SIOR held its first convention in Nashville since the pandemic started. The convention attracted over 780 attendees held at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel. As a networking think tank with high-profile speakers and strategic discussions, CREate 360 provided a high-level, 30,000-foot view of the industrial and office real estate landscape.
The opening session was held on Thursday October 14 and was introduced by Mark Duclos, the SIOR Global President. He started his comments by stating that it has been quite a ride for the last two years and with COVID. Now his term is up. He thanked his wife, his company and SIOR members who all supported him. Back on March 15, 2020, the world came to a halt and everyone had to assess people in their companies for resilience, being positive, caring about other people, etc. The SIOR staff was the ultimate. SIOR has never been stronger and will be strong in the future.
Then the incoming Global President, Patrick Sentner thanked Mark for his hard work and announced that SIOR would award a donation to the United Way in Central Connecticut on his behalf. Patrick said that Mark grew as a leader, working with CLC and over the last two years grew the organization. He worked tirelessly and become one of the best brand ambassadors. Patrick stated that he would have big shoes to fill and he also thanked the SIOR Pittsburgh Chapter. His agenda in the next year is to enhance the SIOR brand. He can’t change the industry overnight. He wants superstars into our industry and into SIOR. There are 100 new members attending their first SIOR World Conference.
Then the General Session Speaker on October 14th was Pascal Finette. He is an entrepreneur and high level strategic advisor. Over nearly three decades in the technology space, Pascal Finette has accrued all the experience to be in a high-level strategic advisor. He learned his way through founding a series of technology startups, launched a consulting firm to support entrepreneurs in scaling their own, and built a portfolio investing in early-stage tech companies. Finette also held leadership positions at era-defining powerhouses Google, eBay, and Mozilla, and he was the faculty chair for entrepreneurship and open innovation at Singularity University. He’s worn many hats and knows what needs to go on in the brain under each of them to lead effectively.
He started by stating that he wants the audience to take us into the future. The world right now is in uncertainty. The Federal Reserve has the World Uncertainty Index and we are moving more into the future of more uncertainty. We need to learn to live in this uncertainty. We need tools to make sense of the future since no one knows the future and creating the future is happening very day. It’s a paradox. You can’t predict the future. It’s here now but not evenly distributed. There is a widening cone of probable future. You embrace all futures and not just the future. It’s the cone of uncertainty.
Because we live in an exponential curve, we don’t recognize that we have been through change so we see the future as radical. We don’t change overnight but it feels that way. In 2008 we talked about the DeLorean car. We also spent 2.7 hours per day on digital media. In 2018 the average hours spent was 6.3 hours per day per adult user. We are misreading weak signals and we missed up to three years. To discover anything, you have to dig.
For instance a pregnancy test today is using a 1970 chip that was used on a main computer. The cost for that chip today is only $50 and then its thrown away after one use. Computers are getting smaller, it became ambient. But the world changes every time and computers are getting smaller.
Deep blocks are a weak signal of the future. Today productivity is up but creativity is down because there is no collaborating. But no one has created an office building focused on creativity. Weak signals, what are the implications? What are the implication of implications is more important and who is on the periphery? Cars are used 5-7% of the time and sit 95% of the time. So less parking spaces are needed and less ubers. With automated cars you don’t drive so you can drink because there is no drink driving. Then accidents decrease, work happens in the car as a passenger but car repairs decrease, insurance claims go down, traffic violations go down and town revenues go down because there are no accidents or traffic violations. Incarcerations go down, insurance rates go down, less staff is now needed, product life goes up, there is less death, less funeral business but less organ donors.
Why is this all relevant? Because weak signals are the best way to see the future and opportunities. Our expectations really affect the future like blockchain which never came to fruition. But technology improves and it can take years and decades to make technology work. It can take 6-18 months before something really happens and you have to be ready for this change. He then listed three factors to be aware of.
1) Frequency, how often are hearing about an idea?
2) Is the idea mainstream or media?
3) Is the idea only in a lab or can it be scaled?
4) Once you see a signal, then you want to revisit it to see if it strengthened over time.
There are things that you can influence and these items are items you need to take into account but can’t influence.
5) Maturity: is it even feasible to produce? Is it a pipe dream? Or is it financially feasible? He thinks that Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is dumb. Things happen fairly slowly. It can take years to mature. You should spot signals but look at what is real and what is not real. Not all ideas will really work. There’s a lot of hype in the world. There are three phases to watch.
A) 1st Phase: Just watch closely and don’t invest;
B) 2nd Phase: Watch only; and
C) 3rd Phase: Now act!
Disruptions can occur and all of the above can lead to disruption. The media loves disruption articles but it doesn't mean anything anymore. Invention plus disruption plus innovation and disruption is the cycle. True disruption is really rare. We obsess more about disruptors than disruption. The job to be done has never changed. We still take photos, watch films but the way we do it has changed. We have different screens and we do more of it; more photos, more films o watch, etc. Water is still water but the state of water is different. Blockbuster has 5716 stores in the U.S. but was really a real estate store and not a film store. It was not entertainment based. The state of the business changed to DVD and they transformed to a mail order store. It was no longer about where do you locate a store. Now we have streaming on Netflix and that upturned the mail order company to tech skills.
So today, what are skills to process that you need to survive? Changes are happening now and happening faster. Its not about disruption but transformation. We are changing and evolving from one state to another. Our approach has been to discover today what is value and decide if it will matter tomorrow? If so then we need to transform our company into the future that is unfolding upon us. Change will require work or it will just come upon us.
On Friday, October 15th, Mick Ebeling was also a speaker who is CEO and Founder of “Not Impossible Labs.” His firm uses technology for the sake of humanity. He has been named the top 50 World’s Greatest Leaders and Influential People. He based his company on his infatuation on things that are impossible and tries to make it possible through technology and a story.
He looks at the world for absurdities and why things have to be a certain way when it isn’t good. His company dog-piles with teams of geniuses, comes up with a prototype and tries to scale it to fit people. It’s accountability by results. He discussed the power of story-telling and how we pass information and credibility. He doesn’t have a ton of money to solve these problems so he uses stories or lenses. He helps one person in order to help many. He said that its not about the massive problem of hunger but by telling a story that will go viral. If you see something absurd, you need to commit and then figure it out. He went on to name something that is possible today that was at one point impossible in the past.
He said that its everything we have today was at one point impossible in the past. So he believes that Impossible is a total fallacy. Everything today that is impossible may not happen or be solved in our lifetime but it will happen so think what role you are playing in this thread.
Ebeling stated that the future chapter is for him to get other people to be a part of the movement. He gets others involved who have other ideas of absurdity. He asked the audience, so why does he do this? He answered that it is because we shouldn’t. They don’t all have degrees or credentials but they do it because it’s beautiful to solve the impossible, its limitless and naiveté. No one said that they can’t. His team created a prosthetic arm for a 12-year-old boy in Sudan whose arms were blown off in an attack. They figured out how to use 3D printing and months of experimenting developed an operating arm for $100 that would normally cost $15,000.
He then wondered how could he feed the homeless? He figured that if he gave out free cellphones and partnered up with local restaurants that the homeless could place food orders for healthy food, pick it up, and be treated dignifiedly. The volunteer restaurants address each homeless person as Mr. or Ms. So and So. They use food to build trust and then get the homeless to agree to see a doctor and not use the emergency ward. It actually saves $9500 per year per person.
Ebeling then wondered why an experienced person with Parkinson’s disease can’t play the piano. It took over a year but they figured out a mechanism that is wrapped around the arm that stops the arm from shaking and allowed the piano player to play.
Ebeling ended the program by asking “What is your victory or story on earth? How will you use your blessings?”
