Thought Sparks

Everybody Wants To Rule the World. When R "Ray" Wang says it, he isn't just channeling a popular musical line, he really means it. In his view, digital giants are pulling further and further ahead of the rest of us and will eventually reshape our economic future into one of extreme capitalism. He anticipates we will have huge data-driven networks, extreme consolidation, extreme investing and extreme monetization. He's going to be my guest to talk about this phenomenon which is part of his new book, and to help us think through how the digital age doesn't end up in catastrophe. He's the Founder, Chairman and Principal Analyst of Constellation research and co-host of the DisrupTV program.

If you could pick someone to lead you through an intelligent conversation about the new world of work, you couldn't do better than to consult with Jennifer Moss. Author of the forthcoming HBR Press book "The Burnout Epidemic," Jennifer has written a best business book of the year, won awards for her success as an entrepreneur and spoken to audiences all over the world. It was exciting to get to know her and to learn about her book, which provides a guide on an incredibly timely topic.

Work - what's work anyway? Where does it get done? How are people supposed to "manage" it? These are questions of the hour and who better to think them through than my colleague, former professor and mentor Peter Cappelli. Capelli is one of the foremost thinkers on the topic of people and work I have ever met. We'll be chatting about his new book, "The Future of the Office - Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face" out any day now by Wharton University Press. This is a conversation anyone with an interest in the future of work won't want to miss!

My Friday Fireside chat guest, John Hagel, was looking around corners before I even stumbled across the concept.  In this short clip from our longer conversation, John explains how, in the early days of the Internet, he saw massive opportunities in creating virtual communities on-line and also to create “infomediaries” who would guarantee a fair exchange of value in return for access to people’s personal information.  Featured in his books from the 90’s “Net Gain” and “Net Worth,” these are two ideas that remain huge opportunities even today as we struggle to reckon with what the digital revolution means for our lives.  If you have five minutes, have a watch – always so interesting to learn the history of things that we take for granted today.

We think of unusual events as rare - but as my Friday Fireside Chat guest, Jonathan Brill, points out, they may be rare individually, but when they accumulate, the chance of their creating a catastrophic inflection point increases. Indeed, his research finds that most firms in the US have faced four significant calamities every year! These are what he calls "rogue waves" or events in business that are like the huge waves that can come seemingly out of nowhere to sink even large ships. While he was at HP, he had the amazing title of Global Futurist and Director long term research. He talks about how you get people to pay attention to the possibilities, how to change behavior and how to change culture so that the action needed today to be resilient in an uncertain future is taken.

Zoe Chance graduated from a massively successful corporate career to doing groundbreaking research to teaching a hugely popular elective at Yale called Mastering Influence and Persuasion, aka "Doing Uncomfortable Things That Make You a Better Person.” She's a TED speaker, consults with major companies and has a new book coming out in 2022, "Influence for Nice People: The New Science of Making More Friends, Money, Impact—and Joy." We talk about the practical implications of her research and how it can be used to help people do some good in the world. As she says, "we cannot change people's minds, but we can influence their behavior when we learn how the mind works."

I first met Zachary Karabell when he was enrolled in my Columbia Executive Education program "Leading Strategic Growth and Change" and he made a big impression on me all those years ago. I'm delighted to catch up with him to talk about his rich collection of activities - he has a brand new book out about Brown Brothers Harriman and the way capitalism used to work. He is an author and columnist, the founder of the Progress Network at New America, and president of River Twice Research and River Twice Capital. He's written many other books and is a regular columnist and commentator. An all around fascinating person I'm looking forward to chatting with.

All digital, all the time - that's what we hear among the chattering business classes.  My guest begs to differ.  Instead, Robert E. Siegel points out, the competitors who will triumph combine both "Brains" (digital, smarts) with "Brawn" (operations and execution). Just one or the other won't cut it. Indeed, incumbents have shown that they can win by leveraging traditional strengths even as they bring on new capabilities. This should be fascinating.  Come join us!

Jayshree Seth, Ph.D., is a corporate scientist and chief science advocate for 3M Company, where she has worked for over 27 years to advance science and develop new technologies and environmentally sustainable industrial products. She has over 70 patents to her name (with more on the way), received the incredibly prestigious Society for Women Engineers Achievement Award and is one of the few top performing scientists to be inducted into the 3M Carlton Society. We're going to be talking about her book "The Heart of Science," what its like to be among the pioneering women in STEM and whatever else she'd like to discuss!

In the inflection point that is a public health crisis, an economic crisis, a crisis of social justice and an environmental crisis, few people have more smart things to say than Physicist, biotech entrepreneur, author and consultant Safi Bahcall. His most recent book "Loonshots," was an instant Wall Street Journal bestseller. He previously co-founded a company developing drugs for cancer which went through an IPO. We'll be talking about smart ideas, innovation, science and discovery.