The forces of disruption are shifting fast. Most leaders are very aware that this brings new opportunities as well as risks. The problem is that we live in a sea of noise and it’s really hard to figure out which forces will impact your success, let alone how they are going to unfold.

Separating the signal from the noise is a huge challenge… we get it… we do this for a living. Using our FORCEcasting framework, we’ve helped hundreds of leadership teams to help figure out how to harness the forces of disruption to their advantage. In the process, we’re constantly exposed to fresh thinking about new or shifting forces, so our thinking is constantly evolving.

We believe that sharing our thinking is consistent with our mission to help innovators make the world a better place, and that’s what we do here.

BRIEFINGS

EXECUTIVE BRIEFINGS
We don’t want to add to the noise by posting even more links (you’ve already got more than enough of that from other peoples blogs). Instead, we go deep on specific forces, distill the learnings down to ‘first principles’ and capture that in a formal executive briefing (with a clear & actionable so what).

Part of our motivation is to hone our thinking, but it’s also about sharing openly and learning along the way, so we welcome comments (including push-back:). If you like what you see, we hope you’ll follow us and join in regularly.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?… lets talk

If your business collects &/or analyzes data, Googles’ recent decision to eliminate cookies and personal web tracking from their ad products will have a direct impact on your company’s valuation and ability to raise capital.

From what we’re seeing, this shift did get a lot of coverage, but the debate has largely missed the real story.  People seem to be focused on whether or not FLOC (federated learning of cohorts) is an improvement over cookies, and while that’s a worthwhile question, it misses the fundamental shift in Googles’ business model related to collecting and monetizing data. 

If our thesis is correct, this is a tectonic event with the potential to quickly impact the value of your company and your ability to raise capital.  In this video, we deconstruct what Google is doing, how and why they are doing it, and why that matters for you.

THE PUNCHLINE
Google is making a massive shift to on-device machine learning and it has the potential to completely change how & where value gets capture with data.  The current model, where investors assign a value to those companies that collect and monetize data (centralized data-model) will remain, but we’re now seeing a second model emerge, where investors increasingly assign a premium value to companies that carve out a central role in data-driven insights and value while avoiding the costs and risks of holding the data itself (decentralized data-model).

WHY DID WE CREATE THIS?
We have been working with our clients on this topic for 3 years now, but many have treated this as a slow-moving disruptive force. In our view, Google’s announcement creates a watershed moment, radically accelerating the rise of the decentralized data model. If that is correct, there are profound implications for almost all digital innovators.  This video is our way of sharing the thinking with anyone who is investing their heartbeats to help make the world a better place... I hope it helps:)

SHIFT TO THE LEFT

A crisis like COVID radically accelerates the speed of adoption for some things (but not others). Some of the things that change will stay that way forever (but some won’t). If you’ve been following our work on Agile Scenarios, you know that getting this right, and adjusting your strategy & execution for next-normal, is the key to emerging from COVID stronger than ever.

As you can imagine, all this scenario activity has me reading a lot of next-normal thinking lately. Most of it is just noise, but when I run across things that are actually helpful, I intend to share them. This brief was inspired by a recent post by CB Insights. The concept is simple (crisis pushes the adoption curve to the left), but there are three implications that are super helpful for teams that are evolving their thinking and adjusting strategy & execution for Next-Normal (see Agile Scenarios).

It’s a short brief. In it, I summarize the concept and share three simple but actionable takeaways… I hope it’s as useful for you as it has been for me.

Federated Learning – MicroBrief

Federated Learning is a paradigm shift in AI. it's moving very fast and has the potential to significantly change the value-capture point for many sectors, so there is a good chance that it could impact your thesis &/or strategy.

In this briefing, we cover the basics of what it is, how it works and why it matters (0819).

THESIS… a story

This is a great story that also happens to demonstrate why it's so valuable for startups and enterprise innovation leaders to get their thesis right (plus it's just a cool story)

THEY JUST DON'T GET IT - Incremental vs. Transformative Innovation (and why that matters to your success)

This video is about accelerating adoption of your game-changing new product or service (no fancy theories, just simple common sense with a clear and actionable SO WHAT). It's for anyone trying to accelerate the adoption of a radically new / radically better way.

WHY?… as a strategist focused on transformative innovations, I can say with conviction that slow adoption is the biggest challenge that entrepreneurs face. I am a big fan of agile, but it frustrates me a blind faith in iteration & product/market fit discourages innovators from thinking about the human side of adopting a bold new solution. In my view, this is a huge problem… in fact, it’s literally why I became a passionate believer in thesis-based strategy.

This video is my way of sharing a fresh way to think about the adoption journey. It’s for anyone who is investing their heartbeats to help make the world a better place (I hope it helps you make your dent in the universe:)