I often asked what I’m reading to stay on top of future trends and to stay current on the industry. So why not ask some of the smartest people I know, the consultants at LCG, what they are reading and share my list with all of you as well?
While I have a number of resources I review, I like books, and specifically audiobooks. Here are a few that I recommend to the visionaries of today charged with creating the digital experiences of tomorrow.
- Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet – Klaus Schwab
After a review of the exponential rate of change of innovation, and a recognition that nearly every industry is becoming subject to the rules of Information Technology, Klaus builds the argument that the world is experiencing disruption, and that many of our economic systems are broken.
Both promise and peril lie ahead. What can we do as citizens, users of these technologies, and as leaders?
In particular, Schwab calls for leaders and citizens to “together shape a future that works for all by putting people first, empowering them and constantly reminding ourselves that all of these new technologies are first and foremost tools made by people for people.”
Of course, his book comes complete with 4 major recommendations around individual agency, a global social contract, foresight for future generations, and a change in the way we measure economic outcomes to human and societal outcomes. Is it any wonder that the Global Economic Forum has shifted their focus this year (2023) with their recently announced theme: “Cooperation in a fragmented world.”
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier, Shoshana Zuboff
Shoshana architects the language of the behavioral economy. As we search the internet, it searches us. Power fills a void. Where the average citizen believes that “privacy can be private”, the imbalance of information is inequitable.
Surveillance capitalists exploit the widening inequity of knowledge for the sake of profits. They manipulate the economy, our society and even our lives with impunity, endangering not just individual privacy but democracy itself.
Consider why advertisers are leaving Twitter en masse and why many parts of the US government are blocking TikTok from their networks, the allegations of Facebook targeting children and other “gray-area” decisions that these powerful companies are making.
The framework provided by Shoshana will help the visionaries of today who are charged with creating the digital experiences of tomorrow with the right questions to ask to use data for good. One of my favorite goodies was this: “Who knows?” Who decides? And who decides who decides?
Your perspective of governance models for data access will never be the same once you finish her book.
- Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers, Fred Reichheld, Darci Darnell and Maureen Burns.
The author of the Net Promoter Score renames NPS to the Net Purpose System. Fred sprinkles lots of feel-good stories about great customer services within his popular NPS framework, which he has aptly continued to build.
Purpose driven companies win. Fred makes the case, based on research, that the Good to Great model which focused primarily on financial capitalism has given way to customer capitalism. So the key to winning is to enrich the lives of those whom you serve.
While it’s true that I want our customers to realize profits, I’m so proud that we’ve made “selfless service” one of our 5 values at LCG.
Paul, LCG Managing Partner.
- Competing for the future, C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel
To aim bigger profits one must look for bigger competence. It is imperative to build intellectual property and that comes with patience and persistence.
If you are unable to comprehend the competences needed to succeed in your market, an outsider will develop them in their market and come for yours.
Transformation in the present is key to survival in the future. That’s why LCG helps visionaries of today to create the digital future.
Igor Rodrigues, LCG Marketing Brazil
- How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking, Sönke Ahrens
The subject of this book is not only for students or academics. It is focused on the process to solve an issue or to create something. This process involves thinking, understanding and developing new ideas in writing.
When we face a problem to solve, we need to go through the step of collecting-analyzing data and giving it to our brain so it can begins to process all the information. After that, we need to take a break, sleep, and let our subconscious work and find the solution.
That’s why sometimes we can sit in front of the computer and not being able to write a complete paraghaph but once we have processed all the data, our “inspiration” shows up because we have walked trought the creative thinking process. This way is how we prefer to work at LCG.
Yolanda, LCG Marketing México
What are you reading?
