O meu radar

• Tem radar? (parte II) (Maio de 2017)
• Cuidado com a absolutização do que a nossa empresa produz (Março de 2017)
• No caminho da "magia" (Março de 2015)
• Conseguem imaginar os job-to-be-done? (Fevereiro de 2015)
• O tempo é a variável mais escassa que temos (Junho de 2011)

E agora "The first dexterous and sentient hand prosthesis has been successfully implanted"... como não relacionar com "It’s Ecosystems, Not Inventions That Truly Change the World" e sentir no ar um cheiro a "instantaneous phase transition".

"Thinking about the future"

"If somebody tells you they can predict the future, don't believe them. Nobody can predict large socio-technical transformations and what exactly these are going to look like.
...
So, if no one can predict the future, why think about it? Because doing so helps you to inoculate yourself. In the medical field, inoculating yourself prevents you from falling ill. In futures thinking, if you've considered a whole range of possibilities, you're kind of inoculating yourself. If one of these possibilities comes about, you're better prepared.
...
Thinking about the future is also about imagining. It's about transforming how we think. It's about creating a map to the future and looking for the big areas of opportunity. We like to think about transformations, for example, in learning and work, and how they get connected and intertwined in various ways. And then we start thinking about zones of opportunity. How can we shape the future to make it more equitable? How can we amplify learning outcomes? What do we need to do to achieve these outcomes?
.
The future doesn't just happen to us. We have agency in imagining and creating the kind of future we want to live in, and we can take actions to get us there.
...
I said earlier that there is no data about the future; the only data we have is about the past. While we cannot fully rely on past data to help us see the future, there are larger patterns in history that we tend to repeat over and over again. Thus, we need to look back to see forward.
...
At its best, futures thinking is not about predicting the future; rather, it is about engaging people in thinking deeply about complex issues, imagining new possibilities, connecting signals into larger patterns, connecting the past with the present and the future, and making better choices today. Futures thinking skills are essential for everyone to learn in order to better navigate their own lives and to make better decisions in the face of so many transformations in our basic technologies and organizational structures. The more you practice futures thinking, the better you get. The five principles outlined above—not focusing on predictions, uncovering signals, understanding historical trajectories, weaving together larger patterns, and bringing diverse voices into the conversation—should help you on your journey of making futures thinking a way of life for you and your community."

Trechos retirados "Five Principles for Thinking Like a Futurist"

Para reflexão

Para imaginar, para especular sobre as potenciais consequências e oportunidades em torno desta evolução:

"Wind and solar technologies have extended their lead over fossil fuel generation on costs of new plant, and are now as cheap, or even cheaper, than existing coal, gas and nuclear power plants – even compared to existing and fully-depreciated fossil fuel generators.
...
“As alternative energy costs continue to decline, storage remains the key to solving the problem of intermittency and we are beginning to see a clearer path forward for economic viability in storage technologies.”
...
since 2009 solar has fallen in cost by 88 per cent and wind has fallen by 69 per cent."

Trechos retirados de "Lazard hails “inflection point” as wind, solar costs beat new and old fossils"

Negócio de futuro

Escreveu Peter Drucker que as previsões menos incertas são as associadas à demografia.

Recordo:

• Fico com a ideia de que muita gente ainda não percebeu isto (Maio 2017)
• Beyond Lean (parte II) (Agosto 2017)
• Do contra (parte II) (Junho 2018)

Por causa da evolução demográfica e da erosão das relações familiares, acredito que um negócio de futuro vai passar cada vez mais por esta oportunidade "Dying Alone in Japan: The Industry Devoted to What’s Left Behind". Não é impunemente que se passa de 10 para 7 milhões!

Coisas que estão/vão mudar o contexto

No dia a dia, com cada vez mais frequência deparo com coisas que estão/vão mudar o contexto em que as empresas de calçado do futuro vão actuar.

Dois exemplos desta manhã:

1. She Could Have Been One of Tesla's Early Employees. She's Revolutionizing Manufacturing Instead;
2. This Biotech Company Is 3-D Printing Vegan Leather, and Fashion Companies Are Going Nuts

Acerca de 1:

• Uma vez que as pequenas séries estão para ficar, até que ponto máquinas muito mais pequenas podem fazer o serviço que vemos ser feito por máquinas de corte de grandes dimensões? Até que ponto estas "computer-controlled milling machine that can cut into aluminum, brass, wood, and plastic with incredible precision" pode substituir os cortantes e balancés?

Acerca de 2:

• Pode ser uma revolução potenciada por preços, questões ambientais e valores seguidos pelos consumidores.

O futuro já cá está, está é mal distribuído.

Começar pelo fim, um grande truque

Para um adepto do "começar pelo fim":

"Motivation research has found that we tend to be the most driven and enthusiastic about a project when we begin it and when we’re about to complete it.
...
For relatively simple goals, there was no difference between forward planning and backward planning. If a goal is short-term or requires only a couple of steps, the two are likely no different. But for complex tasks (like planning out how to study for a comprehensive exam), students preparing backward anticipated the necessary steps more clearly and followed the original plan to reach the set goal. They had higher expectations for reaching their goals and felt less pressed for time during progress toward them.
...
Backwards planning may have helped the students forecast success rather than failure. If one starts at the end goal, the assumption is that efforts were successful to get there, while moving from the present to the future doesn’t necessarily assume success, and forces the goal setter to think through obstacles that might prevent it from happening. Research has shown that envisioning the steps necessary to complete a goal reduces anxiety, increases confidence, and lead to more effortful actions. Further, goal setters feel closer to the end goal in terms of time when they envision success rather than failure."

Trechos retirados de "Trying to Get Ahead? Plan in Reverse, Study Suggests"

Acerca do futuro do trabalho

Um estudo sobre o futuro do trabalho, que merece ser lido: "Shift: The Commission on Work, Workers, and Technology - Report of Findings".

Por exemplo:

"We took several trends as givens, so we could focus on the uncertainties on which the future of work depends. We identified four almost-inevitable forces:
1. An aging workforce;
2. The decline of “dynamism,” the movement of people
between jobs, firms, and places;
3. A societal shift to non-work income;
4. Growing geographic gaps.
By 2024, nearly one-quarter of the workforce is projected to be 55 or older — more than double the share in 1994.
...
Accepting these economic trends as givens, our members then considered the most important uncertainties about the future. After initially considering 16 variables, we selected these two as most important:
1. the structure of work — will there be more “tasks” (a catchall including contracting, projects, the “gig economy,” and the like) or will work remain concentrated in traditionally structured jobs?
2. the effect of automation — will technological changes result in more or less work to go around?"

Prisioneiros do passado

Recordar ""a historic transition in capitalism is unfolding"" ao ler:

"The greatest barrier most organizations have in moving into the future, is their inability to recognize how deeply mired their present thinking and practices are in a worldview belonging the distant past.
.
Moreover, because organizations, and the people that lead them, are so deeply focused on tangible processes and bottom-line results, there is often little time or tolerance for stepping back to think about their thinking, and how that thinking frames their perception of obstacles and opportunities.
.
For example, in a world increasingly defined by the non-linear interactions of multiple interdependent systems and individuals, coherence and effectiveness depend on the ability to discern context and sense the emergence of novel patterns. However, even with its relentless focus on innovation, contemporary business thinking remains deeply anchored to the sequential logic and predictability of Newtonian-era thought."

Trecho retirado de "To Think into the Future , We Must Begin Questioning the Past"

A atracção pelo futuro

"Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression."

Recordo muitas vezes esta frase irónica de Sir John Harvey-Jones.

Fascina-me o desafio de pensar, de influenciar, de construir proactivamente o futuro, em vez de esperar como folha na corrente. Por isso, atrai-me o tema das estratégias-trajectória.

Fascina-me algum pensamento de Heidegger, daí este sublinhado:

“O futuro é primária e decisivamente o que nos faz ser o que somos (eu diria antes, o que vamos sendo). É essa força constitutiva do futuro que Mourinho utiliza para motivar os seus jogadores. Para ele, o que fizemos, ou as estrelas que somos, não é o mais importante – Mourinho diz repetidamente isso aos seus jogadores: “o futuro é o que importa”. O futuro é a base do significado, é de onde vem o projecto que alguém tem para si próprio.”
…
“Do ponto de vista heideggeriano, o mais importante para entendermos o que nos trouxe até ao presente é a projecção que corporizadamente somos para o futuro. Mourinho projecta constantemente o futuro, sobretudo o futuro da sua equipa.
…
“o futuro, o projecto que temos de futuro, o entendimento genuíno, instintivo, intuitivo que dele fazemos é o que nos faz ser o que somos hoje.”
…
E por fim: “Com base no que escolhemos e acreditamos genuinamente, para nós próprios enquanto projecção de futuro, assim determinamos as nossas acções de hoje.”

E recordar "future-back" approach to strategy", "Como o tempo flui?" e "O meu presente não existe senão graças ao meu futuro"

Por tudo isto, recomendo a leitura de "We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment":

"it is increasingly clear that the mind is mainly drawn to the future, not driven by the past. Behavior, memory and perception can’t be understood without appreciating the central role of prospection. We learn not by storing static records but by continually retouching memories and imagining future possibilities. Our brain sees the world not by processing every pixel in a scene but by focusing on the unexpected.
...
Most prospection occurs at the unconscious level as the brain sifts information to generate predictions. Our systems of vision and hearing, like those of animals, would be overwhelmed if we had to process every pixel in a scene or every sound around us. Perception is manageable because the brain generates its own scene, so that the world remains stable even though your eyes move three times a second. This frees the perceptual system to heed features it didn’t predict, which is why you’re not aware of a ticking clock unless it stops. It’s also why you don’t laugh when you tickle yourself: You already know what’s coming next.
...
The brain’s long-term memory has often been compared to an archive, but that’s not its primary purpose. Instead of faithfully recording the past, it keeps rewriting history.
...
The fluidity of memory may seem like a defect, especially to a jury, but it serves a larger purpose. It’s a feature, not a bug, because the point of memory is to improve our ability to face the present and the future. To exploit the past, we metabolize it by extracting and recombining relevant information to fit novel situations.
.
This link between memory and prospection has emerged in research showing that people with damage to the brain’s medial temporal lobe lose memories of past experiences as well as the ability to construct rich and detailed simulations of the future."

Tem radar? (parte II)

Parte I.

Um tópico que entretanto me surgiu ao pensar na popularidade que teve a "Parte I" foi o do âmbito a incluir no radar.

A concorrência, os riscos, as oportunidades podem vir de tantos lados e sem obedecer às fronteiras que nos habituamos a assumir desde o início do século XX. Então, qual o conselho para quem quer criar um radar deste tipo?


Escrevi na Parte I:

"a melhoria da qualidade de vida das pessoas com limitações motoras, por causa da idade, por causa de doenças, por causa de acidentes."

Começar por eleger quem são os clientes-alvo, ou os pivôt do ecossistema em que se trabalha e seleccionar palavras-chave associadas aos seus desafios e preocupações. Daí incluir drones comandados pelo pensamento, por exemplo, tem alguma coisa a ver com cadeiras de rodas? Não! Mas tem tudo a ver com a vida de quem anda de cadeira de rodas ou tem limitações motoras.

BTW, o estágio que fiz em 1987-88, depois de acabar o meu curso de engenharia química  foi numa unidade da SOciedade NAcional de Estratificados que produzia resinas termoendurecíveis à base de ureia, ou fenol, com formaldeído.

Reciclar termoendurecíveis é, quase por definição, impossível. Qualquer químico pode pôr as mãos no fogo por esta afirmação. Entretanto descobri uma referência à polihexahidrotriazina: "Breakthrough Polymer Could Lead to Endlessly Recyclable Plastics"

Agora imaginem o potencial para mudar o sector dos laminados...

Tem radar?

Os 47 dias antes do "milagre" do quadragésimo oitavo.

Todas as semanas encontramos peças para o "milagre" que vai parecer um milagre para o mainstream:

• New breakthrough creates a telepathic link between robots and humans
• Robot exoskeletons are finally here, and they’re nothing like the suits from Iron Man
• Cuidado com a absolutização do que a nossa empresa produz
• Um exemplo de miopia na vida real
• Conseguem imaginar os job-to-be-done?

Esta lista está relacionada com um tema que me interessa particularmente, a melhoria da qualidade de vida das pessoas com limitações motoras, por causa da idade, por causa de doenças, por causa de acidentes.

A sua empresa mantém um radar com temas do mesmo tipo mas associados de alguma forma a um futuro potencial do seu negócio?

Lembre-se que a sua empresa não tem direitos adquiridos e tem de pensar em ganhar novos adeptos para aqueles lugares da figura no futuro:

Se não tem um radar que capte estas evoluções como sonhar em ter uma postura produtiva? Como ter tempo para "brincar" com conceitos e materiais/soluções, como testar modelos de negócio?

A minha abordagem preferida

Começar pelo fim:

"Scrapping the “present-forward” perspective, they no longer started with an assessment of its current products and contracts.
.
Instead, they began the planning process by envisioning the company in the further-off year of 2030. Starting with a clean sheet of paper, they imagined how customer needs would be different due to geopolitical forces, defense budget crunches, and technological disruptions. The exercise was conducted with brutal honesty as to how its product pipeline would unfold and play in the newly envisioned “future state” of the world."

O anónimo da província há anos que recomenda isto: "future-back" approach to strategy"

"imagining a preferred future and then stepping backward toward the present"

Trechos que parecem retirados deste blogue:

"We’ve been trained to think of the future as a linear extension of what we know, typically imagining change as a 10 percent improvement (or decline) from what we see around us.
...
Technological, environmental and political changes will likely disrupt your business. How can you prepare for a different, even unimaginable world that will arrive faster than projected?
...
Once you’ve identified your preferred future, you can start to identify key activities and milestones that would help create that future.
.
Backcasting is the act of imagining a preferred future and then stepping backward toward the present, repeatedly probing what has to happen to enable each step.
.
Backcasting is anchored in an aspirational future state rather than being constrained by limitations of the current state. This allows people to create their own richly detailed stories of the future and leads naturally to the discussion: “How can our product/service do that?”"

Trechos retirados de "How Leaders Dream Boldly to Bring New Futures to Life"

Recordar temas como "Começar pelo fim" ou "Mais uma vez e sempre: Começar pelo fim!!!" ou "future-back" approach to strategy" ou "Transformar uma empresa em 3 passos"

A farmácia do futuro (parte VI)

Parte V, parte IV, parte III, parte II e parte I.

Recordo também o primeiro postal aqui escrito com o marcador "farmácia": "Estava escrito nas estrelas..."(Abril de 2007).

Na mesma tendência, "Farmacêuticos vão ter formação para oferecerem mais serviços":

"Os farmacêuticos vão ter formação para que as farmácias possam oferecer mais serviços aos utentes, como previsto no acordo assinado hoje entre a Associação de Farmácias de Portugal e os ministérios da Saúde e das Finanças.
...
Entre as medidas constam a possibilidade de alargamento da dispensa de medicamentos hospitalares a mais áreas terapêuticas, a assistência farmacêutica permanente ou aconselhamento farmacêutico, serviços de intervenção em saúde pública (como os programas de troca de seringas, vacinação contra a gripe, entre outros)."

Pena que o mesmo racional não se aplique à área da educação.

O que vai fazer?

"It seems reasonable to use these intentions as a basis for forecasting the impact on taxes, trade, demand, employment, and mobility of labor.
...
One thing we can say with confidence is that uncertainty will remain high for some time in politics, macroeconomics, and business, at both global and national levels. We can also assume that precise point forecasts are likely to be wrong. Likewise, we know that whatever our historical assumptions have been, many are likely to change as technology advances. And the impacts of policies will be highly specific in nature, degree, and speed for each industry and company.
...
The capabilities of adaptation, shaping the business environment, and ambidexterity (the ability to apply different and potentially conflicting approaches to strategy, as described above, in different parts of the business) are typically under-developed in large established companies and will likely become more important. This is necessarily so, since winning in uncertainty requires more than defensive moves, and every company will need to both run and reinvent the business.
...
Companies need to detect, interpret, and translate patterns in politics and macroeconomics for business implications. We are living in an era where macro effects can easily swamp competitive and operational considerations. For example, the presence or absence of a trade deal or an interest rate cut can potentially have a bigger impact than reducing cost or increasing marketing."

O que é que uma PME pode fazer, deve fazer, para navegar nesta situação?
.
Desenhar cenários, imaginar futuros possíveis, futurizar e preparar estratégias menos vulneráveis.

Trechos retirados de "The World Just Got More Uncertain and Your Strategy Needs to Adjust"

Pretotyping

Esta corda ninja já me acompanha há alguns anos.
Serve de metáfora para o viajar até ao futuro para ver como é, e regressar ao presente para que o futuro seja a causa do presente.
.
Recordar:

• "future-back" approach to strategy"; e
• Transformar uma empresa em 3 passos

Isto a propósito deste texto que me recomendaram, obrigado, "How Business Planning and Reporting Can Kill Innovation", com o exemplo da Amazon:

"There are very simple and easy ways to reintroduce the creative capacity in our organisations. One is to skip the report altogether and start backwards. Literally.
A company who do it well are Amazon.
After an idea is generated they start by writing a press release as if the product or service is ready for launch. They bring it to life.
It’s mocked up with pictures of the product and quotes from (imaginary) customers about how life changing it has been. It’s passed around internally at the company, so that they can get feedback on the product, and to solicit any questions.
After getting an initial response (did it create a buzz?) and people adding their own ideas (building ideas — never destroying) it’s passed to a product development team to work it up."

BTW, em tempos li e ficou-me retido "What is pretotyping?":

"Simply put, pretotyping is the art and science of faking it before making it. Where it refers to an innovative product or service.
...
A pretotype is a partially mocked-up of the intended product or service that can be built in minutes, hours or days instead of weeks, months or years. The art and science of pretotyping is aimed to help innovators:

• Decide what features can – and should – be mocked-up (or dramatically simplified).

• Use mock-ups to test and collect feedback and usage data systematically.

• Analyze usage data to determine their next step."

A sua empresa futuriza?

A propósito de "Sweden: where even unions love free trade":

"The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, agrees.
.
“We think that close cooperation and fewer barriers to trade and investment from both sides is good for Swedish workers and for the Swedish economy,” she explains. “Sweden is a small export-dependent country, and we would suffer from more protectionism.”"

Recordo:

• Para direcções associativas que pensam à frente
• Como se vai preparar para o T-TIP?
• Ainda acerca do impacte do T-TIP

O que está a fazer para minimizar os riscos e aproveitar/criar/construir as oportunidades da sua empresa? Depois, vai culpar quem?
.
Ainda hoje apanhei:

"La disparition de nos pêcheurs a été actée par l'Union européenne avec la complicité de nos dirigeants." #BourdinDirect

— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) December 10, 2015

BTW, por cá, tantos defensores do modelo sueco do lado do proteccionismo.

AS PME não vivem numa redoma

A propósito de "Um conto de duas cidades":

"Decorridos 10 dias após os devastadores ataques terroristas, Paris debate-se com a necessidade de regressar à normalidade, num momento em que os efeitos nefastos se fazem já sentir no sector de retalho da capital francesa. E em Bruxelas, sob alerta máximo, os retalhistas já vivem sob ameaça uma quadra natalícia que deveria destilar paz.
...
Apesar do conselho das entidades governamentais, que incentivou os parisienses a regressarem à sua rotina de compras no fim-de-semana, os centros comerciais, lojas e grandes armazéns da capital permaneceram a meio-gás, num período do ano habitualmente marcado por elevada afluência.
.
Simultaneamente, nos centros das cidades francesas, as lojas de vestuário testemunharam uma diminuição da afluência em loja de 20% a 30% desde os ataques de 13 de novembro,"

França é um mercado grande para o calçado português, por exemplo.
.
Imaginem que ocorre um ataque terrorista num centro comercial em França...
.
Qual será o impacte nas vendas dos retalhistas?
.
Qual será a consequência para as PME exportadoras?
.
Como é que a sua empresa avalia este risco? Os clientes dos seus clientes compram nos grandes espaços comerciais ou no retalho tradicional? A acontecer qual será a reacção dos consumidores?
.
Relaciona isto com as cláusulas 4.1 e 4.2 da ISO 9001:2015? Contexto, partes interessadas...
.
Há aqui material suficiente para incorporar e modificar este modelo:

Não esquecer "A vantagem de quem desenha cenários"

Para reflexão

Excelente regra:

"A rule-of-thumb I give managers is that if your sustainability performance indicators only improve when customers use your product less often, it means you’re in trouble. Cigarette and alcohol companies, for example, now report the number of kids that don’t smoke or drink thanks to their public campaigns. Junk food purveyors improve their sustainability performance by shrinking the serving size. Sustainable paper products perform better the less virgin pulp they contain. And so on. A business model that meets ever-higher standards of sustainability only when customers reduce consumption of the product is by definition unsustainable."

Trecho retirado de "The Changing Business Climate Is Causing Product Die-Offs"

Acerca da incerteza

"How much uncertainty does your industry face? Ask yourself the following questions:

• Have new technologies or startups started to threaten my company or my industry?

• Over the past five years have new competitors entered the market and captured 10% share by targeting our customers with a different value proposition than what we offer? 

• Over the past five years have we begun to see customer preferences change, resulting in a different mix of products and services being demanded? 

• Have you recently started offering (or are planning to offer) a product or service that has never been offered before?

If you answered “yes” to the first two questions, you’re likely sitting in a business with high technological uncertainty; if “yes” to the last two questions, you’re probably dealing with high demand uncertainty."

Trecho retirado de "The Industries Plagued by the Most Uncertainty"