The Luddites were a group of English textile workers and weavers in the 19th century who destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of machinery in a “fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices.Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste as machines would replace their role in the industry.
These Luddites were workers but what happens if you happen to be CEO and aren’t on the leading-edge of tech? We now have our answer – you can be fired. Every company is going through transformation. Seven years ago if we were told an app could disrupt taxis using any person’s car or disrupt hotel rooms by using any person’s apartment, we would have laughed out loud.
Now, every company is being disrupted – I just was the keynote speaker at the Ideacom reseller event in New Orleans and discussed all these points and someone in the audience said that even the locksmith will be disrupted by smart home tech which unlocks doors from anywhere. Great point!
These ideas are not lost on Ford who just replaced their CEO who was lacking in tech smarts. Chief Executive Mark Fields will retire after 28 years with the auto maker. Fields will be succeeded by Jim Hackett, who was the executive chairman of Ford Smart Mobility for the past 14 months.
A few years back I had a candid conversation with James Buczowski, a Henry Ford Technical Fellow about the company’s connected ecosystem experiments and the future. Here is an excerpt:
This move to elevate Jim Hacket to CEO shows Ford is growing increasingly concerned about its future in a world where Tesla is becoming synonymous with “future car” and Google and Apple are spending billions in their core market.
This same concern should be taking place at the board and shareholder levels of all companies as Luddites have no future as CEOs in today’s digitally transformed economy.
Speaking of Innovation & Transformation…
Communications 20/20 will be held July 18-20, 2017 at Caesars Palace,
Las Vegas, Nevada and will focus on the next wave of technology and innovation that will transcend the importance of person to person contact, disrupting the future of the entire communications industry. Communications 20/20 will provide vital knowledge and insight through unique programming, hands on training, live demos, keynotes, exhibits and networking events.
This unique conference will allow for individuals and companies entrenched in the traditional communications ecosystem that want to understand how to adapt and profit from the new software-defined communications trends that will permeate through all industries and enterprises.