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Scott Steinberg

Business strategist and award-winning speaker Scott Steinberg is also trend expert, futurist and author of 20 books, including Make Change Work for You.

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green tech improving business

Six ways green tech can benefit your business

  • Remote working
  • min read
    • Two-thirds of customers place importance on a brand's sustainable or eco-friendly image. Buoyed by this growing consumer awareness, business investment in becoming more sustainable is at record highs. Staff are concerned too – 97 percent of executives say their company has been negatively affected by climate change. IT and enterprise leaders must get involved in this new age of corporate social responsibility (CSR.) But these new environmentally conscious ways of doing business can benefit your company in other ways. Here are six ways green tech is improving business while reducing its environmental footprint. 1.   Saving on energy bills Oxford Economics says data-driven tools like smart meters, smart plugs and self-regulating energy systems can cut energy costs by up to 5 percent. It may not sound like much, but will add up to billions by 2030, with the biggest savings likely in small-to-medium businesses. These smart solutions are an easy way for businesses to predict better, optimize and conserve energy, meaning cost savings while reducing climate impacts of energy production, which across the world, is still mostly done by burning fossil fuels. 2.   Gaining more organizational insight These smart devices don't just help save energy and resources. They give businesses improved insight into process efficiencies. There's been huge uptake of 'internet of things' (IoT) devices in industry and manufacturing, largely driven by their ability to predict maintenance needs, maximize productivity and reduce factory downtime. Over 55 billion devices will be connected and talking to one another by 2025, according to market researcher IDC. One example is modular house-building factories –robots are better than humans at arranging patterns to get the most cuts from a piece of wood. 3.   Improving employees' working lives According to international consulting firm McKinsey, remote, digital, and hybrid technologies will define the future of work. Many employers are using online tools to book on-demand flexible office space, vehicles and virtual desktops, cutting resource consumption and travel-related greenhouse gas emissions. Employees relish more opportunity to work flexibly, widespread since the pandemic – whether working from home or across hours that better suit family life. Commuting is no small contributor to climate change. In the US, 75 percent use driving as their main means of getting to work. 4.   Saving on carbon costs With many countries operating internal carbon markets, reducing carbon emissions can, on its own, reduce operating expenses. These schemes require companies to buy carbon credits for emissions they produce, while those that create carbon sinks, like forestry, can make money by selling credits. Renewable energy microgrids are one way to cut carbon emissions. Other companies are replacing fossil fuel-powered vehicle fleets with electric and hybrid vehicles. These can also have health benefits for staff through reduced air pollution, vibration and noise. 5.   Reducing eWaste Our growing mountains of electronic waste are not easy or cheap to recycle, but practice is improving. Green tech can also help here, like using cloud-based file storage and backups, where multiple businesses share the same IT infrastructure. (This, in turn, makes strong, automated cloud security indispensable.) Virtual desktops also mean you needn't constantly equip and re-equip staff with dedicated laptops and PCs, meaning less waste to landfill. Choose your data center wisely for minimum environmental impact – they can use much electricity and water, and create a lot of heat. Doing your research will reveal the most low-impact options, like using data centers in countries where most electricity is generated renewably. 6.   Increasing productivity One UCLA study found employees at companies that voluntarily adopt high environmental standards were 16 percent more productive than peers at less eco-friendly organizations. Reasons might include distance learning, telecommuting and real-time collaboration tech. Artificially-intelligent software personalities and automated helpers may also help employees work without needing to travel while taking over repetitive tasks that reduce focus. Green tech for business will mean many operational benefits alongside all-important protection for our resources, climate and atmosphere. Companies should aim to stay ahead of customers' expectations and move more quickly than regulation requires. The coming years will only bring more environmental scrutiny and awareness, so it will pay to invest in greener tech today.
cross cloud world

With complex data storage now the norm, how can business stay secure?

  • Safer business
  • min read
    • While firms in every line of business are planning increased cloud use, defending against the increased range of digital dangers needn't be time-consuming or expensive, even in a multicloud world. Almost nine in ten companies use multicloud – multiple cloud storage and processing providers – to power IT and store business-critical information. A whopping 80 percent use both public and private cloud. While these complex storage setups bring advantages, they make life harder for IT professionals. Recent Kaspersky research found IT complexity is becoming a top challenge for businesses, particularly securing these networked environments. How can leaders make sure it's all secure and manageable? Defending growing data worlds The number of employee and customer digital touchpoints that must be secured in the average enterprise is ballooning. Networks are getting more complex and the amount of data gathered skyrocketing. That data can be enormously valuable – if it doesn't get lost completely in the crowd of, well, more data. Meanwhile, high-severity cybersecurity incidents grew by half in just a year. Hackers keep finding new ways to breach defenses. "Cloud and online IT complexity expand each year as the magnitude of cyberthreats grow," Tim Rosato, head of trend forecasting firm Silver Lion Group, told me in a phone interview. "User accounts, information and logins are also traveling across more cloud networks, apps and virtual desktop environments." New solutions for multicloud enterprise This growing complexity has sent many companies the way of investing in automated endpoint detection and response (EDR) platforms. These proactively scan for and eliminate threats. They're also implementing more specialist security products for hybrid cloud with controls that let you centralize security. It's all about greater network visibility and faster threat response across online workloads, software development and third-party apps. "We live in a multicloud environment. Our research shows malicious actors can take advantage of any unprotected cloud, gaining unauthorized access to the whole infrastructure. New solutions can help protect assets and remediate different kinds of attacks", says Marc Rivero, senior security researcher at Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT.) New digital identity management tools also help identify and authenticate users as they travel across apps, networks and cloud providers. You'll also want to routinely scan code and applications, networked systems and connected devices for potential points of compromise, closing loopholes before they get used. Simple actions can also lower odds of compromise further, like adopting zero-trust security and multi-factor authentication. And you can't go past promoting security awareness regularly among staff, with training every three to six months. Back up data offline every 24 hours and test security teams' reaction times using exercises based on real-world cyber incidents. Data-mapping tools that track how information flows across your business, and which users have or control access to this data, can also strengthen your cloud defenses. They help you classify and cordon off data by sensitivity level, which may also be useful in regulatory compliance. Many clouds certainly don't make light work, but the growth of multicloud and hybrid cloud is here to stay. For enterprises, the challenge is making sure their security is up to scratch for this complex environment. The increasing adoption of solutions that use automation and AI, and those designed for convoluted cloud settings, show many are taking heed. But no matter how many clouds or endpoints, remember your people must be the heart of your cybersecurity strategy.
legal regulatory systems keep up rapid change

Regulation can keep pace with changing tech. Here’s how.

  • Digital transformation
  • min read
    • With rising concerns about consumer privacy, anti-competitive business activity and the spread of misinformation, public and policymakers' scrutiny of the high-tech space is intensifying. Big Tech's influence is still rising. Safety and data privacy laws already struggle to keep up. Who should oversee and police the online giants, and how can we ensure privacy and security standards meet what consumers rightly expect? The blistering clip of technology If you thought the world moved fast before the pandemic, it's now positively frantic. COVID-19 prompted business to leap forward a technological decade in just three months. "From news, images and videos to apps, games and user-generated content, most material we consume is funneled through the largest technology firms," Taylor Tresatti, head of industry research for BIZDEV: The International Association for Business Development, told me. "More of the world's conversations only take place online." Tech firms' disproportionate influence, alongside concerns about their opaque business practices, raises questions about where responsibility lies for overseeing and governing online worlds. Regulatory processes and technological change International law's often outdated rules, lack of alignment between territories and government bodies and ongoing new technology add up to a mess for government and industry leaders. They're also concerned regulation could throttle innovation. Politicians are often quick to play to public fear but slow to understand new technologies' impacts fully. "These systems are often slow to change and adapt, so they're at direct odds with the technology they aim to manage," Tresatti observes. "That's before artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning start to drive more exponential industry advancement and growth." Other fast-moving advancements regulation must consider include robotics, quantum computing and industrial automation. Political and public concern not always aligned Political leaders can be part of the problem, Bob Ehrlich, head of consumer insights at Techsavvy, told me. "These and other virtual boogeymen are hot topics for voters, but politicians also face the challenge of how to keep up with a growing technological arms race among international powers." He expects this to lead to greater regulation in the high-tech space. Meanwhile, consumer concerns over privacy and data sharing are skyrocketing. Even as companies like Apple and Google adopt new privacy measures, Meta (formerly Facebook) has fought against them. In technologically advanced nations like the US, there's no comprehensive federal law regulating how most companies collect, store or share customer data − data often prone to compromise or breach by more sophisticated, complex threat actors. "The stage is set for a perfect storm," says Ehrlich. "From back-end oversight and management of data to front-end user experiences, many potential points of failure present themselves. We've got to be more thoughtful and make speedier decisions to have any hope of staying on top of this rapidly changing space." Rethinking the future of high-tech regulation To get better at addressing these challenges, I think we must have more informed discussions and make decisions on these topics more often, indeed, routinely. Given their unprecedented scope and influence, we must fundamentally rethink our approach to tackling technology-related issues. Government and IT leaders can use these three approaches. 1.    Adopt new standards for content sharing Instituting new industry, state and international policy standards and guidelines can help govern content sharing and moderation, data privacy and user security. Active cross-collaboration between agencies and governments would improve regional and international consistency. Christchurch Call is an example of how heads of state and the tech sector can work together to create effective new standards and processes. The international strategy for removing extremist content from social media fast was developed in the wake of a terrorist attack live-streamed on Facebook in 2019. 2.    Form partnerships between public and private sector We must bring together experts from different industries and policymakers to research, discuss and make recommendations on how to regulate emerging technologies and trends. These charter taskforces or committees should be empowered and resourced to report and recommend to lawmakers more rapidly. They should also include younger voices – digital natives – to offer up-to-date insights and perspectives. India has already begun working with Google similarly to help curb the spread of misinformation. 3.    Turn the focus from past to future Lawmakers should challenge themselves to rely less on historical precedents when making decisions. Instead, they could hold future-focused scenario-planning exercises to steer their decision-making around emerging technological use-cases and concerns. Screening processes and regular training would help ensure key decision-makers have contemporary, working tech knowledge. The lawmakers' role should also involve finding and closing the loopholes in legal and regulatory frameworks that unscrupulous actors exploit. Already, the US has convened task forces to help plan for and tackle topics like AI and robotics. Keeping tabs on tomorrow's world More regulatory oversight and governance is obviously coming soon in the IT space, but it needn't hinder industry growth or advancement. Partnerships between technology sector firms, lawmakers and industry bodies can mean opportunities to fast-track innovation while giving customers a more positive high-tech experience. As a futurist who's helped over 1,500 businesses and government agencies adapt to challenges like these, I know ensuring regulation and law keep up with technological change isn't impossible. We must get more government and industry leaders on the same page and promote teamwork and collaboration between the public and private sectors. "When everyone with a stake in the technology ecosystem works in tandem, it creates a more stable playing field and more chances to benefit industry players and everyday consumers," says Ehrlich. "From organization and government leaders' perspectives, finding more harmonious ways to collaborate at every turn is a meaningful upgrade worth pursuing."
Designing professional development for Millennials and Gen Zers

For Millennials and Gen Z, today’s professional development needs work

  • Leadership
  • min read
    • The generations we call Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) and Gen Z (born 1997 to 2012) now make up most of the global workforce. But despite their numbers, today's workplace may not meet their needs, because they're quitting jobs and hopping between positions in growing numbers. Those businesses that examine how they're retaining, developing and supporting these employees will have a chance to get ahead of their competition. There are signs information overload and mental fatigue are making us all gravitate to short-form content, but Millennials and Gen Z express this preference more strongly – they seem to learn, think and communicate differently from their predecessors. If companies want to boost their performance, organizational resilience and enterprise capabilities, they should redesign their professional development programs to engage these audiences better. Where professional learning is going wrong As a futurist keynote speaker and workshop presenter, I train thousands of professionals on how to adapt to industry change and emerging technologies. I need to bring audiences up to speed and inspire enthusiasm within minutes. But I find IT learning and professional development methods are still tied up in rigorous training programs and demanding certifications that take weeks or months to unpack. In the age of Zoom fatigue, things are going in the wrong direction. I've seen a steady increase in the average length of training I'm asked to give, from under an hour to 90−180 minutes. "Today's IT and security pros need to get up to speed on a rising array of breaking trends, technologies and topics in less time than ever," David Thomas, executive director of online programming at University of Denver, told me. "At the same time, they're pulled in more directions and their concentration is becoming more divided." Microlearning as an addition to traditional learning Experts suggest offering a broader range of learning approaches and educational solutions can help fill the gaps around extensive teaching and training programs. Microlearning especially is gaining ground. This rapid-fire approach to learning means breaking content into shorter, more approachable chunks. It helps promote interest in new topics and gets learners up to speed faster. In a 2018 paper, researchers Ján Skalka and Martin Drlík reported that microlearning, in tandem with more comprehensive training methods like coursework and certification programs, helps offset the impact of decreasing attention. It gives a speedy onramp for tech-related topics, reducing the learning curve, driving interest and boosting learning. Tatyana Shumaylova, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Kaspersky says get-to-the-point, bite-sized learning is central to their cyber education program Automated Security Awareness Platform (ASAP). "We understand that maximum engagement is key to learning, so we put that at the heart of our educational approach. For Millennials and Gen Z in particular, the 'old ways' are ineffective, so we trimmed the fat, banished waffle and keep our modules sharp, interactive and impactful." Greater loyalty to businesses that value learning Researchers at Florida International University found leaders and employees admit there's an issue with maintaining attention spans. They also found young audiences can maintain intense focus but are easily distracted. The research found these younger professionals are "most engaged when working on projects that are rewarding and impactful" and when they're doing "meaningful work and being challenged." These generations also actively look for jobs with more development opportunities and are more loyal if they receive continuing education. Companies must adapt development and training programs to short attention spans to engage and retain them. A Millennial herself, Taylor Tresatti, head of industry research for BIZDEV: The International Association for Business Development and Strategic Partnerships, told me she'd found learning and experiential opportunities promised but not delivered many times in her career. So she changed job roles and positions to get them: "As an employee, you have to gain working knowledge of new tools, technologies and trends quickly, without active training or certification from your employer. It would be super helpful to have access to faster and easier ways to master new skills." Investing in tech-rich learning experiences In their 2020 paper Educational experiences with Generation Z, three researchers said younger generations motivate companies to "accelerate and improve the teaching and learning process." This means investing in more technology-powered resources for new ways of teaching and learning, and finding more effective ways to capture and hold audiences' attention. Chris Zimmerman, senior analyst with trend forecasters FutureProof Strategies, told me, "There's a time and place for traditional learning methods and deeper dives. But your first goal in an increasingly frenetic business world should be to pique audience interest. That means looking for ways to present learning material that breaks through daily clutter better. It also means finding better ways to package and present material that bestows working knowledge faster." How to make learning more engaging I recently developed a new training method called POP FUTURE – you can download the instruction manual and guide for free. It's a faster, friendlier way to present learning content, putting future trends, new technologies and emerging business topics in a more intuitive and welcoming context that audiences of more backgrounds and skill levels can understand. My methods include reducing training manuals, workplace guides and reports to quick-hit videos, animated explainers or brief charts, illustrations and infographics. Effective teaching can also include games, exercises and simulations based on real-world challenges, like role-playing strategies for addressing network hacks or data breaches. I also recommend using animated GIFs, eye-catching explainers and graphs, and other social media-friendly content to make simple, understandable visual representations of complex subjects. Developing tomorrow's leaders Millennials and Gen Zers are quick learners, hungry for insight. In a world of shrinking employment tenures, they weigh learning and development opportunities highly when considering jobs. When unforeseen challenges emerge, these audiences won't have the time for traditional learning programs or in-depth curriculums. Supplementing your learning and development regimen with more short-form and microlearning-based content will give your workforce access to more approachable, on-demand learning and speak to more knowledge-hungry employees.
10 skills for IT success

Nine new skills to supercharge your IT leadership career

  • Leadership
  • min read
    • IT and network security education has always emphasized the technical and academic. But in a world increasingly defined by change, the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2020 found soft skills are suddenly in high demand. Harvard University's Division of Continuing Education says employers want a host of new abilities in their IT leaders, like creativity, critical thinking and emotional intelligence. "The skills an IT leader needed in the past are different from what's needed to manage an organization running in the Cloud," Clyde Seepersad, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Training and Certification at the Linux Foundation, told me. "Things move faster today than they did a few years ago. People who have high flexibility, adaptability and resilience will be best positioned to help their organizations succeed." Let's look at the 9 new skills insiders believe are critical for IT success in today's world and how to develop them. 1.  Adaptability: Broadening your skillset IT and computer security move so fast that global management consultancy McKinsey says the business world recently leaped forward technologically by 10 years in just 90 days in response to COVID-19 challenges. Technology leaders' adaptability, or in other words, the capacity to get familiar with and adjust to new scenarios and technologies, will only become more important. A recent Deloitte survey of 2860 executives at leading organizations found having digital transformation as a central pillar of its business strategy is key to enterprise success. Executives must regularly and routinely transform their skills, and even their way of thinking, to match that mission-critical shift. "Tomorrow's leaders will need to apply more business acumen across a wider variety of disciplines," Bhushan Sethi, Joint Global Lead for People and Organization at consulting firm PwC told me. He names the ability to analyze new business models, design more compelling experiences and read and visualize data more effectively when making decisions as just some of those disciplines. 2.  Agility: Switching strategies, embracing change Senior executives at technology leader Oracle say, "Businesses that fall behind trends can quickly lose market position and competitive advantage." This means IT leaders must become more willing to take action, switch strategies and get their workforce embracing regular and pronounced change. University of Chicago Booth School of Business reports customer trends and habits are shifting faster. So, technology executives must find ways to become more agile as individuals and support their organizations to increase agility. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation tools are now critical to staying ahead. 3.  Collaboration: Learning from others Linux Foundation's Seepersad points to the need to master communications, teamwork and people skills. "The stereotype of the programmer in a basement has never been accurate, but even less so now," he says. "There are tasks that should be handled by one person alone, but generally, it's helpful to collaborate with others, if only to get outside perspectives on what you're building." 4.  Courage: Speaking up and acting In my book Make Change Work for You: 10 Ways to Future-Proof Yourself, Fearlessly Innovate and Succeed Despite Uncertainty, I define professional courage as the willingness to speak up, act and take smart chances. Courage has become more important because, as PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel once famously told Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, "In a world changing so quickly, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk." It also helps to get in the habit of having strong but weakly-held opinions. Do your homework and make firm decisions, but be able to change tack as new (even contradictory) business intelligence comes along. 5.  Emotional intelligence: Empathy, listening and understanding Defined as the ability to empathize, see others' points of view and be more self-aware, emotional intelligence lets us successfully interact with and influence others. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin studied top performers in their organization and found science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills weren't the skills most needed for success. Rather, the top performers could stay ahead because of empathy for colleagues and appreciating coworkers' values and points of view. We can cultivate emotional intelligence by working on our active listening, empathy and situational awareness. PwC's Sethi thinks emotional intelligence has many facets. "Increasing your emotional intelligence also means getting better at understanding mental health, recognizing the toll of burnout on workers and knowing when teams need a break. We should also think about how we can redesign and automate workflows to get things done most effectively." 6.  Futurism: Seeing what's coming next In my 2020 book Think Like a Futurist: How to Plan Around Uncertainty and Future-proof Your Business, I define futurism as your ability to anticipate and plan for future events and happenings. It's an exercise in critical thinking and forethought. Get in the habit of asking questions like, Which new technologies and consumer trends will most impact our business, when, and how much? To practice futurism, use role-playing exercises where IT teams work through sample scenarios based on real-world events such as cyberattacks. You can also boost your ability to see what's coming next by practicing four things: Focus on trends rather than fads, stay alert to signals in the market, tie signals together to spot larger patterns and build communities of expert advisers with different perspectives. 7.  Ingenuity: Finding the answers Ingenuity is your capacity to use talents like creativity and innovation and to learn and intuit answers from scenarios quickly. While incremental innovation and experimentation are powerful for business growth, flashes of insight make game-changing leaps forward. Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle published research showing ingenuity is something we can teach and learn, although perhaps not in the ways we think. IT leaders can spark more "A-ha!" moments among their team by, for example, asking workers to devise new solutions, collaborate with customers on new concepts or imagining unforeseen future events that might impact business and how they'd handle them. Organizations can boost overall ingenuity with outside-in innovation: Seeking input from external sources like the academic or start-up community, or inside-out innovation: Letting others use your tools and technologies in new ways. 8.  Problem-solving: Breaking it down IT leaders need to think more like computer programmers and approach challenges like solving puzzles. In Forbes magazine, tech skills writer Laurence Bradford proposes computer scientists have a lens on the world that's great for leadership. They're often more open to tinkering with variables and better at spotting options for changing or improving things that others see as fixed. "One of the most relevant skills for IT leaders of tomorrow is the ability to diagnose and discern the root cause of issues and separate these from the symptoms they produce," notes Sethi. "If you can tell whether it's user-facing challenges, system design or unclear business rules causing problems, you've got an important skill." 9.  Resilience: Bouncing back (again) Resilience is your capacity to bounce back from adversity. By studying many groups – from grade school students to military cadets – University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Angela Duckworth worked out resilience better predicts success than IQ or talent. Being smart helps technology leaders with technical competence, but your ability to work through setbacks has more influence on getting ahead. Next time you have a bad day at work or a project starts going sideways, remember you can overcome these challenges and be better for it. Soft and hard skills are must-haves for IT leaders. "It's a great time to be a learner," says Seepersad. "There are many options to explore, such as online services that provide thousands of courses in hard and soft skills, many at no cost. It's important to remember improving soft skills will always help you in the workplace, but it's important to stay up to speed on evolutions in technology as well."
by Innovating leaders.
Innovative tech.
About Secure Futures

Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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