Graeme Codrington's Future of Work
182 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 days ago -The future is arriving faster than ever. Graeme Codrington highlights key issues we need to consider to prepare for tomorrow's workplace today, including audio feed of his weekly ThrowForward Thursday series.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
ThrowForward Thursday 147: Digital Democracy 2052
April 25, 2024 09:05 - 3 minutes - 5.98 MBImagine the Indian elections in 2052 taking just 5 minutes to process, rather than the 6 weeks it takes this year. The vision is of digital first, ubiquitous, secure, personal technology connections in every sector and industry, reducing friction, demolishing time scales, flattening barriers.
Throwforward Thursday 146: Rocking the afternoon
April 18, 2024 08:34 - 3 minutes - 7.26 MBAgeing musicians still touring, and ageing fans still wanting to go to their concerts, might prefer an afternoon start time rather than waiting until 9pm or later for the main event. It's not just Festivals that should schedule afternoon concerts - maybe every band should do so. The theme of this week's "jump into the future" is that we should be open to questioning what is considered "normal" in our industries, especially when doing so could open us up to new opportunities, markets an...
ThrowForward Thursday 145: Phytomining (extracting minerals and metals from plants)
April 11, 2024 09:32 - 3 minutes - 5.63 MBAll plants extract minerals and nutrients from the soil they're growing in, but some appear to be able to extract metals as well, or at least metal ions that we can in turn extract from the plants. If we can do this at scale, we can use phytomining to get the metals we need to build the batteries we use to power our lives. Here are some links to experiments underway on phytomining, and the promise of what this might bring in the future: https://thebulletin.org/2024/03/the-greenest-way-to-...
ThrowForward Thursday 144: Future Experiments in Government
April 04, 2024 08:08 - 7 minutes - 13.2 MBAs we watch elections in 2024 spanning nearly 70 countries and 4.2 billion people, one thing is clear: the current systems are not working. Voters are not happy, and have little enthusiasm for the politicians they can choose between (if they have any real choices at all). So, come with me to the future, and consider four 'ridiculous ideas' for new approaches to Parliaments and Governments. We need to stretch our strategic imaginations in an effort to come up with new political systems. Wat...
ThrowForward Thursday 143: LAMs: Large ACTION Models and the future of smartphones
March 28, 2024 07:34 - 8 minutes - 16 MBChatGPT, CoPilot, Llama, Bard, Grok and all the other Generative AI Large Language Models have demonstrated that we can engage with our technology using natural language. Now we need to get our devices to understand the heuristics of requests and actions we ask them to do. Rabbit R1 was launched to much fanfare in December 2023, as a first model of a device that can do this. I doubt it can deliver yet, but it's definitely heading in the right direction. And I love their coining of the LAM: ...
Throwforward Thursday 142: Water Wars
March 21, 2024 07:31 - 3 minutes - 6.19 MBAs the world gets more and more water stressed, those who control water supplies in rivers, lakes and dams, will exercise more power and restrict access to water to those downstream. This could lead to conflict - legal and physical - that is both internal and crosses national boundaries. Some countries may even use the need for water as a reason to invade a neighbour. Whether as an individual or a business, or a region or country, we need to have a plan for water security that is e...
ThrowForward Thursday 141: No More Plastic
March 14, 2024 11:01 - 4 minutes - 7.81 MBWe have to do this! In our lifetimes we have to find a way to end the use of plastic as we use it now, so that we stop adding more toxins and pollution to our planet.
ThrowForward Thursday 140: No More Ships at Sea
March 08, 2024 07:34 - 4 minutes - 7.5 MBImagine a world in which Rogue Waves made the oceans too dangerous for ships to sail, and we had to stop cruise liners and container ships from sailing. It would change our world as we know it. It is an extreme and alarmist scenario, with one of the worse cases for the impact of climate change and global warming. It's designed to keep us thinking about what needs to be done to mitigate the impact of extreme weather on our world.
ThrowForward Thursday 139: Robot Window Washers
February 29, 2024 21:20 - 4 minutes - 8.81 MBIt's not a horror movie, with spider-like robots clambering around the outside of buildings. This is the future of the $40 billion window cleaning industry, using robots. They can do more than clean, though - they do real-time, ongoing analysis of the external skin of the buildings, keeping a record of issues and greatly enhancing preventative maintenance. This is just one example of the potential of predictive data analytics when applied to real world objects that are instrumented and ana...
ThrowForward Thursday 138: Chatbot sued by owner
February 22, 2024 20:54 - 4 minutes - 8.62 MBA company is suing its own AI chatbot for providing misleading information to a client. I wish I could make up a headline from the future that was better than this - its actually a real story from February 2024 involving Air Canada. The practical lesson is that we need to be careful of automating our workforces, rather than augmenting them. People who use AI are better than people who don't. AI, though, is better when it is used by people than when it is left on its own. Learn from Air Ca...
ThrowForward Thursday 137: AI Selected Life-Partner (A Valentine's Day suggestion)
February 15, 2024 05:49 - 2 minutes - 4.43 MBWould you trust an AI-driven algorithm to help choose your life partner? If people were honest about the data they entered into these systems, and genuine in their desire to find a true life-partner match, this would definitely be an improvement on the basically random, luck-based most of us rely on. Happy Valentine's Day... from the Love Algorithm. ❤️
ThrowForward Thursday 136: Workplace Monitoring
February 08, 2024 15:37 - 5 minutes - 10.4 MBIn the future, we will use smart devices and even implants to monitor our every move, maybe even our thoughts too. How will we use this data? It could be for Big Brother style management of our lives, or it could be for our benefit and wellbeing. That will be up to us. This is actually not a prediction about the future, but rather a scenario to help us think about what we should be doing in our world and our workplaces now.
ThrowForward Thursday 135: Hyper-personalised Peak-performance workplaces
February 01, 2024 16:51 - 5 minutes - 10.1 MBImagine arriving at the office, and the lighting and aircon are just perfect, there's exactly the right ambient noise, the desk is set up perfectly, the food and drinks easily available are precisely what you need... everything is set up just right to ensure you can deliver your best work. This is the workplace of the future that adjusts in real time based both on who you are and what you're trying to achieve in the next few hours. Elite sportspeople already use data analytics to craft t...
ThrowForward Thursday 134: Democracy in the workplace
January 25, 2024 18:43 - 7 minutes - 14.5 MBImagine we voted for the managers of our teams at work. Imagine our workplaces worked like democracies should. Today's episode has a bit of an activist and culture war tone about it, as I suggest that one possible future for corporations is being more democratic. You see, here's the problem: while the corporation is the cornerstone of Western democratic capitalism, there is almost no democracy in our workplaces at all. We don't vote for who our managers should be. We don't vote for how much...
ThrowForward Thursday 133: Measure and Reward Sleep
January 18, 2024 19:15 - 2 minutes - 5.16 MBCome with me to January 2026, when a major company announces a new reward system for the senior Executives: part of your bonus depends on how well you sleep each night. That's right: we are going to measure your sleep, and reward you if you do it well. The science is pretty clear: sleep is one of the most important factors in clear thinking, regulated emotions, good decision making, ethical judgements, strategic thinking, and actually almost everything that makes a good leader good. So, why...
ThrowForward Thursday 132: The Workplace in 2024
January 15, 2024 09:59 - 12 minutes - 22.2 MBWe decided to publish this edition on Monday, 15 January 2024 - welcome to the first "full on" week of the year and welcome to another year of significant shifts in the world of work. In this video, we look at the ten trends we believe will have the most impact on the workplace and the workforce in the year ahead. For more information on these trends, and if you'd like us to help you think through how they will impact you and create opportunities for yourself and your teams, please be in to...
ThrowForward Thursday 131: What to expect in 2024
January 04, 2024 15:32 - 7 minutes - 14.6 MBIn the first episode of ThrowFordward Thursday in the new year, we apply our "Grey Elephants" framework to give you some scenarios for what might happen in the year ahead. The biggest question is not "what might happen", but rather "are you set up to take advantage of the opportunities that uncertainty will bring in 2024"? Speak to our team to find out how we can help you both anticipate tomorrow's disruption and prepare to take advantage of it today. Send an email to graeme@tomorrowtodaygl...
ThrowForward Thursday 130: Review of 2023
December 14, 2023 12:55 - 14 minutes - 25.9 MBThis is our final ThrowForward Thursday for 2023, and I look back at the work I have done with 154 different client engagements. There are five big themes that have emerged during the year, and I am sure will continue into 2024: 1. Generative AI 2. Future Trends - TIDES - Grey Elephants - opportunity mindset 3. Antifragility - Future of work and people 4. Peak Performance - 4 day work week 5. Think Like a Futurist - especially rethink and unlearn systems See you in 2024. Have a goo...
ThrowForward Thursday 129: Oil-eating Microbes create Gold Hydrogen
December 07, 2023 19:50 - 4 minutes - 8.92 MBA Texas based company, Cemvita, has proposed using microbes that eat oil and excrete Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide as a solution for both cleaning out oil wells and generating clean energy. This is the final episode of our future energy mini series.
ThrowForward Thursday 127: Ocean and Space Energy
November 24, 2023 14:33 - 3 minutes - 7.33 MBWe need new ways to generate energy - methods that don't damage and deplete the resources of our planet. In this episode we look at two very interesting ideas: ocean thermal and space farm energy sources.
ThrowForward Thursday Ep 126: EV Batteries
November 16, 2023 13:27 - 5 minutes - 10.6 MBCome to the future with me, where the current frustrations about the size, range, weight and cost of batteries have all been resolved. And check out a very clever solution for fast recharging that already exists. The future is electric. And it is very smart. This is the start of a few week mini-series on the future of energy.
ThrowForward Thursday: Ep 125: Build Bionic Businesses [Teaser Edition]
November 09, 2023 09:12 - 2 minutes - 4.44 MBIn the past few episodes of ThrowForward Thursday, we've looked at a variety of technology tools that allow you to create digital versions of humans. Today, we look at three ways you can use these technologies in your businesses today (or at least, start experimenting with them in 2024). The full episode is only for members of my Futures Club, which you sign up for at http://www.JoinTheFuturesClub.com . I hope you give my Futures Club a trial - if you try it and don't like it, you can unsu...
ThrowForward Thursday Ep 124: Who Wants to Live Forever?
November 03, 2023 09:00 - 7 minutes - 13 MBNeuroscience is grappling with the issue of consciousness: what is it, where is it located, how does it work? When they discover these answers, it may be possible to transfer your consciousness from your body to something else. Or maybe just a machine that has consciousness. What would happen if we could that? This thought experiment invites us to imagine a future where humans and machines are much more integrated - augmented each other and building a better world together (dystopian opt...
ThrowForward Thursday 123: Digital (Dead) Musicians
October 26, 2023 10:46 - 4 minutes - 9.08 MBAre you keen to see a famous musician from the past live in concert, or to hear new music from them generated by their digital persona? This is now possible - but do we want it?
ThrowForward Thursday 122: Digital Copies of You
October 19, 2023 17:41 - 6 minutes - 11.2 MBWe already have almost all of the technology we need to create a digital replica of you: voice, visuals, and even your thinking, worldview and way of expressing yourself can all be mimicked. Would you want to create a digital replica of someone else? Would you let a digital replica of you be available online?
ThrowForward Thursday Ep 121: Three essential ways to Play Around at work [SAMPLE]
October 13, 2023 14:36 - 2 minutes - 3.7 MBIt's Friday, I know... but this is ThrowForward Thursday's second episode of Season 4 about three ways to experiment at work - or more precisely: three essential categories of experimentation you need to specifically focus on to ensure you maximise innovation, creativity and future focus in yourself and your team. If you're a member of Graeme Codrington's Future Club, you'll have access to the full video and the details of each of the three categories and how to set them up - just log into ...
ThrowForward Thursday: Ep 120: Magic Materials, Goretex and playing around
October 05, 2023 08:27 - 6 minutes - 12 MBThis is the first full episode of Season 4 of ThrowForward Thursday. This season, we will keep the videos shorter, so they can be used in your "Five Minutes from the Future" sessions. And they will be followed (next week) by a discussion guide to help you and your team implement the Futurist Skillset we touch on in today's episode. This episode is about future materials - for everything from construction to clothing - and how we're going to find new materials with remarkable properties. I ...
ThrowForward Thursday 119: Introduction to Season 4
September 28, 2023 22:13 - 4 minutes - 8.24 MBWE ARE BACK! Season 4 of ThrowForward Thursday is here, and it's going to be brilliant. We are going to focus on providing videos that you can use in your "Five Minutes from the Future" meetings, with discussion guides being made available to help you and your team apply the ideas to your businesses. You can always listen to these podcasts, but might also like to watch the videos at YouTube - here's a link to the playlist: https://bit.ly/TFTGraeme
ThrowForward Thursday 118 - Looking for Opportunities in Disruptive Change
September 08, 2023 11:15 - 7 minutes - 13.7 MBThis is the final video in our four part mini series on the disruptive forces shaping our world right now. We call them the "Great Grey Elephants" because they're here - in the room - waiting to be noticed. Instead of reacting with fear and concern, we need to respond with opportunity mindsets and excitement for change. Let our team help you do this. Check out http://www.JoinTheFuturesClub.com for resources to guide you to a new way of engaging with the future and with change.
ThrowForward Thursday 117: The Perfect Storm of Change (Part 2)
September 01, 2023 18:07 - 15 minutes - 27.9 MBIn our mini-series on the high impact, hugely disruptive but often overlooked forces shaping our world (we call them the "Grey Elephants" in the corner of your office), we look at: 4. Big Squeezes 5. Angry People 6. Multipolarity 7. Intelligent Assistance I hope you're enjoying this interlude between Seasons 3 and 4 of Throwforward Thursday, as we give you a summary of our team's latest research and insights.
ThrowForward Thursday 116: Facing a Perfect Storm of Change (Part 1)
August 24, 2023 20:18 - 11 minutes - 20.6 MBHere is a very short summary of some of the research our team has been doing on the seven most significant disruptive forces shaping the world right now. In this episode we look at the first three: aging, angry planet and inequality. We will come back to the other four next week. Don't just think about threats, though. The invitation is to consider the opportunities available in this time of unprecedented disruption. For more insights see: Ageing https://tomorrowtodayglobal.com/2023/05/2...
ThrowForward Thursday 115: Introducing the "Great Grey Elephants"
August 18, 2023 13:40 - 5 minutes - 3.39 MBWe are taking a break from our regular weekly format of looking at "news bulletins from the future" and learning to "think like a futurist" (we will be back with Season 4 in September). Here is part 1 of a three-week mini-series sharing the work our team is doing on uncovering the most significant opportunities we are facing right now if we are prepared to deal with deep, structural change.
ThrowForward Thursday 114: Season 3 Highlights
August 11, 2023 11:43 - 10 minutes - 7.09 MBThis is the last episode of Season 3, and we look back at my five favourite episodes, including SaaS, CRISPR, Deep Fakes and an update of me being brought to life by AI tech (you may want to check out the video of this one: jump to 4:30 here: https://youtu.be/WNNHzh3kFrQ ). I also give a quick tour of the Futures Club, and invite you to check it out, at http://www.JoinTheFuturesClub.com. We will be back in September with Season 4.
ThrowForward Thursday 113: Rethink and Unlearn Your Life in an Aging World
August 03, 2023 16:08 - 6 minutes - 5.2 MBIf you are going to live a LOT longer than you think, it needs to change a lot of your life choices and goals. If you might be married for 100 years, or your career needs to last for 80, how would impact the decisions you make? Living longer doesn't just mean living the lives we're living now but more years of the same. It means we have the opportunity to rethink and unlearn many different things. Join me as we think about life, love, work and careers in an aging world. Last week's video o...
ThrowForward Thursday 112: The Age of Grandparents
July 28, 2023 14:10 - 6 minutes - 5.55 MBOne of the biggest societal implications of people living longer is that the ratio of grandparents to grandchildren is now higher than its ever been before (including great-grandchildren as well, of course). And since grandparents are more healthy and 'younger' than grandparents have ever been, they can get involved in raising their grandchildren. This will free up parents. It could also be a way of generating income for older people. And it can shape societies and communities in new and i...
ThrowForward Thursday 111: ESG, XaaS and Platform Play Business Models
July 20, 2023 06:58 - 8 minutes - 7.43 MBIn last week's episode, we highlighted the Japan Airlines experiment of providing rented clothes to tourists. Today, we look at the business models underlying that experiment, and what our businesses should be thinking about in relation to ESG, SaaS and Platform Plays.
ThrowForward Thursday 110: No Luggage Needed - Rent some clothes for the holidays
July 13, 2023 10:01 - 2 minutes - 2.34 MBJapan Airlines are starting an experiment where holiday makers going to Japan do not take any luggage with them, but instead rent their clothes for the holiday on arrival in Japan. Would you be keen to try this?
ThrowForward Thursday 109: How to Think Like a Futurist ABOUT DATA
July 06, 2023 14:25 - 5 minutes - 5.1 MBThis is a sample of the full length session on the power and importance of data, and the three things you and your team should be doing NOW with data to future-proof your businesses. For the full session, sign up now for Graeme Codrington's Future Club: http://www.JoinTheFuturesClub.com The TED Talk by David McCandless can be found at: https://youtu.be/5Zg-C8AAIGg
ThrowForward Thursday 108: AI and Astronomy
June 29, 2023 16:45 - 6 minutes - 5.68 MBAstronomers gather an astounding amount of data every day (well, mainly at night) in the form of photographs, radio, audio and spectral analysis from every part of the universe. You've no doubt seen the high resolution photos. To analyse all of this data we need to use machine learning and proper AI - no human being or group of humans is capable of processing all of this data. In fact, astronomy has been using AI longer than most industries precisely because of this. This is what AI is real...
ThrowForward Thursday 107: How to NOT have a REALLY bad day
June 23, 2023 07:31 - 9 minutes - 8.19 MBIn last week's ThrowForward Thursday episode we looked at one of the truly BAD days in history, 60 million years ago when a meteor hit Mexico and 75% of life on earth was wiped out. Bad... that's an understatement. We looked at NASA is doing to make sure that doesn't happen while we are here. Watch that video here: https://youtu.be/EUaVUbbLMWY Imagining worst case scenarios is a key aspect of 'Thinking Like a Futurist', and in this episode I show you three tools you can use to do this: * ...
ThrowForward Thursday 106: NASA shoots a rocket into an asteroid to save the world
June 15, 2023 12:14 - 4 minutes - 4.07 MBIn September 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft deliberately collided with a small moonlet, Dimorphos more than 7 million miles away from earth. It successfully changed its trajectory, and proved that we can use this approach to deal with future threatening asteroids. It's a marvel of modern science, but it's also a fantastic analogy for what businesses need to be doing with "worst case scenario" thinking. READ MORE: DART program: https://dart.jhuapl.edu/ Li...
ThrowForward Thursday 105: AI Virtual Assistants - what they'll really be like and why we don't have them yet
June 08, 2023 15:07 - 6 minutes - 5.27 MBWe know that AI is coming. This year has shown us a vision of what's possible with Generative AI - but these technologies are not going to deliver on this visions. I say that confidently - they are not really AI. In fact, they might tempt some businesses into really bad decisions about how they use their people and systems - mistakes will be made. So, smart business leaders must rather use the glimpses of the future that ChatGPT, Bard, Bing and GenAI tech have given us, to accelerate the st...
BONUS: Strategic Issues with Generative AI: What leaders need to know about ChatGPT, Bard and Bing
June 05, 2023 20:47 - 16 minutes - 13.6 MBThere is so much hype and noise around Generative AI (ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, etc) at the moment. We need to cut through this to make sure we make the most of it for our teams and businesses. If you don't know what the Gartner's Hype Cycle looks like, check out the image at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle In this bonus episode of the podcast, we will then look at the role of a team and senior leader in any and every industry right now. They need to do three things: 1. Get ...
ThrowForward Thursday 104: Architects of the Future
June 01, 2023 15:13 - 9 minutes - 8.45 MBLet's jump just a few years into the future, where architects are incorporating real time data analytics to dramatically improve their human-centric designs, and are incorporating AI assistants into their professional offices. I think that AI taking over from human architects is a long way off, but by 2030, the architects that use AI and data analytics will be taking the jobs of architects who don't.
ThrowForward Thursday 103: Lessons in Innovation from the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9
May 25, 2023 08:29 - 8 minutes - 7.02 MBThis is part 2 of our look at CRISPR gene editing technology. See Part 1 here: https://youtu.be/zA5_QX3MoMg Today, we take a look behind the scenes at how CRISPR-Cas9 was developed, and the lessons we can learn for innovation in our own companies. This is a SAMPLE of the full episode, which is exclusively available for members of Graeme Codrington's Futures Club. You can sign up for the club and access the full version here, right now: https://academy.graemecodrington.com/futures-club RES...
ThrowForward Thursday 102: CRISPR - Editing DNA for a better future
May 18, 2023 15:40 - 7 minutes - 5.69 MBThe 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Dr. Jennifer Doudna and Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier for their work on the gene editing technique known as CRISPR-Cas9. This gives us the ability to change the DNA of any living thing, from plants and animals to humans. The applications are enormous, from improving farming to curing diseases. A decade or so from now, CRISPR will no doubt be taught in High Schools, and be a basic building block of medicine and agriculture. It is going to chang...
ThrowForward Thursday 101: How to build scenarios for the future
May 11, 2023 16:58 - 11 minutes - 9.04 MBLast week, I shared "21 Predictions for the year 2123" (see https://bit.ly/21for2123). Today, we go behind the scenes and discover the two tools I used to select these scenarios, as we learn to think like a futurist. I'll show you the importance of a framework for horizon scanning, and then, if you're a member of my Futures Club, you'll see how to take the list of trends and disruptive forces and apply the Impact vs Probability matrix together with High Road/Low Road filters to produce scen...
The WEF Future Jobs Report 2023 - Futures Club Teaser
May 09, 2023 13:24 - 14 minutes - 14.1 MBThis special edition of Graeme Codrington's Future of Work podcast is produced in collaboration with the Futures Club. This is the first half of the podcast, giving you a teaser of what is available to members of the Futures Club. Sign up for the Futures Club now to get the rest of this podcast: http://bit.ly/GCFuturesClub This is a summary of the most significant findings from the World Economic Forum's Future Jobs Report 2023, released on 2 May 2023. It looks specifically at the most ...
ThrowForward Thursday 100: 21 Predictions for the World of 2123
May 05, 2023 13:20 - 21 minutes - 17.8 MBFor our special 100th episode of ThrowForward Thursday, we jump forward a century and imagine 21 scenarios of what life might be like. This is one episode where you might enjoy the video more, as we have included a lot of relevant graphics and images: Join Graeme Codrington's Futures Club: http://bit.ly/GCFuturesClub The scenarios in this episode are not fanciful science fiction scenarios of flying cars or robot assistants (those will be old news in a century anyway), but rather our ...
ThrowForward Thursday 99: Futures Club Teaser: What we can learn from the Ocean Cleanup Project
April 27, 2023 07:07 - 10 minutes - 8.32 MBWhat we can learn from the Ocean Cleanup Project about innovation through ridiculous ideas, experimentation and being a force for good. Members of my Futures Club will get access to the full video, but for everyone else, here is an extended 'teaser' which I am sure you will find useful. Prof. Jim Dator is one of the world's foremost futurists, and his Second Law of Futures states that "any useful idea about the future must appear ridiculous". What does he mean? How is this useful for gene...