← The Digital Executive
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to Coruscant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive podcast. Do you work in emerging tech? Working on something innovative? Maybe an entrepreneur? Apply to be a guest at www.corazon.com brand. Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today's guest is Daniel Buress. Daniel Buress is a globally recognized futurist, keynote speaker, business strategist and AI expert who helps leaders anticipate disruption and create exponential opportunities. As a strategic advisor and consultant to Fortune 500 companies, he has guided executives in developing future ready strategies that drive innovation, growth and transformation. The author of seven books, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal bestseller Flash Foresight, Burris is known for pioneering the concept of hard trends and the anticipatory organization frameworks that empower organizations to predict change before it happens and act with confidence. As one of the world's leading technology futurists, Burris has delivered thousands of keynotes across six continents, helping audiences understand how to leverage emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, and digital platforms to gain a sustainable advantage in a rapidly changing world. Well, good afternoon, Daniel. Welcome to the show.
- [01:26]
B
Hey, thanks for having me on.
- [01:28]
A
Absolutely, my friend.
- [01:29]
B
I appreciate it.
- [01:29]
A
You're in San Diego today. I know you travel quite a bit. You're a world renowned futurist, AI innovator. I'm in Kansas City. So I appreciate you making the time, traversing two time zones today. But Daniel, if you don't mind, I'm going to jump right into your first question. One of your signature frameworks is the distinction between hard trends, what will happen and soft trends, what might happen in practice. How do you help organizations train their teams to identify hard trends reliably, especially when so much of the future feels uncertain?
- [02:01]
B
Well, that's that word, uncertain. I think we have more uncertainty today than ever before. And the key is if you can find things you can be certain about, you have the confidence to make a bold move. And what I've done over the years has been able to take all trends and separate them into one of two columns. They're either a hard trend based on a future fact that will happen or. Or they're a soft trend based on an assumption that may or may not happen. And then a quick example, and then I'll give you the answer to your question. And that is, for example, we went from 3G wireless to 4G wireless to 5G wireless. Is that it? No, actually next will be 60, followed by seven. And there are seven, 10,000 baby boomers in the United States turning 70 every day. Will they chronologically get Younger, no hard trend, they will get older. I'm just giving you a couple of quick examples. So what I do to help clients separate the hard trend future facts from the soft trends, ifs and maybes is I have first of all a learning system called the anticipatory organization Transformation accelerators being used by hundreds of organizations around the world. They use that as well as my anticipatory leader system. And give you another quick example. On Monday I had a zoom where I had 1,000 attendees. I taught them for an hour how to separate the hard from the soft. Then we broke into 68 rooms, virtual rooms with 15 facilitators that I had trained to help them identify the hard trends and the opportunities to soft trends and the opportunities to influence them. So I have many ways to do it with trained facilitators and of course seven books about the subject.
- [03:43]
A
That's awesome. I appreciate that. And it certainly certainly gives people a lot of anxiety. And I like how you've teased apart the the hard trends versus the soft trends which reduces the anxiety and the hard trends space. I really like that. And the anticipatory organization model we're going to, that's a segue right into my next question. You distinguish between everyday innovation, continuous incremental improvements. Right. And exponential innovation which is game changing leaps. And as part of this anticipatory organization model, how should leaders and okay, and.
- [04:17]
B
There'S a, first of all, there's a reason I didn't call it the reactionary organization. I think we've got that down. So this is looking at the other part. How can we not just be agile, which is reacting quickly, but how can we anticipate problems before they happen so that we can pre solve them? And by the way, that's a key to everyday innovation. I mean all of us have said at one point, well I knew that would happen. And I would say then why did you let it? And the reason we did is, well, we weren't 100% sure, but what if we were? And I've done a survey of over a thousand CEOs recently asking them about their biggest problem. And the second question was, could you have seen it ahead of time and Pre solved it? 92% yes, they could. So that means that everyday innovation is empowering people in the organization. If they see something they know is a problem that's going to happen, they can pre solve it, allowing everyone to move forward faster. The other type is exponential innovation where you can take giant leaps ahead. And that's where identifying the hard Trend future facts, tying that to an opportunity and realizing that you can see disruptions before they disrupt, giving you the option of being the disruptor or the disrupted. And by the way, there are hundreds and hundreds of hard trend future backed certainties that clients have identified and have taken action on. So again, the way to do the exponential is to look at what are those digital hard trends that are transformative and growing at an exponential rate. We know they're happening. They're not going to stop, they're going to continue to accelerate. What are the opportunities for us, whatever your company is, to take advantage of that and actually become the disruptor, creating the transformations that need to happen to elevate relevancy and accelerate innovation and growth.
- [06:13]
A
Thank you, I appreciate that. Breaking that out, the anticipatory organizational model, I think that's important. I like the stat you shared. You surveyed a thousand CEOs and 92% of them said they were able to pre solve an issue or issues. I think that was interesting, of course, but I like again those hard trends, especially the exponential hard trends that you do see, that explosive growth, it's something you can use as a measurement to again anticipate future trends and not be disrupted.
- [06:43]
B
So did we mention one thing real quickly, Brian, on that? So there's a problem with trends because we know they're there. Which ones will happen, which ones won't. So I've solved that. All trends fit into one of those two categories, hard or soft. Second key thing here is a trend by itself is academic until you attach an opportunity to it. So my hope is, even for this short interview is that you would ask yourself, is this a future fact? Is this trend going to happen or is it something that can be changed? And then secondly, don't stop there. What is the opportunity? Is this a soft trend? What's the opportunity to influence it, to be more positive? And if it's a hard trend, you know it's going to happen. What can we do to become the positive disruptor?
- [07:30]
A
Thank you, I appreciate that. Love that. Daniel. Moving into the next question. Predicting trends is one thing. Ensuring your organization is aligned, mindset ready and culturally equipped to act is another. What are the most common mindset or cultural barriers you see when companies try to jump ahead? And how do you recommend overcoming them?
- [07:50]
B
That's an excellent question. I found this all over the world and that is the biggest mindset barrier is nothing is predictable other than death and taxes. And I hear that from even Fortune 50 CEOs when I'll meet them. They know I'm a technology futurist. And they'll say, well, of course, only death and taxes now, this time of year, I would say, well, let's see, it's fall next to be followed by winter. And there are actually many different types, and that's a cycle, but there are hundreds of these and literally thousands of these hard trend certainties that you can wrap yourself around. So breaking that mindset, and one of the ways of doing it, of course, is with my learning system. And usually executives start with having their leadership team go through it, and then they find out how powerful it is, and they end up having their entire organization go through it. And that's where you get alignment. Because if only a couple of people know about that there's a hard trend versus a soft. And then someone said, oh, that's a future fact. Someone would say, who doesn't know that would say, well, how can there be a future fact? Nothing's predictable and you would not have alignment within the organization. So what I'm finding with all the firms that we work with is they, it creates a language that is a shared language that people can use. And it's not just hard and soft trends. We also teach how to take your problems and skip them. So again, if someone says, let's skip that problem, and someone doesn't understand the concept, they'd say, how could you do that? So alignment is through education, training. That's why I write books. That's why I have learning systems.
- [09:32]
A
That's amazing. And yes, you're very well renowned. You speak all the time. You've written, I think, seven plus books. So that alignment is key, obviously, through education, training, communication. It is funny how people throw around the term the only certain things in life are death and taxes. And of course, we know that from the movie Meet Joe Black in 1998. But good movie. But the point is, you prove to them that there's so much more certainty with these hard trends, and you show them, you train them and explain, and it makes a lot of sense. So I appreciate that. And Daniel, last question of the day. Looking ahead, what do you believe will be the most underappreciated hard trend in the next decade? And how would you challenge leaders today to position their organizations now so they can ride that trend rather than be overtaken by it?
- [10:16]
B
We live in a technical world, but the reality is we live in a human world that's based on relationships. And the key to good relationships is trust. So what we're missing is the power of trust. And especially as we have both generative AI and agentic AI as hard trends growing behind exponential speeds. And that is not going to slow down. The key is how can we elevate trust with our customers, with our employees, with the people that we have contact with, or at least maintain it rather than lose it. And I think the biggest missing element is the power of trust in a disinformation age. And by the way, I would pro define disinformation as believed misinformation. So I think we're going to find ourselves being humans, having to spend much more time on people, making sure that whatever we're doing and sharing, we've vetted the resources, we've made sure that we didn't just read something and share it. Now let's make sure that it's accurate so that we can be seen as trusted sources rather than sources.
- [11:32]
A
That's some great advice right there. You mentioned while we live in this technical world, it's important to remember that we live in a human connected world. And at the end of the day, especially with generative AI exploding, that power of trust is important. And you even said disinformation is believed. Misinformation I thought was interesting. But we do need to vet the resources and ensure that we are a trustworthy source so that the world is a better trusted, more. Better place to live. So I appreciate that. And Daniel, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
- [12:05]
B
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- [12:07]
A
Bye for now.