Recently in Keynote speaker Category

Tomorrow I'm doing the closing keynote at the Newspaper Publishers Association Future Forum conference in Sydney, with already considerable attention on what I will discuss.

I have just prepared a framework to crystallize some of my thoughts on the news landscape today, which I've called The NewsScape. Individual channels - such as print, TV, internet, and more - are becoming meaningless. In the post-channel media world we are entering, the entire landscape is laid open. The NewsScape shows how value is created in this world. (Media revenue models are addressed elsewhere with an update on this coming.)

Click on the image to see large version

Interfaces are the furnace at the heart of how we access news. Adding to the established interfaces of newspapers and television, newer interfaces including phones and tablets have emerged. Before long digital paper that has most of the great qualities of print as well as the advantages of the digital will be available at reasonable prices.

This morning in Adelaide I delivered the first of five keynotes I'm doing as part of a Telstra Business national roadshow on cloud computing. I am giving the opening keynote at the breakfast series, followed by Telstra Chief Technology Officer Hugh Bradlow or his key staff.

In the preparation phase I wrote up a brief description of my keynote on Tapping the Forces of Change for use in Telstra's promotion of the event to their clients and prospects. In doing so I came up with the concept of 'Breathe in the Cloud' as a useful metaphor. Companies need to breathe in the resources of cloud computing in order to give them the vitality to

Here is a video of the opening for my keynote, talking about why it is so important for companies to Breathe in the Cloud.

Through the month of August I will be doing the keynote address at a five-city Australian roadshow run by Telstra Business. I will open the breakfast events by providing a big picture view of how driving forces in technology, business and society are moving the world towards cloud computing, cloud working, cloud thinking, and cloud strategy.

I will be followed by Hugh Bradlow, Telstra's Chief Technology Officer, who will provide a more detailed vendor view of cloud computing.

There is no public website for the event; I was told to suggest you contact your Telstra account executive if you're interested in attending the event.

Below is a brief article I provided Telstra to help promote the event to their customers. I'll be fleshing out the thinking in this article in some further writing and quite possibly a cloud framework.

Tapping the forces of change

Take a deep breath. As you breathe in, think about the invisible substance that is all around us and sustains us, but we cannot see. Air is vital to us and fuels our energy. In the same way, businesses today are finding that access to a universe of computing resources on tap in the ether around them is helping to keep them healthy and drive their growth. A company's vitality increasingly depends on how readily it can breathe in this vital resource.

A little while ago I gave a keynote at the Gartner Symposium. Gartner looks to its analysts to share their deep research at their events. It also invites a handful of external speakers to bring a lighter and more entertaining – though still pragmatic – approach and style.

I suggested the topic of Driving Business Results Through Personal Network, which can readily be made fun and interesting, but is also extremely practical for senior technology executives. It was a broad-ranging keynote, ranging across topics including why we need to understand the Bacon number, why boundary spanners are so critical for organizations, the long tail of sexual activity, how to enhance serendipity, and steps to being an energizing leader.

Inset into the presentation were two sets of recommendations, on building personal online networks and on enhancing organizational networks. At the risk of taking them out of the supporting context, here they are:

My single biggest client-facing activity this year has been speaking to executive teams about the future of business. These presentations are usually scheduled during strategy offsites or retreats, though sometimes are embedded into leadership development programs or a scheduled presentation within an ongoing transformation program. Sometimes I run a full-day workshop, more often I have 45-90 minutes to work with.

The intent of inviting me is largely to stimulate executives to think beyond the everyday, get new ideas, and develop an optimistic mindset about the challenges and opportunities afforded by the extraordinary pace of change today. Many have latched onto the title of one of my presentation topics, Embracing the Future, as the attitude they wish to engender.

There is only so much you can achieve in a brief presentation. However I have to work with what I am given, do the best with that, and do what I can for the session to result in lasting energy and initiatives. Here are some of the approaches I find effective.

We recently updated our flyer on my keynote speaking work, highlighting that I am speaking primarily as a futurist these days, adding in a few extra cities I've spoken in since the last edition, and a few other tweaks.

The flyer is embedded below, you can download it here, or let us know if you'd like print copies. Head over to my speaker website for more detailed speaking topics. :-)

Ross Dawson: Keynote Speaker | Futurist | Strategy Advisor

Today I spoke at the Critical Horizons Regional Futures conference held in Bunbury, Western Australia,which "examines emerging global trends and how they might affect regional communities in the South West Region of Western Australia". It is fantastic that a non-urban region runs a regular event to examine its future. It is clear that the attendees from across business and government had a keen appetite to explore the future and what they need to do to create a prosperous region in years to come.

The regional economy is still largely driven by mining and to a lesser extent agriculture (including the delightful Margaret River wines). It is experiencing many issues common to regional areas, including the loss of younger people to cities. However it has a particular context in its location. Australia is one of the most urbanized countries in the world, and Perth is the most isolated city in the world. Bunbury is over 2 hours drive away from Perth. It took me 10 hours door-to-door to get here from Sydney – by far the longest it has taken me to get to a speaking gig in Australia.

The region’s geographic isolation means the topic of my keynote here, Power to the People: Thriving in a Hyperconnected Society, is immensely relevant. I discussed the overwhelming trend of how a connected world is shifting power from institutions to individuals. However I also covered the implications for regions of the emerging global talent economy. Crowdsourcing tools on one level provide access to extraordinary talent that can be harnessed in ways limited only by imagination. Yet a connected world also provides opportunities to provide services, both in existing domains, and especially in managing projects.

To the extent that they are useful (usual disclaimer: my slides are created to accompany my speeches, not to be viewed on their own) here are my slides for my keynote (minus the Flash animations).

Earlier this week I gave a keynote speech to Cisco Insight 2010, the conference for its top-tier partners, with the title Innovation Beyond Boundaries. I’ve always thought it anomalous that I had never done any work for Cisco, given its messages such as the Human Network are so aligned with mine, so I’m glad that connection has been made.

While I spent much of my presentation looking at some of the more interesting implications of a hyperconnected world, suitable for an audience well used to these ideas, I also explored the critical role of knowledge-based relationships in effectively innovating beyond boundaries.

This morning I did the opening keynote at IBM's Collective Intelligence BusinessSphere conference in Melbourne. It was designed as a brief and punchy opener to provide a big-picture context to what collective intelligence means for organizations and the key success factors.

Below are the slides. As always the slides are intended to provide visual support to my presentation, not to be useful by themselves. However there are a few visuals there that may be of interest even to those who didn't attend.

Other 2009 summary posts
Top blog posts of 2009: 6 on Twitter and the media
Top blog posts of 2009: Enterprise 2.0 and organizational effectiveness
Top blog posts of 2009: The future

Fourth in my series of summary blog posts from 2009 is selected presentations and videos from keynote speeches I've delivered this year (plus, at the end, my list of speaking topics for 2010).

My usual disclaimer: My presentation slides are highly visual and designed to accompany my speeches, and are NOT intended to be meaningful by themselves. The main reason I provide them on my blog is for the audience at my keynotes who want to look at the slides later. However it seems that others find the slides useful - in fact some have been viewed over 10,000 times on Slideshare.

I should also note that this list just includes a selection of the more interesting public keynotes I have given. I do not post slides for the presentations I frequently make for company in-house events such as divisional conferences and strategy off-sites.

Below are the links to the original blog posts which have the context and background for each presentation, with the embedded presentations below.

1. Video excerpts of keynote speech for Sun Microsystems Partner Executive Forum: The Future of the Network Economy

In my work as a keynote speaker - which despite all my other ventures still takes up a significant chunk of my time, attention, and frequent flyer points clocking - I always customize the presentation and topic to the client and audience. As such, on my keynote speaker website I have in the past posted just a half dozen speech titles with one-sentence descriptions, considering this is enough to provide an idea of what I can speak about.

However I have found that people seem to think that these are the only topics I speak on, so I have created a longer list of speaking topics to provide a better idea of the scope of what I can cover. This includes 10 topics for a general audience and 8 for specific industries. There are of course many other topics I cover not listed here, but these provide a reasonable overview of what I've spoken about.

You can see the full list of speaking topics on my speaker website, or below.

On Tuesday I gave the opening keynote at the 38th annual global conference of international accounting network Kreston International.

Kreston are a very interesting organization. With revenues across the network of over $2 billion, they are the 13th largest accounting network in the world. The day of the conference they made the final step in becoming a network according to the IFAC (International Federation of Accountants) definition of a network. One of the critical issues in determining whether a group of firms is deemed a network is whether they have common quality controls. The appointment of a Global Quality and Professional Standards Director is a key step Kreston has taken.

I have long been fascinated by professional services networks. I wrote about them in my first book Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, and in detail in Chapter 9 of Living Networks.

I am actively continuing to explore the nature of networks in professional services. How well they network very simply determines their success.

As such I was delighted to be invited to do the opening keynote on the conference's theme of Network to Win. It took the format of a participatory workshop run over two 45 minute sessions, getting the attendees to reflect on and discuss how they can best enhance the cross-firm networks that drive results.

Below are my slides for my presentation, provided primarily for event attendees. Note that they are intended to accompany my speech, not to be meaningful in themselves.

I first met Mark McCrindle when we were both part of a small team of futures thinkers engaged by a major bank for its innovation program. His company McCrindle Research provides a variety of research services focused on generational change. They also organize the Future Forum, an annual event run in several Australia cities which pulls together insights on key trends across all domains into a compact one-day session.

I will be speaking at the Sydney event on November 6, talking about Enterprise 2.0 and how to create the future of the enterprise, including how organizations can leverage social media for competitive advantage. A video overview of the event is below, full information and agenda here, and you can register here.

Future Forum Australia 2009 from David Birley on Vimeo.

In addition to my rossdawson.com website, which focuses on my work as a keynote speaker and strategy leader, we have created a brief document which provides an overview of what I do in this space.

The document needs a few small updates, such as an additional book published, however it is essentially current.

Ross Dawson - Keynote Speaker and Strategy Leader

A CNN blog titled its story Is the iPhone really the Paris Hilton of mobile phones?, referring to a recent report saying that iPhone's are not profitable for telecom firms.

It says that the term first appeared on December 5, 2008 in a newsletter from Strand Consult, referred to in an ITWire story titled iPhone - the Paris Hilton of mobile phones?

Well, for what it's worth, I said it in September 2008. Following is an excerpt from my opening keynote for a five-city national roadshow for Optus Business, just after the iPhone was launched.

I don't think I was making quite the same point though - the iPhone was enormously glamorized, feted on all sides for a couple of months, truly the center of attention, just over a year ago. However the difference with Paris Hilton is that the iPhone has great social value.

BTW I haven't managed to track down the author of the photo in the movie - please get in touch if you want attribution or for me not to use it.