Podcasts and thinking. Just being out there.

Podcasts: building the future

What will the world look like in 10 years year’s times? I don’t own a glass ball, so I can’t predict the future. However, I can quite confidently say that it will be vastly different to the world that we are living in today.

Earlier in the year I wrote a blog with some thoughts about subscription models, privacy and advertising. In the blog, I referenced a few key dates in the growth and development of social media. Did you know that Facebook was only founded in 2004 and that 15 years later it has over 2 billion users globally?

The rate of change is accelerating – big data, machine learning, and interconnectivity are some of the core drivers behind this acceleration. Having access to huge data sets allows us to make more informed and better decisions at a greater speed/scale. As human beings we are also evolving and it’s exciting to be in a space where we are conceptualising (and building) the future. Consumers are becoming more conscious and businesses/brands are having to change with these demands, staying ahead of the game and partnering with the right partners.

While we prepare for and build the future, we can learn from other phases of transition that have occurred through humankind’s evolution over the years. This is one of the reasons why I am drawn to listening to podcasts. It provides an awesome platform to learn from multiple experts around the world, some of whom I will likely never meet.

This week’s podcast selection offers a range of insights, two stood out for me. The first one that stood out for me though was a podcast from the Variety Strictly Business series titled, Why Digital Media has Become Akin to the ‘Drug Discovery Business’. The digital world plays a massive role in our lives and we are arguably just at the beginning of this transition. The second one was from Seth Godin’s Akimbo series, Enrollment and possibility. When we offer people the opportunity to enrol in something are we being too prescriptive with the choices that we provide?

A few of the podcasts that I listened to:

An interesting read – writing things down, whether in one of my books or on my MacBook, helps me to dive deeper when thinking about things. I found this principle that Jeff Bezos implemented at Amazon fascinating, because it creates a platform for making better decisions… something for us to consider.