May 14

The Best Advice

By Matthew Poyiadgi People, Skills, Talent No Comments »

Often, the most profound things are the simplest.

I read an interview with Christian Louboutin who said his father gave him the best advice of his career. His father was a carpenter and once told him that to make beautiful sculptures in wood you should work with the grain. If you go against the grain, you end up with splinters. Louboutin took this as a metaphor for getting along with people.

I think that is a golden nugget of advice, especially when people, skills and talent are the future of everything.

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Apr 28

‘I am nothing without my Nintendo DS’

By Matthew Poyiadgi Education, Skills, Technology No Comments »

A few years ago, my wife was attempting to take my son’s Nintendo DS away from him as a form of punishment for not listening to her. It was the toy he loved the most and like most kids that age, he was glued to the device. He was 8. He screamed “I am nothing without my Nintendo DS.” I was in my office shrieking with laughter at the dramatics. As I reflect today, there is a lesson there.

In Korea, families spend more of their disposable income (22%) than any other nation on their family’s education. Within 2 years, all elementary school education in Korea will be delivered via tablet or other device. In Kent in the South East of England, the Longfield Academy school has provided their students with an iPad (not entirely free, but that is besides the point). I think it goes without saying what has happened to the levels of immersion and concentration in the classroom in those institutions that have adopted the technology that kids were born with – they are digital natives after all.

I have talked before about technology, gadgetry and the internet being the ‘oxygen’ for our youngsters – for them a computer or smartphone is a gateway to a world of communications. So, let’s start building lessons and assignments on these devices, give them the gadgets so that the kids are learning via the tools they are so comfortable with. As Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, said earlier this year, a Victorian schoolteacher could quite easily pick up where she left off in delivering a class in today’s school.

The problem is more ours than theirs – give the kids the tools and technologies that they devour each day, and I think we will be pleasantly surprised by the levels of creativity and engagement.

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Apr 13

Using technology to drive the best marketing of all – Word of Mouth

By Matthew Poyiadgi Social Media, Technology No Comments »

There is some interesting research and debate around technology facilitating word of mouth marketing. I have always believed that nothing competes with shaking hands, making eye contact and building relationships, but Facebook and other social platforms are adding something else by creating conversations and driving engagement.

Brands are constantly seeking ‘likes’ and ‘recommendations’ from users and marketers are always looking to find those individuals who can spread the word very quickly because they are well connected – we call these people the ‘one-percenters’, yawners or sneezers!

The fact is, you tell one person something in the office, they will typically share it with one or two others. If you tell them on Facebook, it is likely that you tell an average of 140-150 others.

While word of mouth is more commonly understood in face-to-face contact, it is more about recognising what drives people to talk about things, then applying appropriate tools and platforms to create that engagement. British Telecom famously ran a series of adverts for their broadband service where Adam met Jane and after years of uncertainty they got married. BT cleverly tied the TV ads into email invitations and a Facebook page that encouraged the public to vote for the wedding dress, wedding car and music for the couple’s first dance. 500,000 people voted. That is some success.

Heinz have done it brilliantly with their ‘Get Well Soon’ can of soup that can be personalised and sent to an unwell acquaintance via Facebook, and my favourite of all is Blendtec, a blender company with more than 150 million views on YouTube taking requests from followers (in the thousands) to blend anything and everything. An ordinary product doing extraordinary things, creating buzz, conversation and deeper engagement.

Word of mouth is ultimately people talking about cool things, brands, events, products and stories that have raised levels of interest, regardless of tools or tech – just as I am doing now.

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Mar 30

An i-something or other

By Matthew Poyiadgi Future of Technology, Technology No Comments »

I spent the last couple of weeks travelling to Johannesburg and Dubai, meeting my team, talking to clients and helping with deals for some of our exciting prospects.

As ever, I learned some new things – particularly how de rigueur it is to carry several mobile phones. I had to chuckle, people in restaurants obsessively checking all their phones to see if anybody had called or sent a text message – it was most entertaining.  I was asked – and frowned at condescendingly once - why I didn’t possess a Blackberry and only carry an iPhone, as if I were a handbag without a Chanel label.

So, in response, how about we all become i-people with an i-life, devoting ourselves to one company who sponsor our existence? We could live in an i-house or i-pad (get it?), drive a shared or borrowed i-car (recall collaborative consumption), wear an i–suit with our devices embedded into the fabric, have an i-pet and even an i-wife. No, I will not discuss this last one, it will only lead me into trouble!

Throughout my travels the best thing of all was still meeting new people face to face, finding a connection and common talking points and discussing future alliances and partnerships. However cool these devices might be, I don’t ever wish my telephone to be a status symbol; it is a facilitation device, a communications tool, not a pair of Jimmy Choo’s! Forgive my dwelling on fashion, but my apprenticeship was at Versace and I do like a nice suit.

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Mar 15

Computers are disappearing

By Matthew Poyiadgi Connectivity, Future of Technology, Learning, Technology No Comments »

We read stories of collaboration, social learning and communications evolving but how about the products that we use to facilitate these activities? They are fading into the background and before long, I can see (or not, as the case may be) a time when the device becomes invisible.

We saw the introduction of the infrared keyboard a year or so ago and I read forward-looking articles where the tables we dine in at restaurants will be embedded with the technology that allows you to order our bill, pay by credit card, send a take-away sample food box to a friend, all on the same interactive surface.

What else? I see phones disappearing into our clothing, communication devices that are integrated into the fabric of our coats and jackets, information beamed into our glasses and contact lenses, screens laid into walls and wallpaper which only come to the fore when they are needed.

The key is mobility, and reducing the weight of our bags and satchels as we race across our cities to the next meeting. Why carry laptop computers when we can access pop-up screens in cafes, beam the keyboard onto the coffee table and a holographic screen in front of us.

Before long, we will be online using the interior of our car windscreens (only when the engine is switched off) or via shopping mall display points, where combined with near-field communications (NFC) we will have the ability to search for a specific item of clothing, book a restaurant for lunch, a taxi to get home after a movie, and much more. The technology will be embedded into our every day existence, and there will be no need for separate devices.

The real beauty for me is how this facilitates learning – where we don’t have to go off for days at a time to understand an entire subject area if we only truly need a short 20-minute piece to help us with the task at hand. The technology will help up digest smaller, bite-sized chunks of learning, specific to a role or customer requirement – one tiny piece at a time, wherever we happen to be.

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Mar 05

Collaboration is the future

By Matthew Poyiadgi Collaborative Consumptio, Technology No Comments »

The Financial Times carried an article recently studying the Sony company, as they seek a return to the glory days of the Walkman. The new cheif executive talked about ‘collaborating to belong.’

Collaboration is central to a new wave of partnerships and working together – be with your operations division or your distribution channels. As technology shrinks the world, it is reinventing old forms of trust, where in many cases ‘using’ becomes more important than ‘having’ things. The importance of owning actual physical stuff is diminishing and having a physical product in our hands is not as important as the experience.

Sites such as NeighborGoods, ShareSomeSugar and SnapGoods allow us to lend and borrow everything we need within a community. The average household power drill is only used for 20 minutes in its entire lifetime, a lawn mower used for some 4 hours per year, so we do we all feel compelled to own one?  These sites are redefining how we perceive ownership and nobody does it better than ZipCar. For every person that uses the service for their transport needs, between 6-8 give up owning their own vehicle. It makes sense. That is the future.

Feb 21

Technology allows us to have a go

By Matthew Poyiadgi Events, Future of Technology, Learning, Pearson 2 Comments »

I presented at the Pearson VUE Testing Centre Managers Conference and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The audience was full of comments and questions which showed me a genuine level of engagement.

I talked a lot about how the technology in our midst is shaping how we live and work, with a special emphasis on some of the trends that will impact how we learn in the future – on the go, in modular form and both alone and in social groups. The cool thing with technology that must be embraced is that there is never really a good time to start using it – to open a Twitter account, launch a Facebook page or start a YouTube channel – but it is so easy to have a go, to start and update and change as we progress and evolve. Technology facilitates trying things and learning along the way. Our mantra at Pearson is ‘Always Learning’ and technology in this respect encourages us to use these tools and platforms to try stuff and be comfortable with making a mistake, because you can adjust, correct and continue on your pathway to greatness.

The thing that pleased me the most about the conference is when a lady stood up at the end of my session and explained that she works part-time, whilst also creating music for meditation. She described how she has learned to create CDs of her music and put them onto CD Baby and has since made her first sale on Amazon. This is the beauty of technology.

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Feb 12

The future is small

By Matthew Poyiadgi Future of Technology, People, People Skills Talent, Small Business, Uncategorized No Comments »

I first starting reading the Sunday Times in the early 1980s and I was fascinated by the big-company stories and headlines around the industrialists of the era. But one story that stuck with me was about shopkeepers. My father was a shopkeeper and my family own a wonderful vintage tea room today; Britain grew up as a nation of shopkeepers and although the front pages remain the same, I believe that our the future is once again small (nearly 70% of GDP in the US and 60% in the UK is made up of consumer spending).

Technology has spawned a new type of entrepreneur which allows people to work not 9-5, but 5-9 in the evening, having a side business that runs online and with an appearance that can compare with any giant out there. The little guy can compete. My point however, is that the great next idea will most likely not stem from the giant corporatioons, because these organisations are focused more on satisfying their shareholders, their green footprint and their internal systems. Most innovation, great ideas and next-gen creativity come from small groups, startups and the individual – a youngster in a corner of the south west of England or two best mates from college on the west coast of the US. We must give them a platform for dialogue and exchange – give them an opportunity to shine, because I firmly believe these youngsters, digital natives as they are, are full of ideas that may materialise into something great. The future for me is all about small countries, small organisations and individuals.

My view of the role of the big company matches something Rajesh Chandy of the Deloitte Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship referenced last week – that arguably the biggest responsibility of the CEO of these big firms is to assign time to think about the future. My personal view is that these CEOs will help all parties if they organise think-tanks, workshops and invitations to young people willing to talk ideas, and give them a chance.

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Jan 25

‘Learnability’

By Matthew Poyiadgi Learning, People Skills Talent, Skills No Comments »

I do like technology in the workplace and at home, but some things are clearly beyond my understanding. For example, more than 1% of the world’s population manage a virtual farm on Facebook (Farmville) and devote 20 minutes a day to managing an online vegetable patch!

Other things are clearer, such as the matter of jobs and learning. The world of work continues to change and jobs for life are extinct. We have to reorganise ourselves to be ready for portfolio work, increased life expectancy and an ageing population. Interest in entrepreneurship is on the rise, lifestyle businesses more popular and technology and social media combine to flatten the world. In IT, job roles are moving up the value chain as IT moves closer to the customer and therefore the revenue line. It is possible that most of the future IT jobs will be outsourced to IT providers and most of the employment will come from these supplier/partner companies.

The CIO of Johnson and Johnson was recently quoted as saying, “I believe the idea of hiring people for a job is well past.” My view is that IT is at the head of this particular table, with the future being more about job rotation programmes and flexible career paths, combining technical skills with the business-savvy.

It will be down to each of us as individuals to keep our skills refreshed and up to date, down to our ‘Learnability’, how fast we can forget the old and learn the new as we transition from project to project, department to department and company to company.

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Jan 13

Top 3 in Technology

By Matthew Poyiadgi Connectivity, Future of Technology, Mobile, Technology 4 Comments »

The Consumer Electronics Show is the annual gadget-fest held in Las Vegas and it is taking place right now. I thought it apt to share what I believe to be the 3 key technology trends of the year. Admittedly, I could elaborate on each of these for a blog post of their own, and some may well evolve into something different, but my top 3 are the technology-related trends I believe will end up impacting our day to day lives, regardless of our industry:

1. MOBILE will be far bigger than we think.  Mobile internet devices (especially smartphones) outsell all computing devices and certainly PCs, and mobility will continue to change the dynamic of how we operate. By being better connected, it means we don’t have to be in one place, and this will influence remote working, a different type of communication and the restructuring of the traiditional office setup.

2.  This leads nicely to NFC, or NEAR-FIELD COMMUNICATION.  NFC is a short-range wireless technology that makes use of interacting electromagnetic radio fields instead of the typical direct radio transmissions used by technologies such as Bluetooth. It is meant for applications where a physical touch, or close to it, is required. NFC is planned for use in mobile phones for, among other things, payment, in conjunction with an electronic wallet. Mobile payments will cause a rethink of cash, travel and shopping. For those of us in the UK, think of an Oyster card embedded within your phone.

3. The CROWD. Sites such as Airbnb and CouchSurfing are leading the way in peer-to-peer networks, and as Rachel Botsman said in my favourite book of last year “What’s Mine is YOurs“, creative companies are using technology to redefine ownership. Why buy when we can rent, borrow and share amongst our community. Experience is far more important than ownership; for example, we don’t necessarily want to collect DVDs, we just want the experience of watching the movie, and usually, just the once. Cars is another area that will be seriously affected, with companies such as Whipcar and Zipcar helping reduce car ownership around the world. Technology is facilitating this change.

They are my top three, and no doubt many other trends will spin-off from these. Keep an eye out for news from CES and articles in all the newspapers and websites, all the main gadgets and trends will be featured there.

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