those workers support the health care expenditures of those who place the greatest demands on the health care system. It’s suggested that as a result, by 2030,  Old Age Security and health care is likely to suffer a $71.2 billion shortfall that will require a GST of 19% and a top tax rate of 71%.

I don’t think that will go over too well with most Canadians.

The fact is, we need big, bold thinking, Grand ideas. Dramatic change.
Champions with courage to challenge the status quo. The need is desperate.

We need to catch up the big thinking that I am witnessing in the rest of the world. We need to do it now.

That’s why I was thrilled to be invited to be the closing keynote speaker for the Leading Healthcare Quality Summit and Innovations Expo in Toronto, hosted by Ontario Minister of Health Deb Matthews. One of the organizers had apparently seen me speak at a recent Statistics Canada health care conference, in which I exhorted the audience to ‘think big!”

Thinking big is critical – envisioning the real future of health care is one of the most important things we can be doing.

I take a look at where we will be in the world of health care by 2020. The changes are massive — which implies the opportunities for real innovation are unprecedented.

Consider the trends:
•       Preventative: By 2020, if we do the right things, we will have successfully transitioned the system from one which “fixes people after they’re sick” to one of preventative, diagnostic genomic-based medicine. Treating patients for the conditions we know they are likely to develop, and re-architecting the system around that reality.
•       Virtual & Community:  A system which will provide for virtual care through bio-connectivity, and extension of the hospital into a community-care oriented structure. Wireless and mobility health apps that link consumer wellness monitoring to medical professionals.
•       Consumer driven: A consumer driven, retail oriented health care environment for non-critical care treatment that provides significant opportunities for cost reduction.
•       Real time:  Real time analytics and location-intelligence capabilities which provide for community-wide monitoring of emerging health care challenges. “Just-in-time” knowledge concepts which will help to deal with a profession in which the volume of knowledge doubles every six years.
That and much, much more.

The fact is, we are going to witness more change in the world of health care in the next ten years than we have seen in the last 200.

That’s the message that has resonated with the global audiences that have been bringing me in to challenge them to think about the real opportunities for innovation in the world of health care. And through that, I’m discovering experts, politicians and people within the health care system who really are thinking big enough about the potential opportunities for real innovation within the system.

And maybe my message for “big healthcare thinking” is finally resonating in Canada. Noted one Web site promoting my talk at the Ontario Summit and Innovations Expo, “Come hear keynote speaker Jim Carroll, world-renowned futurist and innovation expert, on the subject of Bringing the Future of Healthcare into the Present: Change You Can Make Starting Now. Jim received stellar feedback on his address at the recent Health Data Users Conference – don’t miss this change to see for yourself what all the buzz is about.”

Think big. Do great things. Accomplish massive change. The need is dire, the urgency is fast.

We’ve got to do more in the Canadian health care system than simply talk about wait times. We need to innovate.
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About the speaker: Jim Carroll’s message for health care providers resonates in Canada and around the world.  Just last month, Jim Carroll was the opening keynote speaker for the 2011 World Pharma Innovation Congress in London, UK. In the room were representatives of a broad swath of the global pharma and biotech industry. In the summer, he was asked to host the senior executives of a global leader in health care at a private CEO level event in Munich, Germany.

And just last week, he opened a conference for 4,500 individuals at a major conference in New Orleans, with a focus on “what comes next in the world of health care.” This is but one of dozens of keynotes he’s done throughout the US — with the demand coming from organizations and associations who “want to know what’s really going to happen with the world of health care beyond the politics of health care reform.” There’s huge demand in the US to know about the scientific, technological, R&D, philosophical, demographic and other trends that are going to take us forward into the world of health care by the year 2020.

“The Engage speaker series was incredibly engaging.  It was an experience that ignited my imagination and energy.  It provided a great taste for the quality and variety of speakers that could really make our event a hit.  I had to pinch myself as the experience was beyond my expectations.  Thank you! “

Thompson Rivers University Board of Alumni

Bricker and Wright – Canada’s premier pollsters, Darrell Bricker and John Wright, know what Canadians are thinking, and the changes that are happening across the country. With exclusive access to statistics from Canada and around the world, their interactive, funny duo presentations are packed with insight and cutting-edge stats as current as a month to hours old.  We learned about trends in government, business, immigration, and the new face of Canadians, along with the implications of recent elections. They shared five key trends for your organization to be aware of:

We’re becoming more:
1.    Fiscally aware
2.    Demanding of Accountability
3.    Connected / Aware of our surroundings
4.    Niche / Individual with our preferences
5.    Focus on Local Government vs Nat’l

Vaughn Palmer, the highly respected political journalist, gave us insights into the who’s who of BC politics and the incredible stories behind the scenes of how politics is done in BC.  Loads of fun and laughter, bringing the character and the characters of BC to life.  Palmer clearly appreciates the uniqueness of BC and has a true love for the province.

Jowi Taylor owns and designed the most unique guitar in Canada.  Beautifully played by surprise guest Don Alder, a world-class fingerstyle guitarist, at our event, Taylor’s presentation is more than a story about a guitar, but rather a story and lesson about our country.  He notes:  “A country isn’t really a country unless it has a story”.  Taylor’s presentation had the audience in a spontaneous singing of “O Canada” we were so moved and proud.  The Voyageur represents and holds pieces we treasure across the country and tells of geography, history, pride and more:  one of the seat boards from Massey Hall, a tiny bit of gold from his Maurice Rocket Richard’s Stanley Cup ring, and tells a moving story of one of the most rare & revered trees in Canada that embodies the spirit of a nation.

Deb Grey - Always a straight shooter, Deb Grey’s quick wit and sense of humour, (which often got her in trouble during her youth and on Parliament Hill), characterize her style on the platform, alongside her compassionate nature.  She was a wonderful host and MC, helping tie together the messages of the day and sharing her personal stories along the way. She encourages a practical and fun, no-nonsense approach to life and leadership.

On leadership: If there is any blame, it’s all my fault. If there is any credit, it’s all my staff’s credit.

On decision making and discovery: Grey would call ‘tea time’ – involve the staff around the table to get their thoughts and input.  But make no mistake – ‘I would make the decision at the end of the day and live with it.  It’s my name on the lawn sign.’

Bif Naked – Juno award winning Bif Naked is a talented and inspirational woman has defied the odds throughout her life.  She drew us in with her compelling personal story of being orphaned in India; adopted by missionaries; moving to Canada as a teen; and becoming a punk rocker, with life lessons from the road, her family, her music and her personal challenges with breast cancer.

Joseph Michelli’s customized and energetic presentation shared exceptional business practices and leadership principles to build great customer experiences. Joseph is the author of many best-selling business books focused on companies that lead in customer experience:  Starbucks; The UCLA Health System; The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company; and Zappos.  His latest book the Zappos Experience is a manifesto on how Zappos raised the bar on delivering an on-line consumer-centric experience.

Michelli encouraged audience members to Go Beyond Service:  create experiences that connect and sustain brand love and loyalty.  Michelli defines service excellence as a flawless product, delivered exactly as customers want, in an environment of caring.

Consider what type of organization you are:
Low respect but high love?  A fad product or service. Keep innovating and they will come.
High respect low love?  Operationally excellent but not connected to their customers
High respect high love?  Operationally excellent and connected with customers – like Zappos and Apple and Ritz Carlton and more…

More questions to consider:
When determining if your clients are loyal and engaged, ask your customers these three tiers of questions:  are you satisfied, will you repurchase from us in future and will you recommend our service to others?

What is your role in generating customer ease, engagement and loyalty?  What are your opportunities for wow?

Trevor Linden -  We closed the show with ‘Captain Canuck’ and former President of the NHL Players Association Trevor Linden who sat down with Deb Grey for an intimate and personable ‘In Conversation With’ style presentation.  Trevor shared some well learned insights about teamwork and dedication:

•    Fail forward – the best way to get good is to ‘suck for a really long time’ and learn from it

•    Be willing to sacrifice personal gain for the benefits of the team and check your ego at the door

•    Go beyond the expected – great teammates do things that they weren’t necessarily supposed to do

Wish you were there?  We invite you to view the archive online here, view our post about our Toronto event here, or visit our Facebook page for pictures.  We look forward to engaging with you and inviting you next year!

In the early 1970’s Johanson opened the first birth control clinic in a North American high school. Seeing the need  to educate and clarify in regards to this controversial subject, she began touring schools and speaking to students openly about sex and sexuality.

Johanson rose to fame as host of the Sunday Night Sex Show, which aired on radio for 14 years starting in 1984, then to TV on the W Network, and next as Talk Sex with Sue Johanson on Oprah Winfrey’s Oxygen Channel in the US, and was watched in Israel, Brazil and twenty European countries in five languages.  Her show on Oxygen ran for seven seasons and became the network’s most watched program with more than 4 million viewers a night.

We all know sex sells, and while the topic is compelling and we want to learn more, it’s really Johanson herself who draws in the students, the fans and the viewers. She has built the most successful campus tour of all time in Canada with thousands of keynotes to hundreds of thousands of students. From classrooms of 15 students in northern Ontario to selling out auditoriums and frosh week events – almost 6000 students showed up at Western University’s frosh week last year – Johanson never fails to leave an impression on her audience. She has received the Campus Speaker of the Year Award from the Canadian Organization of Campus Activities (COCA) more than any other lecturer. Just recently, Johanson was awarded the prestigious Order of Canada, our country’s highest honour for her work educating youth.

She’s a cultural icon, a national treasure, a dear friend, and a hoot to boot! She speaks her mind and stands for what she believes in. She speaks with the desire to truly educate, informing people using judgement-free yet honest answers.

And she’s done it longer and stronger than anyone we know.

Sue Johanson is our inaugural inductee into the NSB Hall of Fame, for her pioneering spirit and for giving a voice to sex education.

Sue Johanson with Jeff Lohnes & Theresa Beenken

Sue Johanson Accepting Her Award

We were proud to have Engage 2011 Toronto feature:

Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, 19th Prime Minister of Canada
Mark Tewksbury, Olympic and humanitarian champion
Bruce Croxon, Dragons’ Den’s latest co-star & co-founder of Lavalife
Lee-Anne McAlear, Innovation expert and Program Director of Schulich’s Centre of Excellence in Innovation Management at York University
Dr. Samantha Nutt,  War Child Founder and Executive Director
and hosted by BNN’s Headline anchor, Howard Green.

It was a full morning of information on business savvy, innovation, leadership, social responsibility and achievement.  So much useful information and perspectives were shared that we’ll take a few blog postings to feature the content. For now, I’ll feature a few top takeaways, that we’ll delve into more later. I noticed a theme about ‘challenging assumptions’ that each speaker touched on:

From Lee-Anne McAlear who opened the show with a high energy, interactive presentation on Innovation as the #1 Growth Driver:

You need to innovate to grow. You need to challenge your assumptions about things you think won’t work, and give it a try. McAlear shared that in recent global studies of CEOs, their top priorities were business growth and the top skill they need of their leaders is creativity.

McAlear brings those two concepts together to show how being creative and innovative allows for business growth. She set us up to recognize the difference between creativity of innovation:

• Creativity is the creation of new and/or unexpected ideas
• Innovation is the realization of those ideas so they add value
• Ideas themselves are seldom the challenge. There’s never a shortage of ideas

Finding good ideas and installing, implementing, sustaining and integrating them is the challenge. That is the process of innovation.

McAlear provided a toolkit of techniques to help audience members explore implementing innovation in our organizations. More on Innovation from Lee-Anne McAlear to come….

Bruce Croxon engaged in conversation with host Howard Green about his business experiences and lessons learned along the way. Croxon’s laid back, conversational and honest style with humour and insight drew us in.

He shared his 51/49 philosophy for entrepreneurial success. Don’t assume it will be easy to run your own business. It’s not for everyone:

• It’s about taking calculated risks and striving to continually move forward, even among the setbacks. It’s about moving the ball ahead 51% for the inevitable 49% you’ll have as setbacks.  Take the 2% gain and be thankful for it. Survive the setbacks. Build on that incremental change and learn from it.

Our host Howard Green of Business News Network, shared his perceptions on business and the economy, focusing on CEO compensation and rewards. Green picked up on the growing unrest on Wall Street. He shared that CEO’s can earn over 100 times that of entry level workers on their team. Green challenged the growing difference between the high level compensation of CEOs to our shrinking middle class. Do we know enough about who or what factors decide just how much a CEO is paid?

Our event also provided an exclusive opportunity for our audience to be one of the first to hear Dr. Samantha Nutt’s latest speech, related to her just launched new book: Damned Nations. Samantha appears unassuming but pushes us beyond simply accepting our day to day and encourages us to engage  with our world.

• Don’t assume that what happens in other parts of the world have nothing to do with us.
• Don’t assume that you can’t do anything about it.

Her example – you will have heard of the war in the Congo, one of the worst places in the world to live.  It’s a region that has seen more war related civilian deaths than World War II.  Here’s why it should matter to us:  the war is primarily about resources. The Congo is mined for its significant coltan deposits. Coltan is used to power almost all of our cell-phones, video game consoles, and computers. When we answer an email or pick up our cell-phone, we need to remember that connection. And we need to speak up – write or email the manufacturer to find out if the coltan used has been ethically mined. Challenge your assumption that it has nothing to do with you.

Kim Campbell – 19th Prime Minister of Canada and former Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. She spoke of understanding the ripple effect of a leadership role; even once your term or project is formally ended.  She broadened our expectations of what a ‘past or former’ role can mean.

• She encouraged all of us in whatever leadership role we have, to understand that it represents what others can aspire to.  And once you’ve gained experience in that role, to use that experience, the access, the clout and new-found understanding to help advance causes, mentor others, and try something new. The combination of experience and freedom will open doors to a whole new world to contribute.

The morning ended with an entertaining and engaging presentation by Olympic and humanitarian champion Mark Tewksbury on the Great Traits of Champions.

• A key trait he shared was about Embracing Contraction.  He encouraged us that even when it seems difficult, or goes against a strongly held previous belief, if it’s right for the time, accept the nature of paradox, and make partnerships that you hadn’t noticed before. The more you can tap into that, the more possibilities you have for yourself. You never know what will be required in any situation. There’s seldom just black and white. So be ready to mix seemingly opposite ideas to make something new.

A couple photo highlights from the day:

The NSB Team

NSB Team with Dr. Samantha Nutt & Mark Tewksbury

NSB Team with Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell

Perry Goldsmith, Bruce Croxon, Theresa Beenken & Howard Green