2024 In Review
Early 2024 was all Future of Work. Amazon US asked us to pinpoint 20 of the AI-assisted jobs of the future. These became the top 10 in consultation with Amazon’s AI team and were published at the start of the year - Fast Company and other titles picked up the story in interesting ways.
I worked with Virgin Media O2 to explore the future of deskless roles - roles that were already ‘remote’. My predictions appeared in The National, The iPaper and all over the BBC - we did a lot of radio, with everyone wondering what the future of work holds in the age of AI.
Then I was writing, creating and filming a Masterclass in Futures and Foresight to aid Innovation for Small Businesses - for Do Lectures and Sage. A wonderful experience and hopefully a very useful product at the end - you can learn along with my three lectures and exercises online.
Lots of speaking was done in 2024 - thank you to the many corporations who invited me to speak at their senior leadership events, board away days and annual conferences. I covered everything from grocery to legal services, architecture and management consultancy, the arts, and even sexual health and wellbeing in Estonia. I even got an invite to the podium at The Catalyst, University of Staffordshire, where I am Visiting Professor. There, I spoke about the future of manufacturing to the UK Ceramics audience following on from a UK Govt Minister for Energy and Net Zero. I opened the day at TechNExt in Newcastle to celebrate innovation coming out of the North East. And was up and down the UK sharing the trends for the next ten years and talking the future of housing, education, supply chain, marketing and innovation.
I did a lot of work with London Business School across a range of programmes and many sectors including auto, energy, investment and construction. I worked with the coaching teams, as well as programme directors and as part of a follow up to that work I will be keynoting at the EFMD in Lisbon early next year - and looking forward to it.
My work as ‘Futurist in Residence’ with DIN continues as they and their members continue to support trends and strategic foresight in the housing sector - a sector which has found itself in the spotlight as the new UK Government’s pledges in housebuilding alter the landscape - quite literally. Is there anything more interesting than new homes, new towns and new infrastructure that makes a nation work? I think not.
And I spoke at a number of media-run conferences and events including Fortune’s AI Brainstorm at the Rosewood in April and the FT’s Global Wealth Summit at The Landmark in November. A highlight was opening the guest speaking at the UNDP’s Global Leadership Academy for Women in Doha.
Campaign US featured my thoughts on fluid brands ditching ‘authenticity’ in digital and my predictions for AI in comms. I appeared on Fintech TV talking again about the challenges and opportunities of Generative AI. I hosted podcasts for corporations and was a guest myself on a few - some still to air.
My own podcast The Future of You went from strength to strength as Season 4 featured amazing contributors from Erik Prince to Holly Herndon to Parmy Olson - whose book just scooped the FT Business Book of the Year! Listen to all the episodes here - every guest was a revelation and I learnt so much.
I finished up the year with my Advent countdown of 25 Trends for 2025. Still ongoing, I presented them as Future Snacks - bite sized trends for busy people. I hope they have stimulated ideas and discussion and if you subscribe to my newsletter The Bolt you will get a compilation digital poster of the 25 trends plus 5 additional trends for 2025.
Finally, I was thrilled to see my name in a list of the Global Gurus Top 30 Futurists - a list of practitioners and teachers in futures. I was particularly pleased to see me listed as an expert in identity - a trend/emerging issue that I have been researching and campaigning for more general discussion on, for nearly a decade. Thank you to everyone who voted for me.
I have to end this round up by saying it was also a terrible year. My biggest champion, greatest cheerleader, business mentor and life-long hero, my Dad, passed away after a long illness. I miss him every day. And for that reason 2024 is not a year I will remember fondly.
As 2025 beckons - I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and thank you to all my clients, media, journalists and interviewers, programme directors, speaker agencies, event curators, colleagues and collaborators. Thank you to all the guests and production team of The Future of You, to the designers of the new Futuremade branding, to friends, family and of course to all readers of anything Futuremade has posted, shared or participated in this year.
THANK YOU.