Smarter Express

Ethics, Community, and Squirrels

João Pinho
Nov 8 · 7 min read

If you’re just looking for a quick overview of the conference WIRED Smarter 2019, you can check this Trello board with some of my notes, pictures, videos and presentation slides; additionally, there’s a video with some highlights at the bottom of this page.


If you’re a muggle, you’re probably not familiar with the platform 9¾ at King’s Cross Station. In the (allegedly) fictional world of Harry Potter, this is where the students of Hogwarts would hop on the train to get to school. Exceptionally, on the past October 30, 2019, it would probably transport you across the street to King’s Place, the venue where WIRED UK hosted its conference, Smarter.

With around 30 keynote speakers and almost as many startups showcasing the way they’re shaping our future, many insights were shared and discussed. After much consideration, I picked 3 main highlights to cover on this Smarter Express.

Our first stop, just like Mr. Potter’s, hosts the debate regarding wands and how the wizard can choose to use them for good or evil.

Ethics

Read minds, turn people into animals, levitate stuff…there are many things that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still not capable of doing. We’re all confident that it will eventually get there and solve all of the world’s biggest problems, but how exactly are we preparing for it?

In the world created by JK Rowling, kids would go to school with what were essentially magical guns (wands) in their pockets. But they were taught how to use these weapons for good. There were some rules and infrastructures to assure that magic would be used to make the world a better place.

With that (or something similar) in mind, the World Economic Forum, represented in the conference by its Head of AI and Machine Learning, Kay Firth-Butterfield, created a set of guidelines to help us and our muggle governments dealing with the potential of AI and its more-than-likely impactful implications in our future.

Kay Firth-Butterfield, Head of AI and Machine Learning, World Economic Forum

This framework aims to “enable (the UK government, 15 other countries, and over 100 stakeholders) to grow their AI economies while also driving companies to raise their standards on a responsible use of AI”.

“A responsible use of AI” was also the theme chosen by Jo Swinson MP, Leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrats. In Swinson’s opinion, in nowadays’ paradigm, there’s an additional need to make technology accessible and inclusive. With digital literacy still being a problem and the digital transformation processes still lacking transparency, the Liberal Democrat positioned the UK as a leader of a regulated AI-powered future.

As for the Public/Private duality, Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at UCL, suggested that the Public Sector should shift from fixing markets to co-creating them, sharing both the risks and the rewards, thus making Capitalism not just smarter (pun intended) but also more inclusive.

A more inclusive world is one where, among other things, diversity is encouraged and celebrated. And according to Sharmadean Reid, Founder at Beautystack, diverse teams will probably represent a competitive advantage as they add new different perspectives to help their companies getting out of the bubbles they normally live in.

But by giving the example of Beautystack — wherefrom the 22 people hired in 2019, 57% were non-white (according to Reid, a 35-year-old black female, she was subconsciously biased into building a company in her own image) — the founder suggested that on a micro-level, diversity is not as important as on a decision-making one

an early-stage startup should be run like a cult (…) we need more diversity in government, in university boards, at Venture Capitals, and at banks because they are the ones who chose who gets funded.

Diverse decision-makers will fund diverse teams. Which is very smart.

Squirrels

It’s a common misconception to believe that disruption is exclusive of our times. As Kris Miller, SVP & Chief Strategy Officer at eBay, exposed while walking the audience through the history of retail (see the cover picture of this post), disruption has always been present. The difference? Its pace.

According to Miller, there are 3 different kinds of trends accelerating disruption:

Technology Trends: with powerful tools such as AI/Machine Learning, IoT, Augmented/Virtual Reality and Crypto/Blockchain becoming mainstream and every day more impactful;

Consumer Trends: with the rise of a purpose-driven digital native generation who values simplicity and privileges a Sharing Economy mindset;

Commerce Trends: with digital transformation creating new ecosystems and business models in an age of distributed commerce — retailers are expected to answer anytime, anywhere.

So, how should retailers navigate this perfect storm of disruption? Miller provided a strategy:

Kris Miller, SVP & Chief Strategy Officer at eBay (Source: eBay UK News)

Be Customer-Obsessed No matter what the future brings, there’s one thing we can be certain about: those who keep the customers at the center of their focus will always be better prepared to deal with the storm;

Embrace Your Superpower — Find the differentiation point of your business and invest in it;

Use Technology Strategically — “Focus your technology investments in specific use cases to solve pain points or delight your customers in meaningful ways”;

Find Your Flywheel — “Create a repeatable model for customer engagement and lifetime value”.

She, then, ended her masterclass by sharing some mindsets to ease this exciting ride: don’t believe the hype(“ despite the chaos portrayed by headlines, disruption creates opportunity.”), be agile (test and learn) and avoid the squirrels:

Don’t get distracted by emerging technologies that may not yet have a relevant use case for your business. Focus your technology investments on those things that will matter to your customer.

This squirrel metaphor would probably get John Vincent’s seal of approval. The CEO and Co-founder at Leon suggested that we should consider replacing the use of aggressive war metaphors such as “winning the battle against our competition” with nature analogies such as “the squirrel finding the nuts”.

As Dumbledore would put it: “Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it”.

John Vincent’s idea of a shift towards a “wholeness mindset” is the perfect fuel to get us to our last stop: a discussion of how our very human need to belong is being used for our own benefit.

Community

If you know what Depop is, you’re probably under 26.

This is how Marie Petrovicka, VP of International at Depop, positioned the platform that already gathered a community of 16+ million registered users (with 90% of its active users being under the age of 26).

Depop is a fashion marketplace where the next generation buy, sell and get inspired.

With Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2015) outnumbering Baby Boomers (it is expected to happen next year), companies will thrive by addressing the youth mindset and expectations. But what exactly are those?

Marie Petrovicka highlighted 3 traits that define this new generation:

Entrepreneurship: 62% of Gen Z say they would like to start their own companies rather than work for an established organization;

Sustainability: no surprises here, this is the generation more passionate about the future of our planet;

Community: if you visit Depop’s website you’ll find this

Just like many other generations before, Gen Z is also craving for the feeling of belonging. And the companies that address that need with the development of new and exciting community-driven products and services will have the upper hand in the years to come.

Marie Petrovicka, VP of International at Depop

Depop’s example shows us that this new batch of customers is privileging the feeling of being part of something bigger than themselves. And that same idea applies to the future of work.

Bruce Daisley, Vice President EMEA at Twitter, started his presentation by exposing the common mistake that is addressing employer branding as being all about office slides, free beer, and ping pong tables.

In a fast-pacing world, where the number of work-related burnout cases keeps growing bigger by the day, Daisley suggests that companies should stop for a minute and try to understand what’s really important for their employees.

He then introduced a new groundbreaking concept portraying our overwhelming desire to not be neglected by others— FOMOOM: The Fear of Missing Out On Meetings (perfectly explained in the following tweet).

In Twitter VP’s opinion, companies should nurture an environment perfectly balanced between work flexibility and the previously mentioned feeling of belonging.

The future of work is understanding humanity and keeping it at the center of our thinking.

Retweet to that!


Source: Wired UK’s Youtube Channel

You can check my notes, pictures, and videos here.

    João Pinho

    Written by

    www.jgpinho.com

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