[bright music] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to "Side by Side."

My guest today became one of the first undergraduates in the nation to direct a research grant.

His idea on the importance of innovation grew from there and went on.

He went on to create and manage six businesses, write seven books, and become the CEO of a research and consulting firm monitoring innovation driven by technology.

This is an interesting program with Mr. Dan Burrus.

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- Yay!

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You make it feel like home.

[baby laughing] Ashley HomeStore.

This is home.

- [Narrator] For over 60 years, the everyday leaders at The Budd Group have been committed to providing smart, customized facility solutions to our clients, and caring for the communities we serve.

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[uplifting music] ♪ - Dan, welcome to "Side by Side."

You are well-known from coast to coast, border to border, and countries beyond as a future extraordinare.

You know your stuff.

You've done your research.

You have given seminars and speeches and consulted with literally hundreds and hundreds of leading organizations.

Tell me briefly, what does the future hold for us?

- Well, right now, there is more opportunity than there's ever been on the planet Earth.

And I know people would say, "Haven't you been reading the newspaper?

Haven't you been watching the television about all the problems that are going on?"

And I would say, I would repeat myself, "There's more opportunity now than ever before."

We're doing things today that were impossible just two years ago.

And by the way, we're gonna be doing things that are impossible two years from now.

When you look- - Because of technology?

- Because of technology and the exponential growth of these tools.

I think we've known each other for a while, and back almost 40 years ago, I was identified digital technology as well as AI and all of these things that we're doing today using my methodologies and talking about their exponential growth.

For example, if you're a linear thinker and you're dealing with exponential technology, you're gonna have trouble.

AWS, which is Amazon's cloud services, they started in 2006.

They've doubled 36 times since 2006.

- Wow, wow.

- Now here's the interesting thing.

- They doubled what?

Their capacity or their new technology?

- [Daniel] And revenue.

- And revenue, I see.

- Revenue, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, now- - So more people are using more?

- More people are using it because they're an exponential company.

Now here's an interesting thing.

Three more doubles, they're the biggest in the world.

And they've already been doubling 36 times all the way through 'cause they're driving that exponential goal.

So we have these exponential technologies, which are unlimited platforms for growth.

For example, what does the cloud do?

Well, nothing until you apply it.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- And you can apply it in infinite ways.

What does 5G wireless do?

Well, nothing until you apply it to something.

So there's only so many keys on a piano.

Been like that from Beethoven and even before.

Has that limited humans' ability to create new music?

No, that's one of the beautiful parts about being a human.

- [Nido] Right.

- We have unlimited possibilities with dozens and dozens and dozens of exponential platforms there waiting for us.

- Mm-hmm.

But what does a guy like me, who does not really understand technology in a vertical or diagonal manner, I use it, but I don't have capacity to interpret it, dissect it, how do I benefit from all that?

- Well, you don't have to know the physics of a smartphone in order to use it.

I know people that can pick up a phone and they could call and make a million dollars.

I know people that can pick up a phone and they could call and lose a million dollars.

The difference isn't the brand of the phone.

So it's always how you use it.

So what I really want people to do is to become aware of what are the possibilities.

And I think if you're older, you have wisdom, you have experience, you have all of those things, but you're in the box and you can't get out.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- You've heard this saying, get out of the box.

Well, you can't.

You've created it.

It's your career, and you've fortified.

I'd like the windows to be glass.

But young people, they know about new technology, but they don't have the experience and the wisdom.

You know what you would like to do, but you don't know all the tools that are available.

We need to be talking more to the young folks.

And the young folks, by the way, talking more to the old folks, getting together, so that we can end this generational gap by co-inventing the future.

- So Dan, so, so many questions I have for you regarding this particular matter, this progressive movement with technology, growing the possibilities and access to all of us in so many ways.

Number one, I read so much about technology being intrusive privacy-wise, maybe even one of those little machines you have at home.

What is it, Alexa, or those people?

Listening in on what you're saying.

People know exactly where I am based on my use of an iPhone.

Does that bother you that this kind of technology removes so much of human privacy?

- Well, the same technology that could give you cancer could also cure your cancer.

It's not the tool, it's how you use it.

- [Nido] Mm.

- And there will always be bad people doing bad things.

But I know you and I have both traveled the world many times.

I've got 6 million flying miles.

I've been around.

Most people on the planet are good people.

And I think when you're values and purpose-driven, you- - But I'm not even talking about that.

I'm talking about governmental intrusion.

I'm talking about- - Oh, sure.

- Companies that wanna sell you stuff.

You can go on Facebook and click on one thing, and within seconds, you get five or six similar kind of ads and so on.

This is crazy to me.

- It is crazy, and people are taking advantage of it, and you can make a lot of money by taking advantage of those things.

So what I'm asking us to do, all of us to do, is to rise up and use it in a positive way.

There will always be people using it in a negative way, but I wanna focus on what I can do, not what I can't do, what I can influence, not what I can't influence.

And all trends, 'cause I've been studying trends for, again, 40 years, they're either a hard trend based on a future fact that will happen or they're a soft trend based on an assumption that may or may not happen.

- [Nido] Mm.

- And I love both.

- Mm-hmm.

- So example of a hard trend, we went from 3G wireless to 4G wireless.

We're now at 5G wireless.

Is that it?

No, next there'll be 6G wireless.

And we're putting a lot in the cloud.

Well, is the cloud getting full?

No, we're gonna be putting more in the cloud.

And a lot of us are worried about AI for one of the reasons you were starting to talk about.

AI is getting so good.

It will take all the jobs.

But in reality, AI is going to be a symbiotic relationship with us.

In other words, if you are an oncologist, and AI knows more about oncology than any oncologist today already- - [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- And let's say you know someone that has cancer, heaven forbid, I'm gonna give you three choices.

A really great oncologist, just AI, or a really great oncologist that has access to AI.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- We already see, this is a human world.

We're gonna be using it to help us to serve people better and to do better things.

Some people will be doing bad things.

I don't choose to do that.

And I want all of us to rise up and do more.

So again, we have hard trends based on future facts that will happen.

Three quick categories, just for the discussion of the teach.

One of them is demographics.

Baby boomers are not gonna get chronologically younger.

They're gonna continue to age.

- Yes.

- And there will be predictable problems as well as opportunities.

Let me give you one that doesn't happen today.

By the way, it will.

- [Nido] Mm.

- Doesn't exist today.

And I'll show you how you can innovate using what I call the certainty of hard trends.

So a lot of people, as they get into their late 80s and 90s, they fall, and- - [Nido] Physically fall.

- Physically fall.

- Yeah.

- And it can be expensive, painful, and sometimes can even be fatal.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- So we got a lot of people getting older.

So we could take right now a little boot that fits on any shoe with a little sensor in the front of it that is Bluetoothed to either your hearing aid or a device you put in your ear.

And it could sense whether a toy is in your way, a step is going down- - I see.

- A step is going up.

- This is available now?

- No, not available now.

- Oh, this is coming next.

- I'm telling you how to invent the future.

- I see.

- So I'm taking a future predictable problem.

- Yes.

- There are gonna be more people falling 'cause we've got more and more people aging.

That's expensive.

Let's do something about that.

I look at technology.

Is there a solution?

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- And I see, yes, you can make a sensor the size of a fly's eye, put it on a little thing that can fit on any shoe, and it could say, "Johnny's toy is in the way," or, "Step down," or, "Step up," and we would have a lot of people not hurting themselves.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- My point is, is that there is so much opportunity.

Look at the problems, the predictable problems that we can see, take a look at the tools that are available.

And you don't have to know how they work.

Ask a kid.

By the way, if the high school kids are too expensive, try the junior high kids, and you will start getting some answers.

So three categories of hard trends.

One, demographics.

Mentioned that already.

Two, technology.

Talked about that briefly.

And third one is gonna surprise everyone, regulation, because we have regulations.

Every government has regulations.

And you might say, "Well, you can't predict the future of regulation."

And I would say, "Oh, yes you can.

You just can't predict it all."

For example, will we have more regulation on cybersecurity?

And the answer is yes.

Why?

- Yes.

- Because there's some hard trends at play that government can't ignore, then there's some things we can debate.

So when we look at these hard trend certainties, the exponential growth of them, it gives us two things.

We can see disruptions before they disrupt, turning disruption into a choice, and we can see problems before we have them, so we can presolve them.

I mean, how many times have our listeners and our viewers said, "I knew that would happen."

And I would say, "Then why did you let it?"

So I want to have us predict problems and presolve them.

By the way, if we're not doing that on planet Earth, we're not gonna be happy campers on this planet as we go forward.

- No.

- We need to be anticipatory versus just reactionary.

- And that's what you talk about.

You talk about anticipatory goals.

That's what you mean by it.

- [Daniel] Yeah, exactly.

- You've written a book, I think, on anticipatory- - Anticipatory organization, I call it.

- Yes, yes.

- Yes, and basically people have looked and organizations have looked at agility.

And that's a reactionary strategy, reacting as quickly as you can to a disruption after it disrupts.

Reacting as quickly as you can to a problem, that's agility, which is a reactionary thing, which is good.

But the other side of the strategy coin is being anticipatory.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Anticipating problems before you have them.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Anticipating disruption so you have the choice to be the disruptor or the disrupted.

- Anticipating trends in the marketplace, anticipating strategic things in an organization.

You serve on the Department of Defense Joint Service's Futures Group.

- Yeah.

- What do you do there?

- Well, we are looking at, first of all, we took all of the different Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, which had different IT departments and different everything, 57,000 people in the Air Force IT department, so we're talking a big thing, and put them together into a joint services group.

And I advise them on AI and on things cyber and things like that.

- I see.

- And they're using my hard trend, soft trend methodology to create strategies because hard trends gives you certainty in an uncertain world.

- Mm-hmm.

- See, there's so much uncertainty right now.

Can you be in...

It looks like death and taxes and that's it.

However, can an astronomer tell you in March in 2035 exactly when we'll have a full moon?

And the stock market goes down.

Will it go down forever?

No, it'll go up again.

And you know it's summer now, and next will be fall.

In other words, there's over 500 cycles that give you predictability.

But the other kind of change that I like to talk about is what I would call linear in that it is not a cycle.

It's one way/exponential.

It's growing at a exponential pace.

- [Nido] What's an example of that?

- Well, again, use of smartphones, or the cloud, or the use of 5G.

Those are all riding- - You're saying it's gonna continue- - Exponential curves.

- It's gonna continue to, that trend's gonna continue to be here, and it's gonna grow.

- They're not going away.

- Yes.

- They're future facts.

- Yeah.

- And to put it in a different way of thinking about it, once the people in India get refrigeration for their home, are they gonna say, "We don't need refrigeration"?

No.

Once the people in China park their bicycle and get a car, are they gonna say, "Let's go back to the bike"?

No.

Once we get a smartphone, are we gonna say, "I'm going back to the dumb phone"?

So in other words, we have some permanent changes.

They're not cycles anymore.

- It's happening now.

- It's happening right now on a global level.

- And I worry, and I'm interested to see whether you worry about that, that this certainty we're talking about, that there's certain things we're not gonna go back to.

We get spoiled.

We like the convenience.

We like the access.

What is that doing to human connectivity, Dan?

You go into a restaurant and you see two, three people all on their iPhones.

- [Daniel] I know, I know.

- You see people down the corridor from each other in an office building, nobody gets up anymore to go talk to their colleague.

They're emailing everybody.

Do you think there's a relationship between mental health and lack of human connectivity that is caused by all these trends that invite us and get us addicted to the usefulness of such smartness, if you will?

- Yeah, and matter of fact, I don't even have to give you an opinion.

There is research that shows there is definitely a problem with that.

We live in a technical world, but we live in a human world.

- [Nido] Yes.

- And relationships are all based on trust.

And trust is earned through values that we all on planet Earth agree on.

So my point is that, yes, you're right, we're losing that connection.

And I think the pendulum tends to swing.

And I think it... For example, on Facebook, young people got into Facebook.

What are they doing now?

Getting off of Facebook.

Why?

Because the older people are getting on Facebook.

[laughs] - And there's TikTok now, and there's you know.

- And there's TikTok and there's other things.

- Yeah.

- But at one point, we yearn for that human connection.

And I think...

In other words, I think that's gonna come back because we, not technology, will decide, wait a minute, I'm not happy.

This isn't the life I wanna live.

- I see.

So the pendulum you think will reverse to some degree- - [Daniel] To some degree.

- Because of our human needs.

- Because of our human needs.

However, technology is seductive and it's there and there's money to be made- - Yes.

- Keeping you on the platform.

- So earlier this week, I toured four or five plants, factories, where furniture is made.

- [Daniel] Mm, mm-hmm.

- And then I was fascinated because I live in High Point, North Carolina.

I'm quite familiar with how furniture is made.

I've been to many, many factories.

I've watched how a sofa's upholstered.

I've watched how a dresser is made, how drawers are carried by an individual and inserted into the larger case, good.

Where I was several days ago was all robotics.

- Yeah.

- So literally, the piece of furniture, the wood was cut, the machine, the robots would pick it up, turn it this way, then turn it this way, glue it to this, and fix it there, and then comes down.

It was a finished product.

- Yeah.

- It was amazing.

And where you had three or four people doing that ordinarily, now you literally have a robot.

And when I asked, "How much money is that saving you?"

The robots cost a lot of money, so.

The robot, not like the one you introduced me to many years ago, which is a sort of a human person walking around.

These are a machines with a hand and goes down, does this.

- Exactly.

- And they said, "Within a year or less, we get our money back in savings."

Well, that's where the seduction comes in terms of business, right?

Think of how banks do what they do now.

Technology has taken over- - Every single thing.

And by the way, if you're doing anything repetitive, more than two or three times, that can be automated.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- And that will be.

- So what must a person do to remain relevant in a society- - It's a game of relevancy, isn't it?

- Yes.

In a society that's changing so much?

- Well, there's a old saying, you can't teach old dogs new tricks.

- Mm-hmm.

- The good news is we're not dogs.

- [Nido] Yes.

- We can continually learn [Nido laughs] and elevate ourselves.

So if you're not willing to learn something new, you're not going to like the future.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- But if you're willing to learn new things... For example, all those robots, guess what?

They need service.

They're gonna need to be upgraded.

By the way, it's gonna be the new robot.

We gotta get the old robot, and we gotta take the old robot apart, instead of just putting it in a landfill, and repurpose it.

So in other words, there's amazing new jobs.

- [Nido] There are opportunities.

- Amazing, but if we're stuck in, this is what I am, this is what I've been, and this is what I always will be, you're gonna have a tough time.

- There's gonna be failure all the way.

How are educational institutions from K through college preparing generations that will deal with this kind of future?

- Well, we have to ask ourselves, are we teaching students to live in a world that is ceasing to exist, or are we teaching them into that, the world that will exist?

And I know one of the things that we wanna do is teach the timeless principles that will span time, things that were great 100 years ago that'll be great 100 from now.

And those are really important and basic.

But then we have new things that we have to teach them as well.

And if we look at what are the basics, for example, problem-solving, communication skills, collaboration skills, strategic listening skills, these things that robots and AI don't do well.

They don't have empathy.

They don't gain trust well.

If you talk to a robot surgeon, "I hope you get well soon," I don't think, you know what I mean?

- Yes.

[Daniel laughs] It's not gonna put a lot of faith in that relationship, yeah.

- Not a lot of faith in that.

So I think it's really elevating the human part.

So it used to be the soft skills we could kind of ignore and we would teach you the hard skills.

So here's interesting.

AI and automation is doing more of those hard things.

Like if you're accountant, it's doing the accounting, real-time auditing, real-time accounting.

Do we not need accountants?

And I would say, yes, we do, but we need them helping them to say, now that we know what the numbers are, now that we have verified the past, what can we see about the future?

And what advice can I give you in your company as your strategic advisor, not someone who's just looking at the numbers?

- So we have to reinvent the skills that we have- - Oh.

- For the world as it is going to be.

- Absolutely.

I wrote an article not long ago that people liked.

I said everything...

The title of it was, "Everything Sucks, and That's Perfect."

And what I meant by that is that nothing is perfect.

Nothing is perfect.

Thank goodness.

If everything was perfect, there would be no jobs.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- But nothing is... Everything can be improved.

Oh, my goodness.

Talk about opportunity.

Everything.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- Everything.

- You speak of the Skip It Principle.

- [Daniel] Yes.

[laughs] I love Skip It.

- What is that?

- God, I use Skip It all the time.

So there's two quick elements to it.

One of them is whatever problem you've got, that's not it.

There's another one.

That's why you're stuck.

I'll give you a very simple example.

My niece, Hallie, called the other day.

She's got her first job, and she said, "Uncle Dan, I can't save any money.

And I'm working really hard at saving, but I just can't save."

She knows it's possible.

Her older sister can save like crazy.

Hallie can't.

I said, "You're working on the wrong problem.

Why don't you work at how you spend your money?"

- [Nido] Mm.

- See, she was working on the wrong one.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- Well, that's true for business, too.

We're working on the wrong problems.

Quick example, a big hotel chain, they had a problem.

They built a whole bunch of new hotels and everyone's complaining about the slow elevators, everyone.

And you just can't turn up the speed of an elevator.

You need a whole new thing.

- Yeah, right.

- So that was a big problem.

And I was talking, I said, "Let's skip that.

What do we do?

What's the real problem?

These people are bored.

That's why they're all complaining."

What was the solution?

Put full-length mirrors right next to the entrance of every elevator.

All complaints went away [Nido laughs] because everyone was looking at their suit, and their tie, and their dress.

You see what I mean?

- Yeah, yes.

- So what's the real problem?

Dig down.

- So you deviate from what you think it is.

- It isn't what you think.

- And you uncover what might solve it.

That's what Skip It means.

- Yes, yes.

Well, one other quick element to it is skipping it altogether.

And a quick example was, if we go back to World War II, initially, there were all these islands on the way to Japan, because the US wanted to get to Japan, that were occupied by the Japanese.

And at first, they were going to try to recapture all those islands until someone skipped it and said, "No, let's just go a straight line to Japan.

We'll just retake those islands and let the rest of them stay occupied by Japan."

- [Nido] I see.

- Saved millions of lives, by the way.

- So in this context, you're skipping a strategy altogether.

- Exactly.

See, we thought we had to do this.

- I see.

- So in business, or if you're a student, whatever, we think we have to do all these steps.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- Step back.

Are there some steps you could skip?

Are you doing them because you think you need to do them or because you really have to do them?

And you'll find you can cut it way back.

Another thing is to think bigger about it.

Because when I was graduating from my last degree, I was thinking big about my future.

But I look back now, I realize I was thinking too small.

There's always a bigger big.

But you can't see the bigger big until you define the big.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- So think of what your best idea is, and then don't do it.

Step back and say, now what's the bigger one and what can I skip?

And you know what?

You'll get there faster.

- People who are going to college today, you would say, "Hey, if you have a leaning for this, this is what you should major in," what is that?

- Well, what I would do is, first of all, ask them to look at what their core strengths are so that they're tying to their strengths.

- If they're good in mathematics or science or- - Right.

So someone might say, "Should I get into robotics because I heard what you just said about robotics?"

And I would say, "Not if you don't like robots."

- [Nido] Yes.

- Get into something that you like.

Take a look at those core technologies that are shaping the future.

There's over 25 core technologies shaping the future that I write about and other people talk about.

Look at those and see if there's something that's interesting.

And I'm not saying you have to be a technologist.

- [Nido] Mm-hmm.

- Oh, no, no, no, no.

Some of you will be.

Some of you won't be.

But rather, is there something that I might be able to see there that gives me a way to redefine what being a veterinarian is or redefine what being electrician is?

In other words, everything isn't that perfect.

- Yes.

- Everything can be reinvented.

- Thank goodness.

- Thank goodness.

- Right?

That's what you said.

- [Both] Thank goodness.

- Yeah.

- Thank goodness.

- But Dan, this is all fascinating because what I read in what you say is that the other, the possible could make our lives better, we just have to be responsible in the way we respond to it and we have to be reasoned and reasonable in the way we apply ourselves in it.

We could talk for hours, but I wanna thank you for coming today and being side by side with me.

And I know that you're working on fascinating stuff, probably more books, [uplifting music] more speeches we can catch up on next time.

Thank you, Dan Burrus- - Thank you.

- For all that you teach us and all that you enlighten us with.

Thank you very much.

[uplifting music] ♪ - [Narrator] Funding for "Side by Side with Nido Qubein" is made possible by.

- [Narrator] Here's to those that rise and shine.

- Yay.

- [Narrator] To friendly faces doing more than their part.

- Hey, thank you.

- [Narrator] And to those who still enjoy the little things.

You make it feel like home.

[baby laughing] Ashley HomeStore.

This is home.

- [Narrator] For over 60 years, the everyday leaders at The Budd Group have been committed to providing smart, customized facility solutions to our clients and caring for the communities we serve.

[bright music] - [Narrator] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally.

Thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.