Global Innovation Magazine - Featuring the Behavioural Insights Team

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INSIDE THE DEATH CAFÉ HOW A CUP OF WATER WILL TRICK YOUR MIND BREAKING INNOVATION BOUNDARIES - A STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY LIKE NO OTHER, EVER!

GLOBAL INNOVATION -

M A G A Z I N E

ISSUE 7 FEB 2016

‘NUDGE NUDGE, THINK THINK’- CHANGING BEHAVIOUR WITH THE BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS TEAM

CONTENTS FOUNDER’S VOICE HAPPY NEW YEAR!

GLOBAL INNOVATION -

M A G A Z I N E

HOW A CUP CAN PLAY TRICKS ON YOUR MIND INTERVIEW WITH ISAAC LAVI FOUNDER OF THE RIGHT CUP INSIDE THE DEATH CAFÉ INTERVIEW WITH JON UNDERWOOD, FOUNDER OF THE DEATH CAFÉ DRINKING TO THE NEW YEAR HAVE A DRINK ON US

SAINT GABAIN THE FOREFRONT OF INNOVATION - RICHARD HALDERTHAY FOUNDER James O’Flynn CREATIVE DIRECTOR Aidan Creed SALES Hannah McKinney Published by SoMoGo Publishing/ admin@somogopublishing.co.uk/ www.somogopublishing.co.uk Global Innovation Magazine is published every quarter /Copyright SoMoGo Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be stored or transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning, or otherwise without the written permission of SoMoGo Publishing Ltd. Views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the publishers. Acceptance of advertisements does not imply official endorsement of the products or services described. While care has been taken to ensure accuracy of content no responsibility can be taken for errors and/or emissions. Readers should take advice and caution before acting upon any issue raised in the magazine. The publisher reserves the right to accept or to reject advertising and editorial material supplied. The publisher assumes no responsibility for the safe return of unsolicited photography, art or writing.

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THE VEGAN CAKERY CRUELTY-FREE TREATS

DOCTOR IN YOUR HOUSE INTERVIEW WITH BENJAMIN PAGLIA FOUNDER OF GP SELECT ‘NUDGE NUDGE, THINK THINK’ CHANGING BEHAVIOUR WITH THE BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS TEAM INNOVATION NOW A STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY LIKE NO OTHER NEWS A FEW THINGS THAT CAUGHT OUR GAZE

FOUNDER’S VOICE JANUARY 2016

Happy new year to all our readers!

What a year it promises to be in the world of innovation.

Kevin Coleman, in this issue has written about all of the opportunities that are converging such as the internet of things, virtual reality, wearables, robotics, and autonomous vehicles to name but a few. He feels, as I do, that it’s quite possible that this next stage of innovation will rival all the other stages we have seen previously, even the internet era of the late nineties. It’s only right that we are excited about what’s around the corner, and I can’t help but feel quite jealous of all the opportunities that will present themselves to my three boys as they grow up.

However there is something to

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be said about the simplicity of life growing up in the seventies/ eighties whereby the only way to check in with your friends as a child was to meet them, or ring them after 6pm when phone calls were cheaper to make.

What you gain in technological advancements, perhaps you lose in other less tangible ways?

As usual we have featured some exciting and unusual startups, and it will be great to see how their businesses and ideas move forward during 2016. We wish them every bit of luck. We are trying to improve on the ‘takeaways’ in each issue, the things that you can use and try yourselves, so let us know what you think.

Thanks for reading, following and contributing. As usual we

pride ourselves on answering all our emails, and never ignoring anyone who contacts us, so get in touch.

Best James O’Flynn JAMES@GLOBALINNOVATION MAGAZINE.COM

THE FIRST STEP TO CHANGING THE WORLD IS HAVING THE RIGHT SPIRIT Can a drink change the world? Probably not, but it can do its bit to help. The folks at Elephant Gin are so passionate about elephants that they donate 15% of all profits to foundations fighting illegal ivory poaching in Africa. And they’re just as passionate about their gin. That’s why they scoured the African continent for rare botanicals, to give the gin a totally exceptional flavour.

Helping the world never tasted this good.

www.elephant-gin.com

THE RIGHT CUP INTERVIEW WITH ISAAC LAVI, FOUNDER

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF ISAAC. Usually there is a personal aspect to a story, and this is no exception. I’m a 47 years old Israeli citizen, I divide my time between Israel and the USA. I grew up as a chubby child, the only one in class out of 39. I grew up as a chubby adult and eventually when I was 30 I was told I had diabetes.

It shocked and alerted me, even though both my parents had diabetes as I was not obese but “thick”. When I reached 40 I had to have a gastric operation, giving me a smaller stomach to eat less.

You loose weight, and I’m doing well with my diabetes. In Israel I started a campaign to get sugar, fat in units and percentages put on food packaging.

I started the campaign in 2009.

I went to the internet site of the Israeli parliament and put forward my case, a proposal

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for a new law. I targeted the new parliamentarians. Some politicians approached me with interest, I met them, presented my proposition to them and it worked. The laws, two of them were passed.

It was much easier than I thought actually. The first law was passed in June 2010, the second one at the beginning of 2014. Everything was supposed to be clear on the packaging but now it is much clearer.

I have children and I noticed that in kindergarten, six or seven kids are now chubby in those classes’ vs one or two when I was a child. I know how this is going to affect their health and psychology going forward.

I said ok, I have the power to do something with my background and skills. I have the science side and the business side.

When I understood the situation I wanted to do something, I became a selfproclaimed sugar fighter.

This is how the right cup was born. Its business yes, but first of all it’s a life project.

TELL ME ABOUT THE CUP. 80% of what we taste is from our sense of smell. You can perceive this when you have a runny nose, or blocked nose, food loses its taste. I did some experiments with the kids in kindergarten, as they don’t lie.

This was a great testing ground.

When I hear impossible, I see it as ‘I am possible’ it’s my state of mind. I gathered the right team around me and we integrated FDA approved food grade materials into the polymer, the same material that the food industry puts in the liquid. In our case we insert the flavours into the polymer molecules, they

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just sit there but don’t react.

We are taking sight, smell and taste to give the brain the illusion of experiencing a flavour.

So an orange cup has a vivid colour and the smell/sensation of orange flavoured water.

Tap water goes in and it gives the sensation of having flavoured water.

One of the happiest days of my life was when I had 30 prototypes cups produced, I poured a third of water into the cup and tested them at the kindergarten. The kids all raised their hands for more. That was the happiest day.

WHAT ABOUT THE FRUSTRATIONS ON THE JOURNEY? Yes there have been some. Often if people have been used to a high sugar drink for many years so the transition is tough. It’s not

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enough for them, we can make it sweeter though. However if you put plain fizzy water in you get a much better flavour experience, so that’s interesting.

HOW’S THE CROWDFUNDING GOING? We are just under 400k US dollars, which is great. We have been approached by many companies to distribute, the reaction is really touching.

It’s really important for me personally. I had an email from a girl who is on bi weekly dialysis for her liver so she isn’t allowed sugary drinks, and for her she was overjoyed. How many times in life can we affect people like that?

believe in it go for it. Scepticism never won any battles did it?

ANY ADVICE FOR OUR ENTREPRENEURIAL READERS? Go for it. Done be afraid.

Scepticism never won any battle!

For me when I have an obstacle I always find a way, so hopefully that will inspire people.

I am thankful to all those who said NO to me. It’s because of them I did it myself.

ANY BOOKS OR FILMS THAT HAVE INSPIRED YOU ISAAC? Forrest Gump was the underdog wasn’t he! I have heard so much negativity and people questioning the concept, so I can relate to that situation. If you have a dream go for it, if you

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THE DEATH CAFÉ INTERVIEW WITH JON UNDERWOOD

Jon Underwood is the founder of Death Café, a large movement where people gather to drink tea, eat cake and discuss death.

Their aim is to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives. Jon spoke to Global Innovation Magazine about his current crowdfunding campaign and what made him start in the first place.

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF, WHERE DID YOU GROW UP? I grew up in Chester, which is near Liverpool in the North West of England. My dad was an accountant and my mum was a social worker and teacher. Dad is an atheist and my mum is Jewish. My dad was strict and when my parents split when I was 8 and then things were much more relaxed. I have always been interested in culture so I avidly consumed books, TV, movies and music.

I am now 43, married and have 2 children and live in Hackney East London.

WHAT WAS EARLY SCHOOL LIKE? I was disengaged, quite emotional, lonely, angry and sad. Not much made sense to me and my environment, despite being very privileged, seemed somewhat weird and hostile.

Were you good academically?

I went to Oxford University

ILLUSTRATION BY CHLOE HALL © WWW.CHLOE-HALL.CO.UK

so I guess that some people would say so. I am too lazy to be really good academically and after having seen academia I do not have much respect for or confidence in it.

TELL ME ABOUT THE DEATH CAFE? My work is about death. I do this because I think death is really important and plays a significant role in the choices we make in life. Death is very problematic for us, more and more so with the decline of traditional institutions and wider awareness of the problems in the world. Because we don’t like death we have marginalised it. Death now happens behind closed doors and is the domain of professionals.

Alongside this we relentlessly consume terrifying or unreal images of death through news, films, games and TV.

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In this context all too often we fail to deal with death as well as we might, which is a real loss.

I think we could easily have a much better culture around death and all my projects are aimed at delivering this. The most significant of these is Death Café which is a pop up event format where people who want to come together to talk about death over tea and cake. Death Cafes are always group directed. We have no agenda, products to sell, conclusions to reach or answers to offer, we just let people talk about death. It is now 4 years since the first Death Café took place in my house, facilitated by my mum Susan Barsky Reid.

Since then there have been over 2500 Death Cafés in 32 countries and the project has helped to change culture around death.

I have 2 other projects. On behalf of Dying Matters I have set up Find Me Help which is a comprehensive set of services for people in the last years of life and those close to them. Find Me Help also includes a guide for people dealing with death and dying. Also in partnership with the Natural Death Centre I set up Funeral Advisor which is a review site for UK funeral directors. This is needed because there is enormous variation in the cost and quality between

funeral directors and the industry could be more transparent. For most people a funeral is very significant and we want them to get the best possible service.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR ROUTE FROM IDEA TO BUSINESS/ PROJECT/INITIATIVE, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I first got interested in death and dying when I began to study Buddhism 15 years ago. Buddha says that looking at death can be helpful which really struck me. At the time I volunteered in a hospice, read about the subject and trained in spiritual care for the dying. I was working at my Buddhist centre at the time, which supported this enquiry.

After that I left and worked for a council in a deprived area of inner London for about 10 years.

I got involved in work around social exclusion and especially around people returning to the borough from prison. At that time council’s had money and so I was able to help offer something really substantial to this cohort. I wanted to go further but ran into a wall of systemic intransigence i.e. the problem that people who benefit from the status quo never want to change it.

I gave up trying to achieve change in the council and didn’t

know what to do for years. In 2010 my daughter was born and I went part time and had space to think. I realised that the institutional stuckness I was experiencing at work was related to death in some way (I’ve subsequently understood that this thinking is backed up by terror management theory). I then had lots of ideas for projects around death and have been pursuing them ever since.

KEY POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE MOMENTS ON THIS JOURNEY? This work has incredible highs and big downsides.

On the plus side Death Café is a global phenomenon which has improved many people’s lives and had a significant cultural impact in an area I am passionate about and think is vitally important. I love the work and the people who like Death Café are generally amazing so I’ve made lots of new friends. Death Café has also celebrated and helped promote people, mostly women, who are similarly passionate about this work, who may not have had a platform before.

On the downside I have substantially reduced my income, which is now very small indeed. If I had focused

on financial return I am sure the projects would never have got off the ground. However now that they have some traction I need to ensure that they are sustainable. This is not easy as my work is somewhat groundbreaking and ahead of the cultural curve.

WHAT 3 BITS OF ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOURSELF IF YOU WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR OF YOUR COMPANY, ABOUT TO START ON YOUR FIRST JOB? Do what you love, believe in your vision and trust your process.

WHAT BOOK OR FILM WOULD YOU SHARE WITH SOMEONE THAT HAS INSPIRED YOU? I think The Worm in the Core by Sheldon Solomon & colleagues is really good. This gives an overview of terror management theory, which shows that our feelings about death have a significant impact on the choices we make. For me it shows how investing in our relationship with death is central to a happier society.

I think you have to be still willing to do it even if you thought it would never be successful. That approach can give you tenacity, fearless and immunity from disappointment.

AND THE KEY TO INNOVATION? Giving yourself space for your own thoughts and permission to follow them.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE BUSINESS, YOU LONGER TERM VISION? I have a proposal to open a ‘real’ Death Café in London. This would be a public place dedicated to showcasing work around death and dying. The proposal has been received well and I would imagine it will definitely happen in the medium term despite us currently being massively off our crowdfunding target.

WHAT’S THE KEY BIT OF ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE TO SOMEONE STARTING UP A BUSINESS/INNOVATIVE IDEA?

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A TASTE OF SUMMER, IN WINTER A GIN SPRITZER (WITH HEART)

Cocktails are always at the forefront of innovation, the methods, drinks and ideas coming out of this area are mind-blowing. So Christmas has come and gone, and you may have some left over bubbles, and we never need an excuse for a straightener, so we thought we would try something different, for us anyway, and give you a recipe to put a smile on your face.

Our friends at Elephant Gin http://www.elephant-gin.com/ are on a mission to serve up a great tasting product, but also to do some good by contributing to the Big Life Foundation, and Space for Elephants. They gave us a couple of bottles to share the magic. Happy new year to all our brilliant readers, and roll on summer…

• • • • •

JUICE OF ONE LIME 4 TO 6 MINT LEAVES 1 TABLESPOON SUGAR 1 SHOT OF GIN PROSECCO

1. Muddle the lime, sugar and mint together. Put it in a cocktail shaker with ice and the gin.

Shake until nice and cold.

2. Pour into a chilled suitable glass and finish with prosecco or other bubbles.

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SAINT GOBAIN WRITING HISTORY THROUGH INNOVATION

In 2015, Saint-Gobain is celebrating its 350th anniversary. As a world leader in the construction materials market, where innovation is at the forefront of what they do, Richard Halderthay, Director of Communications for SaintGobain UK, Ireland and South Africa, tells Global Innovation Magazine about their approach.

As the world leader in the habitat and construction materials market, Saint-Gobain could be tempted to focus on what it’s already achieved, using its track record to guarantee success for the future, but the company’s philosophy and activity follow the opposite path.

Committed to create and deliver innovative and highperformance solutions to enhance our habitat and daily life, Saint-Gobain teams around the world challenge themselves to make a difference every day, and to keep the company’s place among the world’s most innovative companies.

Research and innovation are at the heart of Saint-Gobain’s strategy. The Group’s research focuses both on breakthrough innovations and on continuously improving its products, processes and services in a spirit of openness and attentiveness to customer needs.

the face of growing competition and numerous new players, and that’s the reason why the company has been consistently increasing its Research and Development (R&D) budgets over the years - up to £416 million in the last financial year.

With seven large, broad-based R&D centres, 12 research centres and around 100 development units worldwide, 3,700 researchers work together to reduce the environmental impacts of buildings, processes and the development of new high-performance solutions.

And the results of this impressive labour are clear to see: more than one in four manufacturing products sold by Saint-Gobain were developed in the last five years, while during the last financial year, more than 700 new projects were developed and more than 400 patents were applied for.

Saint-Gobain believes innovation is a key differentiating strength in

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Saint-Gobain’s global strategy is based on overcoming the fundamental challenges faced by the habitat and construction markets. These challenges require faster innovation for everyone in the value chain, as well as asking for strengthened cooperation among participants both upstream and downstream of construction and extend even further outwards towards partners such as start-ups and academic laboratories.

Aware of the potential of partnerships, Saint-Gobain created the NOVA Innovation Competition, an initiative, launched in January 2012, that aims to reward startup companies that aspire to develop and commercialize the most innovative solutions in the fields of habitat, energy and the environment such as construction products, advanced materials, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.

Saint-Gobain has accompanied and led the changes in the building market over the years, either by exploring new business areas, introducing new concepts or exploring different approaches to building, such as sustainability.

This is a significant challenge for the UK where there are 26 million existing homes and just fewer than 2 million nondomestic buildings in the UK

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that contribute significantly to the carbon footprint of our built environment - the majority of which will still be standing in 2050.

To further understand how to transform the energy performance of the UK’s existing building stock, Saint-Gobain worked in collaboration with Salford University, Leeds Metropolitan University and Saint-Gobain Recherché on one of the most in-depth retrofit projects. Using a typical 1919 end-of-terrace house, built in the environmentally controlled chamber of Salford University’s Energy Hub, Saint-Gobain was able to test and measure the performance of its products and solutions on a common UK house type, proving that energy costs and performance can be improved through retrofit.

the needs of a couple moving in to their first home that was capable of supporting a growing family.

Central to its vision of leading through innovation, SaintGobain has recently created the Multi-Comfort concept, the unique standard in sustainable building.

Incorporating Passive House design - a low-energy performance standard for buildings which focuses on minimising overall energy requirement for heating and cooling - Multi-Comfort is a holistic approach of designing and constructing sustainable, healthy and comfortable homes and working environments.

Also interesting is Nottingham H.O.U.S.E (Home Optimising the Use of Solar Energy), a collaborative project between Saint-Gobain and the University of Nottingham looking at newbuild solutions for the UK.

It starts from the central premise that all buildings can be designed to provide the highest levels of all-round comfort for their users, and to genuinely and positively contribute to our health and wellbeing, incorporating five comfort elements: thermal, audio, visual, indoor air and economic comfort.

As main sponsor of the project, Saint-Gobain assisted the group of Architecture and Engineering students to detail and specify their vision of a viable starter home for the UK market, which not only met the 2016 ‘zero carbon’ challenge but also met

Saint-Gobain’s collaborative approach to innovation is visible at Saint-Gobain’s recently created Innovation Centre - a space in central London that enables visitors to experience innovative and sustainable solutions for the buildings of today and tomorrow.

A lively forum for those who are as committed as Saint-Gobain is to the sustainable built environment, the Innovation Centre brings together experience, competence and influential thinkers to help drive evolution and innovation, aiming to create exchange and dialogue between influential players in the construction industry.

A history of 350 years shows Saint-Gobain understands and focuses on the long term and gives the company the composure and ability to easily adapt to the ever-changing world by combining cuttingedge technology and designing innovative and high valueadded products.

For more information on SaintGobain, visit www.saint-gobain. co.uk, tweet @SaintGobainUK and Like the Facebook page. #SaintGobain350 NOTE TO EDITORS: SAINT-GOBAIN In 2015, Saint-Gobain is celebrating its 350th anniversary, 350 reasons to believe in the future. Backed by its experience

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and capacity to continuously innovate, Saint-Gobain, the world leader in the construction materials market, creates and delivers innovative and high-performance solutions to enhance our habitat and our daily life.

founded in 1665 to deliver a world first - the production of glass on an industrial scale - and has continued to grow its business via the ongoing development of new services, products and ways of working with customers.

Saint-Gobain’s global strategy is focused around meeting some of the fundamental challenges faced by the world today: reducing energy consumption, limiting its impact on the environment, and creating a new generation of buildings which are safe, comfortable and energy efficient.

As one of the world’s top 100 innovators, Saint-Gobain spends €400m a year on R&D globally, tackling some of the biggest challenges of our time. One in five products manufactured by Saint-Gobain did not exist 5 years ago.

With 2014 sales of €41 billion, SaintGobain is present in 66 countries and employs over 180,000 people worldwide, including over 17,000 in the UK & Ireland.

It was

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companies in the construction sector are part of the Group, including British Gypsum, Jewson, Graham, Weber, Isover, Celotex, Glassolutions, SaintGobain PAM, and Ecophon.

Together they offer a range of high performance energysaving products and solutions to help create a more sustainable built environment. For more information on Saint-Gobain, visit www.saint-gobain.co.uk.

Saint-Gobain in the UK and Ireland is committed to investing in training for the next generation of contractors and professionals, as well as supporting existing professionals looking to upskill.

Its Training Academy Network, including Greenworks, has delivered more than 70,000 hours of training since 2011.

In the UK and Ireland, some of the best-known and respected

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SODASTREAM FIZZING WITH INNOVATION SodaStream, a brand always at the forefront of innovation, have launched their new Innovation lab. This unique hub combines R&D, hardware and software development, mechanical engineering, flavour creation and design, all in one space. Orchestrating its activities and collaborating with international designers, is the Chief Innovation and Design Officer, Yaron Kopel.

The Innovation Lab has put forward a significant push for technological novelty with its latest creations, Sodastream MIX (available for pre-sale in January 2016), the first appliance to carbonate any and all liquids. With its digital interface, App and Bluetooth connectivity the SodaStream MIX is fully integrated into the Internet of Things, enabling sophisticated home users to have a proper bartending experience at home, creating their own recipes of non-alcoholic mix beverages, as well as sophisticated cocktails, and share them with the world.

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Global Innovation Magazine spoke with Maayan Nave ‘Chief Communication & Global PR Manager’ SodaStream International.

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF, WHERE DID YOU GROW UP? I’m 41 years old, I live in Tel Aviv with my wife and 2 daughters in a creative and vivid surrounding, not far from the beach town I grew up in.

I’ve always been drawn to the outdoors, the mountains, the desert and especially the sea.

WHAT BACKGROUND DO YOU COME FROM?

a new experience, challenging my creative and analytic capabilities.

PARTICULAR POSITIVE MOMENTS ON YOUR WORK JOURNEY? Lots of inspiring and successful moments with our clients, friends and partners along the years. I would mark receiving the Israeli PR association “Roaring Lion” award for extraordinary PR campaigns, my first win in an international political campaign in Belgrade, consulting to the public defender office with their ongoing struggle for human rights and stronger democracy, joining

From an early age I was very curious and independent, eager to discover the world. So before starting my law degree I spent 2 years backpacking in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and India. Following that, I graduated law school worked as a journalist and editor at the Israeli communications group “Yedioth”, I then opened my own PR firm at the age of 28. Thirteen years later, with global activity and a range of fantastic clients like SodaStream International, every day is a still EDITORS VOICE |003

Worldcom public relations group as the exclusive Israeli Partner; and joining SodaStream international as head of global communication and PR with responsibility to 45 markets around the globe.

WHAT 3 BITS OF ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOURSELF IF YOU WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR OF YOUR COMPANY, ABOUT TO START ON YOUR FIRST JOB? Understand the business cycle as fast as you can. Creativity and design are means to serve a business purpose, always keep the business methodology in mind.

is going to change your future client’s perspective about their world and start from there.

AND THE KEY TO INNOVATION? Clarity and simplicity. How come nobody has thought about it before?

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE BUSINESS, THE LONGER TERM VISION? Every day is a new experience, I plan to keep on working in marketing and strategic PR with global companies. I have the best job in the world.

Go with your gut – many times you’ll be wrong but you’ll definitely start carving your way to success. Finally be passionate about what you do.

WHAT BOOK OR FILM WOULD YOU SHARE WITH SOMEONE THAT HAS INSPIRED YOU? Romain Gary - Les Cerfs Volants and Into the Wild by Sean Penn WHAT’S THE KEY BIT OF ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE TO SOMEONE STARTING UP A BUSINESS/INNOVATIVE IDEA? Focus on the one key benefit that

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THE VEGAN CAKERY INTERVIEW WITH MICHELLE ORME Written by James Sykes.

Veganism, the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, is becoming an increasingly popular choice for many across the globe. Often synonymous with a healthy lifestyle and an appreciation for the welfare of animals, a variety of vegan products are being developed daily to accommodate the dietary and ethical requirements of vegan consumers.

The Vegan Cakery, established in June 2012

by Michelle Orme of Leicestershire, offers a vast array of cruelty-free baked goods for all occasions.

With a passion for creating high-quality, hand-baked goods free from animal products or derivatives, the Vegan Cakery is a rapidly expanding force for good in the UK food industry.

We spoke to Michelle about the rising popularity of veganism, the reasons for creating the Vegan Cakery and the importance of moral foundations in modern business.

FIRST OF ALL, WHAT WAS IT THAT FIRST INSPIRED THE CONCEPT OF A COMPLETELY CRUELTY-FREE BAKERY? My inspiration for starting The Vegan Cakery was really born out of my lifestyle. I’ve been a vegan for just over 10 years now and so have been adopting an ethical and cruelty-free way of living since then.

I was vegetarian prior to becoming vegan, had been since I was 15, but I started to realise a vegetarian diet didn’t go far enough in preventing animal cruelty. After a few years of being vegan, I started to bake more - which is something I’d always enjoyed as a child - and people started to tell me I should sell my products as they were on a par with any ‘regular’ cakes.

So, after working on all of my recipes from scratch, I trademarked the name The Vegan Cakery and began to trade in June 2012. I never thought it would grow as it has, it’s amazing to have so many followers on Facebook and Twitter too...I think FB is just under 75,000 which is

incredible in three and a half years. I’m so grateful to the wonderful customers I have.

IT APPEARS THAT THE GROWTH OF THE VEGAN CAKERY SOMEWHAT REFLECTS THE RECENT INCREASE IN BOTH VEGETARIANISM AND VEGANISM ACROSS THE UK. WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE HAS BROUGHT ABOUT THIS SURGE IN POPULARITY? For someone choosing to be an ethical vegan, you simply can’t be blinkered to the horrors of animal agriculture, farming, exploitation and all of the other associated aspects of ‘legal’ animal cruelty these days. With the advent of social media, everything is out there for all to see now so for those who maybe didn’t want to take the full step, or who were concerned to, the visibility of what truly happens has aided those moves to veganism.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHAVA EICHNER © FLAVOURPHOTOS GI | FEB 2016

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Many celebrities seem to be latching onto veganism or ‘plant-based diets’ now which is great in one way to increase the profile and facts behind a vegan way of living. Unfortunately, though, I’m sure many of those will drop back to their old ways of living as diets like that are often fads.

It’s fantastic high profile people are looking at veganism reigning UK Snooker Champion and Champion of Champions winner, and former World Snooker Champion, Neil Robertson looked at veganism from the starting point of health but he’s become more and more aware of the animal cruelty side.

Neil has enjoyed some of my cakes too! Then you have people like comedian Carl Donnelly who has openly spoken about animal cruelty being part of his path to veganism.

There is obviously a lot more science now about how meat and dairy isn’t as good for people as we’ve all been led to believe. Personally, I can’t understand how people can put ‘benefits’ of eating an animal over that animal’s life and suffering. The health aspects of a vegan diet aren’t a concern to me, it’s purely about ending the suffering of animals who

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have the same right to life as we do, but the health side of the argument means animal agriculture and Government can’t just fire out propaganda like they used to without it being questioned anymore.

With the business, I do have contact from customers who tell me they’ve just become vegan or their child has chosen to become vegan. It’s always great to hear how much things are moving forward, and I’m obviously thrilled my baking is helping people enjoy taking the path to becoming vegan knowing you can have pretty much everything a non-vegan can...you really don’t have to miss out!

WITH THE BUSINESS BEING ETHICALLY MOTIVATED, EACH STEP FORWARDS MUST BE ALL THE MORE REWARDING. WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME OF THE BIGGEST RISKS THAT YOU HAVE TAKEN AS THE VEGAN CAKERY, AND HOW HAVE THESE AIDED IN ITS DEVELOPMENT?

from the start, developing and growing at a gradual pace.

All of my recipes are my own from scratch, so in that sense I innovated the product range to help the business grow, bringing products to market nobody else had, but none of it could have been considered a risk. Just time consuming!

YOUR INNOVATIONS HAVE MOST CERTAINLY BEEN RECOGNISED; WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME OF THE BIGGEST ACCLAIMS THAT YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED SO FAR? I really do have some incredible customers and lots of return custom, their positive comments always mean the most. As far as wider recognition goes, the ‘Cakery was named ‘Best Vegan Company’ at the UK Vegan Awards in 2013 and last year I received the Vegfest UK Award for ‘Best Vegan Cakes’ and then, within a couple of weeks. the ‘Best Vegan Bakery’ at the UK Vegan Awards.

To be honest I haven’t really taken any risks! From the start my focus was on helping animal charities, so I didn’t want to take out any business loans or anything like that - The Vegan Cakery had to pay for itself

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Those accolades do mean a lot as they’re voted for by customers and members of the public. I never put myself or the business forward for these sorts of things so to know others nominated me for the awards is lovely. Some of the biggest acclaim really is when non-vegans tell me how much they love my products compared to ‘regular’ ones...that always feels fantastic!

WHAT WOULD BE YOUR ADVICE FOR OTHERS THAT ARE LOOKING TO DEVELOP A BUSINESS FROM THEIR OWN PASSION AND LIFESTYLE? I suppose every different business or idea brings its own varied challenges and hurdles to overcome. The main thing I’d say to anyone who is passionate about creating something they truly love and believe in is to keep hold of that desire even when it feels like there might not be much light at the end of the tunnel.

You’ve got to put the effort in, there aren’t any shortcuts - at least I haven’t found any! It demands a lot of time and dedication, you can’t get away with 9am to 5pm and no weekends but I think most

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people who have that driving force, to do something like start a business, understand that anyway and wouldn’t be fazed by it either.

When I started I thought I might only ever sell a couple of cakes a week. My passion, aside from the fundraising and donations to charity, was to provide the very best vegan product out there and by doing that the business and popularity of it grew naturally.

The Internet and social media is a big help now too.

There really isn’t any substitute for hard work and honesty.

SO WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE VEGAN CAKERY? ARE THERE NEW PRODUCTS, EVENTS AND IDEAS IN THE PIPELINE?

and exciting things for vegans so watch this space!

As far as events go, I already have quite a few booked in the diary for this year. I love to be involved in the smaller vegan fairs as they really work to support and accommodate charities, unlike some of the national ones which charge far too much.

Hopefully 2016 is going to be another huge step for veganism in the mainstream!

Products, events and further information about the Vegan Cakery can all be found on the website - vegancakery.com

There are always new ideas floating around in my head, so many things I want to try and ‘veganise’. I pride myself on creating vegan versions of cakes and treats people really want... things they haven’t had since becoming vegan.

I already have a huge range of cake and cupcake flavours available, I like to create new

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GP SELECT DOCTOR IN YOUR HOUSE Most people in the UK love the NHS, and feel quite protective and proud of its work and achievements.

That’s not to say that at times making the match between its availability and ours can prove difficult.

Step in GP Select, a new offering whereby you can get support from a GP at a time to suit your life, in your home. GI magazine spoke to Ben Paglia, its founder, to give us the overview of what they are proposing.

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF BEN I grew up in the north west of England, academic wise I was interested in law, and that’s the degree path I took. I followed that through to graduation, and then qualified, but it just wasn’t for me despite thinking it would be. I just didn’t enjoy it. I left within a couple of years of being in the industry. However, I was interested in business, so straight after law I started working for a large pharmaceutical company. I did 11 years and then started on my own.

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IS THIS GP-SELECT? Yes, that’s one of the businesses.

I had a lot of ideas, around different ways of doing things, both in the NHS and in the private market. Some have been shelved and some have come to fruition. GP-Select is my view on what private ‘GP-ing’ should look like.

WAS THERE A PARTICULAR PROBLEM THAT YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD SOLVE, A FLASH OF INSPIRATION? I think several moments actually. Working for my old employer I had lots of good experiences around innovation and disruption. When I went into business though, when it’s your money at risk its very different. Having young children inspired me. the numerous trips to the doctors.

What I noticed is the stress that GP’s are under, and I realised that this isn’t going to change. That’s not to say that people don’t need hundreds of thousands of appointments on a daily basis. For those people that work, for those people that

have responsibilities during the day, I started to think about solutions for them to access GP’s, and that’s when GP-Select came to light. It’s a private doctor service. When you need one through ourselves, you get one immediately, and they come to you, so it’s very much based on the US concept of concierge medicine. I think we in the UK will have to become more used to this idea. I’m not talking about privatisation of the NHS, although many parts have been privatised for years which many people don’t realise.

HAS THIS BEEN A HARD SELL IN THE UK? No actually, it hasn’t. Getting access to GP’s seven days a week, whenever you need them to help your family hasn’t been. No one has said this is stupid idea.

There are lots of people interested, and crowdfunding is just a different way of increasing viability. It’s a sold

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product though, so there is some labour behind this.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO VISIT SURGERIES THEN?

WHAT WERE THE KEY BUILDING BLOCKS?

No that’s our USP. We take the doctor out of the surgery, that the biggest difference perhaps.

We sell to companies also, to employers so that’s a big part of our work. It’s a good perk, a unique retention product.

If I’m honest, it was about trying to ignore the sheer scope of what we were facing, its scale could be huge. I had this idea 18 months ago, and because we are working on other projects, we had shelved it for a while but there are other people in the market, and we didn’t want to miss the boat. Turning it into a reality though was done through lots of partnership work and conversations with GP’s, working out the technology, infrastructure, things like that.

The biggest challenge as others saw it, was getting GP’s to work for us. Actually that hasn’t been the case. Patients are frustrated, Doctors are struggling with bureaucracy and I just thought there had to be another option.

Enticing doctors hasn’t been hard actually.

WHERE ARE YOU OPERATING IN THE UK? North west UK at the moment, Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and Chester. The doctors that we have recruited are spread throughout this area. It’s a visiting service.

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WHEN ARE YOU LAUNCHING? We looking at early to mid2016 presently.

WHAT HAVE BEEN THE HIGHS AND THE CHALLENGES? The highs have been around hearing positive feedback, this is our second innovative product and a lot of people have spoken very favourably about us, which is great.

The challenges are about finding the time to spread the message, to sell the product, that’s always difficult.

ANY BOOKS OR FILMS THAT MAY HAVE INSPIRED YOU ALONG THE WAY?

We used that when we were designing our business, getting to the root cause of the issues facing us in health care.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR YOUNGER SELF STARTING UP? Always ask for more money (laughs). Seriously though, when you’re looking for any type of investment ensure that what you ask for will cover what you need. Getting those two to match can be tough.

FUTURE PLANS GOING FORWARD? Launch is the most important thing, we do have an expansion plan though. If it works in Manchester and Liverpool, these issues will be the same anywhere else in the country.

If you have private healthcare that’s great, but you still need to see the professional in a timely way. Our business gives you that instant access.

Anything by Malcolm Gladwell, that outside of the box thinking that he discusses is brilliant. Root cause analysis is something that he does, and its inspiring.

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‘NUDGED’ IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. DR RORY GALLAGHER Interview with Dr Rory Gallagher, Managing Advisor and Director, International Programmes, Behavioural Insights Team.

Behavioural insights is a term which may be new to many of us, but without us knowing it’s possibly had an impact upon the choices we have made through our interactions with Governments, and businesses.

Behavioural insights, often described as behavioural economics is a way of looking at why people make decisions and furthermore why do we make decisions that seem bad for us?

Everything from how we go about looking for work, our approach to personal health, turning up to appointments, and how we give to charity is under scrutiny, and the results that a small outside intervention can make (a nudge) are proving to be a hot topic.

The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) is jointly owned by the UK Government,

Nesta (the innovation charity) and their employees. BIT started life inside 10 Downing Street as the world’s first Government institution dedicated to the application of behavioural sciences.

Global Innovation Magazine interviewed Dr Rory Gallagher from his current base in Australia.

TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF… (BACKGROUND/ WHERE YOU GREW UP/ ACADEMICS) I grew up in Reading (an hour outside London), and after school I went to Cambridge University, where I completed an undergraduate degree, a Masters and finally, a PhD. My PhD was on HIV/AIDS and behavioural change, primarily focused on the sex-work industries in Thailand and Indonesia.

spent a couple of years at the Department of Education reviewing the curriculum, including PSHE – personal, social, health and economic education - as life skills for kids; plus science and maths, after which I joined the Prime Minister’s strategy unit for a year or two.

In 2010, shortly after The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) was set up, the CEO David Halpern asked if I would come and join the team.

For the first two years I was in the UK leading the work around employment, taxes and fraudulent debt, and also consumer issues. Then in late 2012, I moved to Sydney.

Initially, the idea was to move over for just one year - for a couple of reasons - one, to see if this type of approach could work in a different political, administrative and cultural context, albeit one that was

After that, I left academia, because I felt I was unlikely to have the social impact that I was interested in, so I decided to go into government and join the civil service fast stream. I

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not so removed we wouldn’t be able to transfer the learnings relatively quickly and easily from the UK. In other words, we wanted to see if we could replicate and adapt some of the trials we did in the UK in the Australian context. I was also keen to have the opportunity personally to try something new before getting married and settling down. Then I came out here and absolutely loved it, so we’ve been here three years; earlier this year we set up a Sydney office of the BIT and half a dozen of us now work across Australia and the region, applying these approaches with governments, charities, local councils.

HOW ARE YOU ENJOYING SYDNEY? It’s an amazing city. I can’t think of many places in the world where you can be in a big global city, live near the beach and be able to go for a swim and a run before work, but still be at your desk within 45 minutes.

It’s a fantastic place to live, the people are great and the lifestyle is great.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE WORK THAT THE BIT DO? Ultimately it’s about making government and public services more human. What that means is we try to provide a better,

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more nuanced understanding of human behaviour to the policymakers so that we can design better services.

We use evidence from the behavioural sciences to show them more accurately what is likely to influence behaviour and achieve the outcomes they (and the citizens) want, from the redesigning of communication to make it more impactful, through to totally rethinking the way that we might deliver employment services or think about domestic violence. It can often mean quite minor adjustments - very low cost changes to communications and systems - but it can also mean a quite radical reworking of what we might be doing; for example, changing the pensions system to ‘opt-in’ rather than ‘opt-out’, and seeing millions of additional savers.

ANY SPECIFIC BITS OF WORK THAT STAND OUT, YOU’RE PARTICULARLY PROUD OF? The employment work is something we’re particularly proud of. Back in 2011, when we were still in the grips of the financial crisis, the UK had quite a significant unemployment problem, so the Department for Work & Pensions asked if we could work with local job centres, to think about the way that we are designing our job

centre network and see if we could help to get more people back to work.

We spent weeks; I personally spent weeks, in job centres, observing how the processes worked, how the interactions between jobseekers and advisors took place, and we actually worked directly with a fantastic job centre manager in a centre in Loughton (in Essex).

They’re quite a small job centre just outside London, and we totally revamped the way that half of their job centre was working. They’re on two levels; so we took the top floor where half of the staff dealt with half of the applicants, and we redesigned how they delivered their services and looked at what they were doing. Some of that was a simple re-engineering of the process: previously when people came in, their first meeting was entirely focused on compliance, administration and signing lots of forms, so the entire appointment was spent, for example, signing nine different bits of paper and noone was quite clear what they were all for.

We changed that to make sure that on day one, there was a focus on getting you back into work - it wasn’t a conversation about the minimum you had to do in order to get your benefits,

and filling out all of the details, etc. It was to sit down, try and talk to you, try and understand what type of work you want, what you’d done and think about how to get you back into employment. At its core, that’s based on the principle of first impressions count; that if you come into a job centre and it’s all about process, admin and minimum compliance, you’re going to leave with a very different feeling than if you come in and the first conversation is all about getting to know you and what we can do together and the support the jobseeker can expect.

Another of the changes we implemented was to change the nature of the interactions by switching the main focus of conversations to be less of what people had done over the last week with compliance in mind, to a more prospective ‘what are you going to do?’. Again, this is based on behavioural science literature which shows that if you want someone to do something, they’re much more likely to do it if they publicly commit to doing it, and if they write it down and are very specific about that.

Previously, jobseekers would come in and be told ‘here are the jobs in your area, go off and see if you can find them, make a note of everything you’ve done

and when you come in next week, they’ll check to make sure you’ve done a sufficient amount of activity to qualify for benefits’, which is quite a backward looking conversation.

Instead, the conversation would start with, ‘tell me what you’re going to do this week to look for work and be very, very specific - for example on Tuesday morning, after walking the dog, I’m going to go to Loughton High Street and speak to the three retailers there to see if they have any work available over the next month or so’. So we changed the nature of the conversation from something that was backward-looking and compliance-focused to something which is much more forward-looking and would actually encourage job seekers to make specific promises and commitments, including exact targets for the following week.

Most importantly, we changed the level of expected engagement; when you’re having a very compliancefocused conversation, it tended to suggest that the minimum you need to do in order to find work is three job searches, but it’s very unlikely you’re going to find a job if that’s all you do;

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that’s just our minimum level to ensure compliance. We shifted that, so instead of a minimum of three searches, we told them that most jobseekers who actually find work will be doing between 50 and 100 job searches per week, and asking how many they think they can do.

This is known as an ‘anchor point’ in behavioural insights/ psychology literature, so the very, very low base of minimum requirements of three per week was raised to a much higher base of 50+ which is underpinned by social norms around what most successful job seekers were doing. So we’re trying to subtly change the way that these conversations and interactions happen between jobseekers and advisors, and that proved to be pretty successful. It led to a 5-10% increase in the number of people coming off benefits after 13 weeks, and then we replicated that across Essex. After that, we helped roll it out across the country, so every job centre will use a form of this more forwardfocused conversation around what jobseekers are going to do.

We’ve now taken that change in process and interaction and introduced it to the career centres in Singapore, where we saw similar - in fact bigger effect sizes, and also in Australia.

We also applied similar

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techniques to help people who had been injured return to work, for example, thinking through what steps they’re going to take in order to get back to work quicker. So let’s say, they’d been injured at work, and had badly strained their back, what exercises could you do, what activities could you do to help you get back to work quicker, and in better shape.

ANY TAKEAWAYS YOU COULD GIVE US TO HELP OUR READERS IMPROVE THEIR LIVES/BUSINESSES? We use the mnemonic ‘EAST’ quite often, whenever we’re thinking about a problem. We use it in public policy, but it applies equally to individual lives or business: if you want someone to do something, make it Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely. There’s pretty much no problem - that I’ve ever come across - for which you couldn’t use that framework to think about how you could change the process to make it more easy, attractive, social, timely or all of them for your customers.

If I have to pick just one of them, I would say the ‘make it Easy’ part is most important. The reason for this is we frequently only see things through our lens, rather than the lens of the people that we’re trying to influence, and we don’t make

it as easy as possible for people to do what we want them to do.

Instead, we write long letters which are full of legalese that people don’t understand, or we direct them to our website where they then have to navigate through several pages to get to the place that they want. We put up barriers so they have to enter their credit card details or their admin details multiple times even though we hold that data.

The second takeaway is about testing; even with the best understanding of the behavioural literature or if you think you really understand your customers, it’s always much better to test and trial different versions of whatever it is - a new product, a new website, a new internal process - trialling is vital to find out what works, and it’s an absolutely core part of what we do.

Going back to the job centre example, we continued to use the old process on the bottom floor, for half the jobseekers.

On the top floor, the other half of the jobseekers (who had been randomly allocated) went through the new process. So we were able to say with real certainty that the improvement is because of our intervention, specifically because we ran that test. We apply that to pretty much everything we do, from rewriting a letter to redoing a

website, we will always have multiple versions and see what comes out best. [In business this is quite often called A/B testing or RCTs (randomised control tests)].

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON? Here in New South Wales, working on things like reducing domestic violence is incredibly important; we’re doing a lot of work on tackling obesity, particularly childhood obesity; and we’re also working with employment services, trying to help people find work, particularly those from disadvantaged groups - all of which are incredibly important.

In Singapore, we’re starting to do increasing amounts of work across different policy areas, getting into really exciting new sectors like transport, looking at things like driverless cars and how we create a system that is safe but also attractive for the public. Additionally, we are just trying to change the way government sometimes thinks; for example we’re doing lots of work around compliance, where traditionally the role or focus of government has been to try and catch people out where they haven’t been compliant, such as businesses who haven’t been complying with WHS (Workplace Health and Safety) or with employment legislation.

So we’re trying to change the mind set around how we support businesses - particularly SMEs - to comply with this complex legislation, involving thinking through the audit process, how we can provide the tools to get government to focus on things that we really care about. As you can see, it’s quite a mixture of the complex social policy issues and more forward-looking areas, such as where is our transport system going or how do we regulate companies over the next 20 years.

CAN YOU THINK OF A BOOK THAT YOU’D RECOMMEND? Probably the book that has had the most impact on my thinking over the past 18 months is a book called Scarcity

by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir. It’s basically about why people with few resources (that might be money, but it can also be other things, like time) actually make poorer decisions, which totally reframes the argument; people don’t become poor because they make bad decisions, they make bad decisions because they are poor.

All of their cognitive energy, effectively, is spent managing

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their day-to-day finances, so they have less cognitive capacity to focus on other things, and that for me was a gamechanging moment.

It makes you think about the way that you deliver government services even more carefully, if these people with very low socioeconomic incomes are spending a lot of their time and energy balancing the books and their daily lives - we need to ensure we make those government services - health, for example as easy as possible to access.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO YOURSELF STARTING OUT IN THE WORLD OF WORK THOSE YEARS AGO? It sounds incredibly cheesy, but I would say just follow your passions, and what you really believe in. I didn’t start out in the world of behavioural insights, but I’ve always been interested in human behaviour, and I think I’ve been really lucky to now work in a place where I get to do exactly what I love which combines the policy focus of making stuff happen on the ground with the more academic, engaging with the literature and running robust trials.

If you’d have asked me when I started in the fast stream, I would never have imagined I would get to that place, but I

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always took decisions along the way to do work that I enjoyed, and it’s got me ultimately to the right place. So although it sounds quite cheesy I would always say, make decisions based on the work that you enjoy and I think ultimately you’ll find something which is rewarding, rather than the other way round - doing stuff because you think it will get you to a job that you think is the right job for you.

ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE TO ADD? One thing for me is how we make government services and the whole process of innovation more open to the public and to business. I think government is good at innovation, in pockets, but it often happens in isolation and if we’re really to solve the big social problems of our time, stuff like obesity, it’s not going to be solved by people like me sitting in an office thinking about how we can innovate government services. It’s only going to be achieved if that innovation and thinking is done with the public and with businesses. With that in mind, one of the things we did recently, that I thought was really innovative, and really interesting, was to run what’s called a ‘citizen’s jury’ in Victoria.

100 randomly-selected members of the community came together and looked at the issue of

obesity, and they spent six weeks looking at the evidence online, asking to hear from experts and then they spent a weekend coming up with a set of recommendations for government and for business. For me it was really interesting, because the sophistication of the debate and the engagement from the public was much, much higher than I had anticipated; quite often when we do government consultations, we make it quite difficult for people to actually engage with the subject and so you just hear from the usual lobby groups, etc. This process of being more open and bringing in people on a random basis - real, representative members of the public - gave me a renewed faith in what we can do in public policy to be more innovative and the ways in which we can engage with the public and with business to come up with new solutions.

A STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY LIKE NO OTHER! KEVIN COLEMAN We are about to enter a period of unprecedented change that will stretch our boundaries to nearly breaking point.

The emerging era of rapid technological advancement will bring about a strategic change that will have implications to everyone’s personal and professional lives. This period will create huge opportunities for speakers across the board, as well as challenges for meeting and event planners!

In the next three to five years the Internet of Things, Cognitive Technologies, Wearable Technology, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Connected Cars, 3D and 4D Printing, and Autonomous Robotics will all combine to create a period of disruption that will put the Internet era of the mid to late 90s to shame.

At this point, nothing will be spared! Multiple studies and reports that were recently released project the economic implications associated with these technologies will be in the trillions, with one projection over $19 trillion by 2025 just for IoT. If you subtract the current IoT market value and do the maths, that

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means that there will be an estimated $40,000 USD of market generated each and every second between now and 2025. Keep in mind that is just for IoT. I wonder what the number would be if you added the dollars for the rest of the technologies that will emerge or advance between now and 2025. Clearly this will create an opportunity like no other period in history.

The rapid technological advancement along with the accompanying changes that will impact nearly every aspect of business and our social environment makes the continuously updating of knowledge and skill sets absolutely fundamental if you are to be a successful.

Research has indicated that some level of technological intelligence will be critical and perhaps the single most valuable talent an organization can possess and not just in the IT department. This is throughout the organization.

In fact, the Harvard Business Review recently published an article titled, “All Boards Need a Technology Expert.” While this article provides a solid

foundation for the justification of this board level position, it fails to address perhaps the most critical role the position will fill. The missing role is that of board level technology visionary. This individual must understand the plethora of emerging technologies and the role they will play (positive and negative) in the organization’s future. Perhaps some of the emerging technologies will extend current products and services, while others will be disruptive and make obsolete some products/services or in some cases entire product and service lines. Some entrepreneurs claim their core product/service that will be launched in the coming months/years will disrupt or make obsolete entire organizations.

There is so much to learn and experience! This coming period (next 3 to 5 years) of rapid technology advancement and adoption will be far larger than what we experienced in the mid to late 90s during the Internet era. The characteristics of this period will create an extremely challenging environment for every organization as

well as for each one of us personally. As professionals, we must find ways to learn about and keep up with all these changes. This is not a one-time thing. Continuous updating of knowledge has become what differentiates a true professional from a mere practitioner. One educator I spoke with mused about the need to transition from continuing education to continuous education. That and other thought provoking aspects of this period are beginning to generate interest, attention, as well as some wellfounded concerns. Proactive organizations have begun to take action so that they are properly positioned for what is likely to come in the next three to five years. This includes identification of critical new skills and either retraining existing staff or early identification of critical new hires. Another telling factor is the number of C-level executives and boards that are actively seeking independent and objective insights into these emerging technologies.

The final and perhaps most compelling fact is that recent conversations with executive management uncovered their concern about smaller business and start-ups that are much more nimble than large organizations. Imagine these small businesses/start-

ups armed with the latest information about emerging technology applications creating offerings and targeting large organizations customer base. One senior executive once described trying to get his organization to change as being like parallel-parking a superoil-tanker.

Given that statement and concern, it is interesting to see how some of these large organizations have addressed this issue. The most interesting example I have found is where one organization looked at the top three emerging technologies and investigated multiple startups in each. They identified the start-up that was most aligned with the large organization’s needs and identified them as a target for venture investment.

Making that investment allowed them to closely monitor the progress of the start-up and the technology.

Not a bad approach. It gets better! One volunteered to be an alpha and beta tester for the start-ups technology/ product/service. That is a very interesting strategic approach to the challenge of keeping up with emerging technologies as well as new entrants into

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their marketspace. Using this approach has the potential to change a potential disruptor to a strategic partner, if not an out-and-out enabler.

The technologies that are emerging and on the radar create huge opportunities that span virtually every industrial and market segment. These technologies are rapidly becoming the hot themes and topics of meetings, conferences and events. Speakers and meeting & event planners that embrace the impact and implications brought about by these technologies and leverage the associated changes will be right in the thick of things. Speakers must get innovative and think out-ofthe-box and that will surely place them in high demand.

Your future begins now. You must decide how you plan to create your strategic advantage and differentiate yourself from competitors in this new era.

So the question we all need to ask ourselves is - Am I ready for this? If not, you had better get ready because adoption of these technologies have already begun and that is creating significant change that will only accelerate and increase in magnitude in the next few years.

The coming age of rapidly emerging technologies has many organizations finding it

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difficult to see the forest for the trees! They look at all the trees (technological capabilities) one at a time, and fail to realize that branches from separate trees overlap and come together to dramatically change the picture and make a much larger forest (business opportunities). This is extremely problematic given the trillions of dollars that are associated with this market.

All things considered, this is a strategic opportunity that is likely to be the largest emerging technology era in history.

Given all that is at stake, will you lead, quickly follow or be pushed aside?

AUTHOR - Kevin Coleman is a dynamic speaker, author, advisor, and visionary that provides riveting insight on strategy, innovation, creativity and the high velocity technology era that is just around the corner. He has spoken at some of the world’s most prestigious organizations, including the United Nations, U.S. Congress, at U.S. Strategic Command, and before multiple Fortune 500 organizations and briefed executives in 42 countries around the world.

NEWS A FEW THINGS THAT CAUGHT OUR GAZE

HYDRAO SMART SHOWER - CLEAN AND SMART The Hydrao Smart Shower, showerhead is set to replace less than intelligent shower heads in the home of the future. Inside it has LED lights and sensors that monitor how much water you have used turning purple when you go over 10 litres. The message being, you’re using a lot of water, step out of the shower!

Something for us all to consider when we are scrubbing up.

More info at www.hydrao.fr

EARS TO THE BRAGI DASH The Dash is a completely wireless hearable: smart headphones offering freedom of movement, maximum comfort and amazing sound - all while audibly coaching, tracking movement and capturing key biometric data. Bragi which was founded in 2013. Almost 16.000 supporters worldwide have pledged more than US$ 3.3 million on kickstarter.

This makes The Dash still the most successful European crowdfunding campaign on kickstarter ever.

The Dash won the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2015 Innovation Award BEST OF INNOVATION in the Headphones product category.

Ears to them!

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THE PIDAAS PROJECT - AN INNOVATIVE SERVICE BASED ON BIOMETRIC DATA PIDaaS (Private Identity as a Service) aims to create and to field test a secure authentication system, based on biometric recognition technologies (speaker and face recognition) through mobile devices.

This project is co-founded under the ICT Policy Support Programme by the following partners: CSI Piemonte, Bantec, Eurecat, Ricoh, University of Kent, E-bros, TicSalut and Hogskolen I Gjovik.

The goals of PIDaaS are to develop a robust, flexible, scalable and easy to integrate service for identity assurance of user’s with the help of bioidentities features, in mobile devices and to share with internet application providers, the possibility of an easy integration of biometric authentication of their customers into their remote identification processes.

for the analysis of the usage of the service.

PIDaaS provides an innovative approach to e-Services (e-Commerce, e-Citizen, and e-Health) in a way giving users strong advantages and market competitiveness in the following aspects: 1. Convenience: PIN or password is omitted or expressed by voice/ face; 2. Security: users are verified by their biometrics; 3. Privacy protection: biometric information used for verification is protected by BTPS. If you want to know more about solutions, technologies or pilots that PIDaaS will carry out, don’t hesitate to visit the website: www.pidaas.eu

It is the result of the integration of three technologies: BTPS, IdForMe and LMP. The integration of these technologies will be tested and validated in three different pilots: E-commerce, E-health and E-citizen. The pilots will be used

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NEWS |048

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MASTER DIGITAL PUBLISHING FLIPPINGBOOK MAKES IT DELIGHTFUL

FlippingBook Publisher helps you to create a powerful digital publication from any document. It’s conceptually made for those who appreciate professional formatting and comfortable reading. What makes it so good?

Our truly innovative e-commerce feature allows your readers to use your shopping cart without leaving the publication page With FlippingBook Publisher all your publications are mobile ready and look great on any desktop or mobile device You can add your brand or logo and use the white label option to make sure all unnecessary mentions are removed Videos, links, flash and sound are all available to make the reading experience even better

The distribution options include website embedding, the App Store, Google Play, cloud sharing and offline publication You can monitor visitor KPIs with Google Analytics and instantly share your publications on social networks FlippingBook Publisher has several formats that you can use for your publications: Online Catalog – which you can use to create your own shop window on the web Online Magazine – perfect for periodicals Business Brochures and Presentations – impress your

boss or business partner with a marketing masterpiece Flip Books – ideal for hardcover books, textbooks and dictionaries Photo Albums and Bookshelves – a perfect fit for your slideshows, photo galleries and book collections

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