The last time I spoke in-person at a conference was in late February of this year, with in following weeks all my other engagements cancelled in rapid succession. It quickly became apparent that there would be no more physical events for the foreseeable future.

I do have other ventures but the majority of my revenue for the last couple of years has been as a professional speaker, so, as many others, I saw my current livelihood simply evaporating.

The need for personal reinvention

In March I suggested that the fundamental elements to strategy in a COVID world are survival and reinvention.

I evidently needed to follow my own prescriptions and reinvent myself.

Physical events supplanted by virtual events

It was clear that events would not entirely disappear, but that events activities and budgets would be greatly reduced, and until the pandemic was contained all events would have to be virtual.

Virtual speaking and events in fact play to my strengths. On the show I have shared the story of my decades of experience in virtual engagement, including organizing and moderating the world’s first cross-continental panels linked by video back in 2006 and commencing virtual speaking and strategy facilitation around the same time.

However a key issue is being found and visible when people are searching for keynote speakers for their virtual events, while overall demand is greatly reduced.

Everything virtual

It was certainly not just events that were going virtual.

Managing almost entirely remote workforces has become an immediate for every organization.

Yet this is hardly a new issue. I wrote extensively about connected and remote work in my 2002 book Living Networks and my 2009 book Implementing Enterprise 2.0, and in 2010 about the cloud workplace and organizations to networks as a key theme for the 2010s.

Not just organizations, but music is shifting to immersive live platforms, dating is becoming virtual, and government and democracy must become increasingly virtual.

Launching a live-streaming show

While I have extensive knowledge and experience of things virtual, I clearly still had a lot to learn in taking my work entirely into a virtual space.

It appeared inevitable that virtual work and play was going to play a central role not only in our immediate future, but also far beyond, accelerating the virtualization of business and society. Futurist Cathy Hackl noted that we compressed 2 years of advances into 2 months.

In response I came up with the idea of both demonstrating my capabilities and learning more about all things virtual by doing a live-streaming show on the theme of ‘virtual excellence’, the capabilities we would all need to learn to achieve our objectives.

Learning by doing

We have already had some amazing guests on the show, including Howard Rheingold, arguably the granddaddy of virtual communities, author and leading management thinker John Hagel, virtual facilitator extraordinaire Nancy White and many others.

One of the things that struck me as I spoke to our guests is that they all emphasized the concept learning by doing as at the heart of almost everything.

In particular John Hagel spoke powerfully and succinctly about his core theme of scalable learning. Every single one of the other guests essentially said that we can only learn by doing.

And that is exactly what I am doing in the show.

I am learning from all of my conversations with these amazing people, I am learning by producing the show, I am learning by working to build the show (please help us grow it by subscribing to the show on YouTube 😃!).

Sharing what we learn

And of course doing the show creates a virtuous circle: we learn and then we share what we learn.

That is perhaps the most powerful learning loop there is: learning to share and through sharing.

Highly challenging and highly rewarding

Doing the show is still a major challenge, as I have a number of other compelling projects, and any new YouTube channel requires substantial effort to get any meaningful traction at all.

I have already given up on the live-streamed production of the conversations: I had to be up at 7am my time to hit the timezones we want to cover. Pre-records are plenty good for now, we can engage on social while the shows are streamed on their weekly schedule.

The first few shows in particular are pretty embarrassing in their production quality. But as LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman says, “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” By that measure we definitely didn’t launch too late, and we learned faster for it.

Come along for the journey!

The intention is to grow the show, even though this early it hasn’t got much traction.

I believe in the concept and the potential of The Virtual Excellence Show, but far more importantly, I believe in how much I learn by doing the show. That alone makes it worthwhile.

I hope you will be an early YouTube subcriber and come along for the journey!

For a good while to come the show will be a major focus of my work – between substantial other projects I have on including writing a book and launching a new company – and I expect it to be more than amply interesting and fun.

Don’t set New Year’s resolutions

Among the topics for discussion we were asked to share our New Year’s resolutions.

I had to answer that philosophically I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. If you want to do something or change your behavior, you should just do it! There is no need to wait until the end of the year to start.

Moving beyond rigid goals

Personally, I have also de-emphasized setting specific short to medium-term goals in my life.

For me one of the most compelling reasons to be self-employed is that I can wake up in the morning and choose to change my path. Whether it is because I see better opportunities or want to change the character of my life, I can and do often shift my direction, sometimes subtly, sometimes fairly radically.

Committing to specific goals dictates my priorities and actions. I want a more fluid approach to life.

Are you moving forward fast enough?

For years my primary frame has been assessing whether I have ‘sufficient positive momentum’ on my journey. I do have a clear idea of the broad directions I am going, however the paths I choose to get there can change.

If I feel I have what I consider to be sufficient positive momentum then I can relax and fully appreciate what I am doing and experiencing.

Enjoying the journey not the outcome

One of the potential problems of the entrepreneurial path is that however well you are doing, you are motivated to take it even further. Every threshold you reach creates appetite for the next level. All of which creates a feeling that you are never achieving what you want to achieve.

I believe in enjoying life. Being content with what I judge to be sufficient positive momentum on my path means that I can fully enjoy the journey, I don’t need to wait until I have attained an elusive goal which I then promptly reset out of reach.

What is sufficient?

Of course there is no way to quantify ‘sufficient’ positive momentum. Part of the point is that the forward momentum may be coming in ways that you did not anticipate. You might fail to achieve your specific goals yet be making fantastic progress. Or you might achieve your articulated goals but not be achieving what you want to achieve.

At this stage in my life I am happy to leave it to my judgment on whether things are moving fast enough for my taste. Just because they are certainly doesn’t mean I slack off, in fact I find it even more motivating to taking action when things are progressing rapidly. However it is all positive motivation, not driven by trying to get to where I am not.

Choose your own path

I am well aware that what works for me is not necessarily right for others, and I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t set goals and work hard to achieve them.

However there are alternative approaches, and you might consider fully enjoying the delightful now of your journey once you are moving forward at a solid, satisfying pace.

Image: toine Garnier

More recently I have met Catherine Stace, CEO of Cure Brain Cancer Foundation, who has brought inspiring and truly disruptive approaches to medical research philanthropy, by focusing on making research far more collaborative and effective rather than simply funding antiquated research models.

It is no surprise that collaboration between Mark and Catherine has created something exceptional: SWITCH Festival, to be held in Sydney 27-29 August.

The event brings together large corporates from different industries, entrepreneurs, innovators, universities, students and more with the express intent of fostering inter-industry collaboration and to support “unlikely alliances”.

Major participating organisations include ANZ, Australia Post, Blackmore’s, IAG, and Scentre Group (Westfield), which are each sending around 20 staff each, while other companies are sending smaller teams. They will bring intellectual property and energy to the event, to see how the exceptional network present can catalyse new cross-domain ideas and innovations. The intent is to create compelling cross-boundary ideas and innovation that could not have come from a single organisation.

The first day will be a rich conference day with some oustanding speakers. I will be presenting on The Future of Work and Organisations.

Over the following two days teams will compete for the innovation prizes. I am honoured to be one of the judges among a highly distinguished group.

There are already 150 participants and limited remaining places, but individual tickets are available until 23 August for a 50% discount using the code SWITCHVIP. Entrepreneurs and students get an extremely low registration fee.

The CITIE Framework examines 9 different areas in which cities can support entrepreneurship and innovation, shown here:


Source: City Initiatives for Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship report

Each of these factors can be mapped on their importance to entrepreneurs, but also on the ability of cities to influence them. The report doesn’t look at the factors for which cities can have little short-term impact, such as house prices and quality of life, and focuses on the domains where they can implement initiatives that will have a real impact, such as access to customers, cost and availability of workspaces, and networking opportunities.

The report goes on to look at the 9 factors in detail, including ranking the relative success of each of the 40 cities covered in the study, and then goes on to provide a summary ranking of the position of each of the cities in driving innovation.

There is much that city governments can do to drive innovation; this report provides an excellent framework and analysis to support those initiatives.

My keynote on Embracing the Future looked at the broad trends shaping our world, and how they were shaping the world of education in particular. Peer learning is a fundamentally important trend today, describing how people learn increasingly from their peers rather than formal teachers. Indeed, the leading edge of any domain of study is driven by peers who share what they discover on the edges of their discipline.

One of the stories I told in my keynote was how a young Mexican man has been amply rewarded for his talent and his propensity to share, rather than formal education.

Image: Jordi Muñoz, Chris Anderson and Jon Callaghan of 3D Robotics Credit: Christopher Michel

The detailed story has been written up in Business Insider and other publications, but in short Wired magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson set up an online community DIY Drones to explore his passion, attracting over 60,00 enthusiasts.

One of the first participants was Jordi Muñoz, a 21 year-old Mexican in Tijuana, who was passionate – and extremely knowledgeable – about drones, helping push out the boundaries of what was possible.

“He was just ahead of us all,” Anderson recalls. “Nobody had grokked the whole picture the way he had.”

Without knowing anything about Muñoz other than his expertise, Anderson sent him money to develop his designs, and before long asked him to be his co-founder of his company 3D Robotics before he had met him. Formal qualifications were irrelevant. What mattered was his knowledge, and making that visible by sharing with others.

3D Robotics has recently raised an additional $64 million for a total of $99 million in funding.

While formal qualifications will still be of value for some time, those who are looking for the most talented will always know where to look: the open spaces where the best in the world are learning and sharing with their peers.

In a highly interactive session I ran through major trends in technology, business, and society, went into depth on the lessons emerging from lean startups and crowd-based models, and then facilitated groups in generating high-potential ideas for new service lines and creating a high-performance organization.

While many of the concepts of lean startups feel quite foreign within many established organizations, a useful way to help shift thinking is to focus on the concept of ‘testable hypotheses’. This is central to how dynamic startups function, and can fairly readily be introduced into large organizations – and their clients – without seeming overly radical.

In introducing the idea into enterprise I have found it useful to frame testable hypotheses as 5 steps:

1. What do you believe customers will respond to positively?

This could be for either existing or new customers, and helps define potential initiatives as well as emphasizing customer value.

2. How can I test this as quickly and inexpensively as possible?

Idea seeding and brainstorming can often help managers identify quicker, cheaper approaches than they might initially consider.

3. What specific measurement will tell me my hypothesis is correct?

Identifying both measurable outcomes and pre-defined levels for validation facilitates more rapid iteration.

4. Hypothesis validated or not, what have I learned?

There is always success if something is learned at low cost and effort which can be applied to subsequent initiatives.

5. What is the next assumption to test?

Early identification of next hypotheses and steps allows for faster progress.

There are plenty of processes and approaches that can be readily brought to bear in making large organizations far more agile in innovation and growth initiatives.

However the first step is often to get executives and managers to try a different approach to small projects and see the benefits.

This can quickly defuse objections and allow new processes to be applied more broadly, particularly to initiatives that are explicitly framed around growth.

Particularly for internal corporate events, one of the most popular themes is ‘Embracing the Future‘, in which I not only point to the dramatic shifts underway and the potential of the future, but show that the attitude of embracing those changes will bring the greatest personal opportunities.

I recently created a short video to help describe the main themes of the keynote, shown below.

My keynote on Embracing the Future is always tailored to the audience, industry, and context, but the underlying attitude of having employees embrace rather than shy away from change and emerging opportunities is critical for every company.

I’d love to hear any thoughts or reflections on the video.

Over the past year I have used the framework extensively as a starting point for executive briefings and strategy workshops on the strategic implications of the rapidly changing world of work.

However the static visual can be hard to interpret on its own, so we have now created a short video that delves into and narrates the framework.

I hope you find the video useful, please feel free to share it or use it in your internal meetings. We will continue to evolve the framework over time.

It was a fantastic and sometimes heated discussion, most enjoyable. The highlights of the conversation are published in the online magazine.

At the outset I said (quotes were severely edited for length):

Ross Dawson: We have over a million Australians who live around the world. This Australian diaspora is a way of linking the extraordinary talent we have in this country to the rest of the planet. Far more than any other country, we must look at digital productivity and what that affords us. Australia in the last six years or so has become a truly networked economy with a network mentality.

As I’ve noted before, entrepreneurial migration is highly valuable in forming global networks.

Australia has come a long, long way in the last 6-8 years in becoming a nation with a true network mentality. This is essential given our geographical isolation. However I am becoming concerned that our progress is not keeping pace with the rest of the world.

Later in the conversation I was quoted:

Ross Dawson: How do we get new levels, layers and structures of capital markets where money gets allocated to the ventures that have the greatest potential financial and social impact? We still have explicit and implicit industrial policy in Australia which is in favour of legacy industries, not the industries of Australia’s future or potential future.

Crowdfunding is just one of range of new capital market structures that are allocating funds to where they can have the most value. National regulation is critical in enabling or disabling these innovative approaches.

The nature of politics is that legacy industries have the funds, clout, and connections to make governments pay attention, while newer industries don’t have the impact or access. Yet they are where our future lie. It is critical that attention – and in some cases resources – are spent on the networked, knowledge-based economy that will bring our future prosperity.

The first keynote provided a big picture view of the changing world of business, while the second keynote focused on the future of retail.

Here are the slides to my first keynote. The slides to the second keynote are here. As always, my slides are designed to support my presentations, not to stand alone, but may be useful to others.