3 megatrends that will transform the future of communication

3 megatrends that will transform the future of communication

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With all the technology that we have today and all that’s still yet to come – what will communication be all about in the future?

Liselotte Lyngso, Futurist in Future Navigator, was moderating Digital Copenhagen 2019. She presented 3 megatrends that will transform the way we communicate in the future.

Feedback crisis!

Over the years, technology has made it super easy for us to communicate with each other. If we have a problem with a product, we have 24/7 assistance from chatbots. The internet makes it possible for us to call or text from one end of the world to another! We will have smart speakers, that can answer any question and that will recognize our every need before we even know them ourselves. We won’t call each other – it’s so much faster to send a text and avoid the small talk! Communication has never been easier than it is today – but maybe it has actually become too easy!?

Digitalization will take us to a level where we’re getting into a person to person feedback crisis. Because we are moving further and further away from talking to each other, people will become worse at giving feedback. Standing in front of someone and telling them how they can improve, reading their body language and expressing empathy will seem unnatural for a generation of onscreeners. Most of the communication we will experience, will be from social media or from our chatbots. Not exactly the kind of feedback that we need in terms of handling the tough subjects and taboos.

Thus, the luxury in a future of onscreeners will be to be catered for by a team of people present and aware of you. To be able to hand pick the people that can give us the best and most honest feedback. People that we can look in the eye and communicate with properly.

Unlimited knowledge

The second major trend in terms of communication will be that knowledge will no longer be a shortage. This will revolutionize the way we do marketing, customer service and other empathy driven matters. Imagine if we had a chip inserted in our heads, that made it possible for us to know exactly what each other were feeling? People would make a much greater effort in handling you as a customer, because your rating and actual reaction would be visible for everyone to see.

New role models

The kids that are growing up right now are expected to live until they’re 120 years old. Therefore, their concern towards climate change is extremely urgent. They look at their parents and are totally mortified by the way they don’t feel the same obligation to make a difference. They definitely won’t see them as very good role models and will instead look up to heroes as Greta Thunberg and other activists.

So, we’re looking towards a new generation of rebels. For them, authorities simply won’t be a thing anymore. They will only want to share data with, work for and shop from people who are as determined to taking care of our world as they are. They have no time for comprise and they know exactly how valuable they are as the shortage for talents on the labour market will only increase during the next 10 years.

Watch the video with with Liselotte Lyngso and get inspired by how these 3 trends will transform the way we communicate.

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Working together apart - will you be a time owner or a time slave?

Working together apart – will you be a time owner or a time slave?

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If you had the opportunity to work anywhere you’d like. Where would it be? Would you stay in bed, go to a café, pick a co-working space together with like-minded neighbors – stay in your regular office? What kind of atmosphere works best for YOU? Maybe its situation-based, maybe it’s a specific version – freedom is being able to design the optimal work-life for your needs. And according to Forbes, flexible working spaces will be the main competitive force for recruiting talents in the years to come.

People are different. Some require complete silence and square walls to get a job done. Some find, that their creative sense is reinforced when sitting in lively surroundings or when they listen to music.

Once upon a time, the office was at the heart of our work. When we went in, it was time for work. When we got out again, we were free. Today, our view of when, where and how we work is much different. From having everyone work in set places and hours, more and more people strive to design their work lives, to their needs. Because why not? Unfortunately, not everyone is able to do that. The hierarchy of the future will be the battle between time-owners and time-slaves. Who decides when and where to meet? You or your colleagues – or do you take turns?

Joes & Cos is a business that catches this trend by broadening the workspace options. Just like a fitness club, they provide free access to various work-place environments so that you can navigate amongst the many options that are popping up everywhere. That way you can combine your office with being a “work-life” tourist experimenting with new ways of working and meeting up with people at locations that are easy to access.  One day your office can be by the waterfront. The next day, it can be in the very city center.

Together with Joes and Cos, Liselotte Lyngsø, Future Navigator talked about the future of work and how she gets her job done.

Keep your employers by setting them free!

«Your first and most important board meeting should be with yourself. Are you happy? Are you giving yourself enough credit? »

-Liselotte Lyngsø

We will get older and older and we will work more. Therefore, it’s extremely important that we are happy with what we do and where and when we do it! In the future, we’ll go from everyone having to sit in an office all day to letting people tailor their own work life so that it fits their needs completely. This is why coworking spaces are booming right now all over the world! People have found out that they’re not forced to sit in their offices anymore. With digitalization and mobile technology, they can pretty much work from everywhere.

So, leaders of the future: take note! People won’t tolerate to have their workspace decided for them. In order to keep your employees happy, you will have to set them free. Let them be creative, where and how they want.

«In the future more and more people have to design their own work life. That’s really scary, because you’re always double scared of what you’re going to lose, rather than what you’re going to gain. But don’t worry – try to enjoy the journey instead » 

-Liselotte Lyngsø

READ ALSO: “The future of the workplace” with Liselotte Lyngsø.

Watch the short video with Liselotte Lyngsø about working outside the office right here.

If you want to read more about the future worklife, you might also find this article with Liselotte Lyngsø interesting.

MASTER THE ART OF TRENDSPOTTING
AND HOST YOUR OWN TREND MAPPING WORKSHOPS

Do you want to learn how to spot trends and translate the future into strategy, ideas and development for you and your organization? 

Sign up for Future Navigators online or physical trendspotting masterclass! 

The future of X #2: Gamification

The future of X #2: Gamification

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What if your work could be as fun as a game? Wouldn’t it be much more motivation and exciting to go to work, if you knew you would be rewarded as you would in a game? If for every client you gained or product you sold, you would “reach a new level”? Think about it. Maybe you’re already playing!

On the second episode of OZY’s newest season of the podcast, The Future of X: The workplace, futurist Liselotte Lyngso joins the discussion of how gamification will change the way we work. On this episode, her co-experts are Mark Stevenson, Keisha Howard, Gene Farrell and James Canton.

“The future isn’t so abstract when it comes to gamification. It’s already all around us. Pilots hire gamers to become pilots, because they’ve basically already done the training.”

-Liselotte Lyngso.

Do you like your job?

Mark Stevenson is a futurist and the author of “An Optimist’s Tour of the Future” and one of his biggest worries about today’s work life is employee disengagement. He wonders why work isn’t enjoyable, when it’s such a significant part of our lives.

“The average employee is currently productive for about three to four hours a day. 85 percent of employees are disengaged with their work.”

-Mark Stevenson.

Maybe employee disengagement is a cause of habit. We’ve gotten so used to doing the things we do, and we’re not even sure why we do it anymore. Or maybe we don’t care, because our boss doesn’t give us high enough demands. No matter what causes this, something has to be done.

If you dislike your job, it’s most likely the way you have to perform your job, that you don’t like. According to Mark Stevenson, we can fight this by making the active replication enjoyable itself. An example of this is having sex. Society would say that we have sex because we enjoy it. But the biological explanation is actually that we have to reproduce ourselves. So, we would probably still do it, even if Mother Nature hadn’t made it enjoyable for us. It’s kind of the same thing with our work. Whether we like it or not, we have to do it in order to support ourselves. But doing a “Mother Nature” and making it more enjoyable would probably solve a lot of issues and enhance our productivity tremendously!

Your gamer group is your new team mates

So how do we then make our jobs more fun? Mark Stevenson suggests gamification. This is something that Keisha Howard, the founder of Sugar Gamers, agrees strongly with. Her point is that human beings, kids, and animals intrinsically learn through play. And that gamification will have a positive influence on a lot of spectrums in our work lives.

“If we could quantify or qualify our work skills like in a game, or level up and earn points, it would motivate people in a whole new way. Maybe even give them a completely new platform to relate to one another.”

-Keisha Howard.

But gamification wouldn’t only be a way of motivating people to do their jobs. It might actually be the foundation of a whole new way of creating work teams. In a lot of video games, roleplay and choosing your own character is a big part of the game. The idea is to team up with players who have skills that you don’t. So, the characters might not be good at everything individually, but when they come together as a team, they can be a very powerful source. If we began to create work teams like we do in video games, it could revolutionize the whole team dynamic at the future workplace.

Today, we strike to perform perfectly every time and we’re really hard on ourselves if we don’t succeed. In gaming, everyone loses all the time. The point is exactly that you can only win when you’ve actually allowed yourself to lose all those times. Therefore, gamification might also create a whole new idea of what it means to lose.

How will democratizing problem solving influence future work life, and what might become some of the downsides to introducing gamification in future work life? Listen to the rest of the podcast with Liselotte Lyngso here, and find out.

Want to read more about the future workplace and work life? Check out these articles with Liselotte Lyngso.

MASTER THE ART OF TRENDSPOTTING
AND HOST YOUR OWN TREND MAPPING WORKSHOPS

Do you want to learn how to spot trends and translate the future into strategy, ideas and development for you and your organization? 

Sign up for Future Navigators online or physical trendspotting masterclass! 

The future of X #1: the workplace

The future of X #1: the workplace

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The future workplace is beyond the office. And our tools are becoming smarter and more powerful. How and why will our work change over the next 50 years? What does the next generation of the workforce care about? 

Futurist Liselotte Lyngsø, Future Navigator, is proud to be a part of OZY’s newest season of the podcast, The Future of X: The workplace. She talks about how frustration, curiosity and creativity is the key to success in the worklife of the future. To also give their input about the subject, was CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, James Canton and CEO of Smartsheet, Mark Mader. 

Based on OZY’s journalism and timely interviews with leading futurists, the podcast examines the ways in which technology will improve the contributions humans make to the world.

Watch out for the robots! Or what?

People often get really worried when they think about their future. Especially when it comes to their worklife, and especially in these times. Over the years, the technological era has really shown its face. The development of machines and robots is so fast, it’s hard to keep track of what we’ve got and what’s still yet to come. We talk about how almost every job that we see today is going to be a machine driven job in the future workplace and we ask: “well am I then going to be out of a job?”.

The truth is, human work has been evolving for a long time. It’s less than a 100 years ago that almost 100% of the jobs back then was found on farms. Who does the work on current farms? Machines! And the farmers are still not unemployed. They just found something better do do with their time. Doctor James Cantor states that as it is, humans aren’t event qualified to do future jobs. They need to learn new skills to stay in work. Human, emotional skills, that no robot can master.

“We need to understand as individuals – as leaders of companies and organizations, as leaders of even nations – that we are in a seismic change in the workforce.”

-James Canton, CEO of the Institute for Global Futures.

From being an on-looker to doing!

Maybe the robots will overtake the future workplace. But does that stop us from working? Or does it give us room to do what we’re actually qualified to do? We no longer need to be machines and do the hard work. In the future, people will study to become great humans. Learning human skills and mastering human emotions.

“Everyone should be creative! And creativity needs oxygen which we’ll get when less meaningful work is done by AI and machines.” 

-Mark Mader, CEO of Smartsheet.

Think about the inventions and ideas that have been brought to life over time. Robotic vacuum cleaners, loan mowers etc. Where did they come from? Why did we start inventing machines in the first place? Because we didn’t want to do the boring housework ourselves! Frustration leads to a better, smarter solution.

“For me creativity is also being lazy. It’s also being irritated. It’s also being curious. It’s basically being all the stuff that machines are not.”

-Liselotte Lyngsø, Future Navigator.

That’s what the machines are for!

For the next generation, a job is never going to just be a job anymore. And future leaders will also expect so much more from their employees. Not just that they do the paperwork – the machines can do that. But that they bring creativity and innovation into every project that they’re handed. The future workplace is not about looking at what everyone else is doing. We have to make the best out of people and create mening wherever we go.

How do we prepare people for what to come? Are people without a degree in science or math going to be jobless in the future? Not according to Mark Mader, but that’s for you to hear about in the first episode of The Future Workplace by OZY.

You can also read more about the future workplace in these articles with Liselotte Lyngso.

MASTER THE ART OF TRENDSPOTTING
AND HOST YOUR OWN TREND MAPPING WORKSHOPS

Do you want to learn how to spot trends and translate the future into strategy, ideas and development for you and your organization? 

Sign up for Future Navigators online or physical trendspotting masterclass! 

Let's save the climate - no time for compromises!

Let’s save the climate – no time for compromises!

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C40 Cities is an organization that connects more than 90 of the world’s leading cities to take bold climate action and build a healthier and more sustainable future. They represent more than 700 million citizens and one quarter of the global economy. Therefore the mayors of C40 Cities are committed to deliver on the goals of the Paris Agreement. Both at the local level, as well as to clean the air we breathe.

This year’s C40 Mayors Summit was hosted in Copenhagen and futurist Liselotte Lyngsø took part of the event.

The youth take over

The goal was to build a global alliance between leading cities, businesses and citizens. An alliance that takes the radical and ambitious climate action that our planet needs. At this year’s event, the attendance of young people was significant. For the past year with all the climate strikes, millions of children all around the world have shown that they will take action and do what has to be done.

“We know that we are young. And we know that in the eyes of a lot of political leaders around the world, we are simply just kids. But our biggest wish for this meeting today is to sit down together as equal citizens. Not just as kids and adults but as a joint group who are all fighting for the same cause.”

A subject that took great place of discussion was climate in job and career. Today, there isn’t many sustainable jobs and university courses dealing with climate-related challenges. The youth makes up the next generation. Therefore it’s extremely important that they have the opportunity to choose career paths that address our future. If they work exclusively with climate change, it may actually entail economic problems!

Several green proposals regarding climate in job and career were developed by jury members – citizens from around the world. One idea was to make an online platform that gathers all our green job opportunities in one place. The platform would then provide a guide or strategy that inspires people to the pursuit of a green and impactful career.

The future generation has strict demands for their employers

Another idea was to make a green manifesto. This agreement commits people to avoid the employment of polluting and unsustainable companies. As a part of the judging jury, Liselotte Lyngsø supported the idea.”Only businesses living up to the green manifesto can enter a platform for recruiting the next generation. The youth will refuse to work, shop or support any businesses that are not living up to the demands of the manifesto. You will be kicked out – as a user as well as a business – if you do not develop in a sustainable direction! They know that their power lies in their feet.” -Liselotte Lyngsø.  Watch the speech from Selma De Montgomery (14 years) on behalf of the Youth Takeover participants among speeches from Mayors of Copenhagen, Paris, Freetown and Seattle and other youth activists at this link or read more about the C40 summit 2019 here. You can also read all developed proposals for future sustainable jobs in this Youth Takeover Folder – How can cities pave the way for a sustainable generation.

The Social Travel Summit with Liselotte Lyngso

The Social Travel Summit with Liselotte Lyngso

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The Social Travel Summit is an annual gathering of professional travel bloggers and influencers from around the world. This year, in 2019, the event was hosted in Ravenna in Italy. The Social Travel Summit is a platform where people in the traveling industry discuss different issues related to tourism and influencer marketing. Here, they think about what improvements there should be made. One of the biggest topics of 2019 was sustainability. How can we continue traveling and still watch out for our planet? Futurist Liselotte Lyngsø gave a keynote at this year’s Social Travel Summit. She talked about traveling, sustainability and trust. 

Travel bloggers are becoming the new authority

Travel bloggers are taking over the guiding role from traditional authorities. Telling us where to go, what to see. Because of their authority, people follow their lead. Therefor, a lot of them also try to travel in far more sustainable ways. Thus, the bloggers have a huge responsibility with regard to making traveling a part of a sustainable solution rather than the problem. And our need for traveling will only increase. 1) People prefer travel over buying more stuff.2) A growing middle class wants to travel the world.3) The internet is turning us into grasshoppers all opting for the same destinations.4) Elderly people are enjoying retirement by seeing the world rather than staying at home.

Watch the video about The Social Travel Summit on Youtube

If you want to read more about Liselotte’s view on traveling, here is a danish article about solo traveling. 

What will our work life look like in the year 2100?

What will our work life look like in the year 2100?

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Machines and robots have already taken over many of the jobs that used to be performed by humans. This development will only continue in the future. There’s no way to stop it. The question is whether the change is necessarily going to have a negative effect. It might actually end up giving us a whole new perspective on our work life!

In the radio program “The Naked Scientists” from BBC, futurist Liselotte Lyngsø talks about what we can expect from future work life, where robots have been given all the physically tough assignments.

How to get a job in the future: be good at being a human

Take a deep breath and stop getting worried about loosing your job to fast and top tuned robots. Think about how it might end up being a total win win situation. All indicators show that the more we put technology into different areas, the more busy we get ourselves. Within healthcare, we now monitor elderly people in order to know exactly when they need water or exercise. It has created this hydra’s head with even more jobs for the healthcare providers. We will be around 10 billion people so there will be plenty of stuff to do, it will just be different tasks than we’re used to.

Today, many people get stressed and have to take leaves from their work. In the future we’ll look back and think that “people were so primitive, pushing people like lemons! Now we can actually get something better out of people, because we understand how they work.”

Yes, robots will take over many of the jobs that we have today. Luckily, there will be so many new jobs that we haven’t even discovered yet. Those jobs will require qualities that robots can’t offer, such as an emphatic mindset. We’ll make robots do the “hard work” and have people work in a whole other way. A way, tailored for them individually, so that they won’t get stressed and depressed. We’ll also go from “headhunting” to “teamhunting” because people work better together and need human contact. We won’t go on retirement anymore, instead we’ll take breaks and get recharged during our work life.

Empathy is key

“Looking at ourselves as machines, that’s a big mistake. We really have to find out about human nature. Empathy will be important and difficult for the machines to master and the ability to be irritated is going to be the key to clever innovation. Likewise people can get lazy, and that’s also a good sentiment if you want to create a better planet because we find ways of doing things in smarter ways. We have to tease out human capabilities and find out how to find our individual potentials”.

-Liselotte Lyngsø

Listen to the whole radio program with Liselotte Lyngsø and learn about what future offices are going to look like when holograms are fully developed. You can also discover why we’ll replace our traditional education with micro chips and implants of memories!

You can also read the article “This is what work will look like in year 2100” from Fast Company, where Lyngsø explains further about the subject of how people will work in the future of machines and robots.

The Baby Translator will revolutionize future parenthood

The Baby Translator will revolutionize future parenthood

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Imagine always knowing exactly how your baby is feeling. A future where you can read your baby’s mind! Will mind reading solve the problems that we have in this world with lack of empathy? Or will it lead to huge conflicts? 

In a video created by NN Group, futurist Liselotte Lyngsø speaks about how we will soon be able to read brain waves and discusses the huge impact it might have on the world as we know it.

Mind reading and the end of privacy 

We already have technology that allows us to translate brain waves into language. What if you could buy an accessory or piece of clothing for your baby which in the same time makes it possible for you to understand exactly what is going on in its mind?

It’s not only the minds of babies that we have trouble figuring out. It’s not only a device for parents. Everyone would benefit from having access to a technology which makes it easier understand each other at a deeper level. Maybe it would even strengthen our ability to emphasize!

Watch the video with Liselotte Lyngsø here – would you buy the device?

READ ALSO: “3 megatrends that will transform the future of communication” with Liselotte Lyngso. 

The future office

The future office

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What will the perfect working space and future office look like? We all know how it feels to have tons of work to do, but no focus or energy to get it done. In a situation like that, a nice and quiet office can be a great way to get into a productive working mood. An office symbolizes something that we can step out of, once we’ve finished our work. It allows us to work when we have to work, and relax when we’re off. Through time, the idea of what an office looks like has changed a lot. Today, most people don’t even have one. Some people consider every comfortable chair or space as a proper office. Just look at all the people who gets their work done at Starbucks and other hip cafés. Many people work from home, which allows them to stay in bed all day!

In the article “Office Space Timeline: Past, Present and Future” we take a look back at some of the previous decades’ office trends. Futurist Liselotte Lyngsø’s gives her thoughts on what the future office is going to look like. Together with another futurist, Yesim Kunter, Liselotte points out future office-trends involving culture-, design- and attire.

Offices through the decades 

A timeline from the past to the future illustrates office culture-, design- and attire. Is also states the amount of women in the workforce!

The office of the future 

What will an office be like in 2030 & what will it look like in the 2100s century?

2030s: Influence of technology 

The cultural aspect of the 2030-office evolves around how we’re going to manage people working from home, being digital nomads, while still needing a space to meet up in real life. The design focusses on technology, sustainability and wellness. Offices will be designed based on the need of every single individual and not “one size fit all”.

How will working hours be distributed and how will women be considered?

“It is more likely that a woman is raised valuing empathy. While it’s difficult to feel empathetic towards a workforce of 200, it’s much easier for a workforce of 20. The progressive decentralisation of work will provide women with more opportunities to become leaders.”

-Liselotte Lyngsø

2100s: From high-tech to high-touch 

The fact that we’re already becoming digital nomads today and that the level of actual human interaction is becoming smaller and smaller will result in a gigantic need of intimacy later on.

Read the article and discover how this will have an influence on different aspects of the 2100-office.

Read the article on this link to the BBC radio program.

Want to read more about what the future office will look like? Listen to “The future of X #1: the workplace”. A podcast with Liselotte Lyngso.

The road to driverless cars

The road to driverless cars

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How do we prepare for a future with driverless cars? Panel discussion on June 23. 2017 with reporter Ian Telfer.

Futurist Liselotte Lyngsø attended a panel discussion broadcasted on Radio New Zealand RNZ where the main focus was what a world with driverless cars is going to look like.

How will companies and countries prepare for the future, which is just around the corner? Driverless cars will be a significant changing factor for our view on technology. We have to be ready for achieving its full potential, by figuring out every detail that comes with it.

What opportunities will it bring us, and how will our society greet it? Can we redesign the vehicles in order to give the consumer the same feeling of control as if they were driving the car themselves? How will it affect people, that they won’t be able to, or won’t have to drive the car themselves?

Driverless cars creates the future for co-driving

Liselotte addresses co-driving as a possible scenario that is worth fighting for. Spontaneous co-driving in cars will allow os to expand our social lives. Suddenly, we’ll be able to make use of the time that we would normally use on driving alone from A to B. Driverless cars will allow us to catch up with friends, finish our last work meeting or connect with our families whilst being driven to our destinations. It will also create opportunity to socialize and network with a used-to-be stranger from our neighborhood.

“They don’t get road rage. They’re uniform and measured in their moral response. Maybe they’ll be better than we are.”

-Associate Professor, James Maclaurin.

Futurist Liselotte Lyngsø speaks about how we are going to make driving an online marketplace, like we’ve done with Airbnb. People will collect cars as a hobby. The public interest in nice designs, usability and the interest for the sexiness of the cars will continue to rise. People will expect to rent a car according to situation-based personal needs. Private car-ownership might be essential in order to ensure a continued flowering diversity within mobility.

Who will be in control of mobility?

The urgent and most important question to solve, is the question of who will be in control of mobility. As the driverless cars will be connected to the internet of things IOT – it could be at the national level, at the car manufactoring level or at the personal level. Listen to the broadcast and find out why we should integrate the driverless cars, and make up systems so that people will share and make it possible to reduce the numbers of cars on the road and eliminate the need for most of our current public transportation. You will also hear about how  the driver-less future might be a target for new ways of hacking and terrorism that needs to be dealt with.

Listen to the panel discussion here, and imagine the road to driverless cars with motoring journalist David Thomson, Ass. Professor James Maclaurin, CEO of the Ministry of Transport Andrew Jackson and  Futurist, Liselotte Lyngsø. On this link you can also read about the speakers on the panel.