• Robotics are and will continue taking over some current jobs, allowing us to discover new ones.
  • Many organizations are trading traditional offices and headquarters for virtual environments.
  • Books, libraries, movies, videos, games and education will change as more individuals become “people of the screens”—tethered to their phones, tablets, PCs, TVs, VR goggles.
  • More global freelancers are being hired.
  • Citizen journalism is increasing—ordinary people are composing 80 million blog posts each day.
  • Everything that can be tracked will be. In the next five years, 34 million Internet-enabled devices will be added to the cloud that are built to stream data.
  • By 2025, there will be 500 billion connected devices in the world. In the next five years alone, there will be 3 billion to 5 billion new people connected to the Internet.

How can your organization prepare for and take advantage of these new realities and next waves of technology? By adopting the “D.I.S.R.U.P.T.” mindset:

  • Discipline in Execution. Offering a competitive advantage means having a clear path to delivering upon current and new initiatives. It means having the right people, processes and technology that are integrated and working together for your organization and its customers.
  • Immediacy. You must constantly consider what may be the next disruptor in your industry—and what your organization will do about it from a staff and operations perspective. Your organization must be agile.
  • Service/Product Needs. It’s not enough to know your customers’ current needs—you also must anticipate their future ones.
  • Reinforce Value. There is only one “you.” So what’s your competitive advantage? What are you providing that is unique and valuable that your customers can’t get anywhere else?
  • User Experience. Are you delivering information when and how your customers want it? Are you routinely auditing your technology infrastructure to determine what may be obsolete  in a few years (desktops printers, fax machines, in-house servers) and what you will replace them with (tablets, scanners, cloud)?
  • Personalization. What separates good from great organizations are ones that are extremely customer-focused. What high-quality offerings are you offering to each target audience? And are you authentic in your delivery?
  • Talent & Culture. Develop a strategy to keep your staff’s skill-sets relevant. How is staff staying abreast of technology changes so your organization is equipped to adapt? Is staff able to constantly learn and update their thinking to keep pace? Consider whether your culture is open to innovative conversations among staff.

At .orgSource, we study disruptive technology for a living. I personally helped create one of the first—if not the first—website, assisted organizations in preparing for and transcending Y2K, advised organizations through the “.com” era, moved to the cloud, and now am studying “what’s next.”

Do you need help assessing your IT infrastructure, culture or staff? Could you benefit from guidance in creating and implementing a digital strategy? Call upon .orgSource, association management leaders and innovators for more than 10 years.

Posted in Uncategorized