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227 A.I. And The Future with Greatest Chess Player Ever Garry Kasparov and Noodle.AI CEO Steve Pratt

FYD - Episode 227 - Garry Kasparov & Steve Pratt

In many circles, Chess is viewed as the ultimate display of intellectual might. If you think about it, chess is a fighting game that is purely intellectual and excludes all chance. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we talk to one of Chess’ ultimate combatants, Garry Kasparov.

At age 22, Garry Kasparov became the world’s youngest chess champion, and from 1984 to his retirement in 2005, he was ranked the number one Chess player on the planet for a record 255 months of his career. He is also known as the man who competed against an IBM supercomputer in 1997.

Today, Garry Kasparov is a political activist and an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He is also the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, and the author of the best-seller called Deep Thinking, Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins.

In addition to all of this, he’s also working with a few advanced technology companies, in which I had the pleasure of meeting him. He has started working with a good friend of mine, Steve Pratt of Noodle.AI. So listen in as the three of us talk about Covid-19, the relationship between humans and machines, and how Garry jokes about being the first knowledge worker to have his job taken by a computer.

Garry Kasparov and Steve Pratt on COVID-19

When asked how they were doing nowadays, Steve comments that it felt strange now that everything is slowly opening up. Nowadays, it seems weird when you see people not wearing masks when you go out, as compared to only a few months ago of masks and lockdowns.

Garry shared that while it is slowly opening up in America and Europe, the rest of the world is going through a very different experience. He laments the current situation in Russia particularly, where his family and friends reside.

“We know from history that the innovative power of undemocratic states is cannot be compared to the power of the free mind. It’s not an accident that the virus came from China, but the response came from the United States.” – Garry Kasparov

Garry also points out the disparity on how people trust the vaccines compared to the Russian-made Sputnik vaccine. He attributes this mostly to having the proper data to prove its efficacy, which the Sputnik vaccine is sorely lacking at the moment. While there are vaccines that have lower efficacy rates compared to those made by Pfizer and Moderna, they’re still widely preferred due to the fact that they have data and tests to back those numbers up.

Working Together and Freeing the Mind

When asked if the low vaccination rates can be attributed to the vaccine or implementation, Garry answered that it was both happening at the same time. While the vaccine hesitancy was expected due to the lack of data on their vaccine, Russian government tried to promote Sputnik as the ultimate cure against COVID. They went as far as donating it to other countries, some of which flat-out refused, which further damaged its credibility.

Moving away from Russia, Garry then compared China and the United States’ response to the virus. He notes that while China had a huge head start in studying the COVID virus, it still took them a while to create a vaccine that had low efficacy ratings. Enter US and the combined effort of the public and private sectors, and you have two working vaccines in just 10 months, both of which boast great efficacy.

“So again, it’s very important to recognize that it’s this the free world, when we lift all the restrictions on risk. It could realize the wildest dreams, and somehow, I think the pandemics served us well, because it proved that we have to go back to the spirit of innovation and become pioneers, to become explorers. What’s important, again, the free world has potential, and now this potential have been exposed in a positive way.” – Garry Kasparov

Human and A.I.

We then talked about technology and A.I., how people are still against it in fears of somehow making an evil sentient A.I. that will rule us all. Garry explains that we shouldn’t be afraid of A.I.; rather, we should use it to its fullest potential and keep it away from the hands of bad humans.

“The problem is not with the machines. The problem was bad humans that can use these machines to harm us. That’s the story of technology.” – Garry Kasperov

Instead, we still blame the machine if someone used it and caused problems. So, we still limit their capabilities, afraid of things we have just fantasized about while ignoring the benefits it could bring.

There’s also the argument of machines and A.I. stealing jobs from people. To which Garry comments that we should not despair if it happens. Rather, we should look forward to what we can do next, and adapt to it. Whether to learn the technology to handle the A.I., or develop something that can be used hand-in-hand with the new technology.

Rather than fighting with machines, we should learn how it could work to our benefit. Because at the end of the day, machines can decide, but it’s a human’s privilege to choose.

 

If you wish to hear more from Garry Kasperov and Steve Pratt about A.I. and how it can improve our future, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov became the under-18 chess champion of the USSR at the age of 12 and the world under-20 champion at 17. He came to international fame at the age of 22 as the youngest world chess champion in history in 1985. He defended his title five times, including a legendary series of matches against arch-rival Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov broke Bobby Fischer’s rating record in 1990 and his own peak rating record remained unbroken until 2013. His famous matches against the IBM super-computer Deep Blue in 1996-97 were key to bringing artificial intelligence, and chess, into the mainstream.

Kasparov’s was one of the first prominent Soviets to call for democratic and market reforms and was an early supporter of Boris Yeltsin’s push to break up the Soviet Union. In 1990, he and his family escaped ethnic violence in his native Baku as the USSR collapsed. In 2005, Kasparov, in his 20th year as the world’s top-rated player, retired from professional chess to join the vanguard of the Russian pro-democracy movement. In 2012, Kasparov was named chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, succeeding Vaclav Havel. HRF promotes individual liberty worldwide and organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum. Facing imminent arrest during Putin’s crackdown, Kasparov moved from Moscow to New York City in 2013.

The US-based Kasparov Chess Foundation non-profit promotes the teaching of chess in education systems around the world. Its program already in use in schools across the United States, KCF also has centers in Brussels, Johannesburg, Singapore, and Mexico City. Garry and his wife Daria travel frequently to promote the proven benefits of chess in education and have toured Africa extensively.

Steve Pratt

Stephen is an instigator, agitator, and pioneer in creating world-class technology services organizations.

He has spent his career building innovative ways to create value for the world’s most important organizations.

Prior to Noodle, he was responsible for all Watson implementations worldwide for IBM Global Business Services.

He also was the founder and CEO of Infosys Consulting, a Senior Partner at Deloitte Consulting, and a technology and strategy consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton.

He twice has been selected as one of the top 25 consultants in the world by Consulting Magazine.

He has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University and The George Washington University focused on Satellite Communications.

For fun, Steve plays competitive tennis, races sailboats, and formerly was a crazed rugby player. He enjoys playing acoustic guitar for his children (not ready for prime time).

Links

Follow Garry and Steve today!

Steve Pratt

LinkedIn: in/StephenPratt

Website: Noodle.AI

Garry Kasparov

Twitter: @Kasparov63

Website: Kasparov.com

Check out his book: Deep Thinking, Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins

More on Kasparov:

NYTimes.com: Garry Kasparov – What We Believe About Reality

FoxNews.com: Russian Activist Garry Kasparov Blasts NBC Putin Interview

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

117 How “Native Digitals” Are A Threat To All Companies That Make “Stuff”

LOM_Episodes-117 - How Native Digitals Are A Threat To All Companies That Make Stuff

This episode is based on the Category Pirates ?‍☠️ Newsletter

Welcome to a two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, where we talk about Native Digitals and the profound changes they are bringing to the way we live, work, and play. If you haven’t heard the first episode, why not check it out so you’ll have an idea of what’s going on with Native Digitals.

To recap, there are about 140 million Native Digitals in the United States, and we are witnessing a new category of human beings emerge. One that is fully integrated with the technology for whom their digital life is their primary experience of life.

That last bit puts companies that make “stuff” in a lot of trouble, because it turns out that most Native Digitals don’t want their “stuff” anymore. Which might put a serious dent on the economy, as roughly 30% of the U.S. GDP is in the “stuff” business. Stay tuned to learn more on how they are affected, and how they can adapt to this new market situation.

What Native Digitals Think of “Stuff”

Most millennials and Gen Z are what we call Native Digitals. They grew up in an era where they have observed that their parent’s pursuit of “stuff” did not really lead to as much meaning as they would’ve thought. Suddenly, getting a big house, driving a sports car, and having a lot of trinkets and expensive jewelry doesn’t seem like a priority anymore.

This might be the reason why 74 percent of Americans now value experiences more than physical products. At the very least, the majority of millennials feel that way. Virtual products are now selling for more than their analog counterparts.

This might sound stupid to most people who are Digital Analogs, but you have to realize that their primary experience and interactions are those in the digital space. An example of this is NFTs, which are Non-Fungible Tokens that certain digital artworks now use as a badge of authenticity. Not to mention cryptocurrency, that is slowly creeping into mainstream and becoming a primary “store of value”.

Another reason for the lack of desire for “stuff” is that 70 percent of Millennials aren’t in a financial position to buy a house, even if they wanted to. Which means they don’t have a place to put their “stuff” anyways. Younger generations aren’t even prioritizing getting their licenses, which means less demands for cars and other vehicles. Lastly, Millennials would rather travel and have autonomy in their schedule than land a high-paying job.

If you were a Gen Xer or a Baby Boomer, those statements would have probably driven you into a fit of anger and confusion. What is happening here is the biggest shift in the perceived value of “stuff”. If you’ll remember, nothing, not even human life, has any intrinsic value (LOM #105: Value is 100% Perception).

“Stuff” Companies are in Trouble

Knowing all this, if your company is in the “stuff” business, you might be in a bit of trouble. If you’re company is completely analog and doesn’t offer digital goods or services, you’ll probably be left behind.

This macro trend is happening in plain sight. If your customers are 35 years or younger, they will progressively spend more time, energy, and money enhancing their digital life, themselves, and their careers through products, experiences, and what our friend Joe Pine, author of Experience Economy, calls transformations in your digital life.

So let me say this again. Native Digital people under 35 will progressively spend more time, money, and energy enhancing their lives, their work, their play through digital experiences, products and transformations, not analog ones.

Consequently, it’s starting to look like analog only manufacturers as we know them today will be an ever-decreasing percentage of GDP. Said another way, “stuff”-only categories are going to continue to shrink. Which means that stuff manufacturers need to innovate around digital products, services, experiences and what Joe Pine calls transformations to go along with their physical stuff.

To learn more how analog “stuff” companies can make the shift in this new Digital Native market, download and listen to this episode.

Links

Here are some sources for your perusal:

More than a third of the people in the United States have met their spouse or partner through their digital life first. 

Per the World Bank, the global GDP has shifted from 54% services in 1996 to 65% in 2018.

Only 10% of first-time brides in their ‘30s and ‘40s received diamond engagement rings.

Native digital women don’t care as much about diamonds.

Bio

Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.

He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.

Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.

In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.

He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

226 Real Digital Relationships | HalloApp Launch with Founders Neeraj Arora & Michael Donohue

FYD - Episode 226 Neeraj Arora and Michael Donohue HalloApp

Welcome to this very special episode of Follow Your Different. We’ll talk about one of the most anticipated startups in Silicon Valley today, HalloApp. We sit down with HalloApp founders Neeraj Arora and Michael Donohue in the first and probably only – for some time – podcast.

Michael and Neeraj were two of the senior leaders who built WhatsApp, a category defining company in the messaging category. Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 for $22 billion, in one of the largest tech acquisitions of all time. Today, there are over 2.5 billion WhatsApp users, and it dominates the messaging category.

Now, Michael and Neeraj are on route in pioneering a new category of “Real Relationship” app. It is a new model of communication app that is a combination of messaging and social functionality in a simple, private way.

They have the audacity to think they can change the future again by being radically different, and I all for it. If you are interested to learn more about what they have to offer, stay tuned to this episode.

WhatsApp Never Left Stealth Mode

When asked about something that most people don’t know about WhatsApp, Neeraj and Michael share an interesting story. If you’ve ever notice, WhatsApp never really talks to the press that much. It turns out that this particular quirk is something that the WhatsApp founders have developed into almost a culture, or a code if you will. It goes as such:

“Brass kicks up dust that gets into your eyes and makes you not focus on the product or the company”

Simply put, the higherups on WhatsApp just wants to focus on developing their products and services and let it speak for itself. Why worry about tech press when they can just impress their users with their amazing product?

Plus when you create the attention, it just means added distractions and things to facilitate. Which in turn leads to less focus on the product and more on keeping up appearances.

So you could almost say that WhatsApp never came out of stealth mode.

HalloApp with Neeraj Arora and Michael Donohue

It seems that Michael and Neeraj plan to follow the same code on their new endeavor, which is HalloApp. They will follow the same strategy of focusing on the user and the product, with minimal distractions.

This practice seems unorthodox and almost counterintuitive to what current companies are doing with their products, which is to hype up their products and make it popular even before its launch.

Yet for them, the focus is not to become famous or popular as an app of choice for most people. Their aim is to solve a problem, and find users that are looking for a solution. In the end, they will let the product speak for itself.

“I think the product should speak for itself. That’s it. Like if you do a good job of it, if you create user loyalty and trust, you don’t have to talk about anything about yourself or at all. Like, why do you need it, right? In the end, you should ask yourself the question, “why am I doing this?” And if the answer is I’m not getting to build a better product and more users, which is the case then then why would I do it?” – Neeraj Arora

Neeraj and Michael on Fast Growth

When asked further on PR and marketing, they believe the current way of pre-hyping the product won’t work for them. Their goal is to have users appreciate the product that they will share it to their family and peers, and let it grow almost naturally. It’s almost like they’re going back to the word-of-mouth approach in marketing, but digitally.

As for making it big, Neeraj comments that having a fast growth for a company is not always a good thing. Sometimes it even hurts your company in the long run. Neeraj and Michael would rather take it slow and build a product that will last forever, rather than aiming for large numbers at Day One.

“It actually hurts you, I think, fast growth. And fast growth is like the worst thing you can do for your product and your company. You would rather take a part of growing in a very thoughtful way and growing slowly and building a product that lasts forever. (For fast growth,) You’re going to have to get a million users at day one. I think that’s not what we’re doing this for.” – Neeraj Arora

If you want to hear more from Neeraj & Michael, and their thoughts on HalloApp and building digital relationships, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Neeraj Arora

Neeraj Arora started his career at the mobile messaging app company in November 2011, heading its business. From June 2015 to February 2018, he was also one of the Board of Directors at the Indian payments giant Paytm. Prior to that, from December 2010 to November 2011, he served Google’s Corporate Development team as the senior member, helming acquisitions and investments in an array of products across different countries. Under his leadership, Google acquired Picnik, Zagat, Talkbin, Slide, Dailydeal.de, and PittPatt among others. Before that, Arora was a Corporate Development Manager at Google from December 2007 to December 2010. As the manager of Corporate Development team, his was responsible for finding and implementing acquisitions and strategic investments.

Before coming to Google, Neeraj worked as the Chief Manager of Investments and Corporate Strategy team at Times Internet Limited (Indiatimes) from June 2006 to November 2007. However, his career began as a Program Manager at a cloud solution company Accellion Inc, which he joined in August 2000 after completing B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT-Delhi. His job lasted till April 2005.

Michael Donohue

Michael Donohue was one of the founding members of WhatsApp, who built the largest real time messaging network in the world. Since his resignation as an Engineering Director at WhatsApp, he has founded a stealth mode startup and invested in 10+ startups. He is well known in the startup community for mentoring and advising high potential entrepreneurs.

Michael has a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and prior to WhatsApp, he worked as a Software Engineer since 2000 for companies such as PayPal, Coverity, and QVT Financial LP.

Links

Follow Neeraj and Michael today!

Website: HalloApp.com

LinkedIn: in/NeerajArora

                : in/MichaelDonohue

Twitter: @NeerajArora

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

116 New Category of Human: “Native Digitals” (People Under 35) Are Radically Different People & Most “Native Analogs” Don’t Get It

LOM_Episodes-116 Native Digitals

This episode is based on the Category Pirates ?‍☠️ Newsletter

Welcome to a two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, where we talk about Native Digitals and the profound changes they are bringing to the way we live, work, and play.

In this episode, let’s talk about how these younger folks, 140 Million of them in the United States, are the new category of human. These native digitals are the first to grow up completely integrated with technology.

I think it has a profound meaning, and I also think that most people aren’t paying attention.

 

Native Analogs vs Native Digitals: Perceiving Reality

While having my friends and their kids over one time, I’ve realized something different. While my friends and I are enjoying the beautiful sunset on the beach, the kids were doing something else. They were at their phones, talking to their friends or watching something online. Which seemed like a waste of a perfectly good sunset, though they did take a picture to post on social media.

This got me thinking and gave me the idea: these kids are Native Digitals. It means that their primary experience of life is within the digital one, and their analog life is secondary. That is to say, the photo or video of the sunset is more important than the actual one, because they can show it off to their network.

If you are like me, a Digital Analog, it’s the reverse. Though the insight that I had that morning after that sunset on the beach was quite interesting.

 

Who are the Native Digitals and Native Analogs?

If you are 35 and above, you are most likely a Digital Analog. You value your life outside technology, and are one of the categories of human that exists today. If we are talking about generations, they fall under the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who were born in the early 80s or earlier. They make up approximately 136.8 million Americans.

The second category are the Native Digitals. These are millennials and Gen Xers who are born between the early eighties and as recently as the 2010s. The high end of these folks are around thirty-five today and the low end are as young as six years old.

Get this, they make up 140 million Americans.

 

Why is this Important?

So there’s the great AHA. There are more Native Digitals right now in the United States. As time goes on, the gap between the population of Native Digitals and Native Analogs will widen.

Yet it is our strong suspicion that both category of humans does not understand how profound this change is. It’s not just a normal generation stuff where the older generation has different trends than the newer one.

One major difference is that Native Analogs think of technology as an add-on to their lives, and sometimes even a distraction. Whereas Native Digitals grew up where technology is a necessity and deeply tied to their daily lives. Hence why they think their digital lives and personas are more valuable than their physical ones.

So why is this important? Because some of the biggest companies that are trying to appeal to Native Digitals are being run by Native Analogs. This causes a disconnect in their ideas, and might hurt their company in the long run, either by further showing their lack of comprehension. Or worse, being late to the punch in creating new categories that appeal to these new humans.

It also extends to their company framework. While there are still benefits to having a physical office or venue for work, stubbornly clinging to a full office experience can be detrimental. Especially since the current situation has proved that working remotely is not only viable, but sometimes better.

These are just some of the things to consider, and we would love to tackle it more in the 2nd part of these series.

So think about this the next time you are looking into the sunset on a sandy beach: which type of human are you?

 

Bio

Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.

He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.

Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.

In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.

He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

225 Everybody Wants To Rule The World with #1 Tech Analyst Ray Wang, Chairman of Constellation Research

FYD - Episode 225 Ray Wang 2

In this episode of Follow Your Different, Ray Wang is back to talk about how to survive and thrive in a world of Digital Giants.

Ray Wang is the world’s number one Tech Analyst, and the founder of Constellation Research. He has a brand-new book called Everybody Wants to Rule the World: Surviving and Thriving in a World of Digital Giants. We talk about the points he wrote in the book, as well as other recent tech-related events and breakthroughs. This is a fascinating conversation with one of the smartest guys in tech, so you wouldn’t want to miss this episode.

Tech Breaches and Cybersecurity

When asked on the recent tech security breaches, Ray comments how we are vulnerable at the moment. It seems the current tech for protection available to the public is vastly outpaced by these breachers.

As to why these tech breaches keep happening, Ray quotes the Willie Sutton Rule: “Because that’s where the money is.”

He also thinks it is scary that if it is occurring here in the US, then how about other countries that might have less defense mechanisms in place? While you can expect corporations to have systems in place to counter that, it can be harrowing for smaller companies.

Ray’s advice is that your company should always have a back disaster recovery ready to go. So if your company was unlucky enough to get hit these breachers and ransomware hackers, you can just revert your system using that backup. You might lose a few hours work due to it, but it’s better than succumbing to these malicious entities.

Ray Wang: Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Ray shares that when you think Digital Giants, you think large corporations. While large corporations can be Digital Giants, the reverse is not always true. It’s not about the size or the market that the company dominates, it goes a bit deeper than that.

With the cost of access to fast internet and tech becoming cheaper by the minute, more people are swarming the net as we speak. One commodity that is often overlooked when moving around the web is your personal information.

“First thing is, you have to believe in the fact that your personal data, genomics, and digital exhaust should all be property rights. The reason that’s important is because we have laws that talk about how you treat and give consent to property. Land rights, invention, IP and trademarks, right?

The good news is property laws exist. And in every state, country, and jurisdiction, you just have to say, “look, your personal data is a property, right?” And if somebody wants to use it, you need their consent. Suddenly, boom, you actually now have a whole economy around data. You’ve actually put the ownership of data back in the hands of the people that are creating that data.” – Ray Wang

So why is this important? Because for something that should be property, we seem to be giving it away easily in exchange for simple access. These Digital Giants then use that information to further benefit on our behalf, turning you into a product rather than a user.

Amazon, the Ultimate Digital Giant

Ray elaborates further by comparing Facebook and Google, and how these two Digital Giants operate. What’s fascinating is how Google is often perceived as the good guy, while Facebook is the bad one. When in truth, both giants have the same aim, it’s just that their delivery varies.

While talking about these two giants, Ray brings up the ultimate digital giant, Amazon. Why is it the ultimate digital giant? Unlike Facebook and Google, who are focused on one or two aspects to dominate in, Amazon seems to have its fingers dipped into multiple cookie jars.

“Amazon is the ultimate digital giant. I mean, it’s got ads. It’s got search. It even has subscriptions via memberships and prime. It’s got the goods and the services and their own network that’s on the back end. So that’s really what’s going on. We see a rise of these things called Digital Giants that have dominated markets, but they’re battling each other out for every digital monetization model there is.” – Ray Wang

Want to learn more from Ray and how to thrive in the world of Digital Giants? Download and listen to this episode.

Bio

R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and authors a business strategy and technology blog that has received millions of page views per month.  Wang also serves as a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center.

Since 2003, Ray has delivered thousands of live and virtual keynotes around the world that are inspiring and legendary. Wang has spoken at almost every major tech conference. His ground-breaking bestselling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015.  Ray’s new book about Digital Giants and the future of business titled, Everybody Wants to Rule the World will be released July 2021 by Harper Collins Leadership.

Wang is well quoted and frequently interviewed in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business News, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, CGTN America, Bloomberg, Tech Crunch, ZDNet, Forbes, and Fortune.  He is one of the top technology analysts in the world.

Links

Follow Ray today!

Website: RayWang.org

Twitter: @RWang0

LinkedIn: in/RWang0

Check out Ray Wang’s latest Book: Everybody Wants to Rule the World

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

115 2 Legendary Questions (Part 2)

LOM_Episodes-115 2 Legendary Questions part 2

Welcome to a special two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, where I answer two of the most important questions in my life and career. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, give it a listen here: 2 Legendary Questions (Part 1). Go on, we’ll wait.

Now that you’re all set, here’s part two. Let’s go!

The Legendary Question at the End of a Conversation

If you are an avid listener of Follow Your Different, you have heard me ask this question multiple times. An old friend and mentor of mine named George Brown got me into asking the same question. It goes like this:

“Is there anything else?”

Now, why is that a powerful question, you might ask? First of all, if you went to Sales School, you know that there are two kinds of questions if you look at things on a higher level. There’s open probes and closed probes. A closed probe is a question designed to get a specific answer, while an open probe sort of leaves it to the one that was questioned.

If you listen to me on Follow Your Different, I tend to ask more open questions. Those are all open probes and they’re designed to elicit a lot of information. So generally, when you ask an open probe, hopefully you’ll get more information from the person you’re in communication with.

Is There Anything Else?

Now, as to why this particular question is so powerful in a conversation, particularly at the end, it’s like this:

Often in any conversation, you get the most powerful information at the end. So when you ask someone if there is anything else, what you’re really saying to them is, “Hey, anything else on your mind?” This can elicit a feeling that they might not have given enough information before, and so it opens them up to share more, which you can then follow up with some close probing questions specific to the new information.

You will notice how often that question blows something wide open and when it does.

It’s also a good way to keep the conversation focused on a topic you might be interested in continuing the conversation on, rather than getting sidetracked by another topic. Particularly when the person turns the table and tries to turn the tables on you.

All right. That’s our two-part series on Legendary Questions, starting with “Is this legendary work?”/ “Do you think this is legendary work”, and finishing with “Is there anything else?” I hope you put these two legendary questions to good use.

Bio

Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.

He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.

Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.

In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.

He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

224 The Power of Trust with Harvard Business School Professor Sandra Sucher

FYD - Episode 224 Sandra Sucher

Trust is a cornerstone of society. It’s the seminal component that’s required for everything to work, including everything in business. Professor Sandra Sucher says that trust at every level of business and society has never mattered as much as it does right now.

In this episode of Follow Your Different, Professor Sandra Sucher talks about The Power of Trust, and how companies could earn, lose, and regain people’s trust. So if you are interested in learning about the different levels of trust across different levels in business, stay tuned to this episode.

Why Trust is Important

When asked what she thinks is the most important thing to learn about trust, Professor Sandra points out that it is important to know that trust is a type of relationship. It’s a relationship of almost like trusting your vulnerabilities to another person and believing in their actions.

While not entirely quantifiable, this insight makes us aware of how we should handle trusting another person, whether in business or in our daily lives.

“This is not like terra incognita, to any of us. And it says the trust is something you can get your arms around. It’s not ether, nor magic. And it’s not fairy dust. It’s resolved.” – Professor Sandra Sucher

Knowing this, we now have an idea as to where to think about how we can become a trustworthy person.

Culture and Trust in the Company

One of the things Professor Sandra have found in their research is that developing culture in a company is also based on trust.

People often associate culture as a kind of reputation management, more on handling how people think about them and the company. Though it’s better defined as building trust from within. When the people in your company trust the management and the company, they will be more invested in making it better. They trust that the company is doing its best, so they should do their best as well.

“So if you don’t have trust inside the company, kiss it goodbye. It’s not going to get it outside the company.” – Professor Sandra Sucher

 

Trust is a Judgement Call

Professor Sandra also defines trust as a judgement call people make, based on different factors that they perceive from someone. In terms of business, it could be with regards to their competence, their motives, and whose interests they are serving, among other things.

Another thing to note is that people also focus on how companies treat their people. So it’s not just about getting results. How you accomplish your goals also matter.

Professor Sandra thinks that one of the key things that set them apart from other research is their focus on Impact. While that previous point pertains to knowing how they interact with equals and those who work below them, a person or company’s impact pertains to how they affected others with their actions, whether directly or indirectly. This is quite important because then, you are basing your judgement on actual experience rather than information from second to third hand information.

With all this information, at hand, we make our judgement call. Are they competent? Do they care about other people’s interest? Have their actions impacted you in some way? If that was the case, did they take accountability for unintended impacts?

So while you can’t entirely quantify how Trust can be gain or lost by a company, having these parameters to have an estimate is a great way of gauging the current level of trust.

To learn more about Professor Sandra Sucher and The Power of Trust, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Sandra Sucher

Sandra Sucher is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, where she has been teaching for the last twenty years. She’s an advisor to the Edelman Trust Barometer, and has spoken about trust at Edelman and numerous companies and at Harvard Business School events.

She provides expert commentary for Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and Fortune.

Prior to teaching at Harvard, Sucher had a two-decade career as a senior level executive and business ‘fixer,’ specializing in uncovering complex organization problems and creating new ways to address them.

She lives in Massachusetts.

Links

Learn more about Sandra: Harvard Business School Profile

LinkedIn: in/Sandra-Sucher

Twitter: @SandraSucher

Check out her new book: The Power of Trust

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

114 2 Legendary Questions (Part 1)

LOM_Episodes-114 2 Legendary questions part 1

Welcome to a special two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, where I answer two of the most important questions in my life and career. Are you curious as to what those questions are? Stay tuned to find out.

My Favorite Question to Ask

You need a bit of back story for the first question.

In 2006, I was the head of marketing for a software company called Mercury Interactive. By June of that year, we sold the company for Hewlett-Packard for 4.5 billion dollars, which was a sizeable amount back then.

So as part of the transition to HP, our team met with the team in charge of marketing for the announcement of the acquisition. The marketing strategy was being handled by a famous ad agency; one you’d probably recognize if I describe one of their projects.

After we made our introductions, the head of HP marketing asked me if I had any questions before they start with the presentation. So I asked them a question:

“Do you think what you are about to show us is legendary work?”

That question made them pause for a bit, and the head of said ad agency looked at the head of HP marketing and said, “Can we have two more days?”

Good on them for realizing that they could do better, but it would’ve been better if they gave it their 100% in the first place.

Setting the Bar High

So one of my favorite questions to ask at the beginning of any meeting where somebody is about to show you something. On this case, it was ad creative, but it could be anything. It could be a product prototype, a marketing plan, or a category design. It could even be the justification for why we should buy Company X.

Whatever the thing is that they’re about to present, my favorite question to ask before that is, do you think this work? That is to say, the work they’re about to show is legendary.

What I learned over time is if you want to set a high bar for excellence in your organization, it’s interesting to find out where other people’s bar for excellence is. Because if they don’t bother to show you their best or legendary self, then why would you want to see it?

Now, it’s a different situation when you have something that is a work in progress, and need help in making it legendary. In which case, I ask this question instead: “Do you think we’re off to a legendary start?”

Though if you are presenting something that you think is final or close to the final work, you’ll always get the same question from me:

“Do you think this is legendary work?”

If you want to learn more about my two legendary questions, listen to this episode and check out part two coming soon!

Bio

Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.

He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.

Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.

In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.

He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

223 How To Produce Breakthroughs With “Alien Thinking” with Dr. Michael Wade

FYD - Episode 223 Dr Michael Wade

We are living at a time where the world needs breakthroughs more than ever. People who want to develop the ability to create a different future have never been more in demand. Though in order to do this, we need models and framework, as well as ideas and inspiration to help create those breakthroughs in our lives and businesses.

In this episode of Follow Your Different, Dr. Michael Wade shares with us on how to see the world with fresh eyes and the power of different thinking. He also explains how to navigate such that your breakthroughs can actually come to life, and so much more!

Professor Michael Wade’s new book, Alien Thinking, blows open much needed research and insight in this regard. ALIEN is actually an acronym that he and his co-authors came up with, and it stands for Attention, Levitation, Imagination, Experimentation, and Navigation. If you want to know the story behind it, stay tuned to this episode.

The Definition of a Breakthrough

The conversation starts of by establishing their definition of a breakthrough. When talking about a breakthrough, Dr. Mike thinks that it should be something a large improvement, or something that hasn’t been done before. It has to be enough to take something to the next level.

“It’s not just having an idea, which is hard enough. It’s about taking that idea and kind of break through the process to become a breakthrough solution.” – Dr. Michael Wade

Which is not to say that small changes and incremental innovation is bad. They are great for optimizing those big breakthroughs you have further down the line. It can also help you reach some short-term goals for yourself. Dr. Mike just chooses to focus on studying and looking an eye out for breakthrough innovations.

Exponential Breakthroughs are Harder to Reach

When asked why people seem to find it easier to go incremental than exponential, Dr. Mike thinks that we are simply not built for it. It takes extra effort to break away from the norm and challenge our usual assumptions about how things are done.

If you can’t even bring yourself to challenge those assumptions and preconceptions, making a breakthrough will just be a pipe dream.

ALIEN Thinking with Dr. Michael Wade

Dr. Mike talks about how they try to break down what it means to do something original in an original way. This is because having an exponential or radical innovation often requires being original.

Which is why the title of the book, Alien Thinking, fits so well with the idea. Aside from the acronym it stands for, the metaphor of the alien can help you see things in a fresh perspective.

“Every day, we go through life without really questioning things after a while. So what we’re challenging people to do when they read the book is to see the world like an alien, and see things for the very first time without preconceived notions about the way things should work. So a lot of what we talked about in the book is about is about how to do that how to regain that ability to see things in, in new ways with fresh eyes.” – Dr. Michael Wade

To hear more from Dr. Michael Wade and how to see the world through Alien Thinking, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Michael Wade is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy at IMD and holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation.

He is the Director of the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation.

His areas of expertise relate to strategy, innovation, and digital transformation.

He obtained Honours BA, MBA and PhD degrees from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada. Previously, he was the Academic Director of the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA Program.

Michael has been nominated for teaching awards in the MBA, International MBA, and Executive MBA programs.

RESEARCH AND THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Michael has published works on a variety of topics, including digital business transformation, innovation, strategy, and digital leadership. He has published nine books, more than a hundred case studies and articles, and appears frequently in the mainstream media. One of his articles was among the top 20 cited articles in business, management and accounting worldwide for five years, according to Scopus (the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature).

His Latest book, published in 2019, is Orchestrating Transformation: How to Deliver Winning Performance with a Connected Approach to Change. His previous book, 2016’s Digital Vortex: How Today’s Market Leaders Can Beat Disruptive Competitors at their Own Game won multiple awards and has been translated into five languages.

Professor Wade has been named one of the top ten digital thought leaders in Switzerland three times by Bilanz, Le Temps, and Handelszeitung, most recently in 2020.

CLIENTS & INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

At IMD, Professor Wade directs a number of executive programs related to digital transformation, including Digital ExecutionDigital Transformation for Boards, and Digital Disruption. He also founded and directs Europe’s first and largest program for executives on digital, Leading Digital Business Transformation.

He has directed custom programs related to strategy and digital business transformation for Vodafone, AXA, Tetra Pak, Honda, Gazprom, Credit Suisse, and Cartier, among others. Michael provides consulting services, executive education, and expert evaluations to several public and private sector organizations on strategy and digital transformation.

He sits on a number of corporate boards as an advisor on digitization and business model disruption. He has lived and worked in Britain, Canada, Japan, Norway, Costa Rica, and Switzerland.

Links

IMD.org

LinkedIn: in/MichaelWade

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and subscribe on iTunes!