Conference-time lessons learned

What were the #Futureofwork learning lessons from the 2023 late summer conference season? Here's the summary...

Class of 2023

It was a busy conference season with events piled up back-to-back encouraging even hybrid workers to get out of their bedrooms and into the conference halls. It was busy. There were lots of ideas. Chief amongst them were on topics of Artificial Intelligence ESG policies, and Neurodiversity.

If you want a quick answer to what's hot in the #futureofwork, check out my conference season summary interview hosted by podcaster extraordinaire, Steve Motley .

Enter center stage 'AI'

Artificial Intelligence was the hot topic of 2023. Whether the discussion was about 'Terminator versus Iron Man' or what you can practically do with AI to automate your business, all aspects of AI have been covered during the conference season program.

To learn more about the different types of AI and how to apply it, check out my latest blog article on AI in 2024 sponsored by USTECH SOLUTIONS, INC.

Transactional outreach is officially a dead parrot! Regenerative AI has got B2B marketers scratching their heads and re-imagining how they go to market

The world of B2B marketing will never be the same after 2023. The things thaht worked in 2022, didn't work in 2023 and won't work in 2024.

The question on the minds of marketing leaders, therefore, is 'What's next?' The answer appears to be a massive drive towards 'community of interesting marketing.'

What we are seeing is company leaders ditching their plans to invest good marketing money after bad on transitional outreach marketing that has long seen its day. What is replacing this 'old fashioned digital marketing' (if I can say that?!) are strategies to bring sustaining value to communities of interest; winning the right to be in the room when prospective buyers are looking to solve their problems and make purchasing decisions.

If you've yet to get your head around this new approach to marketing--the philosophy, the thinking, the methods, the tools, etc. in this article , I frame the new era of B2B community building.

Creating a safe space for your workforce

At TheUWI.com's inaugural hybrid workshop in London (10th October), I hosted one of the most lively roundtable conversations of the year, with a celebrity line-up of some of the brightest minds of the workforce and DE&I industry sharing their thoughts on the evolution of workplace culture towards neuroinclusivity.

Some of the learning lessons I took away from the session were these:

1. Neuroinclusivity and AI are directly linked in our workforce future because, without the neurodivergent workforce, there won't be enough talent to drive AI innovation--and many companies operating neurotypical cultures will find themselves in the slow lane of AI evolution, potentially an existential threat.
2. To make change happen in workforce culture, business leaders need to be encouraged to create a safe space for fresh thinking and perspectives. They also need to self-identify their neurodifferences to encourage others to step out.
3. For most organizations, the starting point is to appraise your current neuroinclusivity state of health. One way to do this is to step through The UWI's FREE Neuroinclusivity Maturity Assessment .

Watch the full version of the Positive Habits Hybrid Workshop event video here .