How to be a Storyteller
An Interview with the Robin Williams of IT, Thornton May
His expertise and insights are legendary in the IT industry. He is also considered as the greatest storyteller in the IT world. His grasp of technology and its application to our world is quite unmatched.
In this interview, Thornton May, shares with us fascinating insights in the world of information technology and the future of technology.
How does it feel like to be called the Robin Williams of IT?
Great.
Storytelling is the defining human activity and using humor is the highest form of storytelling.
A double uber.
Where does a futurist get inspiration?
From all the low hanging fruit [i.e., powerful ideas and insights] lying between disciplines and available if one steps back from the day-to-day, digitally tethered, whack-a-mole craziness which modern leaders sadly call life.
What are the main goals of the IT Leadership Academy? Who sets the tone of the school year?
The main goal of the IT Leadership Academy is to inspire leaders — people making a real difference in their respective spheres of influence. We seek to provide emotional succor to those who would change the world. The tone of the school year is a pick up game. Leadership is very contextual. The context changes and we have a session.
How can storytelling skills help IT professionals?
There is no IT profession without storytelling. The fact that most IT professionals are tragically bad storytellers lies at the root of the existential angst which defines the IT industry today.
The most important story IT professionals need to deliver is who they are, what they do and why they matter.
What’s the key to being an effective IT professional?
The 5 parts of next generation IT leadership DNA:
Self-Knowledge
Empathy [other knowledge/knowledge of others]
Sensemaking [environmental knowledge]
Vision [movement knowledge — where are we going]
Innovation [value knowledge — where is there money to be made/mission value to be delivered]
How can an individual and a company stay ahead of the curve? Please define what the curve is before answering this.
Time Stamp EVERY activity and project. We spend a whole lot of time introducing technology into the enterprise. We spend almost no time ‘exfoliating’ the older technologies, processes or mind sets that have entered the organization. We are techno-cerebral constipated. We need to purge a lot of the tech which exists today. We are 15 years away from when every molecule on this planet will be IP addressable.
The curve is what you know and is upper-bounded by what you can know. In five years what we can know is infinite. The amount of information now floating around has the implication that unaugmented human cognition is no longer good enough.
What’s the key to becoming a trendsetter instead of just a trendspotter?
There are three kinds of futures:
The linear future [an extrapolation of the trends at work in the world today]
The ‘Oh S’ or ‘A ha’ future [surprises — both unpleasant and delightful]
(and)
The future we create
The difference between trend setting and trend spotting is acting on Future A, not being afraid of Future B having a vision about Future C.
Who are the top 3 IT companies in the world?
Companies are not the unit of measure going forward — they are but receptacles to showcase human accomplishment.
The big wave today is that people hungry for knowledge are not going to work for companies — they are making things happen via human networks.
Who are YOUR personal heroes? Why?
My wife Janet who everyday inspires me to be a better, smarter and more caring person. Janet is gifted with all the tools — she is Wall Street smart financially and Six Sigma smart operationally. Her greatest gift is her heart — she cares about people.
Alan Webber, co-founder of Fast Company Magazine — he is scary-smart, very well read, supernaturally sensitive to emerging trends and deeply concerned about his fellow man.
Moshe Rubinstein, Engineering professor emeritus at UCLA — author of The Minding Organization — this guy owns creative problem solving. If there were more Moshe’s, the world would truly be a paradise.
Tom Murphy, CIO at Amerisource Bergen. When you look in Webster’s Dictionary under the words ‘courage’ and ‘fearless’ Tom’s picture pops up. This guy is genetically wired to do the right thing.
Dick Dietrich, head of the Accounting Department at the Fisher College of Business at THE Ohio State University. Dick is one of the best accountants in the world. This does not get in the way of him seeing the vast potential that exists in just about every nook and cranny of society today.
J. Peri Sabety, my former boss at the Brookings Institution and currently the Budget Director for the State of Ohio. There is no one smarter, more versed in how government REALLY works and more committed to making the world a better place.
My anti-hero — Steve Jobs. I don’t care how ‘obscenely great’ his products are. I don’t care how much money he makes. Yelling at fellow human beings and leading through intimidation is not sustainable. Leading through intimidation and fear is not the future. Bill Gates saw the light and has emerged as one of the great philanthropists of all time. Steve is stealing body parts from poor people…
What are YOU hungry for?
Hungry for next — can hardly wait for each new day. The best days of our species lie ahead of us.
What’s the next wave in technology that will revolutionize the world like the Internet? Is it mobile?
The next wave of technology is personal knowledge management. Each human being on this planet will have access to technology that will optimize human performance.
About Thornton May
Thornton knows knowing. His work on the complex intersection of the informational, knowledge and behavioral components of organizational change includes teaching at four business schools, writing for five magazines, futuring at three think tanks and keeping in monthly contact with over a thousand C-level executives. He recently wrote The New Know: Innovation Powered by Analytics.
Thornton specializes in creating knowledge places, post-industrial campfires where the best & brightest convene to understand what they know, what they don’t know and what they can do about it.
Thornton designed, managed and/or assisted in creating The Lyceum [Cambridge Technology Partners], The Discourses [Guardent/Verisign], the CIO Executive Summit [Evanta/DMG Group], the Multi-Channel Value Lab [Digital River], the Olin Innovation Lab [Olin College of Engineering] and the Value Studio at State College of Florida- Jacksonville.
The editors at eWeek Magazine recently acknowledged Thornton as one of the ‘100 Most Influential People in IT.’ The editors at Fast Company magazine consider Thornton one of the ’50 best brains in business.’
Thornton received his B.A. from Dartmouth College; his M.S.I.A. from Carnegie-Mellon University. He did his doctoral work in Japanese studies at the University of Michigan and Keio University in Tokyo.
At 5 foot 7 inches he played professional basketball in Japan.
