Dr. Mark van Rijmenam, Futurist | How To Future Proof Your Company (AI, Blockchain, Big Data)

Welcome to Success Story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host Scott DeClaire and today I'm sitting down with Dr. Mark Van Rijmanen. Dr. Rijmanen is a futurist, a tech strategist, a keynote speaker, and an author of three books on organizational leadership management and digital transformation. He speaks on the future of work He writes on emerging technologies, blockchain, AI, machine learning, data, analytics, robotics, anything that can help optimize and improve how companies operate and compete in the years to come. We live in exponential times and he works with organizations to help them adapt their organization to exponential futures so they don't get disrupted. He holds a PhD in management from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. He's spoken in over 20 countries. He has multiple best-selling books and he's worked with notable companies such as Microsoft, Cap Gemini, and Fujitsu. We're going to speak about his origin story, new technology, which is permeating organizations, as well as some insights that he has for companies that are looking to adopt and implement new strategies, new technologies, and new ideas. This episode is also graciously sponsored by three sponsors, BKA Content, the one stop shop for all your content, copy, and writing needs, gusto, the complete payroll and HR solution for small businesses and canva, democratizing design so that anyone can make everything to do with their business and their marketing collateral look absolutely beautiful. All three of these companies have special offers for success story podcast listeners, so stick around, listen to the episode, you'll get those offers exclusive to this audience. If further ado, let's get right into it, Dr. Mark van Rismanen. The era of linear thinking is over, and we're really coming out of the curve of the hawkistic when it comes to technology because all these technologies are converging at the moment. All right, thanks again for joining me. Today I am sitting down with Dr. Mark van Rismanen. He is the digital speaker. He is an international keynote speaker on the future of work and the organization of tomorrow. He delivers virtual keynotes and webinars. He is the author of three best selling management books on big data blockchain and AI. His latest book, the organization of tomorrow details how AI blockchain and analytics turn your business into a data organization. He is the founder of Dataflock.com. He recently founded Maven.org, a decentralized reputation based content network. He holds a PhD in management from the University of Technology and Sydney where he researched big data, blockchain and AI and how they're impacting businesses and organizations. He is also a publisher of a newsletter that is read by thousands of executives on the same topics. He's spoken globally to over hundreds of thousands of individuals and he is a recognized speaker by the professional speaker association of Holland as well as being a member of the Global Speakers Federation. All on really interesting, really bleeding edge topics. Mark, thank you so much for sitting down. I really appreciate it and I'm excited to unpack how you got into some of these topics because these are all very, very cutting edge and new. Walk me through your story. Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having me Scott. It's a great pleasure to be on your show and really looking forward to the conversation. Yes, I'm really involved in bleeding edge technology, future technology and how they impact organizations, how they impact society. I'd like to think about what do these new technologies do, how do they work, how do they apply and how do they affect us as human beings, with all sorts of organizations in our society. I have done have a very straightforward career path because a long time ago I started in hospitality. I was part of the opening team that opened the first key resort in the Middle East. Something completely different. But after in a sense about a decade now, I am really involved in emerging technologies. I began a blockchain and I are for me the three main technologies that I look into because they affect so many of the different other technologies. I really enjoy being in this space because there's so much happening and the world is changing so fast at the moment that it's very difficult for a lot of people, even for me, with my job to stay up to date. But it's very difficult to stay up today because the world is changing so rapidly. But I really enjoyed doing that. And I help organizations understand these technologies while at the same time applying these same technologies within my own companies. So I call myself a future tech strategist. So not only talking about tech, but it will actually also apply in tech. And now that so that's that is an interesting career path. What I guess is it just a natural inclination towards tech and towards new and bleeding edge things? So I guess my question is you were in hospitality at one point. But now you're the founder of several organizations. You have you've written books on on the topic. So walk me through that transition in your career. Did you jump into entrepreneurship? Did you study and start doing consulting? Did you build an organization? And then after that was successful, move into speaking, what was that like for you? Sure. So after I did my degree in hospitality management, as I said, I moved to Dubai to live there for some time. After that, I did a master degree in marketing management. And I ended up at the DING headquarters, a large touch bank, where I moved more and more into the marketing space. But I gave it up after a couple of years because I went on a big adventure with a friend of mine. So we certainly navigated Australia on a push bike in 100 days, which was an absolutely fantastic experience that I can recommend anyone to do. Just 100 days of just eat, drink, sleep, and cycle, and nothing else, which was fantastic. But the thing is, after a such an adventure, you don't really want to work for a buzz anymore. So I tried starting my own company. I failed miserably, unfortunately. So I had to get a job, ended up as a consultant, focused on strategy from an analytics perspective. I didn't really like it, so I got myself fired. And then I decided to start it to give it another shot. And literally, over the weekend, I thought, you know, what shall I do? What can I do? I thought, you know, big data is going to be a hot topic. Let's do something in big data. So I didn't have any understanding or any knowledge about big data. So I set up a website next day. I taught myself about big data. I started writing about it. And a month and a half later, I was invited as a keynote speaker as the expert on big data, which to me was absolutely crazy. It was even a paid gig. And it was a day totally crazy for me, but it also showed to me apparently there's something in this space. And as I say, we have, you know, in the land of the blinds, it's the one I East King. So I decided to really go down the rabbit hole and explored this fascinating industry. And from there on, it sort of moved really fast because I started writing articles. From the first articles came my first book, Think Bigger. Then in 2015, I got the opportunity to do a PhD at the University of Technology in Sydney. They gave me a few scholarships. Australia is not the most logical place to do a PhD on technology. I just wanted to live there a bit more longer, a long term. So I moved to Australia. And after about six months in, I came into contact with blockchain. And I saw that this technology is such a fundamental technology that is going to have a drastic impact on society that I basically completely restarted my PhD, changed direction and included a blockchain at the same time also AI in my PhD. During my PhD, I co-wrote a book on blockchain and how we can use it for social good because I think that's how we can use technology from a positive perspective is very important to me. And at the end of my PhD, I turned my dissertation into a management book because dissertations are boring to read and a management book is a bit easier to read. So I turned my book into a dissertation into the management book, the organization tomorrow. At the same time, I had found a data flock, a content platform. And I think I've really found my sweet spot because I really, really enjoy being in this bleeding edge technology and at the same time helping organizations understand what's happening. So since that first keynote I gave in 2012, I've been doing keynotes until last year, obviously, until Corona hit. I used to fly all around the world and that stopped. I haven't been in the plane for about a year and a half. It's absolutely crazy. I didn't know what's happening, but it's totally crazy. But so I decided to reinvent myself. And since I talk about digitalization, I decided to digitize myself. And that's where the digital speaker concept comes from, which especially, yeah, I'm now available as an avatar. I'm available as a hologram or a combination of both. And I have recently started my own podcast, or what I call the tech journal, where the digital speaker covers the digital world literally from inside to digital world, because it's recorded in virtual reality. At the moment, just like a proof of concept, not yet available in VR, but that's just a matter of time when I move to that. Because I think it's a fascinating area to explore. And it really brings everything together of what I do, what I like. I love this story. A lot of a lot of self-taught moments in there. And I appreciate that as well, just because I think that that's something that is very inspirational for people that are trying to pivot in their careers, for example. You're not a developer or coder by trade when you first graduated from university, not your PhD. But like earlier on, I went to hospitality. But you took advantage of the fact that there was probably not a lot of focus on a lot. Like you said, in a month and a half of studying big data from a business perspective, you're able to educate some organizations. So just goes to show you how much of a lack of proper understanding of emerging technology, there is in businesses, in large businesses, where I think you see a lot of, you probably work with a lot of like coders, developers that were kind of in the start of space. But those are not the ones that were entrenched in large organizations. So I think a lot of your success was the fact that you had a business mind and you understood the application. And that's just a personality trait. They want to sort of explore that and figure out how it's going to impact organizations. And now you have like an actual brand around that. So it's incredible. But do you see companies starting to understand these trends? You said, what was this? Like, I guess when you first started doing this in and sort of building an audience and a community around these bleeding edge tech in 2012, 2012. They used obviously back then companies where nobody's ever heard of really really blockchain, you know, use cases AI was sort of like a, okay, maybe in the future. Do you see companies starting to understand these technologies more, use them more, apply them more in their day-to-day or for many companies? Is it still very theoretical? I think it's, you know, the really, the top five, the Fortune 500 companies, they are really doing big data, doing experimenting with blockchain and you know, doing with AI. But I think for the majority of, you know, the SMEs and I think they're on 70 million SMEs in the world. I think the majority is still doing what they've always been doing, you know, running a company, doing it, most of them doing it really well, using some technology, but not really the bleeding edge technology that I'm focusing on. And when I started with, you know, exploring the world of big data in 2012, at that time, I thought, you know, it's about five to seven years before everyone is doing big data and big data is, you know, completely normalized across, you know, all SMEs. And that's still definitely not the case. And the same is for, for, you know, blockchain and AI, it's, I think it's still really early days. We see really cool examples of AI, you know, by deep mind, by open AI, you know, GPT-3 and all the other, you know, AlphaGo Zero, Muse Zero, whatever, really cool technology being developed. But the actual, you know, the SMEs actually implementing that, I think it's still relatively limited. And I think there's two reasons for that. I think, first of all, is a lack of understanding. You know, what do these technologies mean and how actually do you start with these technologies? Not only from, you know, the senior management within the company, but also, you know, everyone in the company. It's my vision that if you want really digitally transform your organization, you need to have a shared understanding across the entire organization. So that means, you know, from the operational staff to middle management to senior management, everyone needs to have the same understanding. What do these technologies mean and what do they mean for us as an organization? And that understanding is often lacking. You know, maybe some people within senior management or VP level or C level, they might have an understanding, but everyone in the business, you know, from the call center agent to the warehouse operator, everyone needs to understand how this works. And that's a major challenge. And then I think the second problem is that, you know, if you really want to move into AI or blockchain, it also requires the right developers and the right resources. And yes, there are plenty of people doing really cool stuff, developing really cool technology, but still not enough for all those 70 million SMEs. And they are very expensive for good reason because they develop really cool things. And then I think that's also a problem. So then you need to work with, you know, the software as a service or X as a service solutions, but these take time to be developed as well. So I think that's sort of the challenge here that organizations face in really digitally transforming your organization. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode, Gusto. Gusto is the easy online payroll and benefit solution set up for small businesses. So really, Gusto is payroll benefits onboarding HR all in one place. And it helps you accomplish all of that, but keep in mind is built for the business owner. It is a people first platform. It is the most user friendly tool that I've ever used. 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This will be the best business decision you've ever made. All right, let's get back to the show. Now, now there's a couple points. So I want to this is really good and I want to I want to break this down. So the organization of tomorrow, that's your that's your most recent book and there's a couple different technologies that companies can use. So first, let's just describe for me and for listeners who because there's a wide variety of listeners, what what is a digital transformation for an organization? What does that actually mean? And is that what's the message that you tell these sea levels executives? The reason why they have to digitally transform their company. So I think the reason why an organization needs to digitally transform your business is very simple. You know, you want to you want to remain competitive. There are too many examples of organizations, you know, of incumbent organizations that didn't reinvent themselves or didn't update themselves and lost the game. You know, a famous example being Kodak who invented digital photography and then failed to do anything with it. So as an organization, you need to continuously disrupt yourself, reinvent yourself, just like I did, you know, as a small speaker organization. You need to continue to reinvent yourself. And in order to do that, you know, in the book, I describe a digital transformation framework of how you can digitally transform your organization, which I think considers of four steps, data-firing, distributing, analyzing and automating. So to expand it a little bit, firstly, of course, you need to dataify your organization. Without data, you can't, you know, do any, you can't benefit from the exponential technologies that we have. So you need to collect data in all your processes and all your custom touchpoints, whether that is using, you know, connected sensors or IoT devices to understand what's going on or to other way to, to, you know, collect the data that you need. Once you have collected the data, you need to start to distribute the data either using the cloud so that, you know, everyone within the organization has access to it and becomes, you have sort of a data lake where, you know, data doesn't live inside of anymore, but it's available to anyone within the business. Or you can use blockchain. If you want to collaborate with your industry peers in a more effective and efficient way, for example, in supply chains, where we can get rid of all the paper, all the paperwork if we move to blockchain. And that is what, oh, sorry, because you said there was force, right? Yeah, I think that's okay. There's two more. So the third step is then to analyze the data because, you know, it's nice to have to data for your business to distribute the data, but you also need to do something with that data. So you can use the descriptive predictive or prescriptive analytics to do something with this data. And the way I always explain this to organizations is, you know, descriptive analytics is like business intelligence. It's like the rearview mirror in your car, you know, it helps you understand what has happened from one second to go to 10 years ago. But if you drive your car by simply looking in your rearview mirror, you are certainly going to crash. So you need predictive analytics, which is, you know, your car's navigation system that tells you the most optimal route based on various variables and various scenarios. So you use all kinds of data to predict scenarios and then you make decisions yourself. And then the final phase of understanding a business is prescriptive analytics, which is, you know, your car is basically a self-driving car driving you autonomously to your destination. Using all kinds of data that you analyze, you build scenarios and then the system selects the best scenarios autonomously. So that really helps you already to improve your organization, to understand, you know, what's happening in your environment and to send to send such opportunities and to seize them. Then the final phase in digitally transforming a business is to automate that. We need to automate the various steps to use artificial intelligence or to use smart contracts when you talk about blockchain to create more human-to-machine collaboration as I call it, where you can automate the autonomous task, the monitors, the monitors task, where you can automate a lot of the work using AI to make your organization more effective and efficient. So four steps, which I think, you know, help organizations to understand in digitally transforming their organizations. And the reason that they need to do that is, you know, you want to remain competitive because, you know, there are always new organizations, startups who have this engrained in their DNA and are there for a lot, yeah, very competitive and a very difficult opponent to win from. Definitely, and I think that that's something that I've, so that was sort of, you know, I was interested in this conversation about digital transformation because I am, you, the way you speak about digital transformation, I'm 100% behind and I believe that is the way the company has to act and the way the companies have to modernize and future proof. But I do not see companies really taking this as seriously as I think some of them should. I feel like, so if we look at the world of blockchain, for example, probably because it's more, it's just, it's been very adopted by the end consumer versus AI or big data, which is very much in terms of business application. And when I say blockchain, obviously, you have the business application, like smart contracts and whatnot, which I think are even less so adopted and understood than, for example, decentralized finance or DeFi because everybody and their mother is now trying to trade crypto and make money, right? So, so even even in blockchain, which is a widely used application, I still don't see a ton of businesses, for example, using the smart contracts in the way that they transfer data between different organizations and whatnot. And I see companies, I do see companies like IBM that's trying to do things and I'm sure like Oracle and like these really set like large fortune 500. But how do we, how do we take legacy fortune 500 or fortune 100 or even just like you said like SMEs and like for everybody's less than SMEs, small, medium and probably smaller businesses? So how do we, how do we get these people to get on board? Or is it just a matter of, it's the culture of the organization and it's the executive team of the organization that has to be into it? And if they're not, they're probably going to go the way of the, you know, codec or the way of the blockbuster or the way of the taxis or any, any other company's been, I brewed it. I think if you're as an organization, you don't reinvent yourself, you don't start to digitally transform your business, you are going to be out in the next three to five to ten years depending on your industry. So you will have to. And to answer your question regarding blockchain, you know, blockchain is a very nascent technology still. And I always compare it to like the early days of the internet. And it is not, you know, plug and play technology yet. It's difficult. And apart from the technology being difficult, it's also from an organization perspective of difficult. Because as an organization, you need to collaborate with your industry partners. You need to come to terms in what kind of blockchain you're going to use, what kind of standards, what kind of, you know, all these things that you need to get a shared understanding of with your supply chain partners. That takes time, you know, it's from a human perspective. We don't like change. It's very difficult to change. It's very difficult to get everyone aligned. So I think that's one of the reasons why it takes so long. So apart from the technology still being in the development and still a lot of, you know, the blockchain ecosystem is, you know, a lot of the technology still need to be developed or is really early stage and is not, you know, production ready yet. But at the same time, organizations, they need to work differently and they need to change. And as I said, you know, as humans, we don't like change. So that's why I think it takes so long to do so. But it is for me, it is something that I'm, you know, it's obvious that we're going to into this direction. You know, technology, you can't stop. And the technological pro-advancements are only going faster. And we are, you know, in the next five to ten years, when the future of work has arrived, so to say, I do think that, you know, organizations will look fundamentally different than today. Do you see, do you have any examples top of mind of organizations that are doing undergoing a proper digital transformation now that you look to and you're like, this is this is the model that we should look at? Well, one example that I always use, because I think it's a fascinating example, is a, is a, is a German company called KSA Compressors, a very traditional, very traditional product company, you know, building these really huge air ventilation products for like large factories, warehouses, etc. You know, if there's one company who you wouldn't expect to do digital transformation themselves, it's such a company. But they did. And they used to sell these large machines for a lot of money, they would install it, and then they would leave. And if it would break down, you would give them a call, they would come, they would fix it, they would send you an invoice for fixing it. Nowadays, what they do is they install this machine, these machines for free, and they sell air as a service, literally. So you pay per cubic meter air, you consume, and they use all kinds of predict analytics to predict, you know, when the machine is about to break down, and they send someone to fix it before it breaks down. Because obviously, if it breaks down, it costs to the company money. So it's a completely different way of thinking, completely different perspective, and they have managed, they are one of the few companies in the world that make money by selling air, and which I think is a, is a fascinating example. That is a, that is a really fascinating example. And how, like, do you know how they're doing as an organization? Is this a concept that's catching on? Are they successful in this setup? I think they are. They are a 100-year-old traditional German company, and they say surviving, and I think they're actually thriving, by taking this different approach. And that's what I always tell organizations, as well, you need to achieve this different perspective, or, you know, also, again, one of the most beautiful German words, you need to achieve this Gestalt Shift, within your organization and the Gestalt Shift, for those, you know, who wonder what it is, it's this famous image for a duck and a rabbit, and you can, you just see a duck, or you see a rabbit, but you can't see them both at once, you can switch between them, and that's called a Gestalt Shift, where you move from one perspective to another. And I think that's the interesting thing that organizations need to achieve, you know, you need to achieve this Gestalt Shift from, you know, you are from a product company to a data organization, where you are, like, you know, you look differently at how you service your customers, and you have to stakeholder model instead of a shareholder model. And if you do that, you know, if you take care of your customers, I always say, then your customers will take care of your shareholders. Interesting. Okay, I like that perspective as well. So there's a few, there's a few themes that I see that are sort of recurring. So data, so moving from a product-oriented organization into a data, into a data organization, and data is not just by your definition, like, big data. It's using data points to better serve your customer. So it's, yeah, so I guess that is technically a definition of big data. It's understanding all the data points, then building that into your process, but also, I guess, with blockchain or AI, or even just understanding your market better, right? Those are, you're a data-driven organization. The traditional organization, shareholder, the shareholder-oriented organization, that's a difficult thing to move away from. I don't know personally any examples of companies that have moved away from a shareholder focused organization to a stakeholder-focused organization. It seems like it's a scary thing for a company to do because at the end of the day, who owns a company, who pays the bills. How would a company approach that, and that's a heavy topic, and that's a tough question, so I'm just curious if you have an idea of how a company could start to make that move and validate that serving their customers better, backing that with data, could allow them to sort of slowly remove that grip that a shareholder would have on how they do business for the past 10, 20, 30 years, because that is probably what stops companies from truly changing. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode, BKA Content. 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If you go to BKA content.com slash success, exclusive for all success story podcast listeners, you can get one month free of content, so that's BKA Content.com slash success, you can take my word for it or not, you can go try them out, you can see the quality of content that they put out, and then I can guarantee you, you will start to use them going forward for all of your copy needs, so that's BKA Content.com slash success, all right, let's get back to the show. Yeah, but I think it would be in the shareholders best own interest to move from a shareholder model to a stakeholder model, because I think a shareholder model is by definition a short-term model, short-term focus model, and long-term is generally always better. Yeah, it takes a bit longer, but generally long-term approach, long-term perspective, works way better than a short-term perspective, and there's a company called Unilever, or maybe you've heard of it, one of the largest FMCG companies in the world I think, and as far as I know they have this stakeholder model, they're very much focused on sustainability, very much focused on caring for the planet, caring for the customers, caring for their employees in ways that are in a way that I think many organizations can learn from, and I have a mention at the start, I have hospitality background, and if there's one thing that you learn from hospitality, is that you have to take care of your guests, because if you don't offer the best service for your guests, your guests just go away, they go to different restaurants or whatever, you can have a restaurant and you can have crappy food, but if you have an amazing waiter or waitress, you know, you can still have a really really good evening, and you can still come back. If it's the other way around, you certainly won't come back to that restaurant, because a waiter or waitress can really ruin your evening, even though the food might be fantastic. So you really need to have this thinking of how can I take care of my customers, how can I offer the best product or service for that, and once you start doing that, you will look differently at your employees. How can I make sure that my employees are happy, because if my employees are happy, then they will do their best for the customers. What do they need? What kind of tarter do they need? What kind of insights do they need for them to make the decision? Again, the comparison to the hospitality industry, especially in the high-end industry, a lot of the operational staff, they have decision-making power to fix a problem. Don't care how you do it, just make sure that the gas is happy. And if you bring that to other organizations where you use data to lower the decision-making power from the executive level to anyone who is facing the customer, anyone within the organization that needs to make it a decision and give them the full transparency to make that decision, then I think you will have a much better outcome than when you don't do that. So a data can really help you give this transparency, give this decision-making capability to anyone within the organization, so that they can then make the best decision, which is in the best interest for the customer, and therefore automatically for the organization. I love that. So the ability to use data properly in an organization, it permeates all aspects of how the organization runs, and I see that that's really where the future of an organization lies. I have some questions about the future of work as well, but I'm curious when you just one more question on this topic, when you speak to all these managers and these directors and these executives, do you know what stage are they at in their organization? Are they just doing this as an introduction in the past two years? Are they doing this as an introduction into all of these topics or are they working on a project? Are they already incorporating some of these ideas into their organization or is this net new for them? That really depends. When I come into an organization for keynote or session or workshop or whatsoever, I focus really on the starting point of your digital transformation process. As I said, achieving this shared understanding within the business, because normally what often happens is one department might think one way and the other department might think totally different way. If these are not aligned, then it becomes very difficult to digitally transform your organization. I am really focused on that area. When I talk to organizations, it is trying to do that, but the other day I was talking to organization. I actually got the question, don't scare our employees when you talk about AI because they might get scared that they would lose their jobs, which is a very relevant fear that employees have and that employers need to go about in the right way. If employees fear that they are losing their jobs, they are certainly not going to help you in your digital transformation process. There are also different levels of understanding. You can have a detailed understanding of how AI works and how it impacts your business or a more superficial level, which often can be a sufficient already to move forward. It really depends on how far you want to go, how soon you want to change your organization to what kind of level of understanding you require. Basically. Very good. As you speak more and you bring up more points, I get more ideas about things that I want to talk about. I did want to ask you about. You tweeted, I think it's your pin tweet. I think I understand what it means, but I want you to explain it for me as well because I thought it was an interesting statement. Digitalism will mark the end of liberalism and be the first truly global political doctrine, a story where governments, companies, and citizens battle for data. What does that mean exactly? Sure. First, for those who are going to my Twitter feed now, I changed my pin today. I can show you the link for the speaking notes. Digitalism is a new theory that I've been developing for about a year now. It's a way where I think everything is being digitized at the moment. The entire planet, everything that we do, but data comes with tremendous power, as we know from the large tech companies, the Google's, the Facebook of these worlds. But they also should come, and that's what I always say, with great responsibility of how to deal with that. And what I envision, what I foresee happening, is liberalism is nearing its end. And I'm not the only one who says that, you've all knew our harari also states that because of big data, because of AI, liberalism is nearing its ending. And we see this happening all over the place. Free competition doesn't really still exist. Facebook, the Google's of this world, they buy every company, every startup that's out there. That doesn't really still exist. A free will, does that still exist? And we have recommendation algorithms that determine everything for us. So liberalism is running into a few problems at the moment. But at the same time, I see that a lot of organizations and governments understand the power that data brings. So what I see is that in the next 10, 20, 30 years, the struggle within society is the fight around data, who owns this data, and who can do something with this data. And on the one hand, we have the governments and the corporations. And on the other hand, we have the citizens, us, you and me. And both parties have different perspectives, have different objectives, and have different, you know, what they require. And so digitalism is this fight around this most important resource ever found or created by humans. And it can basically go in three directions. So digitalism has three streams. The first one is state digitalism, which basically means that the government uses data to enslave its citizens. And this is something we see happening in China. It's massive aliens in Xinjiang. They have developed an AI panopticon where everyone, the state knows everything about its citizens, that speed that they do. And especially with COVID-19, they have QR codes to leave the house, to enter a building, they scan everything, your temperature, they have a social credit score. So they really use data to enslave their citizens. That's not a society I would like to live in. Then you have a second stream, which is new digitalism, which is basically corporate surveillance. And you know, we have these large corporate organizations that have become so incredibly powerful that the governments they can't really do anything anymore. You know, we see this happening with 2018 in the US Senate, where the senators asked Mark Zuckerberg basically how the internet worked. And those are the people who are, you know, who are making the legislation for the citizens. Well, good luck with that. You know, that's not going to happen. It's not only in the US, or it's also happening in the Netherlands, where, you know, legislators have a very limited understanding of what technology means and how technology is impacting organizations. But the result is that, you know, these tech companies are becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. They are so incredibly powerful and they basically use the data to enslave the customers for the shareholders. Again, that's not a society I would like to live in. And then the final phase is what I call modern digitalism, which I think is the most positive approach to data. And we use here, we use data to empower the citizens. So we have, you know, ethical use of AI. We have, you know, self-sovereign identities. We have full control over your data, full secure data, privacy, a concept called anonymous accountability. So you can be anonymous, but you're still being accountable for whatever you do. And that's sort of what I see happening in Europe. You know, Europe has developed, came up with a GDPR. They have AI regulation. They came up with this risk based approach to AI, where they said, you know, we don't want facial recognition in Europe. We don't want social credit scores in Europe. And all other AI needs to be regulated very, very well. And so that's sort of the theory of digitalism. It's still under development. I'm still trying to figure out how this works. But I think it's these three streams that will, you know, take over the entire world. And depending on in which society you live, this is either something to look forward to or something to be really, really afraid of. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode Canva. Now, as you all know, I'm a doer. If I want to get something done, I try and do it myself, which has its own set of issues in terms of me scaling. But one thing that I was never good at was design. I was never good at creating graphics, creating marketing collateral. I always needed the help of a designer until I started using Canva. And I have been a constant user of Canva for the past. I don't even know, three years, four years. It's been a while and democratizing design, allowing anybody with virtually zero skill to create incredible looking things has allowed me to create better websites, better social media, better white papers, better pitch decks, better quotes. It has literally allowed me an individual with virtually zero design capability to create pieces of work, content, whatever it may be that rivals what I could get out of a designer for hundreds or if not thousands of dollars and significant time invested. Canva is a game changer when it comes to design. And it really is the one stop shop for you to be able to design things like a pro. It boosts your productivity immensely. It has all of the premium photos, audio, video, anything you want to incorporate in your design, all those elements that you normally pay for. It's included in a low monthly fee. And regardless of whether or not it's making an Instagram story or putting together a presentation for work, it has pre-made templates that you can use. And that's my favorite part about it because it gives you inspiration that you can draw on with professionally designed pre-made templates for almost any graphic design project you can possibly think of. So if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a marketer, if you're a solo printer, if you're a founder, and you're just trying to scale yourself, scale your team or just give your team great tools so that they can get more done in less time. Canva is really something you should check out. And they put together a special offer for all success story podcast listeners. Normally you get a very short free trial of Canva Pro, which includes everything I just mentioned. But they're letting you try it free for 45 days. So that's an extended trial that is only available to success story podcast listeners. And if you want to take advantage of this, go to canva.me-success-story. That is canva.me-suss-s-t-o-r-y. And you can get 45 days of free Canva Pro. No commitment required. Try it out. Play around with all the features. You'll thank me later. All right, let's get back to the show. Do you think that what do you think the end result? Because you already are seeing this start to start to manifest in a certain direction in Europe. Like you mentioned before, those Senate hearings obviously it showed a lack of true understanding of technology. But obviously that will also change with time as well. There are applications that are focused on that positive digitalism in North America. And as legislators move out and new ones move in with a better understanding of technology, the sentiment will also change. What do you think the end result will be in North America? Do you think it will model Europe? Or do you think it will be its own, its own form? I hope so. I hope it will model Europe also for US citizens. But don't forget just hearing what I'm referring to wasn't 2018. When the internet is already 25 years old. It took 25 years to figure out how the internet worked, well to be explained how the internet worked. But I think it's also a generational challenge here. Because the old generation is still in power and they are from an era where we didn't have any internet, where we didn't have mobile phones whatsoever. Now we're slowly moving into the generation that it has seen both. I am from the generation. I remember very well an era where we didn't have mobile phones, where we had to call up our friends to make an appointment and we would actually be there at the time that we agreed upon. Because there was no way to connect each other. But in the next 10 to 20 years, it will be the generation Z, I think they are called in the latest generation, which have grown up with TikTok. They have grown up with Facebook, Google, VR, AI. They are digital natives and I think they have a different approach to digitalization. I hope, and I think what you see happening as well as the generation Z is much more aware of that, also of the powers that digitalization brings, but also the responsibilities that come with it. So for America, I think there's still hope for China. I'm a bit more worried, because the budget is so powerful. Yeah, that's fair. I think China is its own beast and how they manage this and I don't think that's really what the Western world is trying to focus on in terms of where the ideal digital society ends up. I don't think that China would be the model. I think that Europe is a good model. Europe is probably leading the way in terms of a lot of this, actually. They're very strict with data, very, very strict. And I'm not sure why that part of the world decided to be so strict with data, but it seems they're very just forward thinking in how they try and control and combat any sort of negativity that comes with collecting data. I don't know if you have a historical idea as to why, but I see it. I think that the history definitely plays a role here. Germany, of course, in the Second World War, I think Germany has one of the most strict privacy legislation in the world because of the war, because of the Stasi that knew everything about what was going on in East Germany. So I think that definitely plays a role here. Germany is a powerful nation within Europe, and I think that's what's being reflected. But I think it's a good thing that we have this, and Europe is still an economic power, 500 million rich consumers, so therefore you see that this GDPR, for example, has an effect on the entire world, which is good. No, I think it's just very interesting to just look at the history and see how it impacts, and I think that Germany is a great example. That is very interesting. Okay, so I guess we've gone through, in case we've gone through data, we've gone through AI, we've gone through blockchain, and I guess the last thing that we sort of touched on in a few different ways was the future of work, and you're sort of living, you're a living example of the future of work in the way that you digitized yourself and you're putting yourself out there in an avatar hologram format. Just a few thoughts from you, I know all these topics are so great, and honestly we could probably do one show on every one of these topics and go really deep on it, but you're well at the knowledge and all these different things, so I just wanted to take your brain on all these different things. So what are some thoughts on the future of work post-pandemic? What do we think work looks like going forward? What's changed? What's changed because of the pandemic? What's changed, regardless of the pandemic, just some thoughts on that? So I think that the pandemic is sort of a blessing in disguise, no matter how extremely terrible it is, and all the people who died, but if there's one silver lining to this terrible crisis, is that it really kickstarted digital transformation across the world. Every year, and in December, I write a trend prediction of what I think the trends will be for the next year, and if I had written in 2019 that half year later, 99% of the organizations would work remotely, people would have called me totally crazy. But this is what happened, and I think that is one of the good things that came out of this crisis, that people found out, yeah, we can work from home, we can work remotely, and there are really cool technologies out there, and of course, I can only see it predominantly from my perspective in the Netherlands, in Europe, and in here in Netherlands, we have here all the perfect infrastructure. So, you know, the incident never went down, and everyone still had a hundred megabytes download speed, so you know, Zoom calls, Google Hangouts, they all work perfectly. I think that that really helped, but it also showed that, you know, if organizations really need to change, then it seems so that they can actually, they can change, and we should use this understanding to continuously change the organizations, also post-pandemic, and start to, you know, incorporating digital technologies for the benefit of the customer, for the benefit of the citizen, to do so, and now there's no excuse anymore that you can't do this, because we have proven to ourselves that we can. So I think that's been uncomfortable, but yeah, oh yeah, it's been very uncomfortable, but we have managed to do so, and I think from now on, now it's a way forward onwards and upwards of how to use and embrace these technologies more and more to really create the organization tomorrow, which I mentioned is a data organization that's there for its stakeholders and society. Yeah, okay, so let's wrap up, because most people don't listen longer than an hour, so I'll ask them some rapid-fire career questions based on your experience, just to give some insight, to see some people that are earlier on in their career that want to learn from the brand you've built, the community you've built. Is there anything I'll go into that line of questioning in a moment? Is there anything that you wanted to bring up or discuss that we didn't get into today? No, I think we covered most of it that I want to share. I think it's one thing that I want to do, give to listeners, is now we are actually living in exponential times. The era of linear thinking is over, and we're really coming out of the curve of the holistic when it comes to technology, because all these technologies are converging at the moment, and that is what's going to have this massive impact, and that's why I think the 2020s will be one of the most important decades of humanity, because how are we going to use these technologies? How are we going to apply these technologies to all the massive problems that we face, such as climate change, such as the pandemic, we can use these technologies to counter these. So it's important as an organization, as a business owner, as a manager, as an employee, we have reached the era of exponential thinking, exponential change, and you should be aware of that and prepare yourself for that. Very good. Okay, so over your career, what was your biggest challenge in your personal career, and how did you overcome that? Well, I think my biggest challenge was, when the pandemic hit, I had built my company, I was in a nice comfortable position, and overnight boom, it was gone, and not only my speaking business, also my content platform, just advertising revenue just drained, so I was hit on two faults. I think there are two things you can do, you can cry in the corner and be really sad, or you can get up and face the new reality and try to reinvent yourself, that's what I did, and that gives me so much energy now, but it has been quite difficult to say. True, but it's a good lesson as well, that you did it successfully. What would be one lesson that you would tell your younger self? That's a good question. I think you should just really try to be adaptive and be flexible. I've been flexible, I think I could have been more flexible in adaptive in the early start of my career. Again, also for me, when I was hit with the pandemic, that was when I really changed the things around, but I think adaptability is becoming one of the most important career traits or skills that you need, because careers are going to change much faster than they have ever done, so you need to be able to change, you need to be flexible in new ways. Good. Pick one person who had a major impact on your life, who is that person, and what did they teach you? Well, I don't know, unfortunately, but I have a lot of respect for Elon Musk, by what he does on how he has built his companies, and how he has this stakeholder, model. What he's doing with at the moment is a different story, but now how he's building SpaceX at Tesla and really has this long-term vision that he starts digging and starts to start building is something that I take away and that I try to do as well. Very good. A book or podcast recommendation that people should go check out, besides zero. I'll plug your book into show notes, something else that you've listened to or read. I like the podcast futurized very much, by Tront on Heim, I think, and he discusses with a lot of different people on different technologies and really goes into depth, so yeah, it's about the future. It's about leading edge technology, so I have to like that. Yeah, it's very, very good. Good recommendation. I haven't had that recommendation before on this show, so that's good. And then most importantly, what does success mean to you? Success to me means having fun in what you're doing. I think you need to, if you enjoy what you're doing, you're happy and success comes by itself. I think too many people don't enjoy that work or whatever they do, and I think if you don't enjoy, you should change. So for me, success is being happy where I am and enjoying what I do. Very good. And then most importantly, how do people get in touch with you, your social website, email whatever you want to give? Sure, so I think the easiest way is through LinkedIn or Twitter. Twitter handle is at for them, which might be a bit difficult for the listeners, but you can also go to digitalspeaker.com, which is easier, or dataflock.com, where you can find me, and or just to Google search. I'm pretty much out there. It is a unique name, so for Twitter, it's at VAMRIGMEMAM, and I'm not going to pronounce it again, but that's his Twitter handle. Thanks. Yeah, no worries, no worries. All right, that's perfect. That's all I got. That's all I got. Thank you so much, Scott. It's been a pleasure.