Don't Stop thinking about tomorrow

09:15 Opening remarks:: Johan Peter Paludan, CIFS (DK) and Adam Hill, Brand X (DK). Adam Hill will guide us through the Don’t Stop Conference.

09:25 Human Power – Arie de Geus (UK): In economic terms we have entered a the transitional period. Knowledge has displaced capital as the key to corporate success. We live, however, in a period in which the language, the traditions and, most importantly, the Law still speak about business in the terminology of the capitalist era. The economical, managerial and societal consequences are fundamental. In the face of external pressures, managers have to change their priorities. Instead of running their companies to optimise capital, they must find a way to optimise people. They have to make the maximum use of whatever knowledge, thinking ability and brain power is available to them in order to be competitive. People, instead of being a “cost” item, have become the “source” of long-lasting business success. Considerable more managerial attention will have to be given to the relationship between the company and its people.

10:45 Creative Man vs. Corporate Man – Klaus Æ. Mogensen, CIFS (DK): The production of goods and routine knowledge work are increasingly being automated or outsourced to the new growth economies. The backbone of economy in the Western world is increasingly becoming idea work - innovation and creativity. The employees and executives of the industrial age were adapted to a life of routine work and well-defined roles. Idea work is fundamentally different and requires a new type of person, one for whom creativity and innovation isn’t just work, but a lifestyle. We need Creative Man to supplement or even supplant Corporate Man.

11:15 Shaping the culture of your market – John Grant (UK): The new agenda for marketing in the 21st century; intertwined with product, service and business model innovation, shaping people’s lifestyles, applying new models in (and from) new media, more aware of and respectful of cultural values. On this new agenda we need to rethink all sorts of cherished notions like what (if anything) a brand is and what use (if any) ‘trends’ are. John’s thinking is grounded in analysing hundreds of modern success stories (and a few failures). This will be a world exclusive as John Grant will draw from his new book, which comes out after the conference.

13:15 Fugitive Indigo: How challengers see Opportunity – Adam Morgan (UK): Challengers don’t seem to talk in terms of ‘innovation’ – they talk about ‘opportunity’. And in particular they seem to find opportunities even in well trodden and mundane categories – opportunities that the rest of us have missed for years. How do they ‘see’ these opportunities? How can we create lenses of our own to help us ‘re-see’ familiar categories and reveal the opportunities that we know must be there? This presentation will offer 3-4 lenses that we can try ourselves, if we want to look for challenger opportunity in our own category.

14:20 Corporate Foresight: Tomorrow today – Carsten Beck (DK): The chances of losing your leadership position is greater than ever. Globalisation, in combination with new technological tools, creates new market rules. Too many companies have missed the boat in this age of rapid change. In order to stay afloat – or even: stay at the top – you need to look at your market space through the eyes of the future. You may need to answer what-if questions like: What happens if my brand value disappears? What happens if my customers won’t meet with me? When will my current technological platform be obsolete? What happens when my competitor cuts prices by 30%? What happens when my company can’t attract the global talent? In order to go to the next level, it is necessary to get your company out of the comfort zone and thoroughly examine the market rules that might come. This can be done by using scenarios, creating profiles of the future life of your customer, etc. CIFS has more than 35 years of experience of how companies and organizations make use of futures studies.

15:10 Innovative new means of meeting social needs – Geoff Mulgan (UK): Geoff Mulgang will talk about ways to meet unmet needs. He is working with social innovation and is a pioneer in this field. He will provide you with unique insights regarding the corporate worlds need not only to be technologically and economically innovative – but also use social innovation as a competitive edge. Has your company considered creating a social R&D? If not, you might after this presentation. Geoff Mulgan will focus on new organization forms: public/private and global/local and how to use technology. He will present methods for creating new organization forms and means of meeting social/unmet needs and he will give examples from markets, public sector, and social movements.