In this February 2023 webinar, Simon Kemp discusses the rapidly evolving world of the Internet and how companies can implement their digital transformation strategy. Simon is the brain behind the Datareportal, which I wrote about last year.
Some of the topics covered:
On a LinkedIn post, Simon provided his list of highlights from this episode:
Video transcript
I copied this mess of a transcript from YouTube directly. It's messy. But if you want to search for keywords, etc., it might be useful.
0:00
that story simply isn't getting reported it's weird the media doesn't seem to want
0:03
to tell the good stories about big tech it only ever wants to sell the bad story these
0:07
are assumptions that we make as businesses but when we actually look into the assumption is
0:12
there enough data to back it up and nine times out of ten the story is a lot more complex than
0:18
a single headline what have you believe until you've clarified what the outcomes you want to
0:21
deliver are you're going to really struggle to find how technology can help you I think it is
0:26
that bit that a lot of the time in a digital transformation conversation we miss so we
0:31
forget that this is not about how do I train people to use this tool the real challenge is
0:37
how do I help my teams to understand that this tool will make their lives better
0:46
Simon before we start I have to ask you are you sure you want to do this I am convinced
0:51
Rodrigo okay that was pretty pretty all right good it's I'm so happy having you
0:59
here welcome Simon thank you Rodrigo all right so let's first start tell us straight away why
1:06
should people listen to this conversation a lot of the things we're going to talk about
1:10
today relate to what the world is doing on the internet and the mystery is that
1:14
almost everything most people think they know about the internet is wrong so we're going to
1:18
correct a lot of those misconceptions and give you the real insights on today's episode oh
1:23
how corporate was that very good okay so since you've been at the Forefront
1:32
of tracking the evolution of behaviors on internet
1:37
what is something that you've you understood that will surprise a lot of people
1:45
there's an uh you know to start the answer to that question there's an awful lot of surprises out
1:49
there I think one of the things I'd really want to look at with you today is the misconceptions
1:55
that we have about what people are Believing on the internet so whether or not people are
1:59
using certain social media platforms whether or not they are still using search engines which
2:04
devices they're using to access the internet there is the full scope of online behaviors that are out
2:09
there I think we probably want to talk about in some detail today an eight hour episode for
2:14
you today Rodrigo but I think when it comes to making business decisions we are constantly fed
2:20
insufficient information misinformation all sorts of stuff and the good news is there is data out
2:26
there to help you make better decisions it's just not being properly surfaced so a lot of today's
2:30
conversation hopefully will be about surfacing that better information to inform better decisions
2:35
and what looking ahead what do you see as the main trends from your reports digitally we could talk
2:44
about so many different things here Rodrigo but I'm going to choose three for you in the
2:47
interests of time so you can look at relatively straightforward things like the devices that we
2:51
use on an everyday basis one of the things that I've been tracking in the data that we share in
2:55
our reports is the rise of smart watches he says without one but things like the Apple watch things
3:00
like the Fitbit there has been a significant growth in the adoption and use of these devices
3:06
over the past couple of years so even post covid we've seen a big jump in the number of people that
3:11
use these devices so research from gwi shows that roughly three in ten internet users of working age
3:18
around the world now have a smart wrist device that's pretty high to put that in context that's
3:22
much higher than the number of people who own a games console so we're now looking
3:27
at a situation where these devices are becoming widespread what does that mean for organizations
3:32
and for businesses and all that kind of stuff the more that we get notifications on our wrist the
3:37
less likely we are to take our phones out of our pockets or out of our bags and therefore it has
3:42
all sorts of implications for how we interact with our digital devices if you want to stretch that
3:47
a bit further we've been promised AI spectacles for the longest time that one as well is really
3:52
going to change the way that we interact with our devices because up until now every every
3:58
digital device that we have is a screen so we have to divert our attention either to our phones to
4:03
our computers to whatever it is once the content gets overlaid on top of everything that we see
4:09
around us our relationship with content changes because it's a part of life not a distraction so
4:15
that's that's part one so devices that we use then we start to look at some of the really
4:20
interesting things that are coming through in technology and I think the thing that is going
4:24
to have the greatest impact on Industries over the next five to ten years especially in the creative
4:30
world but even beyond that is Generative AI now lots and lots of different examples of this it's
4:37
almost unfair to just choose one or two but if you've heard of things like Dali and Mid-journey
4:42
so these generative engines that create content from text prompts so I say I want to see Rodrigo
4:49
in the style of a Monet painting doing Flamenco dancing it will actually create this from scratch
4:54
it doesn't need you to give a photo it doesn't need to do anything else it just creates it from
4:58
text prompts this is going to have the same level of it this is me predicting here but I am
5:05
confident this is going to have the same level of impact on Creative industries that photoshop did
5:10
20-30 years ago this is a fundamental step change in our ability to transform ideas that we have in
5:18
our head into things that other people can see and hear of whatever else so I mean this impacts text
5:25
it impacts video it impacts audio everything so anything that is a creative content format these
5:31
tools can produce from text prompts and output now for obvious things like you know for video for
5:37
advertising for TV all that kind of stuff you can see this has magic but even if you are just you
5:42
know if you're in a non-creative industry trying to translate the ideas that you have in your head
5:48
into forms that other people can engage with this is straightforward as a business presentation all
5:54
of a sudden you know you imagine the PowerPoint of tomorrow where you just put in your ideas and
5:59
it creates things that other people can relate to that are better than those terrible clip art that
6:04
we need to use today that's going to be magic so Generative AI the next five to ten years is going
6:09
to be the biggest change in industry in my mind I mean it's the best form of AI that I'm seeing at
6:15
the moment in terms of the output once you add that on top of the blockchain off we go magic
6:19
but blockchain segues perfectly into the third thing that I wanted to talk to you about today
6:23
which is self-sovereign identity it's a very complex term for something which is actually
6:28
quite straightforward at the moment one of the biggest problems in technology is that the
6:33
platforms own your data so Facebook Apple you name it Google they all have your data they own it and
6:40
they they'll sell it out to their customers and that's how they make money obviously privacy is
6:45
a big problem you've got the EU doing all sorts of regulation about it you've got people around
6:49
the world saying that they're worried about how organizations use and misuse their data
6:53
self-sovereign identity flips the Paradigm on its head so instead of the companies owning the
6:58
data you are in charge of your digital identity and this is as broad as it gets so when I say
7:05
digital identity if you imagine digitizing your entire self not to create an avatar but to store
7:11
all the information that's important about you so something as simple as the login that you use
7:16
when you want to access a social media platform you know your passwords and stuff are contained
7:21
within that then you've got the basic stuff like my preferences I prefer dark mode rather than
7:25
light mode when I'm reading the news so I want a dark background with white text I can take that
7:29
to every single platform across the internet if I own my identity and I don't need to keep updating
7:33
it every time but when you stretch self-sovereign identity out into the real potential this becomes
7:40
where you store all your financial data not just the stuff that you use on e-commerce but when I
7:44
go into a physical word store this is how I pay for things it has all my health information but
7:49
because I own it because it's secure that's a really good thing I can go to any doctor I go
7:55
to any hospital around the world plug it in so to speak it's not going to be a plug-in it's going
8:00
to be you know scanned or whatever else that data is available when it's required so God
8:04
forbid if I'm ever in a bad accident overseas I don't speak the language they can access it
8:10
they know that I'm allergic to this medicine they know that and off we go you know the data
8:14
is there to be used to add value to me not to turn me into a product as is case at the moment
8:20
ultimately this will become our digital passport this will actually be when we go from one country
8:25
to another this is our identity you get your iris scan or whatever else it may be the data is then
8:30
available because we've made it available to that particular system and to nobody else and then we
8:35
go and we only share the bits that need to be shared we're not leaking data everywhere else
8:40
that doesn't need to be shared that is going to fundamentally change the digital business model
8:47
once that becomes a thing and the good news is this is already available in some instances but
8:51
unfortunately the majority of the internet is resisting it because it's going to break their
8:55
financial model but if you look at things like so Tim berners-lee who invented the World Wide
8:59
Web has this thing called solid socially linked data there's The Sovereign network is another
9:04
good example and then ironically the EU given all of their sort of you know the activity against
9:09
privacy um they've actually been developing blockchains that are exactly this so Sovereign
9:16
identity networks to allow a lot of their um the people that work with governments across the
9:21
EU they're actually able to transition from one government system to another so you can understand
9:25
the benefits in an EU context of that so there are plenty of things that are demonstrating this
9:30
is possible and is you know there are proof proof of concept cases out there in the world today it's
9:35
coming now whether it becomes the default is the big question because there's commercial resistance
9:41
But ultimately what's right for the customer is right for business so my advice to anybody
9:46
listening today thinking about whether they should explore this the best relationships in the world
9:51
are built on mutual trust this provides Trust on both sides let's embrace it let's push it because
9:57
then everybody's going to win so that's my high horse moment for today Rodrigo let's Embrace that
10:02
stuff wow I believe you see so much information so maybe you can tell us some misconceptions That You
10:09
observe today yeah I think a lot of this is about believing that behavior is very sort of binary and
10:16
then we have these these individual things that define us as Internet users or whatever else so
10:22
let's take something as simple as search so if you look at the reasons why people use the internet
10:27
today finding information is still the number one motivation for going online but it's only
10:33
just ahead of staying in touch with friends and family and things like that and actually when you
10:37
look at the data it's not like there's a dramatic difference between the number of people who choose
10:41
finding information versus staying in touch with friends and family finding entertainment wasting
10:47
time which is actually another reason why we go online if you think about younger kids waiting
10:50
at the bus stop they've got to do something so wasting time or putting your free time to better
10:55
use perhaps better way of putting it but there's multiple reasons why we go online but it's very
11:01
difficult to tell that story in a headline and so again when when we are told sound bites or
11:07
headlines as to what's going on in the internet everything tries to get distilled down into these
11:11
like handy little trivia points that's just not the way that the world works though I mean if you
11:15
think about the reason why you were online today before you found this show of this podcast and
11:19
whatever else there was other reasons you came online it's not just to see Rodrigo and Simon
11:23
chatting if it is that's brilliant I'm guessing it's not so I think you know the misconceptions
11:29
that we have when we try and distill everything down into these neat little packages of sound
11:32
bites and trivia and the reality is it's it's not that and I think understanding that our
11:38
activities as businesses are just one small part of a multifaceted conversation once once
11:44
we embrace that once we don't realize that that's a problem but it's actually an opportunity then
11:48
we can move into the great so where do we fit into people's lives why have they invited us into their
11:53
lives and how can we add value in those contexts that that's the magical bit so the misconception
11:58
I'm actually going to answer your question eventually when you look at the misconception
12:03
it's this idea that you know it's it's these individual points let's let's look at it as a
12:08
massive it's like life it's a mass of different things and it's the mass that makes it beautiful
12:13
wow I really like that point and I can see exactly how is that sometimes misleading us with the wrong
12:21
decisions because I think the media sometimes likes the big catchy words but between the big
12:27
catchy words and the small details there's a lot of information that it's missed but now what I
12:32
would like to see so according to your reports we see I mean the internet users are increasing
12:36
social media users also are are increasing I mean the the today we are in a digital world yeah
12:43
and so the big words in uh in everyone's leader is digital transformation so I would like to to
12:51
now to to go a deeper on this topic so for you what is digital transformation and what
12:58
is happening now because I know that you have a lot of conversations with CEOs and leaders tell
13:03
us about what is happening today it's one of my favorite questions it's when somebody says
13:10
what is digital transformation it's a bit like saying what is happiness we all know it once
13:14
we've experienced it but it's a very subjective thing right so what makes me happy may be quite
13:19
different to what makes you happy maybe for the viewers and listeners today again every single
13:23
person has a slightly different take on it digital transformation is simply a way of delivering the
13:30
plans that we have to get our organization to where we want it to be so digital transformation
13:35
is using technology to deliver outcomes yeah simple as that obviously in some organizations
13:41
that could be a complete overhaul of everything and in some organizations it's about implementing
13:44
one single relatively small tool on off we go but there are all sorts of challenges to getting that
13:52
into place and unfortunately like I said it's a bit like happiness once you've experienced it you
13:55
know what it is but until you've experienced it it's very difficult to help you get there
14:00
so yeah it's a very open-ended question I think if you ask me specifically it's about how do we
14:05
deliver certain aspects of it I can give you much more tangible answers but for the benefit
14:09
of everybody that's tuning in today let's not pretend that the general transformation can be
14:14
encapsulated in a single handy sound bite because that's only going to cause problems we don't need
14:19
to define what it is we just need to define what a good outcome looks like in your organization
14:23
and then as how technology can help you deliver it I really like that so about focusing on the
14:28
outcome and then technology will be a tool to help you yeah so so maybe now you can share from
14:36
your conversations with leaders where do you see them struggling the most in this journey
14:42
so the most common challenge is somebody will come in with it's a bit like when you go to the
14:48
doctor and you say I want to take this medicine and the doctors would sort of look at you and go
14:54
why why this medicine what what are we hoping to treat here what's the issue what's the opportunity
15:00
what's going on why have you decided that this is the right thing unfortunately in
15:04
the business sense many people seem to insist so they would look at the doctor almost as
15:08
though the doctor was crazy and say no I want to use this medicine take a step back right
15:14
the the opportunity to use technology is only ever a servant to what we want to deliver
15:20
so that's the biggest challenge is until you've clarified what the outcomes you want to deliver
15:25
are you're going to really struggle to find how technology can help you because it is just it's
15:30
a medicine it's a tool whatever you want to call it so that's the biggest challenge
15:34
is if you've got an answer that's looking for a question you are doing things back to front yeah
15:39
okay so now when we understood the the the the challenge so then if you would be the CEO of a I'd
15:48
say a big company a big company what would be the three things that you would do in order to enable
15:56
a digital transformation in the organization so before we talked about the importance of setting
16:01
the outcome you want to deliver so that's your headline you know that's the objective that's the
16:05
goal that's the target have that very very clear before you do anything else so that's not even
16:10
one of the three that's that's an organizational thing but that's not a digital transformation or
16:14
anything else that is here is my organizational goal what's the most efficient and effective
16:20
way of getting there so that's your such a big eerie goal over there once you've defined that
16:25
especially when it comes to digital activities when you're looking at implementing new technology
16:29
implementing new practices all that kind of stuff there are three things that you really
16:33
need to focus on to make sure that you get right ironically the first one is always human so it's
16:38
always cultural so understanding the people element of things until you understand that
16:44
you're going to be really struggling you need to understand strategy What is strategy is this
16:50
very clever word and it means lots of different things to different people but ultimately strategy
16:54
is where am I today where do I want to get to how do I get there it's just that's all it's a
16:59
map basically the third thing that we need to understand is how do we get from where we are
17:05
today to where we want to be what are the things that stand in the way the obstacles the challenges
17:09
the things that can accelerate what do we need to understand about the the topology of the map so
17:14
do I have to cross rivers and mountains is what we've been doing a physical sense there are sort
17:19
of the the metaphorical rivers and mountains that we need to over I'm in a business sense
17:23
the challenges but then there are also shortcuts that we can take that will speed our progress
17:28
understanding what those are all of those three things are absolutely critical before
17:33
we even think about anything to do with technology because technology will only ever help you cross
17:38
the rivers climb the mountains and take shortcuts that's what it's there for unless you've got the
17:43
map you're going to choose the wrong tools um and I to be honest I can really resonate with what you
17:50
say a lot of times in even conversations that I was a lot of times that was about a lot of times
17:54
we spent time talking about the technology but not enough on the outcome yeah so I really like
18:00
that but what there's a point that I've it's very interesting what he said maybe we can go a bit
18:05
deeper what you said the first thing that you said is about people yeah right can we go a bit deeper
18:10
and understand how do we bring people in this journey like in a a digital transformation journey
18:19
so almost everybody that you've got in your organization is going to be using some kind
18:23
of technology in their personal life so even before they become part of your team they have
18:29
an experience with technology that they bring with them as a human being in exactly the same
18:33
ways they bring their education as they bring their emotions as they bring their personality
18:37
they bring that the Simon technology piece Simon brings into every conversation and that is based
18:43
on everything that I do and everything I have done with technology in my life you've then got
18:48
in the organizational setting you've got what the individual does and how they sense their value in
18:56
terms of the value they perceive within themselves and the value that they believe they bring to the
19:00
organization and I think it's that bit that a lot of the time in a digital transformation
19:04
conversation we miss so we forget that this is not about how do I train people to use this tool
19:11
the real challenge is how do I help my teams to understand that this tool will make their
19:15
lives better not just how will it make more money for the organization but you know if I'm going to
19:21
give you a new piece of software why should you invest time and emotion as an individual to learn
19:26
it when you're already doing that job technically you feel like you're already doing a good job very
19:31
few people believe they're doing a bad job at work yeah now you as a leader may believe that they are
19:35
doing a worse job than they think they are but very few people believe that they're doing a bad
19:39
job and will continue to do a bad job willingly unless they want to be fired in which case fine
19:43
off they go so that I think this is the key bit you've got to understand the human motivations
19:48
the human experiences before you can even start to plan out how you're going to implement technology
19:54
um so how to do that that's the billion billion dollar in many cases questions so such a great
20:03
topic I think the answer to that question obviously is going to vary from organization
20:07
to organization but there are some fundamentals that we can address I mean understanding the
20:12
individuals involved and admittedly in many organizations you're talking hundreds maybe
20:16
thousands of people but you've still this is why we have HR functions in Largo organization
20:22
HR functions in large organizations is when you've got large groups of people coordinating
20:28
them to do things is a challenge I mean even if you look at the world's best sports teams
20:32
we have managers we have coaches we've got the World Cup going on and you've got 11 people out
20:38
on a pitch that are the very best at what they do in your particular country they still need
20:42
to be guided even though they're brilliant practitioners getting them to work together
20:45
is a challenge so imagine I mean if you were the average organization working working with
20:51
average people nobody ever admits that they're working with average people but let's face it
20:54
if you've got teams of hundreds of people that need to be trained on new tools you're going
20:59
to have some that underperformance some that over perform and there's an average in between
21:03
understanding what motivates those individuals understanding what they perceive to be a good
21:08
outcome is crucial for you to getting them from where they are today to where you want them to be
21:13
and all of this is a journey so let's understand it's exactly the same as the organizational map
21:17
that you've created you need to have almost a map for every individual sometimes you can
21:21
give them all the same map and hope that they're going to follow it but realistically as Leaders
21:25
you're going to have to give some people nudges in different directions because that's Humanity yeah
21:31
so it's about like the one size Doesn't fit all absolutely never that's this is so interesting dig
21:39
further here yeah so now I mean we I mean in this episode we talk about teams and now going back to
21:47
what you were mentioning about the behaviors the different behaviors of the the different
21:53
generations yeah like how does that um different behaviors affect the the teams in the leadership
22:03
so there's so many different things to unpack you I think the most important bit to start with is
22:08
when our brains stop welcoming new things and when we become resistant and it happens at sometime in
22:16
our mid-20s obviously each individual varies but sometime in our mid-20s our brains change and we
22:21
become resistant to change rather than seeing a new innovation as an opportunity to do different
22:25
things I am clearly past my 20s Rodrigo and therefore I can see this now I start to see
22:30
new things and I'm like when I would allowed we did things differently and it's that kind
22:35
of mentality you reach a certain age and you compare what has just come on the scene to
22:40
what you had before whereas when we're younger you know the younger we are the more likely we
22:44
are to embrace new things because we're just used when you're a very young child like when you're a
22:49
toddler everything is new to you the whole world is new you step out your house for the first time
22:53
you've never seen anything so your brain has to be able to process everything being new all the time
23:01
and I think you know in your organization you're going to have the young kids who are fresh out of
23:07
school who've just joined who are still embracing everything as though it were new but that's not a
23:12
problem and then you've got the older folks who are more resistant because that's just the way
23:18
that our brains have fused over time unfortunately the reality is that just by by dint of the way
23:25
that the corporate world Works leaders tend to be older and therefore weirdly they tend to be more
23:31
resistant to change than the younger generations that doesn't mean that they're not good at what
23:35
they do because a lot of the time experience is valuable to us we form these shortcuts in
23:40
our brain and our decision making because we've seen similar questions before why why why trial
23:46
to solve the same question over and over again when we've got an answer that works but that's
23:50
the thing if we have an answer that works it may not be the best answer so that that's that's the
23:55
the context in which you need to address that particular question is the generations are going
24:00
to have different perspectives even exactly the same thing when first when Facebook first came
24:04
along I was still just in my just in my 20s and I embraced it because it was This brilliant way
24:10
that I could connect with all the people I had lost touch with it took a little while longer
24:13
for my older relatives in my family to embrace it but eventually they saw the benefits of it that's
24:18
the key bit how do you gradually introduce the benefits rather than the tool itself if I tell
24:24
you you should use Facebook okay I don't know I don't understand it so I'm going to resist
24:28
it whereas if I say hey there's this really easy way of connecting with all your old school friends
24:32
that you lost touch with my mum was like that's brilliant and she embraced it the fact that it
24:37
was Facebook didn't matter to her it was the fact that she could embrace this opportunity to engage
24:41
with friends that she'd lost touch with and she did you know that's how Facebook became what it
24:45
is today now if you're implementing a new SAS tool in your organization don't tell people why the
24:51
SAS tool is amazing as a piece of technology because most of the time nobody cares tell
24:56
them the benefits on their terms as you know as Rodrigo why does this make Rodrigo's life better
25:02
sell Rodrigo on the benefits to Rodrigo not the benefits of the tool based on its functional Magic
25:08
because nine times out of ten nobody actually understands it anyway I was I am in the process
25:14
of trying to find a new hosting solution for our reports we deliver millions of users of reports
25:20
every year and hosting is a real challenge for us so I'm trying to speak to various cloud cloud
25:26
companies I won't name names it's unfair but you know who they are and me saying this is this is
25:31
my challenge I need to host these many reports I need to deliver this many terabytes worth of
25:35
data what's the best solution and they go off on this nonsense journey of this and that they use
25:41
words I don't understand I have recently become an expert in network egress nobody knows what network
25:46
egress is except these Cloud companies I don't need to know what it is all I need you to tell me
25:50
is this is what you should do to deliver magic and this is how much it will cost and then we can have
25:53
a conversation but can I have a human conversation with anybody about this no and as a result
25:59
ironically I found a completely different solution and I will not be paying any cloud companies for
26:03
the benefit of delivering this because I simply could not get a human answer that is
26:07
what we face as a challenges organizations every single day because nobody's selling it to me as
26:12
Simon they're selling it to me as a bot with this technological nonsense speak you're not helping me
26:18
solve my problem every individual in your team has a problem that they want to solve how do I
26:24
get to go home and see my family on time every day how do I make more money how do I achieve
26:28
my career ambitions how do I whatever it is and everybody's got a slightly different set of goals
26:32
that's that's what you're selling to you're not saying because you are part of my team you have to
26:36
do what I tell you you've got to motivate People based on their yeah this is this is basic 101
26:41
management right but you motivate people on their terms not on your goals you've got to you've got
26:45
to sell them in on your passion yeah that that's the tricky bit you know what I think I I think you
26:53
hit the nail on the head I think I think where we're going it's to that level of understanding
26:59
each individual and leading a team is about understanding each individual and then help them
27:05
individually to achieve what they want you know and so I I really love that that point wow so good
27:14
um Simon I think we're coming to the end and I want to ask you a last question so I think well
27:20
a lot of people ask you lots of questions but what is one question that no one asks you and you would
27:26
love to answer it's the most fundamentally basic of questions ironically so most people ask me what
27:32
what is happening on the internet what are people doing with social media and almost nobody asks why
27:39
like it's why is the most valuable conversation valuable conversation why is the most valuable
27:44
question in the world in my mind how obviously is important as well but why is the thing
27:50
that transforms you from where you are today to where you want to get to so why does this person
27:55
behave the way that they do as a leader is your fundamental question like I said earlier nobody
27:59
wants to be bad at their job really it's not an ambition that we have so why are they behaving
28:04
this way why are they resistant why are they using this platform and not that platform why are they
28:08
using this device why is the magic question because once you've understood that you're
28:13
already on half of the answer to all the things that you asked what about or how and all that
28:19
stuff so why why is the most powerful question I love it good Simon it was that was absolutely
28:27
the conversation I really enjoyed and thank you for um and packing so much in a topic there's
28:33
so much you know so much talk there's so many misconceptions thank you for bringing clarity and
28:39
also solutions so what we can do as Leaders thank you for coming thank you for having me [Music]
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