INSIGHT
THE INDEX-LINKED FUTURE
Success in business is all about breaking the norm and chasing the next big thing, according to Futurologist Magnus Lindkvist
F
uturologist and business intelligence expert, Magnus Lindkvist, gave an exhilarating speech at the NBG Supplier Summit in which he highlighted the need for businesses to embrace new opportunities.
He explained that earlier on in the year two researchers came up with the idea of logging every crisis we have experienced for the past 200 years, crises such as war, civil unrest, financial crises and climate change. They logged the events on the “turbulence index”. “They then indexed the crises to be able to compare it so the index goes up and down depending on the event. But then they found in their report, published in 2023, that the index for this very moment is the highest it has ever been.”
Lindkvist explained what he calls the “Kansas moment”; its origins come from the movie The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy falls from her home, in a dark place, through turbulence, and finds herself in a beautiful technicolour land of Oz. “I would argue that we, in 2023 and 2024, are living in a Kansas moment. That is this sense of unfamiliarity and strangeness and then all of a sudden. Kansas moments happen all the time now, we read about amazing things such as the things artificial intelligence can do. “The second thing to remember about Kansas moments is a little more philosophical. You need to think of it outside the realm of NBG, a question of your future-self and this includes your private life. The question is that when things change rapidly; do you want to
Rules are there to be followed, but also not followed, Lindkvist said. “A key thing to remember is that one should dance with rules and not break them. Rules are a reminder to people that bad things have happened. Rules should make us get more creative. Rules force us to find new ways.
compete or quit. You can’t choose both. You must choose a path; it is a red pill or a blue pill. You can either compete and be competitive or you can create and bring new things into the world.”
Lindkvist explained: “Companies don’t actually go bankrupt from trying new things. Companies go bankrupt for different reasons, one of them being nostalgia, and the other one being pessimism, not wanting to try new things because of the worry of failure. “Don’t sit at home and long for easier simpler times. Run into the fiercest turbulence and rejoice, this is when new things are invented. Michelle Obama lectures college students about running into the turbulence, always run towards the crisis and not away from it – this is your Kansas moment. “You need imagination, not logic. Not calculation but extrapolation. Instagram began its life as a failed geotagging company. Twitter, or X as it is known by now, started its life as a podcast platform.”
“Often businesses will start with one small step, often coming from someone just ‘doing stuff’ and not really knowing where it will go – if it ever goes anywhere. The second lesson, which is far more important, is that innovation happens when people come together.” He said: “Copying means zero sum gains. It means that you will be fighting for the exact same customer. The concept of market share has also been a mystery to me as well. The concept of the pie never growing or shrinking, being able to divide it up also has big questions. “Go to a place that others are not going to. Read things that others are not reading. Very often when everyone looks one way the opportunity is in the other direction, the real opportunity. When people say that’s a good idea, trust me, it isn’t. The status quo does not like to lose its status so when they say it’s a good idea it means that it fits nicely into the status quo. When people call you strange, stupid and bad, that is when you know you are onto something.”
Lindkvist said: “Trust me when I say, people are not going to care in a hundred years’ time what inflation was in the third quarter of 2023. “Uncertainty is the greatest invention of the future but it is a double edge sword.”
January 2024
THIS IS YOUR LIFE SO FAR...
17
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
