I first learned about John Hagel in the late 1990s, when I was elbow-deep in community-building -- working as a systems designer & UX leader on Ultima Online and eBay. One of my clients gave me John’s book, Net Gain: Expanding markets through virtual communities. It blew my mind and inspired me as I was writing my first book, Community Building on the Web. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to get to know John better. He’s written many books since Net Gain exploded on the scene, and now runs the Center for the Edge at Deloitte, where he leads research efforts that reveal where business is headed next. Come hang out with us and discover what a leading business strategist thinks about the future of work - and the impact of lost trust on community and marketplace dynamics.
I first learned about John Hagel in the late 1990s, when I was elbow-deep in community-building -- working as a systems designer & UX leader on Ultima Online and eBay. One of my clients gave me John’s book, Net Gain: Expanding markets through virtual communities. It blew my mind and inspired me as I was writing my first book, Community Building on the Web. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to get to know John better. He’s written many books since Net Gain exploded on the scene, and now runs the Center for the Edge at Deloitte, where he leads research efforts that reveal where business is headed next. Come hang out with us and discover what a leading business strategist thinks about the future of work - and the impact of lost trust on community and marketplace dynamics.
Intro: [00:00:01.6] From Silicon Valley, the heart of startup land. It's Getting2Alpha. The show about creating innovative, compelling experiences that people love. And now, here's your host, game designer, entrepreneur, and startup coach, Amy Jo Kim.
Amy: I first learned about John Hagel in the late 1990s when I was elbow deep in community building and working as a system designer and UX leader.
On early versions of Ultima Online and eBay, one of my clients gave me John's book, Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities. It blew my mind and inspired me as I was writing my first book, Community Building on the Web. Since that time, I've been lucky enough to get to know John better.
He's an ever-evolving guy. He's written many books since Net Gain exploded on the scene and now runs the Center for the Edge at Deloitte, where he leads research [00:01:00] efforts that reveal where business is headed next.
John: The missing opportunity is in times of rapid change. You have more degrees of freedom to restructure an entire market or industry shape it in direction that creates some privileged advantage for your particular institution but creates value for others.
And one of the key elements of this opportunity, and we've, we've studied successful shapers throughout history, one of the key elements of a successful shaping strategy is that you are able to mobilize a very large number of third parties to invest in and support your strategy. So, you're not doing it all yourself.
The total investment for the shaping strategy, maybe 95 percent comes from third parties, not from your company. But you're finding a way to motivate and mobilize those third parties to develop an entirely new structure for the market or industry. [00:02:00]
Amy: Come hang out with us and discover what this leading business strategist thinks about the future of work and the impact of lost trust on community and marketplace dynamics.
Amy: Welcome John to the Getting2Alpha Podcast.
John: Great to be here. Thank you.
Amy: I'm really excited to talk to you. We've known each other a long time, but there's so much about you and your background that I don't really know. So, I'm really thrilled to get a chance to dig in. Before we do, just give us a glimpse into your work life these days.
What does a typical day look like for you? Who is it you're interacting with? What kind of decisions do you make? Bring us into your world.
John: Well, one of the things I love is there is no typical work day. I have very little idea, day to day what I'm going to be doing. So it's, uh, it's that constant novelty, if you will.
I'd [00:03:00] say if I pull back on average, so I run this research center, the Center for the Edge, and about a third of my time is spent helping to lead the research teams that are driving our research. And then a third of my time is spent on writing and speaking about the research, helping to spread the word.
And then the final third is working with clients around acting on some of the opportunities that we've identified, helping them to get impact from some of these opportunities. So, and I do it globally. I'm on the road, I guess, about 60 percent of my time. About half of that time is outside the U. S. and half is in the U.S.
Amy: Wow. What kind of clients do you work with?
John: Very broad range. Typically it's, uh, I'd say the bulk of them are large corporate institutions, but I've worked with governments. I've worked with non-profits. I've worked with universities. It's a pretty diverse set of institutions [00:04:00] and, and with smaller entrepreneurial companies as well.
Amy: What kind of issues are you working with them on?
John: It's a very broad range. The charter for the Center for the Edge is to identify emerging opportunities that should be on the CEO's agenda, but are not, and to do the research necessary to persuade them to put it on the agenda. So, the filter we use is it has to be a big enough opportunity that it's relevant to the CEO of a large institution, and that it's going to be an opportunity that's relevant across most, if not all, industries.
So, we don't do something specifically on healthcare or financial services. And it has to be relevant across most parts of the world, something that, uh, CEO of a large institution around the world would find helpful or, or valuable to pursue. Uh, in that context, it's a broad range, uh, everything from new approaches to strategy, how you think about strategy and [00:05:00] increasingly uncertain times to new approaches to growth.
Ways of organizing within the institution, the kinds of connections across institutions, ecosystems, and platforms, if you will, that can help to increase impact and value. But it's got to be something that nobody's yet really focused on or addressing where unlike many research centers, you know, many research centers, you wait for somebody to call and say, I want research on this topic.
And for us, if they're calling it's too late, they're already asking about it. We want to focus on the things that they aren't not yet asking about but should be.
Amy: So, you're playing offense not defense.
John: That's the that's the game. That's the game I'm in for sure.
Amy: Could you give us an example of? One of these issues that meets these criteria.
John: Yeah. Sure. I'll give you a couple just quickly. One is in the strategy domain; we find that most large [00:06:00] institutions in a world that's more rapidly changing tend to fall into what we would describe as reactive strategies. The goal is to sense and respond as quickly as you can to whatever's going on.
Agile is the new buzzword. Our view is, while that's certainly important, you have to be flexible and adaptable. The missing opportunity is in times of rapid change. You have more degrees of freedom to restructure an entire market or industry shape it in a direction that creates some privileged advantage for your particular institution but creates value for others.
And one of the key elements of this opportunity, and we've, we've studied successful shapers throughout history. One of the key elements of a successful shaping strategy is that you are able to mobilize. A very large number of third parties to invest in and support your strategy. So, you're not doing it all [00:07:00] yourself.
The total investment for the shaping strategy, maybe 95 percent comes from third parties, not from your company, but you're finding a way to motivate and mobilize those third parties to develop an entirely new structure for the market or industry. So that's one another. Which is semi-related, but I think a different lens to it is how you think about growth strategies.
I mean, when I'm with most executives today, they're under increasing pressure to drive growth. Uh, but when the discussion gets to that, their focus is on two alternatives. Make or buy, you know, the way to drive growth is either to develop it internally, organically, or to go out and do a big acquisition.
Those are the two ways to grow. And yeah, you know, the debate is how much of it is going to be make versus buy. Our view is there's a third path to growth that's not yet on the agenda of most CEOs, [00:08:00] but should be. Which is what we call leveraged growth, which is how can you create more value and capture more value by mobilizing third parties to create value for your customers.
And you get some of that value for yourself by virtue of having help to mobilize them to, to address the customer's needs, but you're not going out and buying them and you're not developing the capability internally. You're just being much more. It's focused on who can I mobilize? What are the unmet needs of the customer?
Who can I mobilize to address those needs in a way where I can capture some of the value? So just a couple of examples, but, uh, hopefully illustrates the, the opportunities.
Amy: It does. It would be really helpful to make that specific. So if I'm thinking, and you know, without, you don't have to reveal anything that's not comfortable.
But like, okay, so I want, I want to think about mobilizing partners. [00:09:00] Could you give me an example in a specific area where it's actually been successful? That'd be super helpful.
John: Sure. Some of the most sophisticated companies that we think are starting to demonstrate the potential here are actually not in the U.S. or even in Europe, they're out in Asia.
Uh, and I'll give one example of the company that we've written about that we think is kind of on the leading edge. Uh, it's a company called Li and Fung, F.U.N.G. They're in the clothing and apparel business. Uh, their customers are apparel designers, all the brand names we know and love, Calvin Klein and Taylor.
Their proposition is they will take care of everything from sourcing of raw material through all the stages of production. All the logistics required, deliver it anywhere in the world you specify. Interesting thing, they do none of that themselves. They operate through a global network of 15,000 business partners.[00:10:00]
And it's truly a global network, even though they're based in China, the vast majority of their partners are based elsewhere in the world. But their key proposition is we can help understand your needs and mobilize the appropriate expertise at the right time to address those needs. They are now, the company has, is generating over 20 billion in revenue.
So, it's a reasonably large company and virtually all of their growth has been through this leveraged growth model. It's not by hiring more people themselves or doing major acquisitions. It's by adding more participants to their network and providing more and more value to the customers they're serving.
Amy: Great example. And it's absolutely a networked ecosystem, which is something that you've been writing about for a long time. That's fascinating how that connects with your earlier work.
John: Yes. And I, [00:11:00] everything I like to say, everything I do is connected in one way or another. But one of the interesting things about, again, this, this particular example, Li and Fung is I find that obviously more and more companies are talking about ecosystems and networks, but they tend to address it in a very transactional way.
You know, you've got some capability I need. Let me connect to it and buy, sell. And do the deal and move on. Li and Fung has a very different mindset and model, which is we're in this together to build long term relationships. And the key goal for both sides is to learn faster together. And it's interesting because we went out and interviewed many of the partners in the Li and Fung network as part of our research.
And one thing that we found was, um, when we asked, why are you part of the Li and Fung network, the answer we got back was because we learn faster than we ever could on our [00:12:00] own or as part of anyone else's network. And so they focused from the first meeting on how can we build a relationship that's not just transactional where we're buying and selling from each other.
But where we're learning from each other and learning faster together. And again, our belief is that's one of the big imperatives and opportunities in a more rapidly changing world.
Amy: Okay. That's just fascinating. And that's so on trend. I mean, that's a, a huge part of Agile and particularly the lean startup approach is rapid shared learning.
John: Yeah.
Amy: And this is, you're talking about expanding that into a more global workforce that's partnering versus, uh, doing trade, transactional trade.
John: Exactly.
Amy: And it's, and it seems very relevant for navigating. increasingly turbulent times.
John: No, absolutely. I mean, again, I think two key imperatives. They're not just [00:13:00] opportunities.
They're essential. If we're going to survive, one is this notion of being flexible and being able to adapt to unanticipated situations. It, by the way, it's not an accident that Li and Fung is in the clothing and apparel business because you think about industries. Where one of the biggest uncertainties in terms of demand is in the apparel industry, right, from day to day, fashion shifts and demand shifts, and you have to be extremely flexible to be successful.
But then on the other side too, global economy and society is rapidly evolving, and if we're not learning faster as we go to understand and anticipate the needs, uh, emerging needs, we're not going to survive either. So I think on both counts, this is really critical to, to success.
Amy: Yep. So let's wind it back way back.
How did you first get started in the world of design and tech and [00:14:00] what were the major pivot points that led to you having this amazing job doing this global cutting edge work?
John: Wow. Well, I have to say my entire background academically, I was in school for quite a while, but it was all liberal arts. Um, I have no tech training.
I'm not an engineer by, by background or credentials. Kind of the entry point for me, I was living in Boston and, um, working with a firm called Boston Consulting Group, BCG, and a lot of my friends. I had been to business school and a lot of my friends from business school had gone into business and, uh, were complaining, you know, just to give context, this was quite a while ago, this was back in 1978.
They were very interested in the potential of what computers could do for their business, but they were, um, very frustrated because every time they'd call a computer company, [00:15:00] they'd get the salesperson showed up and would just inundate them with techno babble, and they would leave even more confused than when they began.
And so I said, you know, there's an opportunity here to basically create a business that will be a translator. Connecting the technology capabilities with business needs. And so I left BCG and this was it now in 1980, I moved to Silicon Valley to do my first startup. We, we picked as our, as our vertical, as our segment, uh, doctors in private practice up to about a 10-physician practice.
And we created a turnkey computer system for those doctors that would do all the back-office computing for them, insurance claim processing, billing, etc. But our focus was on how do you communicate this turn, the benefits of this turnkey computer system in terms that was kind of my entry [00:16:00] point. I became fascinated with the digital technology and in particular, the exponential rate of improvement in the digital technology.
And I said, this is, this is powerful. This is going to change the world. And I fell prey to the Silicon Valley kind of narrative of, you know, you can be part of this and help change the world. And I haven't looked back. Uh, that was in 1980 and I've been in Silicon Valley ever since. I did a lot of things.
I was a senior executive with Atari and the videogame business many, many years ago, uh, helped open up a McKinsey and companies. Silicon Valley office started their e-commerce practice back in 1993, about 11 years ago, got approached by Deloitte to set up a new research center for them. And that's what became the Center for the Edge, which I've been running ever since.
Amy: You like to start things.
John: Well, it's interesting because if I look back on my career, the [00:17:00] two things that really excited me, one was doing startups, starting things, but I found, you know, I did two startups, tech startups, and, um, I found that while they were the most satisfying things I'd ever done, they were also the most consuming things.
I mean, I, when I was doing the startups, I lost any perspective about the rest of life, the rest of business. It was all about making this startup successful. And on the other side, what really excited me too, was working in consulting where I had the opportunity to be exposed to a lot of different client situations and new problems, new ideas.
And the variety was very stimulating. And so ultimately, the way I resolved that tension between which of these do I want to do was to focus on doing startups within larger consulting firms. So starting a new office for McKinsey, starting new practices, starting a research center, but all within a larger [00:18:00] consulting operation.
Amy: Wow. So, I first got to know you through your book, Net Gain.
John: Oh, we're going way back. Yes.
Amy: Yeah. And that really popped onto the scene with people that were working in early online virtual communities as I was in gaming and then also in e commerce. What motivated you to write that book? How did that come to life, that project?
John: It's interesting. The catalyst was, um, at the time I was working with McKinsey & Company and we were working with a large telecommunications company as a client. And they were very interested in the internet and, um, basically this question of, uh, how can we use the internet to, uh, communicate or send out, uh, content to people.
And so we went out and did research and I, one of the things that always [00:19:00] stuck in my mind was, we went, actually went back to Alexander Graham Bell in developing the telephone that most people don't realize but his original vision for the telephone was it was going to be used to broadcast symphonies and music and news to people.
That was the use of the telephone. And he was actually quite surprised that most people ended up using it to talk to each other. There was this epiphany that actually that is what is going to drive the growth of the internet. It's ultimately going to be helping people to connect with each other rather than just accessing content.
So that was the white space that we saw at the time. And we saw that, you know, actually, when you look at what people were, how people were spending their time, even in those early days on the internet, it was in discussion forums and, uh, different kinds of. social networks emerging at the time. And so that was the catalyst to focus on the opportunity to [00:20:00] create virtual communities.
Amy: How do you see that insight playing out today?
John: Yeah, I would say that in my view, we're still, we still haven't really tapped into the real opportunity. Most of the, uh, so called social networks are where people share things with each other, photos and clips of something that they find interesting. But my view is the real opportunity is to help people come together and learn from each other again.
You'll hear that learning is a big theme in the work we do and creating real sustained communities of interest where we're learning from each other on an ongoing basis. And another level of opportunity, which again, I think is relatively undeveloped at this point is what I call communities of impact where we're connecting not just to talk to each other and learn from each other about new ideas. But [00:21:00] we're also coming together to actually try to do something together and achieve impact in some area that's important to us.
Amy: I think we're gonna need to have a part two because I mean I've been thinking very deeply about this as well. And you know because I'm a system architect. I really see that the core architecture of today's popular social networks. The atomic unit isn't the conversation where people are talking to each other as it is in say a threaded environment.
The core unit is the update. It's the piece of content shared and then conversations are attached to specific updates rather than conversations being, you know, an atomic unit. And that means far less shared context and less opportunity to do those kinds of longer term conversations that lead to impact.
But we've got other things [00:22:00] to talk about right now. But I just like I'm on the edge of my seat wanting to talk to you about this more.
John: Great.
Amy: You know, the story is not yet fully written.
John: No, no, we're just in the early stages.
Amy: Let's go back to your career. So, you wrote that book while you were still at McKinsey.
Now you've written several other books since then, net worth out of the box. Yes. So, was that while you were still at McKinsey that you were doing all this writing?
John: No, I, I wrote two books while I was at McKinsey. Mm hmm. Actually, one of the things I found was that McKinsey was not as supportive of my writing as I would have liked.
And it was one of the reasons that I ended up leaving was because I was really passionate about synthesizing and writing up. I've often said that I would write books even if nobody ever read them. Just because the process of writing a book, at least for me, generates so many new insights. That I would have never come up with if I were just talking about it or [00:23:00] writing shorter pieces.
And so I was really passionate about continuing to write and that's been a driver of where I want to spend my time.
Amy: Are you currently writing anything?
John: Oh, glad you asked. I have just finished a new book. So yeah, the catalyst for this new book was my, most of my career has been around business strategy.
And over time I've come to realize that actually, the strategy is not the important thing. It's psychology. It's understanding the motivations, the emotions, the fears, the hopes, the aspirations of people, both individually and collectively, because if you don't understand that, you're not going to be able to motivate them and mobilize them in ways that have impact and the best strategy is just going to sit on the shelf somewhere.
So, I've been more and more focused on human psychology and what drives that and shapes that and in that context, I've also become more and more concerned. Um, [00:24:00] as I look around the world and travel around the world, I see that an increasing number of people are driven by fear and, uh, that fear I think is, is driving us to some pretty dysfunctional behavior.
And so, unless we understand the origins of that fear, what's driving that fear and how to shift that fear to hope and excitement. I think we're going to have a very dystopian outcome here.
Amy: That's dark.
John: No, no. Well, my, the whole purpose of my book is to shift that to a more positive outcome. I will hope I'm hoping I can be a catalyst to help people realize where we're headed and that there is an alternative path.
And again, play to the psychology to understand what what's required to shift this psychology.
Amy: I can't wait to read it. I'll make sure that we share a link where people can find out more about it.
John: Excellent. I've done a whole series of blog posts that kind of [00:25:00] give early, early-stage indicators of some of the themes for sure.
Amy: Wonderful. So, you've talked a lot about learning, and I share that obsession of yours. And I also think it's very, very strategic for businesses in today's climate. So, I share that with you as well. Now, a big part of learning is making mistakes. You really can't learn without them. So, when you look back on your career and just on all your activities, what were some of the mistakes you made or people, teams that you worked with made that you learned the most from?
John: Wow. You know, I, again, I think that one of my big lessons, uh, over, over the years has been that I didn't pay enough attention to psychology. You know, I was a classic business school graduate. You know, you're taught there that it's all about data and analytics and do the right analytics, put it in the right charts, present it to the right [00:26:00] people, and they'll act on it.
And I've come to realize that it's not about data and analytics, it's about emotions. And if you don't understand those emotions and... find ways to address that you're not gonna have impact. So to me, that was one of the biggest lessons in my life. And I think the other thing is just I focus on very big opportunities and big changes in the world and how the world's changing. And in the early days, I was more focused on how to get big impact quickly.
And over time, and again, this is partly shaped by increasing focus on psychology. I've realized that if you try to go for big impact quickly, you're going to overwhelm people and that the key or one of the, the subtitle of my most recent book, the Power of Pull, uh, was small moves, smartly made can [00:27:00] set big things in motion.
And so, it's resist the temptation to go big upfront. Start with some very well thought out small moves that can demonstrate impact quickly and motivate people to join in and scale that in a way that's going to have real impact.
Amy: I love it. So, I mean, that's a big part of actually bringing creative ideas to life and making things absolutely, like, have an impact.
John: No, absolutely. And, and again, it ties into the theme of learning because, you know, if you're going big upfront, you've thought it all through, you have all the detailed blueprints, everything's mapped out. Guess what? You're going to be wrong 80 percent of the time. So, if you start small and learn through action, you can learn a lot faster what's really working, what's not, and refine that approach in a way that generates even more impact over time.
It's a learning approach.
Amy: And [00:28:00] what you just said pretty much describes the core approach of Lean Agile and the core approach of my new book, Game Thinking, which is exactly that, figuring out how to start small. For you though, you work with large multinational corporations. That seems like it's particularly a tough challenge.
I mean, a lot of startups have big ideas, but they embrace that they need to build an MVP. They need to build something tiny first. Game developers work this way as well. Naturally, they know they can't build the big thing first. They have to build the little thing and tune it and grow it more. How do you wrestle this problem to the ground with a bigger company?
How do you communicate this to them?
John: Well, it's, it's a challenge for sure. Um, I think that, uh, again, our, our basic message is that large institutions are fundamentally going to have to transform the world is changing at such a profound level [00:29:00] that. The existing institutions can have to rethink everything, but the classic response to that is the top-down Big Bang approach.
You know, executive comes in and announces that we have to change everything. And because we're a large organization, this is going to take a lot of money and because it's large organization, it's going to take a long time. But trust me, at the end of all this, wonderful things will happen. One of the key themes we have in our work is to have a very strong respect for the immune system and the antibodies that, in our experience, live in every large institution and will quickly mobilize at the slightest sign of change.
And that top-down Big Bang approach brings out the immune system in a very powerful way. A lot of money? Wait a minute. Not from my budgets. A long time I got quarterly targets to meet. Don't distract me. I can't be distracted. And so the immune system is [00:30:00] very effective at crushing those approaches. And we've come up with an alternative approach true to the small moves theme that we call scaling the edge, which is the way best way to drive transformation in a large institution is not top down across the entire institution.
It is starting with an edge. That today is pretty small, but if you understand the forces that are reshaping the economy has the potential to scale at a very rapid rate to the point where it actually will become the new core of the institution, not just the diversification, not just a new initiative, but the new core and drive the transformation through the edge.
Rather than the core. So, it's definitely part of that notion of small moves smartly made.
Amy: Let's keep going on the theme of learning from mistakes. So, you work with a lot of different companies. That's one of the joys of having a job like you have. You see exposure [00:31:00] broadly rather than narrowly. Yes. What are some of the most common mistakes that you see very smart, well-meaning people make when they're starting to bring an idea to life?
John: I think that there are a lot of, a lot of mistakes. I think part of it is, again, this notion of focusing on, uh, reason and data as opposed to emotions. Just addressing that fundamental human dimension is. It's critical. And again, most executives in my experience, and they've been trained this in business school and later is, you know, emotions or a distraction focus on the on the data.
And then part of it, too, is they don't spend enough time in my experience. Building a group of people that are going to be the change driver. I mean, they try to do it if we're talking about the CEO. The CEO often takes it on his or her [00:32:00] shoulders to drive the change versus no. Who are the people within my organization that are really passionate about the change?
That we could come together and they may not all be reporting to me as the CEO directly, but they're in the organization. They're really passionate there. They're really committed to driving change. Um, how can I connect with those people in a way that where we reinforce and support each other and hold each other accountable?
So I think that's a big issue. And then the other one is just the, you know, we're big proponents of this notion of even though the goal is to move quickly, it's to also take the time to step back and reflect and learn from the experience.
You know, from those early initiatives, what did we learn? What could we have done better? What were we mistaken about? How can we refine the approach to have even more impact going forward? There's just not enough time for reflection and learning. [00:33:00] As you go, and I think that's another big mistake.
Amy: You've been working on the edge of innovation for many years, dancing on the edge, as it were.
John: Yes.
Amy: And one of the things that I see a lot and that other people have shared with me is there's this weird paradoxical quality that successful innovators have, which is that they definitely have a vision. Like they're not just throwing mud against a wall.
There's a vision, but at the same time, there's a relentless focus on testing that vision against the market, starting with small things and growing, you know, I like the diffusion of innovations curve, you know, the crossing the chasm curve where you really have to capture that passionate early market first with something new and then move on.
So you have to be able to. shift where you're focused in the [00:34:00] market and also have a vision and be willing to radically change your vision all at the same time in order to successfully innovate.
And it's a, it's a, it's almost, it's paradoxical in a way. And so what have you learned? About how that paradox plays out with companies you've worked with, with teams you've worked with?
John: Uh, it's a great question, and by the way, I love paradox. Uh, many people comment the, the name of my center. The Center for the Edge in itself is a paradox.
Are you a center or you the edge? Which are you? You can't be both. Uh, have we actually are both embrace the paradox. I think in the context of your question, the broadly at a high level, the approach that we're suggesting to people is it is paradoxical in the sense of we call it zoom out, zoom in approach.
And you need to focus on two horizons in parallel. One is a long [00:35:00] term 10-to-20-year horizon. The zoom out and really be able to craft and identify a very tangible and inspiring opportunity that's huge, that's really big, that could motivate people to take risk and help them to make the shift from fear to hope, to excitement, because this is such an inspiring opportunity.
So that's the zoom out piece. The zoom in piece is six to 12 months and it focuses on what are the two or three things we could do no more. We need to really align on what two or three are most important in the next six to 12 months that would have the greatest potential to accelerate us towards that longer term, uh, opportunity.
And one of the key values of that zoom in focus. Is starting to generate really tangible impact quickly that can help to overcome the fear because even if you've got a really inspiring opportunity [00:36:00] that's down out in the future, the sooner you can start to demonstrate we're on the path, there is a path and we're on it that again helps to address the emotional issues of people who are at one level interested, intrigued by the opportunity, but fearful and overcoming that fear and turning it into excitement. It comes from the short term focus on short term impact, but within the context of that longer term destination.
Amy: Love it. So, keeping on the theme of hope and excitement, what are you seeing out in the world right now that's new and exciting in design and tech and in other places these days? What's making you inspired? Whose work are you following?
John: I try to follow a lot of people. Um, what to me is interesting, two things.
There's a tendency, I think, for, for many of us to get consumed by [00:37:00] a particular technology, you know, artificial intelligence, blockchain, you know, that's the exciting thing. And there are a lot of those technologies, frankly, I think that, you know, one of the exciting things is there are so many technologies.
That are exponentially advancing. And the most powerful thing to me is how these technologies are coming together and interacting with each other, not just in isolation, one technology it's, it's these things coming together that creates the real power and potential. And focusing on the connections to me is, is the exciting opportunity ahead.
And then I think on the other side, it's the notion of to be, uh, determined yet, but the opportunity for people to shift to, uh, uh, an emotion of excitement and hope and where they embrace the notion that by coming together, we can accomplish things [00:38:00] that we could never do on our own. And that that's the exciting thing is coming together around a shared opportunity where we can all learn faster and have even more impact over time together using these technologies as enablers that to me is also very exciting.
But that's the part that I still think needs to be really addressed to make it come alive.
Amy: If you look back on all of the projects you've brought into the world, what do you feel is your superpower as a creative person? What really lights you up?
John: You know, it goes back to the whole theme of the edge. I'm, I'm drawn to edges in part because I forget who, who said it, but very much speaks to me is this notion that answers are actually pretty boring.
The really exciting thing are the new [00:39:00] questions. What are the questions that could be answered that need to be answered? And that's what pulls me is focusing on what are the new questions that they're typically emerging at first on an edge of some kind. It could be a demographic edge, younger generations.
It could be geographic edges, emerging economies, technology edges, new generations of technology. But what are the questions that are emerging on these edges? That if we could answer them would create enormous value. I'm just drawn to, to explore edges. I often say that I, I work and play on edges because that's where the learning is.
Amy: Thank you for taking us along for a ride on. all these edges. It's very stimulating and I love your stories and can't wait to have a follow up conversation and dig deeper into some of this.
John: I look forward to it. We clearly share a lot of interests in common for sure.
Amy: Thank you, [00:40:00] John. Really appreciate it.
John: Thank you.
Outro: Thanks for listening to Getting2Alpha with Amy Jo Kim. The shows that help you innovate faster. Faster and smarter. Be sure to check out our website, getting2alpha.com. That's getting(number)2alpha.com, for more great resources and podcast episodes.