Tom and Katharine talk about laziness: as a motivator for innovation and as a challenge to wasted effort. Are you lazy enough to be useful?

Plus, it’s the end of this season for the podcast. Five seasons now! All very different in length and format. But this has been the first with a co-host and though we’re biased, we think it has been great!

We’ll be back for season 6 tackling some new topics in a few months.

Katharine and Tom discuss the concept of Net Luxury - an approach to addressing climate change based on the continuing reluctance of many people to make real change. Can we convince people to cut back? Or can we make saving ourselves (the planet will be just fine) seem even more appealing than you'd think it ought to be?

The shape of the most successful organisations is changing. Companies are shrinking and distributing their work across partners and semi-autonomous units, giving them scale, agility and reduced risk. As usual, Tom explains and Katharine interrogates!

The shape of the most successful organisations is changing. Companies are shrinking and distributing their work across partners and semi-autonomous units, giving them scale, agility and reduced risk. As usual, Tom explains and Katharine interrogates!

Tom and Katharine discuss our response to the explosion of choice faced by the modern consumer: the return of the intermediary, offering advice, direction and editorial input. Why do we value influencers? What role for AI in the future of our decisions on music, travel and finance? Find out in this episode.

Note: the book reference in the episode is Barry Schwartz's 'The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less' from all the way back in 2004: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

We've spent the last twenty years trying to eliminate friction from the interactions between brands and customers. But is this always the right approach? In this episode we talk about the concept of 'good friction', those moments where you want to slow and deepen the conversation.

How do we prepare our children for the future? It's the question I am most commonly asked after speeches. And I always give the same answer.

I believe there are three critical skills we all need for future success, in our careers and beyond. I call them the Three Cs. The ability to Curate (discover and qualify information), Create (bring new ideas to life or improve and recombine old ones) and Communicate (to sell your self and your ideas).

In this episode, Katharine and I address questions like:

• What is more important, knowledge or skills? 
• How do you teach creativity?
• Why is scepticism so important now?

Read more at https://tomcheesewright.com/future-skills-what-to-learn-and-teach-for-success-in-tomorrows-world/

In this season of the podcast we're going to explore a few big ideas in a bit more depth. These are ideas or theories that keep coming up in my work with global 500 brands and government departments around the world.

The first topic is what I have termed 'extended adolescence' - in short, are we now experiencing a longer childhood?

The ages at which we cross key (traditional) milestones in adult life have been shunted back by a decade. People now learn to drive, buy a house, find a partner, get married, have kids etc perhaps 10 years later than they did in the relatively recent past.

We try to answer:

•  Why is this happening?
•  Is it a good thing?
•  Should we be expecting young people to grow up faster?
•  Are we babying them?
•  What does this mean for companies/brands?

Check out the blog post here for more information:  https://tomcheesewright.com/extended-adolescence/