Disruptive innovation from people with disabilities

epitomises tenacity and optimism to not just conquer adversity but thrive. A quadruple amputee at age 19, Nash thinks that people with disabilities or those involved with them are uniquely able to solve problems because they cannot do everything the way everyone else does.

“Solving problems for people who have disabilities can often result in unintended consequences where new markets are inadvertently created through the proliferation of innovation,” said Nash. “Consider text to speech or speech to text, which was initially designed for people with disabilities. Initially expensive with access to a limited few, they became disruptive when a wider population discovered their usefulness. Now we have Alexa and Siri who make everyone’s lives easier.”

As for how to make a compelling case for a major innovation, Nash advised a healthy dose of humour.

“The first person trying to change something pays a disproportionate price, whether it’s social, political, or in business,” he said. “Humour hacks the impact of paying that price because it’s a light-hearted way to convey honest ideas in a more palatable manner.”

New leadership norms to support remote workers

As a military helicopter pilot and Formation Commander in Australia’s Navy, it’s fair to say that knows a thing or two about leadership, especially across remote workforces. She saw effective communication and understanding team members fundamental to leading dispersed workforces.

“People are inspired when they feel a genuine connection to the team and their leaders,” said Munari. “Leaders have an essential role in maintaining a strong connection within the team, fostering a cohesive effort that ultimately unites them towards a shared mission and goal, while building individual, team, and workforce resilience.”

Recognising that remote work can strain work/life balance, she encouraged people to also take time for themselves.

“When I was on operations for months at a time in Afghanistan, work filled my every day,” said Munari. “To operate at peak mental and physical performance I made sure to do one thing every day just for me. This gave me that mental break, relaxing and recharging me to stay motivated towards the daily job.”

Disruptions are teachable moments for sustainability

Sorting fact from fiction is second nature to award-winning Australian environmentalist , who cut through the standard dystopian climate change ethos with bright optimism.

“The pandemic has shown us what we can achieve with investments in science to quickly explore ideas, gain insights from clinical trials, and develop life-saving vaccines,” she said. “Hopefully that same credible peer reviewed expertise will extend to living and working more sustainably. Life disruptions are an opportunity to learn more cost-effective, sustainable habits like telehealth and remote work. The new normal has given us confidence in our ability to adapt and learn new things.”

In confining people closer to home, pandemic lockdowns have opened many people’s eyes to the beauty of nature and importance of addressing climate change.

“You look after what you love,” said Ha. “Having visited the beautiful outdoor spaces nearby their own communities, people are becoming environmentally-minded. They are realising that nature is on loan. It’s not something for us to exploit, but it’s something for us to benefit from while caring for it.”

Embrace your personal de-stressors

For those of us feeling shall we say, challenged, by 18 months or nonstop stress, workplace well-being consultant , is a breath of motivational fresh air, including during a pandemic.

“It’s completely understandable to feel overwhelmed, more tired, or a bit less sharp,” she said. “Step back and acknowledge that this is happening, and that it’s a sign of your system dealing with stress. Cut yourself some slack, and if it makes sense for you, look for opportunities to do less. Having a routine that we feel we have control over actually enables us to do more.”

Turns out there’s no single definitive list of de-stressors.

“Stick to doing things that you know make you feel better; it doesn’t matter what that is,” said Dr. Brockis. “If you know that’s your one thing that can make the biggest difference in how you feel about things generally, make time for it. For me, it’s spending time outside and moving. Your mental well-being boost could be something entirely different.”

My takeaway from all of this is that although making room for disruptive innovation is an intensely personal experience, it also stokes the productive future of every organisation.

This article was originally featured on

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What was your first job? Did you deliver? Newspapers? Babysit? mow lawns? Or work at the shops?

While I remember the smiling faces of the kids I got to work with, I also remember the frustration. Filling out a paper timesheet so I got paid on time, reviewing my schedule on a whiteboard, and picking up a physical check. These paper-based tasks led to inefficiencies, and I knew there must be a better way.

Bringing us back to 2021, we’ve certainly come a long way. Hopefully, your timesheets are automated, your scheduling is digitised, and – do checks even exist in Australia anymore? Our smartphones, watches, voice assistants, computers, and myriad of devices ensure that our daily lives and movements are tracked. Recommendations for being more efficient are made at each moment. We’re now able to operate at a different pace.

With these advancements in technology, the ways that we work have evolved, and in a lot of ways, we could say that the future of work is already here. We’re humans and we’re constantly looking at what’s going to happen next, and that’s where the future of work truly comes in.

At SAP, we know that the way you work is constantly changing which is why we’re consistently looking at what the future of work means. Laptops outsold desktops for the first time in 2005, in 2015 51ˇçÁ÷launched , and in 2020 virtual conferencing finally became more popular than traveling.

But as we shift beyond the now – what does our future hold?

First, we see people and computers working together with human computer augmentation. We’re putting resources into your hands for how to make better, smarter, faster decisions. No longer do you have to wait days for the reports that you need to find out the information about how your business is running.

The information you need to make real-time decisions for your business and keep you moving at scale is ready now. And nothing was more evident than when we had to transition an entire organisation from working in offices to working at home. Your teams are now made up of two things human intelligence and . These AI-Powered Superteams allow everyone to take the best role possible.

Transforming How We Work

Next, we see a transformation in where we work and whom we work for. People resources continue to be scarce, and we see a drive away from the traditional 9 to 5. The shift towards project-based hiring requires new approaches. We need to shift from billing for people in seats to delivering on organisational outcomes. Similarly, in COVID-19 we saw a massive flight out of cities. People are looking for business to move with them. This opens opportunities to connect people beyond geographies. This Jobful Future creates a collaborative structure where each contributor is equally valued, and each person feels deeply connected to solving the problem brought about.

Traditionally, we talk about diversity as having different genders, country of origin, age or identity. This leads to counting up differences, now our goal is to create work environments so people can Inclusively Belong. Beyond a simple checklist, inclusivity means we are acting to learn from the experiences that our differences harness.

In 2020 surveyed a cross sectional group of people and found that 1 in 5 identify as “A Passionate”. care not only about what businesses are providing but how they provide it. Across all topic areas, The Passionates require businesses to take meaningful action, and they are vocal about the change they want to see. As these groups enter boardrooms, they mandate social action, and businesses that don’t anticipate this change will be left behind. Inclusivity is paramount for any organisation in the future.

Finally, the biggest change we will feel in the shortest amount of time is how we react to recovering the 114 million jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. These are some of the most conservative numbers for what 2020 looked like. For so many people this disruption was pervasive, many of these roles will revive like hospitality, entertainment, and transportation.

But in other industries will build back digital. The jobs that exist in the years to follow COVID-19 are ripe to be dramatically different than what we see today. There are new roles for people to connect networks, become the manager of our AI teammates, move outside a major city, and bridge the gap between a physical and digital world.

Organisations need to prepare to upskill staff, support new types of workers, create different ways of connecting to work, and realise the power of AI to adapt to the Future of Work.

Check out across Australia and New Zealand to find out more about how 51ˇçÁ÷is creating the Future of Work.

This blog originally appeared on .

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How can I be and continue to be the best version of me? How do I ensure the same for my business? What actions should I take to ensure my business runs smarter, more efficiently with maximum productivity? How can we maintain total focus, stay ahead of the game and guarantee peak performance to achieve and improve upon brilliant results?

These questions endure because there is never a single, final answer. Embracing a more innovative approach is always a possibility, and will be a topic of discussion at SAP’s upcoming

The environment of elite sport may seem far removed from boardrooms and strategic planning sessions, but the recent drive in in all areas of tennis by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the organising body for the professional women’s game, is driven by the same motivating factors and principles found in the modern, agile business world. And the commonalities and learnings show that innovation transcends industries,and is an essential part of every business strategy optimised to win.

Best in class – and staying there
For athletes, the dogged pursuit of excellence and unwavering determination to play with power, precision and touch time and time again – and ultimately win – means new approaches to training are readily embraced. Off centre court, traditional techniques are being blended with the latest training tools and technologies to produce that winning formula. And when it comes to performance on court, innovation is at its core.

“WTA players recognise the value of having the most innovative technology to help improve their performance,” says WTA president Micky Lawler.

No stranger to sizing up the competition, Lawler is concentrated on the global marketing strategy of the WTA, uncovering new connections and overseeing an impressive portfolio of long-standing partnerships.

“It’s not only imperative to stay in the game, but in order to lead women’s tennis into the future and thrive, innovation is paramount,” Lawler says.

“We already know how incredible tennis is, but without embracing novel ways to play, consume and market the sport, we can’t inspire a new audience to invest.”

The WTA delivers tennis analytics to the game with real-time, in-match statistical analysis and insight for coaches via 51ˇçÁ÷software, and recently the ability to go beyond single-point analysis with the rollout of a new coaching tool called Patterns of Play.

“The latest feature addresses a key need for coaches looking for data-based insights into how a rally unfolds and how their player, and opponents, react to match situations,” Lawler says. “It also enables coaches to personalise insights for their player’s next match by going deeper into the data and applying various filters and customisations, spanning opponents, opponent’s rank, playing hand, playing surface and more.”

To Lawler, technology – and the ability to use and make sense of the data being generated with every moment of play – is a game changer. Literally.

“Before Tennis Analytics, professional tennis did not have access to real-time performance data during live match play…This vital information delivers fact-based feedback to the player that can really shape how a player adjusts and manages the outcome of the match.”

And it’s not just the sporting world identifying the transformative potential of data-driven decision-making. It’s a priority for leading organisations, with a recent finding that top financial performers reported being 25% more likely to have the data needed to improve upon analytics-based decision-making.

Unlocking new possibilities
Technology has not only benefited tennis players and managers of the game, but also those at the receiving end – the spectators who ultimately get to enjoy an even higher calibre of sport.

“We’re particularly excited about our latest endeavor in using Qualtrics experience management technology,” Lawler says. “Without giving too much away, it’s a highly advanced survey tool that we recently started using and it will certainly play an integral role in fuelling women’s professional tennis into the future, including how we work with players, staff, coaches and how we operate with tournaments, media and especially fans.”

When it comes to the viewing experience at home, innovation in over-the-top (OTT) video streaming has served the existing fanbase well, but crucially has opened fresh avenues to attract growth.

“OTT has allowed us infinite ways to engage fans,” Lawler says. “It has unlocked new possibilities for how we can work with our rights holders, how we manage our digital channels, and how we collaborate with our partner, players and tournaments.”

As industries start to make sense of the data they possess, customer-centric avenues for growth will only continue to expand. As the WTA has demonstrated, it’s about understanding how customers (or fans) want to engage and enabling that.

Overcoming obstacles through innovation
With the right technology behind the scenes, the WTA’s top players can run like well-oiled machines and more likely serve that winning ace. However, changing the game hasn’t come without its challenges. Indeed, integral to innovating is a deep desire to overcome obstacles.

“Implementing new technology ultimately leads to growth but there will always be an adjustment and adoption phase to navigate,” Lawler says. “With , we’re extremely fortunate to have partners who truly work through that stage of the game with us.”

Harnessing the power of data and technology in a quest to achieve perfection isn’t unique to the tennis world – it’s also the driving force of today’s competitive global business market. According to a by management consulting firm BCG, leaders of about half of the world’s most innovative companies such as Apple, Amazon and Alphabet posit investing in innovation as the top priority in 2020.

It’s an agenda perhaps more crucial today than ever, with the Covid-19 crisis willing leaders to adapt quickly to tackle shifting supply and demand patterns, and changing consumer behaviour. Although the crisis has undeniably thrown a curveball, Lawler believes being in lockdown has allowed innovation opportunities to surface.

Despite tennis matches taking a timeout, the WTA’s player development team and swiftly launched a new learning management system powered by 51ˇçÁ÷Litmos for its players, coaches and staff. The WTA University interactive platform supports specifically designed personal and professional wellness tools for athletes.

“These athletes are resilient, ambitious and pursue perfection,” Lawler says. “So even though the season temporarily stopped, their competitive nature did not. The goal is to keep pushing forward, think outside the box and lean into wild ideas that will get you there.”

Join the WTA No 1 Ash Barty in conversation at 51ˇçÁ÷e’ffect next month on October 1st.

This article was produced for 51ˇçÁ÷by , the commercial content division of BBC Global News.

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The transition – at scale – to remote home offices and virtually connected work has demonstrated the rapid speed at which perceived barriers to bringing about change can and will dissolve. The future of work, as it was being predicted as recently as at the start of 2020, is already here, with some arguing recent events have taken us five to 10 years forward into this future.

So, now that the future of work is simply the present, what’s next? And how can we be better prepared? What are the next big transformative ideas that will drive the evolution of businesses and their employees? What is the role of humans in workplaces that are increasingly augmented by technology? These are a few of the many questions ł§´ĄąĘ’s chief designer and futurist Martin Wezowski has been exploring for the past six years, and will be sharing at the upcoming

“You don’t predict the future. You work for a desirable one.”

Working in the business of predicting tomorrow, one could be forgiven for thinking that Wezowski is a sorcerer of sorts. His presence leaves those he speaks to enchanted by his seemingly supernatural ability to perceive the future. And fundamental to his role at is to channel long-term visions for the future of work to drive strategy and tactically innovate.

The possibilities of tomorrow
For Wezowski, and other leading thinkers like him, his role is not about merely predicting the future, but creating futures.

“Futures are designable – it’s up to you to make them somewhere we want to live in. There is an infinite possibility of things you can do. You don’t predict the future. You work for a desirable one.”

And when it comes to creating what lies ahead, how we redefine work and ensure human relevance alongside other significant disruptions to how we work, such as the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), will be crucial.

Innately human work
A found that more than half of the companies surveyed are already starting to use machines to perform tasks previously undertaken by humans. If the trend continues, we will have near-universal adoption of robotic process automation (RPA) within the next five years.

With tantalising benefits such as improved compliance, quality, productivity and cost reduction, it’s clear that automation will play a leading role across sectors to help streamline operations and create greater time efficiencies.

So, what does the role for humans look like against a backdrop of technological progress? Arguably, we must be more emotionally and cognitively agile, which will enable us to achieve a growth mindset; to learn, exchange and discover more. Perhaps, most importantly, it will mean focusing efforts on more meaningful work that adds true value, and which people enjoy doing.

“Humans will focus more and more in the unknown with curiosity and more quality work time on their hands,” Wezowski says.

Indeed, playing, experimenting, imagining and capitalising on our emotional intelligence and contextual knowledge will all prove paramount. These innately human attributes are often exercised, for example, when teams creatively brainstorm for ideas, and these attributes will pave the way to an “empathic symbiosis” with machines, according to Wezowski.

“We need more punk rock in business, man! Let people play and be together,” he says.

“When I hear a start-up say, ‘We will challenge the status quo, do the unusual, go fast and break things’, that sounds like your average punk rock band. But it is also your average curious person.

“Curiosity and creativity are one of the skillsets of this decade. It is not purely engineering – you can read that in a book. Everything you can be instructed on is less important to have in your blood and your education. It’s things you can’t search for online.”

Undertaking laborious and time-consuming tasks will most certainly not be part of the job description.

job is to bring forward high-value work. Artificial intelligence will automate the boring, the repetitive, the insignificant and mundane. Machines will be ever more effective and efficient in the known tasks, the repetitive and predictable.”

To him, traditional manual jobs involving spatial or memory capabilities have the potential to be automated. So too installation and maintenance tasks. Wezowski predicts the management of financial resources, logistics, contracting and other roles within the supply chain will be assumed by algorithms.

With such changes will come opportunities. The “new species” of human will embark on a lifetime of active learning, wherein they’ll employ heavy reasoning, analytical thinking and revel in doing “all the good stuff you love”.

“We need more punk rock in business, man!”

Wezowski envisions designers in politics and philosophers in boardrooms. It will be a place and time where individuality is celebrated for its contribution to work.

“How about acknowledging our differences, our uniqueness as human beings? The 10 billion people living on this planet in 2050 – will we have 10 billion different sets of skills? Yes we will.”

“We will become superhuman because the average will be taken care of by our friends, by technology.”

Not a zero sum game
This perfect marriage with technology and the notion of a future human’s emotional – possibly whimsical – role, sits at odds with the often bleak man versus machine world depicted in sci-fi dystopian blockbusters.

We are now living in an era where advanced robots are the new factory workforce, where self-service checkouts have replaced human till operators and high street travel agents are becoming obsolete. Physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have all warned too that artificial intelligence poses a significant threat to mankind, fuelling fears of job security.

Yet this assumes machine exceptionalism. “Show me a machine that can explore the ideas of how your business should be more relevant and thoughtful, and how you would build better relationships with people you care about,” Wezowski says. In many ways the pandemic has accelerated this trend, by pushing empathy in business to the forefront.

Wezowski argues we must embrace technology wholeheartedly, as innovation will lead to a thriving workforce where “competitiveness is replaced with the complementary”, which will lead to what he calls “completion”.

“[Humans] have a unique contribution to make,” he says, envisaging a future where people are better enabled to discover their unique skillsets, and are able to collaborate with others possessing different strengths.

The “me-we era”
In this era of self-isolation, paradoxically we are already experiencing increased togetherness and teamwork under new guises, as remote working ushers us online and opens digital doors. Never before have we been so accessible, willing to meet the unknown and exchange ideas. We are on the periphery of what Wezowski describes as the “me-we era”, where the focus on the individual evolves and collaboration thrives.

“There is no next big thing; however, there is an infinite amount of things coming together.”

“We have not been human yet. We will become human at last. Because we’ve been busy hunting and gathering and making Excel spreadsheets,” he says. In other words, the true potential of what human workers are capable of has – up until now – been constrained because of the necessary mundanities of modern work.

In the short-term, Wezowski imagines machine learning will improve AI to the point where a system will help monitor your caffeine intake to guarantee you make a better business decision. He anticipates we will adopt visual augmentation devices and several more wearables.

“We will have 20 devices on our bodies that will tell us a little bit better how to be more optimal in each situation we encounter,” he says.

“There is no next big thing; however, there is an infinite amount of things coming together. This is why, at , we are building this one platform, integrating data from sources we could not even imagine into one piece.”

As a futurist, Wezowski’s prophecies are ever-changing, both responding to and reimagining the world. When asked how he deals with decade-long deadlines he says: “I’m quite childish about it, which I think is a great trait in business, because that awakens your curiosity. I sometimes think I work for the NASA of work. We are on the final frontier.”

After all, curiosity is a fundamentally human trait and skill. Embracing it means being open to changes in business operations, processes and even purpose, which will enable businesses to be more resilient because change will be welcomed rather than feared.

Bringing things back to here and now, Wezowski advises: “Build lasting relationships, be a long-term thinker and the rest will follow. That’s your post-Covid agenda”.

Join Martin Wezowski in conversation on the Future of Work at e’ffect at 11am AEST on Thursday, September 17 2020. .

This article was produced for 51ˇçÁ÷by , the commercial content division of BBC Global News.

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We have put in a lot of effort to still provide an ‘experience’ rather than a standard online event or webinar. We’ve held true to delivering an innovation experience that inspires awe and creativity, opening attendees to the latest technologies and possibilities. We’ve put tremendous work into the production quality too, which I hope you’ll notice.

Also acknowledging the large number of online events and attendee fatigue, we’ve tried to make the event easily consumable. E’ffect in 2020 will be a three-episode series with each episode running for around 30 minutes. We’ve also spread the episodes over three weeks to give you time to absorb the content. Each episode has a different theme that explores a current issue that businesses face.

And we couldn’t do it without our , AWS, Dell Technologies, Deloitte, DXC Technology, IBM and Intel.

We looked for a host that would resonate with the topics and yet convey the content in a different way to which business events are usually delivered. We found that host in Rove McManus, comedian, TV host and entertainer.

will run on 17th September and will feature ‘The Future of Work’. It will examine the changing face of work, delving into how organisations need to adapt to new models for managing, growing, and retaining people – upskilling, inspiring, keeping them safe and productive during this crisis and beyond. Featured speakers are Susan Ferrier, Group Executive for People and Culture at NAB and Martin Wezowski, Chief Designer and Futurist at SAP, joining us from Berlin. You’ll also be entertained by Chad Davis and Jake Meadows who have composed original sounds especially for e’ffect.

On 24th September, the on ‘Sustainability’ will dive into the importance of the circular economy for promoting business growth and future proofing, finding efficiencies while promoting environmentally conscious practices. You’ll hear from Emily Penn, skipper, ocean advocate, and Director of Exxpedition beaming in from London; Dermot O’Gorman, CEO of WWF Australia and Laura Wells, environmentalist, presenter, science communicator, and model. You’ll be blown away by Mark Atkins, Indigenous storyteller and performer as he gives you his rendition of the Australian bush on his didgeridoo.

Our on Innovation in the Real World will go live 1st October, exploring how new technologies drive innovation and productivity improvements. This episode will feature Ash Barty, Women’s Tennis Association World No.1; Nelly Robinson, Executive Chef and Owner of Nel Restaurant, and Matt Denman, Regional GM of Uber Eats ANZ.

All 3 themes point to the need for organisational resiliency. Companies using innovative technologies are those that were better prepared for the lockdowns and supply-chain disruptions caused by COVID. With intelligent technologies and processes supporting businesses, more organisations have been able to drive automation and next-level efficiencies while maintaining business continuity and the safety of all stakeholders.

This blog originally published on .

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