Personal Development

Why the gig economy fits well with the lives of Baby Boomers

Neville Hobson Leave a comment Books, Business, Communication, Experiences, Guest Post, Personal Development, Society, Trends, Workplace

We Baby Boomers are benefiting significantly from the gig economy, says author, speaker and optimist Tim Drake. Not just as consumers by it providing lower prices and more convenience, but as participants too. It’s an important bolt-on to something bigger, he says, enabling new ways of doing business to emerge, and a fresh outlook on what ‘work’ is. But is it something we should think about taking a much more active role in? Baby Boomers fit into what I call Generation Cherry. Indeed, that is the title I gave my book on the subject. The profile is slightly wider than Baby Boomers, as Generation Cherry covers people in their fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties (possibly even forties and nineties). We […]

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Re-imagine IBM

Neville Hobson 7 Comments Business, Communication, Experiences, IBM, Personal Development, Professional Development, Social Business, Technology, Workplace

Last December, when I started telling friends that I would be joining IBM as a  full-time employee, I received some mixed responses. Of course, all were well-wishing but some came with quizzical looks and the question “IBM? I couldn’t imagine you at IBM!” It turns out that the question was based on a view about me as a communicator, and about IBM and what the company does that was out of date. That view was based on what IBM largely was in the late 20th century and turn of the 21st whose business embraced hardware (think of mainframe computers, bringing personal computing into the modern era with the invention of the IBM PC, and the venerable IBM ThinkPad laptop), software […]

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Podcast: How to create disruptive strategies of innovation with Erik Wahl #IBMConnect

Neville Hobson 7 Comments Business, Communication, Entertainment, Events, Experiences, IBM, Innovation, Personal Development, Professional Development, Social Business, Workplace
Erik Wahl painting

Closing General Session at IBM Connect 2016: Discover Your Inner Artist: Wrap up your week on a fun and exciting note. Liz Urheim, Vice President of Collaboration and Smarter Workforce, will share her perspectives and summarize the week. She will then be joined by Erik Wahl, author of Unthink, who will inspire you to let go of your traditional thought patterns. His unique artwork-infused presentation will help you better understand how to create disruptive strategies of innovation. In this session you will learn that your best sustainable edge is being better at mastering change and innovation than your competition. Erik will share approaches to unlock new ways to make you and your organization more creative, more productive, and ultimately more profitable. My […]

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Changing gears with IBM

Neville Hobson 56 Comments Business, Communication, Experiences, IBM, Personal Development, Professional Development, Social Business, Technology, Web, Workplace
gears

  I’ve been thinking a lot about social business lately. About what it is – broadly, focused on people (behaviours, mindsets) and organizations (culture, vision, leadership) – and about what it isn’t (an extension of, or level up from, social media). For the past dozen years, I’ve been directly and actively involved in one way or another in social media and social business, as a consultant, as a client, as an experimenter, as an early adopter (and leaver), as an influencer, and as an implementer. All of this has been leading me to a place where thinking, evangelisms, experiences, tools and activities can come together into a coherent singularity (for want of a better word) that makes sense, is credible […]

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FIR is dead. Long live FIR!

Neville Hobson 24 Comments Communication, FIR Podcast Network, For Immediate Release, Personal Development, Podcasting
handh

On September 7, I co-hosted and recorded the last episode of For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report with my podcasting partner, Shel Holtz. It’s a ritual Shel and I have followed every week for the past ten years and nine months since we published the first episode on January 3, 2005. If you’re a regular listener of FIR (the show gained that moniker in its early days), you’ll know that we announced the ending of this podcast in August serving notice, so to speak, that more than a decade of commentary and opinion on all matters at that intersection of business, communication and technology is drawing to a close. In the final episode I touched on the reasons […]

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