thinkfuture: technology, philosophy and the future

Sometimes you need to disagree with yourself to get to the truth.

There are always more than two sides to everything. Human beings are more complicated than that.

Melissa Rojo is leading the data migration and conversion of one of the largest American bank's most prominent loan products. She is also a project manager of an internal IBM initiative known as TechTalks. This end-to-end internal strategy is started by inviting the most up and coming startups, across all sectors to present to an exclusive group of IBMers and interested external parties. These start-ups are brought in with the end-all goal being collaboration and integration into IBM's business model.

Prakash heads the consulting practice for AI and Mindtree Innovation Labs for the North American region. In this role, Prakash works for a portfolio of clients in Retail, CPG, Manufacturing, Airline, Hospitality & Media domains. He actively engages with the Client Senior Executives to define their Digital Transformation roadmap that will enable them to differentiate themselves from the competition through intelligence-powered 'Connected Experiences' and 'Operations' at the intersection of Edge, Design, and AI.

There is one phrase that I dislike more than any other - and that's "low hanging fruit" - I've lost count of the number of times we talk about this in meetings - we have to stop focusing on the low hanging fruit and reach higher in the tree. You can't dent the universe without reaching to the top of the tree.

If you find yourself saying the above phrase to yourself when you are working on your startup, that is an indicator that something is wrong and you might need to pivot.

We return to the luminal spaces with Jesse Adenji - we are now living in uncertain times - COVID is a luminal space - we don't know if we will be back where were are - however it is a fantastic opportunity for innovation - we need to understand what we need to change and what we can change - chaos vs order - the world is almost too complicated for the human brain to comprehend - we need to be "tricksters" or provocateurs - bringing new knowledge into the group - beginners mind is important is discovering new ideas - much innovation comes from serendipity - looking at innovation from different cultural perspectives leading to a deep need to discover why.

Great rewards require great risks. What does that say if we are not even able to take small risks? We used to risk our lives for human progress, now we are afraid to leave our homes without a face covering. If we can't take risks, we will not progress. Risk-taking is required for us to move the human race forward.

Even though all fireworks are banned in California, we still heard tons of fireworks going off all around us. This tells me that we haven't totally drunk the Kool-Aid of Safetyism - we can still take risks.

Jeff goes into detail on the differences between new product development and innovation - working with the unknown - creating the right innovative culture - risk mitigation - expectations and creativity - innovation councils and developing the right innovation strategy. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-j-weiss/

Chaos created coincidences, and these coincidences can create new thinking. Agile software development accounts for chaos - we can all account for chaos by developing the skill to account for chaos.