Technology change is always a hot topic. No one wants to be caught off guard by new technology or a new way of working. The key to demystifying change in the tech world is to remember that people always come first; technology changes, but people don’t. That’s why it’s so important to keep the human element in mind when any new technology is introduced. By understanding how people will be affected by the change, you can make sure that the transition is as smooth as possible.
Technology change is something that is always happening. It can be hard to keep up with the latest trends and understand how they will impact your business. That’s why we’re excited to have Nicolas Babin as our first guest for the first episode in this series.
Nicolas has a wealth of experience helping companies navigate technology change. He’ll be sharing his insights on what businesses need to do to stay ahead of the curve and why people should always come first when it comes to technology change. So whether you’re a business owner or decision maker, tune in to this episode of the “Influential Visions Podcast” to get the inside scoop on demystifying change in the tech world.
Remember that technology change is always led by people. It’s important to understand the motivations and needs of the people who are introducing the change. What are they trying to achieve? How will this change benefit them? Once you have answers to these questions, you can start to see how the technology will fit into their lives.
Technology change can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. The best way to approach any new technology is to take it one step at a time. Don’t try to learn everything all at once. Instead, focus on learning one thing at a time until you feel comfortable with it.
You can read the full transcript below:
00:00:02
Welcome to influential visions. Here we interview futuristic leaders who share their deep industry knowledge and business experience with you, ensuring you have your finger on the pulse and your eyes wide open.
Nat
00:00:20
Hello everybody. It’s Lovely to see you all. And today we’re joined by Nicholas Babin, who is the author of the talking dog. And if you don’t know him, he’s, he’s quite influential in the text base, but it’s, it’s great to see everyone really.
Nicolas
00:00:37
Thank you, Nat Hello everyone.
Kim-Adele
00:00:39
Hi all.
Nish
00:00:40
Hi.
Nat
00:00:42
So we are, we’re gonna talk about demystifying technology. I know that there is, there’s been a lot of change in the past few years. It’s accelerated dramatically and you know who better to kind of talk about this than, than you guys really, to be honest. So I’m privileged to have you here and really looking forward to kicking off this series now with you guys.
Kim-Adele
00:01:10
Me too. It’s great. It’s great to be part of the team and Nicholas, always a joy to have you on. And I know it’s gonna be really insightful. So how are we gonna get started? I wonder if to start us off, we think about where did you first find your journey into technology, and I’m gonna start Nicolas with you
Nicolas
00:01:41
Please. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you for prompting. The question I was, so technology has been a, an old story for me back in 1989. I’ve found myself in California in, in the Silicon valley, in San, in San Francisco, around San Francisco. And, and for the first time ever, I mean, somebody gave me a computer of dis CD at the time. Well, not even CD, sorry, flop disc. And, and so, and they said, oh, you’ll see, just install it. It’s very easy. So, you know, on the very slow computers that we used to have the IBM once, so put the floppy disc and you had this system that would come up and, and you could share at the time recipes with other people around California, but other people who had internet, I mean the first level of internet was not even called internet. And, and we thought, wow, that, that, that could be fantastic.
Nicolas
00:02:36
You know, like, wow, if you can share recipes, then you can share documents, then you can start. So you have to think that, you know, number one, you had modes and you probably all remember the, the horrible sound that these did. And most of the time, like 90% of the time, you would never connect. And so, and you had very slow computers. So it was really hard to, to start working on the, on this new technology, but then you could see the potential behind it. So for me, it was when I first started it, then I was working for a French bank in San Francisco and I installed the first email system. I mean, you have to remember it was only fax at the time, right? So I, I remember coming in the morning in the bank and people would be like, Nicholas, you can’t believe it.
Nicolas
00:03:18
We reach see an email from Paris. It’s like, woo. Now it’s funny, of course, but at the time it was the first time ever. And so carried on, carry on from there. You know, I, I, I started working for Sony and I was in charge of the first GPS system, the talking car, the title of the top king dog. So I went from talking car to a talking dog because then I went to AI and robotics and I was in charge of all the artificial intelligence and robots for Sony. So I was, for me, I’ve been extremely lucky. You know, we’re talking here about new technologies, but I’ve been really involved with new technologies from when I’m was very young, well, over 20, so younger than today, anyway, all the way to, to new technologies today, being involved with an Ft with blockchain, AI, I’m a veteran of AI because I’ve been using AI since 1996.
Nicolas
00:04:16
And so that’s, that’s why it, it, you know, your subject today is, is very keen for me. I mean, at least I’m, I’m very keen to talk about it and, and, and to demystify the goal that that’s why I did in my book when it’s, it’s called the talking dog immersion in new technologies, because I wanted to speak about all the things we hear all the time today, and metaverse being won. It’s not in the book. Metaverse because when I launched the book, it was not yet launched, but I did talk about second life and things like that, so that, you know, the reason why I’m so excited to be here today.
Kim-Adele
00:04:50
Oh, fabulous. What great journey. And, and I remember those days when I first started out in banking and you’d have to go and get your faxes and then, and then pass them around. And, and I remember the chaos of, of when we actually introduced the email system and I was, I was the, I was the email trainer at the time. All right. And it was, yeah. It, it still, it still could make me go gray overnight about how awful it was. And yet now you, you can’t imagine it, can you, you know, I chat to my little girl and, and you see it, see her in a little friends, like, yeah, seriously, are you like ancient? I remember my first ever thing with, with a computer being the very old original Amstrad when I think I was about 10 or 11. And you had to get the, you got the book didn’t you have to sit and code it. Yep.
Nicolas
00:05:37
I had the Sinclair XX 81 in English computer. And let me tell you, it was, I had hair at the time, but you see disappeared very quickly after that.
Kim-Adele
00:05:47
Yeah. It wasn’t. I spectrum, in fact, embarrassingly, I once put on my friend’s CV and she’d got excellent computer skills and she went, I haven’t, I was like, you’re pretty good at centered. I’m not sure you’d get away with that now, but no, it was a lot years ago. So I think we were, we were able to Nish. Can you also share with us your journey please?
Nish
00:06:11
Yeah, absolutely. So I kind of came into technology a little bit later than list, but I, I, so by the time I started working, we were using emails for example, but it was all to do with I, I came into data, so it was all about using data and banking. And at the time, you know, I thought that, you know, I’d be there for a couple of months, not really not really staying into in that world, but just how, how that kind of universe blew up and how data started really being shared, shared within banks. And the, the power of that really kept me in, in that world. And I started building technologies for back office banking solutions, and it was, to me, it was incredible, like the, the kind of, how spreadsheet driven, how kind of backward it was that all of these huge corporations just didn’t have the infrastructure to number one, support the transfer of data transfer of documentation.
Nish
00:07:16
It was all very much the front office focus. So, so all of the trading stuff was all very elite and very up to date, but all of the back office systems to support all of that was just breaking. Cause it was people and spreadsheets and passing faxes around. And, you know, it was, we had really terrible email systems that were used in banking when I first started. And all of that had to be upgraded. Even that upgrade process moving for, from one system to another, that was a huge process that took years. It took years, it took years to migrate an email system back then, just because of the shared volume of people and data that was being transferred. And it was the thing that was the biggest issue was how people didn’t really understand the scope of that project. And so they’d say, yeah, I can do it in six months should be fine, but didn’t realize how much they didn’t know about what they were doing.
Nish
00:08:11
So it was those kind of projects that I started working on and yeah, it was, and then trying to build a system and make that sort of what I call sticky. So come and work with the user is, and, and talk through how it is that they would then utilize the ex system. So all of that training thing, training that you talk about Kim, that had to be done, but you didn’t think about that. Cuz it was, it was okay, fine. We’re building this system and the users know about it. Right. But they didn’t know about it because it would’ve been, you know, a top level executive that brought a system in and people who were using it had no idea about it. So it was that and then they didn’t use it and it was all of that kind of fun stuff. So that’s kind of been my journey to even where I am today, which is building technology solutions, bespoke really technology solutions for, for people who want what they, what they, what they’re asking for.
Nish
00:08:58
But they still don’t really know how to, how to accept what they’ve, what they’ve asked for. But I, I would be interested to finding out from Nicolas actually, how, why, what do you think the key thing is? So, you know, we’ve got, we all are sat in a generation where we’ve seen no internet versus where we day, which is accelerated growth. What would you say is the key accelerant? I say, I would say from, from somebody taking from somebody who has no technology to, to accepting that technology, what do you think the key driver of accepting te would be that you’ve seen?
Nicolas
00:09:35
Well, it has changed quite a lot. The, the first key driver has been, you know, being curious and looking at what was what’s available and, and trends coming up and people thinking, you know, I sound a bit stupid if I don’t know what emails are, you know, like long time ago, definitely lately what I’ve seen. And that’s one of the big change is our environment has made people change. COVID has been a huge driver for me for, and on the, on the, on the plus side, on the, the, literally on the benefit side, because, you know, people suddenly found themselves in law lockdowns and, and they wanted to communicate. They still wanted to have their lives back. If I could say in France, we’ve been lockdown many times. And, and you know, you still wanted to talk to your children, you even if they were far away or things like that.
Nicolas
01:10:31
And so you had to move. I mean, you know, obviously I, I was already using all the tools that, that we, we, we see today, like the, the zooms, like, like the teams and things like that, but people who were not using them, they had to get, get involved with these tools and, and embrace new technologies. So to me, it’s all about mindset, you know, and we talk a lot about digital transformation and things like that. Yes, it has definitely moved on with, with, with the, the fact that new technology is now more available and, and everything, but it’s all about people, you know, and it needs to be all about people. I talked about artificial intelligence in the beginning, you know, it’s when I first launched IBO, the first dog, AI dog, robotic dog, at least people were scared because they think, well, is it going to replace me? I had somebody in the tr fold center in Manchester who ripped I’s head off because said, I’m scared of robots. I don’t want see, eat robots in my life. So now we can laugh about it. And at the time I didn’t laugh, it was 2000 pound product.
Nicolas
01:11:46
My dog was, was killed. But today, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s all about mindset change. And that’s, what’s so critical is to, for people to understand that technology is at their service, not the other way around. And that’s why we see technologies that are being embraced more like artificially, like AI, obviously, but that also virtual ready to his AR when we talk about metaverse today and, you know, mark Zuckerberg talking about metaverse, he did it because it’s at the right time, you know? And because also technology is mature to allow this. It wouldn’t have happened two years ago because we, we were not ready, but because COVID came, so people, this started to start changing their mindset around new technologies and because the technology is available, then you can see new things happening. So to go back to your question, and as, as a summary, I would say, you know, 30 years ago people would change because it was trendy because they could see a benefit in their lives, even though it was, you know, change management was hard. But today the, the biggest thing is change management is still hub, but people are embracing and changing because they have to, because they’re back to the world because, you know, we have this pandemic
Nat
01:13:07
Very
Kim-Adele
01:13:07
So true, isn’t it?
Nat
01:13:10
Oh, sorry. I, I, I agree completely with, with what you’re saying, Nicolas and yeah. I feel kind of dwarfed by all of you guys and your, all your experience, because I kind of came into technology via social media really and selling beer on Twitter actually was how I became a social media influencer originally. And I, I managed to sell beer to the largest independent pub chain in the United Kingdom, which had thousands of outlets back. What about 12 years ago when I found myself outta work and through there, I kind of basically ended up building a reputation within the technology space. And then IBM actually asked me to attend a round table to discuss AI in jobs, which is interesting. And Nicholas made me, made me think about that a minute ago. And, and from that point, I, I suppose I just immersed myself in, in new technologies and, and try to understand what was happening and real, you know, really the innovation that is occurring right now in terms of like product activity over the next few years.
Nat
01:14:19
They, they actually think that right now we’re at the bottom of the, of the curve in terms of creating more productive lives. And you know, I mean, it’s, it’s gonna be fantastic the next few years I think. And you know, the, the way that life is changing for people, the way that we have all this data and we’re actually managing to analyze it, it’s incredible. But I think that the people element and actually is so important and, you know, integrating the people with the process and the technology is, is what is really gonna make all of this work and cement everything together in my, in my opinion.
Nicolas
01:15:00
Yep. Couldnt agree more.
Kim-Adele
01:15:05
So I guess again, I was going to say point I, I looked in, I think it is that whole piece around people, isn’t it, you know, very, all often when I’ve been involved in, in kind of transformational change, they’ll have thought about the process and they’ll have thought about the system and the infrastructure, but they will have forgotten that every single element of it hits people. And I think, you know, N you were saying before about the, you know, the technology, the back office part of banks can be, can be really pretty poor. And I think that’s, cuz we’re very often we focus on what’s going out, you know, to other people. I remember working at egg years ago and they would de deem to be very, very innovative and forward thinking. And we were one of the first to deliver at your decision on loan within, within 24 hours.
Kim-Adele
01:15:59
And that was deemed back then to be amazing. But if you, if you’d been where I was, which was the team that rang you to say you’d been successful the behind the scenes piece, begged belief, I mean, you’d go online, you’d fill in you’d form, it’d ping across to India where they would actually update it into a system that pinged across to Dudley. That then went into the, to, for the underwriters that came across to me as an Excel spreadsheet, that I then converted into a doable file to ring up and go congratulations to it successful. And we had, we had a 12 hour window to get all of that done, to enable the paperwork, to go out in the post, to hit our 24 hour deadline. And you were thinking actually, you know, on the outside often it was like a Swan and underneath there’d be like, pedalling like mad trying to get these things done.
Kim-Adele
01:16:48
And like, you know, in my career I’ve seen some horrendous things because people didn’t understand the implication of where their part of their piece of transformation ended. And I remember working for one major bank who had risk accepted, that they would use a macro on an Excel spreadsheet whilst they were waiting for the implementation of a new system. And I joined 14 years later and they were still using that macro. They were still waiting for that system, but nobody had gone back and checked. It was no longer known that that’s what they were doing. And so the world had moved on. When it was set up, they operated nine to five, Monday to Friday. And by the time I got there, they operated seven days a week as we now. But the problem is the macro didn’t. So actually, unless you need, unless you actually talked to that particular part of the organization between nine and five, Monday to Friday, it didn’t do what it was supposed to do because it wasn’t part of the macro and it cost, I think it was 23 million pounds in redress because of that one mistake.
Kim-Adele
01:17:57
Cause people didn’t go back and, and you, you kind of think in today’s world that was relatively recent in today’s world. The fact that we’ve still got massive organizations that are so complex with their technology, that they have still got pockets like that, that are being unpicked. Is that something that you guys have seen in, in kind of your journeys in your career?
Nat
01:18:20
Well, I’ve been when I was, when I was writing some articles for Oracle around E R P systems, I did masses of research into that. And you were wouldn’t believe the internet is strew with stories of badly implemented E R P systems. That in fact, if the, if the people, the process and the technology had worked in harmony, they would’ve managed to implement the system right. In a, in an effective way and not lose money and have to revert back to their back office system that was 20 sold, but it still worked, you know, it’s, it’s bonkers, you know, I dunno. What, what do you think about that niche?
Nish
01:18:58
No, absolutely. And I think that the sad thing about it is, is the tech, the products are fantastic. The, the RRP systems in, in on their own are brilliant. You know, they, they do exactly what they say. They will, they are hugely in if you’ve built the right integrations, then they’re absolutely fantastic. But it’s all of that. It’s all of that kind of process where you take it in and you say, right, you’re going from this system to this system. And then you start chopping and changing it. And it’s saying, okay, well, those people in that department are really embedded with their kind of spreadsheet process or whatever it is. So we can’t change that bit. So let’s just chunk that bit out of it. And then they start chopping and changing it. And the whole thing becomes just a lot more different to what the actual intended. And at some point, even the says coming in from the Salesforce, whoever it’s brilliant systems who can now innovate on top of their brilliant product, even they haven’t actually been ID correctly in customers.
Nish
02:20:06
They’re sort of bringing their consultants out it saying, you know what, actually, now this is your problem, cuz you’ve completely kind of created this beast within your organization that we kinda don’t really wanna wanna know out. We’ll back over to you. And then you can spend money to, to do, to do whatever changes you want to. So it is, I’ve absolutely seen that. And, and you know, then I would’ve come in with a new technology and you’ve got all of the users who are sitting there, you know what we had this three ago, they brought this in and so we know how this is gonna go. So you’ve got that and disillusionment. So it’s really what that means in terms of, you know, the iterative process, you know, building things in small increments to make sure that people are actually taking on and accepting the change in a small process, which is, which is, you know, and then you’ve got that in those large corporations, which is why it’s baffling to me, how five years ago, I didn’t want to have an iPhone.
Nish
02:21:07
I didn’t want one because I liked my Blackberry. I liked all the buttons, but I was able to switch just like that because exactly to what Nicholas said, I need FaceTime. I was living abroad at the time and I was like, oh, do you know what? FaceTime’s got the best application to speak to my family when I live abroad. So I’m gonna switch to an iPhone and I’ve never looked back. I’ve always had iPhones now. So it’s things like that. Where, how do you replicate that urgency for change within a corporate organization? That’s something that I’m, I’m still sort of trying to work out. Really.
Nicolas
02:21:38
I think every, everything you’ve all been said saying is, is, is, is very true. But the, the comment denominator of all these is user experience or, or employee experience, it’s really all about personalization of experience. Something that honestly, when I first started in marketing it’s we didn’t have, and at the time I, I, I used it sentence regularly. It’s like we used to spray and pray, you know, spray message and pray that somebody will, will get your message today. You don’t do that anymore. I mean, the email marketing is still going on, but it’s not as effective as it used to be. And, and what, what we see is really projects that work are projects that put humans at the center and experience a with that human being or that, that, that human experience, if I could say, and this is where I have experienced myself, some projects that I’ve totally failed because the CEO and the CEO and, and the CFO, sorry, were the two people who were driving the, that was pre COVID.
Nicolas
02:22:48
I want to, to, to be totally transparent on this, but the CEO and the CFO were saying, this is the KPIs we want. This is the ROIs we want. And this is how our, our, our project needs to needs to evolve. Well again, if the, the employees didn’t agree to that, if the con the users or the, the consumers, you know, the, your, your, your clients didn’t agree to that, then it would fail. Even if you pick tons of money behind it. And I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it with very large companies that decided, yeah, this is the way we’re gonna go. And behind nobody would agree to this. And people will actually talk badly about it inside the company. And as a consultant, you look at this and you think, oh, well, that’s, that’s a, that’s a challenge because now you need to get the management to agree, to open up and make sure that everybody behind will, will be on board.
Nicolas
02:23:43
Exactly. As Nish said, I, I mean, just before, COVID like three months before the first lockdown, I had a CEO of a very large French company telling me that with him as a CEO, he will never, ever, ever agree to working from home to a strategy of working from home, ever that to him, it was a strategy that will allow people to take vacations when actually, you know, they would be at home doing nothing. I so badly wanted to call him during the, the first lockdown thing. Are you still a CEO or have you changed your mind mate? Well, I didn’t do it obviously, so I’m not that courageous, but, you know, and, and this is a good in part of experience, mindset and technology at your service. And we’re going back to the same point, but I think this is what you were all saying, you know, big projects, lot of money. And, and sometimes it works when you taking consideration, people are going to make it a success, or sometimes it does doesn’t work because you are bit stubborn and you decide to go to, to go your own way.
Kim-Adele
02:24:52
But that’s so true though, isn’t it? Cause I know you, I worked for quite a lot of the big banks and for years they were trying to find out how could they embrace perhaps a little bit more work from home, particularly those that were based out of Canary whaf that were running out of real estate and didn’t know where to fix it, but the concerns were always, could it be done? Could you, could you do it securely? Could you do it for all levels of the bank or would it only ever be certain levels of seniority? And then obviously COVID happened and overnight they were forced into it. They had to do it, but it reminds me a lot of it, of Roger van when he did the four minute mile, you know, he was the first person to do it, but how many people did it within a month of him doing it? Because actually he’d now proved that it was doable. And I think it’s those parts. Isn’t, it’s that mindset shift that says suddenly the impossible became possible. And, and then now actually people are embracing it and, and finding that it gives them better balance. And they’re able to, to see that real benefit, isn’t it?
Nicolas
02:25:55
Yeah. AB absolutely. And impossible. There’s there’s a big say in French coming from Napoleon so long time ago, he said impossible is not French. And at the time that was the mindset. Unfortunately, we lost that somewhere anywhere. And, and it’s not, it’s not the case anymore. And you’re right. When somebody shows you that it is possible, then people behind it just go for it and actually improve it. You know, it’s it, it’s really funny. I mean, I’m, I’m sorry. I know you, you three are, are English, but I have to say that the, you know, the six nation just finished and a French guy, and I thought that was so UN French, but that’s why I’m repeating. It said the English have invented rugby and we’ve, we’ve managed to improve it, which is exactly the, the story behind it. You know, it’s a, we didn’t think it was possible to, to, to do this grand slam.
Nicolas
02:26:45
I mean, here is a different obviously analogy, but it’s, it’s exactly what it is. You show that it is possible, then you get people behind to believe in it. So whether it’s with influencers or things like that, but it’s, it, it, it becomes like then the norm and the norm is then improved. And this is, this is the journey, you know, everything is, is the journey. So you have ups and downs and failure is part of the journey, but here you’ll find yourself in the journey of, of, of accepting that you can do something number. That’s the number one point. And the number two is like, once you’ve you’ve reach, you can improve it.
Nat
02:27:26
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And excuse me. And Kim and I, we were talking about scope creep. She taught me all about that the other week. And, and I thought it it’s, it was fascinating actually, because the way that organizations just, you know, influential people come along in the board and say, well, we, we just need this feature. We just, we just want that function. And, and then they, and then they add it all on together. And then, then the project fails. And then it’s like, well, yeah, it’s, it’s the technology company’s fault. And, and I just found that a really eye-opening conversation. I learned so much from, from talking with you about that, Kim, it was, it was super
Kim-Adele
02:28:05
Thank you. But I think that’s the thing, isn’t it? I think with all of these things and, and Nicholas, you said at the start, and as you’ve said it throughout now, you’ve also concurred. It comes down to the people because actually, you know, the users are all people, so everyone wants to feel a little bit unique. And, you know, I worked in lots to places where I go again, but that’s okay, but we are different, because we’re more complicated, which is why next to your point, they, they take these great ER P systems and then they, they, they kind of like go, yeah, but it needs to do this bit for me. And it always reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons with Homer’s car. You know, he makes it so much like his car that actually is the only person in the world that’s ever gonna want to buy it.
Kim-Adele
02:28:49
And I think that’s what we, what we do, isn’t it, because we’re listening to everybody’s individual point of view, trying to bring them into it. And then you realize that actually it doesn’t all work. Because what we’ve not done is found a common ground and said, what is it that we’re trying to achieve? And how do we, how do we restate that intention? How do we make sure that we take the people on the journey first and bring the technology along with us as opposed to take the technology there and then leave them feeling like they’re running to catch up, which very often seems to be the thing that makes them not want to accept the change and almost, and I think Nicolas, you were saying this almost try and find a way to make it fail, try and find a way to say shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Cause actually we were fine beforehand before they did this.
Nish
02:29:39
I mean, absolutely. You mentioned Homer Simpson, Kim, and also there’s two things with which homo Simpson has always inspired me on that car episode where he builts his car and it’s the worst car in the world. And also the there’s a, when he thinks he’s gonna die and he goes through the grief curve and the, you know, the, the Cooper Ross change curve effectively that those are two things I always have in my mind when I’m building a new technology or you’re faced with somebody who’s, who’s absolutely not going to use a new technology. And it’s absolutely that it’s appealing to people’s sense of what even their values like it comes down to such real foundational elements when you’re changing something. Even in, even in, you know, what’s as mundane or corporate and sort of professional as a system or within a corporate environment, it comes down to saying, look, do you know that it really takes a lot of time from you, which is time away from getting home early or whatever it is when you can’t do this thing in this way.
Nish
03:30:39
And you have to really, what they talk about is transition theory, where you have to take people from one side, take them through the middle of that bridge and then take them to the end of it. And that’s all about that journey and appealing to people’s people to say, look, don’t you want to cut your days, cut your days shorter so that you can get home earlier to spend time with your family. Don’t you want to sort of do your, do this really mundane task really quickly so that you can spend more time at work, doing things that you’re passionate about, you know, the committees, the, the, you know, innovation streams, things like that. So yeah, you, you end up having to really, it’s a, it’s a psychology game at some point because you, you know, you have all of these meetings to try and to try and ultimately change people and influence people to doing what you need them to do.
Nish
03:31:27
And that’s why actually I think that even to your point, Nicolas, that idea of being first started or market leaders, that is what social media’s doing right at the moment it’s telling you, the people get given, you know, a new phone, a new car, and you put it out to all of the influences on social. And it’s like, if that guy’s doing it, then I can probably do it as well. Or it starts appealing to people’s sense of self and who they want to, or they aspire to be. So there’s a huge amount of people, psychology behind change. And it’s, it’s super interesting. And I think that, you know, we talk about the metaverse I’m in the, I’m in the camp where I’m still I’m. I observe this of myself, I’m still sitting there saying the really like people sitting with, you know, VR kind of headsets on buying their, you know, buying whatever they need to, or going places and doing things.
Nish
03:32:13
But I can sit, you know, you mentioned as well, like Nicholas, about it happening at the right time. It ha COVID almost had to happen for that to, to, to even become a conversation in peace, right? Because suddenly, you know, you are watching football matches with no people, you know, when, when they took all of the people out the stadiums and there was that there was that whole drive to put the noise in because people wanted to watch the television to make people still feel as if there was an atmosphere, even though there wasn’t, well, if you take that one step further and you give them a, an Oculus or whatever it is, and, and they’re there suddenly, why do I need to buy a ticket to a, I can ticket to a football match. I can do it from home. So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s mind boggling what the implications of all of that is really very
Nat
03:32:57
True. So just one last question, cause I know, I know we’re a bit tight on time and we’re, we’ve run over a couple minutes. So just quickly starting with Nicolas, what are you, what are you most excited about in, in terms of the, the next level of technology that’s that’s coming and on the way
Nicolas
03:33:18
Well I’m was excited about is the fact that I have no idea what’s coming of way. I’m sorry to be, to be that blunt, but it’s, it’s true. You know, look looking two years back, we had no idea that what, what we see today, so I’m going to answer your question. I was just, just trying to make a point is that, you know, it’s the next five years is gonna be, and that’s the exciting bit is we see things that we know is gonna be fantastic, but we have no idea what’s next, but there’s things that I’m really excited about and that’s on, for example, is the metaverse for me, I think it’s, it’s fantastic. The reason why I’m so excited about it is because in 2000 Sony came out with home, which was actually at the same time as second LA. So we had our own second life technology was not ready.
Nicolas
03:34:04
You basically had a lot of problems because you would walk into, you know, a city or things like that. And, and, and, and it was not really engaging. What I can see today is, as I mentioned, is the fact that all these technologies are now mature. You have what I call GA the use of game mechanics in order to engage, be loyal to a brand, be loyal to a product. So all this is, we’ve been talking about this. I mean, gamification, I started talking about this in 2004, you know, so it’s been going on for a long time. Again, virtual reality. I had the piece PlayStation three and we had our first games in, in, in virtual reality. So it, and the plays station three was, I was still working with Sony at the time. So you’re talking 2006, 2007. So all these technologies have now been around a long time.
Nicolas
03:34:55
And so it makes people feel more comfortable with them. What I’m most excited about is what I see, you know, with autonomous cars, with smart cities, something that I work a lot today with smart energy, something that, because we need to start thinking about, yeah, great. These new technologies are fantastic, but what’s the impact on our planet and our environment. And with new technologies, for example, 5g, we thought about environ first six G is mainly about, about, about the environment and how we can save our planet. Right? So today that, that, that’s, that’s the thing is take for good, you know, how can we use technology for, for the best of humanity and of the environment. And that’s what excites me the most.
Nat
03:35:41
Thank you. Thank you very much. So how about you N
Nish
03:35:47
What I’m excited about? I, I am excited about sort of the potential for things like the metaverse. I think that things like fit, you know, it is a very human thing to, you know, run off and do something amazing. You know, we did it with plastic, but then you realize how, how terrible that is for the, for the planet. But this idea that you do have a responsible, you have a responsible sort of note to all of the technology that’s being driven forward. And if that means that sort of pulling back in the, pulling back in the data transference of everything and making sure it’s actually something that people can get, get on board with slightly slower, but maybe that helps the planet a little bit more, that that does excite me. So I think it’s something that a sustainable technology strategy is something that, yeah, I’m excited about. For sure.
Nat
03:36:36
Thank you very much. And lastly, but not leastly Kim, how about you? What’s your take?
Kim-Adele
03:36:43
I think you, I think you guys have already summed it up. It’s, it’s the, it’s the what’s next and the fact that that’s unknown and I kind of really, I love that, you know, you, you know, I say all the time, my Nan always used to say, you know, live every day’s a school day and you, and she’s right. You know, every day we learn something new that we didn’t know yesterday, and I’m excited to see the world that my little girl will grow up in. I, it would be fascinated to see what it might be like when she’s my age and what changes she will have seen, and I will have seen alongside her, but I just think, you know, there’s so much opportunity for us to make things easier for people to be able, able to really focus on the things that are important. And I, I think also seeing how technology can help as help people that are suffering with illnesses and things and how we can help it to help people who are facing poverty. Cause I think there’s a great opportunity for technology to be helping us improve the world for all, just for the few. And what excites me is we’re seeing some real breakthroughs in that and I’d love to see what comes next in that, in that space.
Nat
03:37:50
Thank you. Well, I agree with everything that you have all said and yeah. Thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate you. See you soon.
Nat
03:38:01
Thanks very much for listening. Please make sure you share this episode with your friends and business connections and don’t forget, drop us a review wherever you listen.