June 13, 2014

Innovation & Anticipating the Future, with Daniel Burrus

Renowned technology futurist and best-selling author Daniel Burrus joins us for the 18th episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast to talk about why anticipating the future can be the difference between companies that stand the test of time and those that collapse over time.

On this episode of the podcast, we discuss the difference between Hard Trends – trends that might happen – and Soft Trends – trends that might happen, how you can harness that knowledge to anticipate cyclical business trends and opportunities, and why you’re sometimes better off skipping your company’s biggest problem rather than solving it.

Daniel Burrus is a renowned technology futurist and the author of six books, including the #1 Amazon bestesller Flash Foresight: How to See the Invisible and Do the Impossible. He started Burrus Research 31 years ago and is one of the most popular Influencers on LinkedIn, with more than 380,000 followers of his profile page as of this writing.

Here are a few of the highlights from the “Innovation and Anticipating the Future” episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast:

  • We kick things off talking about the importance of anticipating problems, disruptions, and game-changing opportunities
  • Daniel talks about linear change vs. cyclical change, and why seeing the future is only as hard as you make it
  • Understanding the difference between hard trends and soft trends vis-a-vis the trendline of Elvis impersonators in the United States
  • The primary drivers of hard trends – demographics, the law, and technology – and the three digital accelerators – Moore’s Law, the law of storage, and the law of bandwidth – that give us the predictability necessary to anticipate long-term trends
  • How he helped Eli Lilly solve one of their biggest R&D problems by skipping it altogether
  • The coming “3-D Web” and the web browser of the future

Interested in hearing more? Tune in to the full episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast below:

About The Innovation Engine

Since 2014, 3Pillar has published The Innovation Engine, a podcast that sees a wide range of innovation experts come on to discuss topics that include technology, leadership, and company culture. You can download and subscribe to The Innovation Engine on Apple Podcasts. You can also tune in via the podcast’s home on Spotify to listen online, via Android or iOS, or on any device supporting a mobile browser.