All things future was the brief for my chat with Sheridan Stewart of New England ABC local radio and that’s pretty much where we took it, everywhere.

We chatted about the future of communication and journalists and dealt with the perennial question of would we need them moving forward. My answer, as always, is that we must get out of the habit of being adamant that the only way something can be done is how we are doing it now and instead look at what are the core and often innate needs and wants that this activity satisfies. Communication is a fundamental human need and  trait and if anything we are doing more of it now rather than less. What has changed is what we communicate on, what we communicate through, who can communicate and to whom and when we do it and for this we will need to re-skill and rethink how we do it, but the core skills of being a great communicator will still be necessary and in demand well into the future.

Our chat moved on to look at the overwhelming data that’s available on line and the senses of helplessness this may cause by trying to make sense of it all. This anxiety is a real one and is caused in part by our growing awareness of how much we don’t know as compared to how much appears to be available online and how easy it appears to be to find out the answer to the most inane question we would never have though to ask.

To me this is a kid in a candy store phenomenon when you’re overwhelmed by choices and just as you think you’ve made the best or yummiest decision, you spy another sweet and begin to have remorse at your first choice and concern about what you you will choose. The solution lies in our human ability to filter, to make informed sensible decision using the best information we have to hand at the moment and knowing that we can, in most circumstances, pick again another day when we know more or know different.

It also requires us to know that most of what’s available online (80% of which had only been put there in the last 2 years) is really just zeros and ones, that is data. This data in order to be useful needs to be converted into meaningful personalised solutions – knowledge and for this knowledge to be purposeful ongoing it has to become wisdom – wisdom is what we most of are yearning for and for anyone to truly succeeds in the future long-term they will have to sell wisdom – specialist purposeful appreciant insights – these items will become the must-haves we all will be willing to pay for in the future.

With the world currently living through the advent and ramifications of a third industrial revolution and changes everywhere the question of future careers and jobs is an important one and Sheridan and I explored some of the future careers and opportunities our kids may have and the reality that today’s children will be living and working in  a profoundly different world to the one that their parent built and lived in.

A great discussion, lots talked about and many topics issued and raised. I’d love you to listen to this unedited version of our interview and then share your future visions with me.