8 Perspectives on What Next?

The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past. Edition 194.

We all wonder “what next?” since we will spend the rest of our lives in the future.

How can we best understand key trends and the opportunities and challenges tomorrow will bring?

What can and should we do to position ourselves, our teams and our businesses in a way that allows us to thrive?

One way is to ask a range of world class individuals who marry expertise, craft, bravery, risk-taking, passion and a track record of pioneering across a wide spectrum of subjects and areas, about what they believe is next in their fields.

Over the past four years I have spoken to over 100 talented people across the world who have made their mark in the arts, business, culture, science, technology and much more asking them for the three biggest things they see coming next that everyone should pay attention to.

These conversations are professionally recorded, distilled, edited and supported by a world class team working across three continents at the Publicis Groupe which then make it available completely free (no subscription fee and no advertising or promotion) on every major podcasting platform across the globe (and to all 106,000+ Publicis Groupe employees via the internal Marcel platform.)

You can find the conversations on Apple here:

You can find the conversations on Spotify here:

8 Perspectives from Season 5.

We record 24 shows each year in three seasonal bursts of 8 episodes.

This season of 8 shows reflects the range of guests and subjects which makes this show unique in that it does not focus on a subject, a country, an ideology or a technology.

We do not even have a well-defined “target audience”!

Just humans who want to learn and grow and ensure a better future.

So the conversations focus on helping people see, feel and think differently about how they can grow themselves, their teams and their business.

The goal is to have the listener come away with accelerated insights, actionable inspiration and a feeling that the guest helped them augment intelligence.

AI’s of a different type than the AI we are all preparing for.

Here is a very small sampling of perspectives from each of the 8 people we were privileged to speak with this season ( You can find all these 8 episodes plus the first 2 of the next season and dozens of other conversations on your choice of a podcast platform by typing in “What Next? Publicis Groupe”).

Listen to any one and it will open your mind. Listen to all eight and you will be significantly better off as a person and a professional. Your “what next” will likely be an upgraded version of you before you heard “What Next?”

1. John Kosner on the Future of Sports

   John Kosner is the President of Kosner Media, a digital media and sports consultancy and an investment advisor to sports tech startups on the future of sports.
   
   His four decades of expertise include building ESPN into the world's leading digital sports destination; he also struck ESPN's original streaming deal with Bamtech, which led to Disney's acquisition of Major League baseball's technology firm in 2016.

In a world where sports is dominating media and fusing with gaming anybody interested in business should listen to it (even if you are the rare bird who does not follow sports.)

John argues that sports will follow gaming into the interactive world building communities around sports players online and offline as younger fans look for new ways to engage.

He advises us to follow his old Disney colleague, Steve Jobs’ mantra: “beware the status quo” in a world where everything including sports is being re-imagined.

John explains why integrity and trust will be key in a world of sports as AI and sports betting scale.

2. Rudina Seseri on AI Language Models
   
   Long before AI was cool Rudina Seseri, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Glasswing Ventures was investing in the space. Amidst the hysteria about AI it is great to hear a deeper, more reasoned and seasoned perspective on AI from someone with 19 years of investing and operational experience in high-growth AI and Frontier Technology companies.
   
   Rudina argues that large language models will become smaller, more distilled, more refined, and therefore more powerful, while the transparency of the open-source and open model landscape will enable companies to control their own destinies.
   
   Rudina also believes that the Coming Wave, predicted by author Mustafa Suleyman, will strip the paint off some AI companies to reveal the true AI-Natives set to thrive.

3. Richard Townsend on The Future of Work

   Richard Townsend is CEO Workforce Learning at QA which delivers learning programs to some of the greatest companies in the world shares insights on how Al is going to create better humans.

   He shared how the key is to get companies to adapt work and organization to AI versus just adding skills and expertise.

   How a growth mindset and learning organization will combine AI, data and the cloud in new ways to augment humans.

   
   Augmented Humans is a profound idea.

   And ultimately that is where real productivity starts to happen.
   

4. Lisa McCarthy on Up-skilling.

   Lisa McCarthy is the CEO and co-founder of The Fast Forward Group, a training and executive coaching company that gives people a proven approach to think big, manage stress and achieve success and fulfillment in their whole life.

   Prior to starting Fast Forward, Lisa spent 25 years at prominent media companies Univision, Viacom and CBS leading sales organizations responsible for billions in revenue. 

   Lisa shares how to help teams overcome the toll of high-pressure, always-on workplaces where people feel professional success requires personal sacrifice.

Lisa explains that there will continue to be a significant war for talent and leaders are already learning that they will benefit more from up-skilling the people they have versus trying to get external talent that may or not make it in terms of onboarding.

5. Lou Paskalis on the Role of Advertising on News.

   Lou Paskalis is Chief Strategy Officer of Ad Fontes Media, CEO and founder of AJL Advisory. Lou is a former president and chief operating officer of MMA Global and was a senior marketer at Gallo, American Express and Bank of America.

   Lou frames and explains the business opportunity that the return to News represents for marketers which also has the added benefit of bolstering our society. He discusses why the unfounded fears of becoming collateral damage in the culture wars has sidelined many advertisers and deprived news publishers of a valuable source of advertising revenue at a time when they are actively combating disinformation and misinformation in a growing war on truth.
   
   Lou notes that as AI becomes mainstream, the proliferation of misinformation it could create will exacerbate what we are already seeing today. Some bad actors will introduce "deep-fakes" that will be harder for consumers to discern and technology to detect. These ultimately threaten everything from the way business gets done to our society and indeed, democracy itself.

   But at the same time, AI will help news publishers hone the appeal of their core product by helping them easily and efficiently tailor their offerings to disparate audiences.

   There are big opportunities for savvy marketers to partner with news publishers by investing in news advertising and enabling new technologies to bring both news and their messages forward to grow their business.

6. Mark Grether on Mobility Media.

   Mark Grether today runs Uber's advertising business in over 30 markets. He also sold Sizmek to Amazon and was the one of the architects of WPP's Xaxis.
   
   Mark explains why we are in the renaissance of marketing and it is not that CMO's are being eliminated but rather they are being elevated as marketing becomes the growth driver in this new age.
   
   Mark predicts there will be many more platforms ( Like Uber, Walmart Connect and much more) as companies realize they are in a B To C business ( products and services to consumers) and a B to B ( data monetization for partners and companies) business.
   
   How mobility media is joining mobile media to create a new palette of opportunities, businesses and experiences for people because knowing where someone is and where they are going is as important as who they are. And why soon the car may be another living room and the auto companies will be huge ad sellers at Cannes selling their connected (tv and other) experiences.
   
   How online and offline, above the line and below the line and much more are fusing and why fusion is the path forward from confusion.
   
   Why businesses have always used machine learning in media to find the right person at the right place and the right time but AI will allow one to craft the right creative.

7. Joey Hubbard on Wellbeing.
   

   Joey Hubbard has worked with Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant and many leaders before becoming the Chief Training Officer at Thrive Global which he co-founded with Arianna Huffington.
   
   Joey believes a key to the future is to be resilient and understand why looking after your and your team's well-being is critical.

   One has to be well. To lead well.
   
   Joey shares provocative insights into how to thrive given the pressures of today including

   a) why workplaces mandating RTO need to offer something to “earn the commute”.

   b) taking care of yourself is the least selfish thing you can do!

   c) the power of tiny habits which we can leverage right away.

8. Kirthiga Reddy on Blockchain.

   Kirthiga Reddy was the first employee of Facebook in India. She is a transformative leader, pioneering engineer, advocate for fairness/opportunity and also a hugely successful leader at Meta/Facebook, first female investment partner of Softbank, co-founder of Liftery and now the CEO and Co-Founder of Generative AI and Blockchain start up Virtualness.
   
   In this conversation, Kirthiga discusses the enabling opportunities provided by Blockchain, Generative AI, and the rise of India.
   
   Kirthiga argues that in the world of Gen AI, blockchain is going to become even more important for creators, brands, sports media, and entertainment.

   
   Kirthiga believes that the read-write-own era that blockchain ushers will give individuals including many who have never had the ability to leverage their talent new ways to monetize their side hustles (and also main hustles) and help bring forth a fairer and more creative world.

   She envisions a future where all moments that matter — including awards, certificates, memorabilia -- will be on blockchain.

And if these are not enough you can hear the first two episodes of Season 6 where Sophie Williams a former leader at Netflix speaks about the need for more senior women and John Winsor an executive in residence at Harvard Business School shares thinking about being open and about talent in the cloud.

Or hear episodes about Managing Gen Z from author Heather McGowan or how to best give and receive feedback from executive coach Kim Scott. Or hear about about risk taking, failure, trust and continuous re invention from the legendary Maurice Levy.

Coming soon the future of law, cancer care, and much much more.

All subscription and commercial free and accessible on every major platform in the world.

Click here for access to all the episodes of “What Next?”on Spotify

And here for access to all the episodes of “What Next?” on on Apple

Rishad Tobaccowala leverages forty years of global experience across dozens of industries to help leaders and companies thrive in transformative times.