How to Innovate with Technological Convergence | Jeremy Scrivens | Engati Engage

Jeremy Scrivens, ranked as the No.1 Future of Work influencer by Atos, had a discussion with the Engati Engage team. Jeremy spoke about the technological convergence and how to innovate during this age of convergence. He talks about moving from part to the whole. Technology and innovation focusing on the bigger picture.

Jeremy Scrivens is an Appreciative Futurist and Collaboration & Innovation Catalyst. He is a Director of The Emotional Economy at Work and a global thought leader and consultant on building collaboration in a digital world for innovation, social good and the future of talent. He’s known particularly for his work with enterprises to coach innovation, collaboration and engagement at scale in the physical Summit Room and the virtual Social Room.

Jeremy has a track record for growing global influence around thought leadership on the future of work. He is a sought after speaker, transformation facilitator, culture catalyst and future of leadership coach.

UK Guardian ranks him among the Top 10 tweeters on economic transformation and SmartCompany placed him among The Top Business Thinkers Australia 2018.

Watch Jeremy Scrivens speak about innovating in the age of technological convergence

How to innovate with Technological Convergence

This section will contain a summary of our interview with Jeremy Scrivens on innovation in this age of technological convergence. But if you’d rather listen to Jeremy speak, there’s a podcast embedded below this section.

How will AI and technology change the future of work?

We’re moving into an age of convergence of technology and data. Convergence is essentially a shift from the part to the whole.

For centuries, we’ve had technology built for parts of things since the factory model of work started.

When Jeremy was starting out in HR tech in 1978, the tech was built to solve a single problem. To solve a financial issue or an HR issue or whatever. But now we’re seeing everything converging. We’re seeing single platforms, single datasets, etc.

Everything is connected and we can start to see patterns that we never saw before.

-Jeremy Scrivens

The new technology, by itself, does not change things for better or worse. But, it forces leaders to make new choices about what they do with the tech.

Employees are practicing remote working, how has this pandemic changed the way businesses are operating. What will be the scenario post the pandemic?

A definition of the word crisis, which is not usually talked about is

“An opportunity to change, adapt and grow”

That’s why it’s important to think about how we’re going to respond to that choice. A professor at Harvard talks about the difference between technical leadership and leading an adaptive change.

Technical leadership involves throwing an existing solution at a problem, but, sometimes what is needed is an adaption in behavior. It requires a different conversation. It requires innovation.

It’s not so much whether the pandemic will change business. The question, rather, is whether leaders will be able to move away from the technical way of doing things to one of convergence.

And the leaders that are holding new business conversations may notice that not everyone wants to go back to the office.

For centuries, man has been taken out of the home and made to work in corporate buildings. They can now balance life and work by working from their homes. By being more connected to our families while being connected to and collaborating with each other.

It’s through collaboration and connection that humans have always created together. So if you’re connected, there’s nothing remote about that way of working at all. We can be at home and still keep working. And there’s nothing remote about this. We’re even more connected to each other right now.

How can conversational agents or chatbots help in employee engagement?

If we start with the chatbots first, there’ll be limited adoption of the technology. But if we start with the story first and we look to find new forms of collaboration, then the next question will be ‘what tech do we have to enable us to take this journey?’ and that’s where the chatbot solutions come in.

The next generation of technology companies will start with a conversation about, ‘who we are, what do we care about, how can we collaborate and what is the future story that we’re going to create together’. And only after that will they introduce the technology.

Start with who we are and then why and then what difference we can make together.

– Jeremy Scrivens

Being authentic on social media, why is that so necessary?

Humans are meant to be connected with each other. Some call the current generation the Millennials or Gen Z. Jeremy Scrivens calls them Gen G. It stands for Globality. It stands for Generosity. Gen G stands for Giving.

This generation stands for social causes. They stand up for what they care about.

This generation has been wired to get information from social media. From the people and not just from filtered media and controlled broadcasts. So, this generation is wired towards connection.

They’ll walk into organizations and say “What’re we doing about the homeless? What’re we doing about domestic violence? What are we doing about poverty?”

As a young, talented person, you can start your own social movement.

“You don’t switch off your heart when you get to work”

–Jeremy Scrivens on Gen G

The word social media is the wrong term. Jeremy uses the word social room now. This is now an opportunity for businesses to engage even more authentically with their communities.

Social media has always been a way for people to connect with each other and collaborate.

What does digital technology have in the future for businesses? Anything specific change that it can bring about in the field of HR?

We’re moving into the Age of Convergence. We need to reimagine HR. HR needs to focus on bringing collaboration into the whole organization. HR needs to start bringing what Jeremy calls ‘The Non-Usual Suspects’ into the mix.

Innovation is best done when you bring in people who don’t necessarily come from that one area of expertise. You bring all the disciplines together and then look for a cause bigger than the discipline itself.

We need to put the data in the hands of every individual. And then, we need to create pathways in the communities that Jeremy calls, ‘The New Communities of Talent’.

True HR managers are those that will go into supporting and growing talent ecosystems.

Innovation, collaboration, and engagement, how crucial are these for any business? How can it help it become competitive?

Innovation is the responsibility of everybody. Prof. Gary Hamel said that we’re moving beyond the Age of Continuous Improvement into the Age of Innovation.

We need to innovate from the whole. Sharing everyone’s different stories of what’s really happening. And that creates an engaged workforce.

Innovation is about reimagining, not simply solving problems.

By bringing in people from a variety of disciplines, we can come up with new ideas. Better ideas. Ideas that a homogenous crowd would probably not have been able to come up with on their own.

Jeremy was once conducting a session on the Strength-Based Approach with a trucking company, a freight-forwarding company. The company wanted to expand. They were based in Tasmania and wanted to expand to the mainland. They usually had only to board members in the room.

But Jeremy convinced them to bring in the truck-drivers and the fork-lift drivers.

One of them was a dreamer. People used to laugh at his idea. And he led his group to the idea the came up with. The idea was to create the world’s first Truck-Hovercraft.

But nobody laughed, because everyone was on the same page. They were reimagining. They were brainstorming. Six weeks later, they didn’t build the truck-hovercraft, but they bought a shipping company.

But 8 years down the line, they built the world’s first truck-hovercraft!

Innovation is the result of bringing everyone’s ideas into the room. One idea may result in another idea. But the other idea will only come if the first idea is available. That’s why you need to bring the non-usual suspects into the room.

Are there any further thoughts that you’d like to share with the audience?

Care for each other. Look out for each other. Find a way to innovate with each other and collaborate with each other. Take time out to understand who we are. Now is the time to go deeper with people.

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Technological Convergence- Jeremy Scrivens on Spotify

Engati Engage

We hope you’ve gleaned a lot of insights on innovating with technological convergence from this interview. Engati Engage will be back with a new expert in a new interview soon!

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We hope you’ve gleaned some great insights about innovating in this age of convergence from this interview with Jeremy Scrivens. Now it’s time to learn how to provide value to your customers in this interview with Elise Quevedo.