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| Wolfgang Grulke |
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| Travels From Country: Switzerland |
Keynote Fee Range: $$$$  |
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A former IBM executive, Wolfgang worked internationally with IBM for more than 25 years and was awarded the prestigious IBM Outstanding Innovation Award. He was founder and CEO of the Business Futures Group and started FutureWorld as an informal business network in 1987. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping major corporations and venture capital firms position themselves for the new world economy.
With a background in business, technology, nuclear physics, entertainment and marine biology, Wolfgang Grulke is an exhilarating and thought-provoking speaker on topics from business transformation to the technological revolutions, paradigm shifts to chaos, fractals and the dilemmas of modern management, and the sex life of fish! In the style of a Victorian raconteur Wolfgang brings fresh ideas and a breadth of thinking that is rare in today's focused and specialized world.
He has addressed audiences in more than 20 countries, in person, on radio and on television. He is a successful writer and photographer and has been widely published, on the subjects of business, technology, management and marine life. He is currently working on a major new book on the marine life of the Indian Ocean. He has served on the management board of the JLB Smith Institute, a world- renowned marine research institution, and serves on the Educational Trust of the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town. His article In Search of Simplicity won the NACCA award for the best business article of the year and his article From Value Chain to Marketspace was awarded the AFSM International Writing Award (in Professional Writers and Consultants category) in Boston in October 1997.
His previous best-seller Ten Lessons from the Future was published in 2000. It has been translated into Spanish and Chinese and launched into those markets. His new book Lessons in Radical Innovation: Out-of-the-box straight to the bottom line was published by Financial Times/Prentice Hall in Europe and the USA in April 2002. A South African edition of the book is also available Lessons in Radical Innovation: South Africans leading the world.
Wolfgang is a Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at the London Business School and teaches regularly on a number of programmes including the School's flagship Senior Executive Programme (SEP).
Wolfgang has worked globally for much of his life and has lived in almost equal shares in Germany, England and South Africa. He intends to spend most of the rest of his life in the future.
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| Program Topics |
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| Thriving on Turbulence - The future's so bright, you've got to wear shades!
This may seem a strange thought in these turbulent times: Are you sure you want the world to be more predictable?
At FutureWorld we believe that uncertainty is that moment of perfect (business) freedom.
The cycle will turn positive – and Black Swans wait for no one. Today's reality may have changed fundamentally, but those new future opportunities are still out there, as potent as ever. You must be ready for the upturn and its radical new opportunities, before your future competitors are.
Now is the perfect time to think and act radically, and to build new optimism into the executive & management team -
to think about the new paradigms the future will demand, and what it will take to succeed in ‘the real world’ future.
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| Getting Elephants to Dance: Quantum Growth - Out of the box, straight to the bottom line
Innovation is easy to talk about, but extremely complex to implement, particularly in a large, complex and successful organization. This theme covers the practical criteria that differentiate successful corporate step-change programs. Learn from the collective experience of winning organizations that succeeded, and from the practitioners who helped them drive this success. |
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| The Future of Media, Markets and Brands
Brave New World or Bar-room Brawl - Who'd want to be in media today? It's like the Wild West out there, with punches flying in all directions! But there are critical new lessons from the future for all businesses to be learned from the media brawl, and this is what our latest theme explores. Your markets, marketing and branding will never be the same again. This keynote, or one-day workshop, draws out new insights and new lessons from the future, that point to a very different market-space ahead, no matter what your industry, or if you're in a media business yourself. |
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| Radical Innovation: Out of the box, straight to the bottom line
- Innovation is fast becoming the commercial religion of the 21st century. Everyone’s doing it, so how can you differentiate yourself? What’s makes the difference between evolutionary and breakthrough innovation?
Mankind has always used tools as a means to amplify the body and mind. Our success in this regard has made us the dominant species. Today, massively disruptive technologies provide the possibility to devastate the old business models.
Why does your past success hangs heavily on your shoulders? Why do great companies fail? Why does success tend to breed an inability to innovate, leading to ultimate failure? |
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| Ten Lessons from the Future: The future is a matter of choice, not chance - Consumer culture, technology and business – we know what the world was like in the 1960s and 70s, but what is the inevitable future in the next 30 years? In this warp-speed world it is no longer sufficient to learn from experience – we must learn to learn from the future!
This presentation is a roller-coaster ride from the culture of the sixties and seventies, the so-called Age of Aquarius - and the attitudes, products and companies it spawned – to the potential scenarios of the next 3 decades.
What could we have learnt about the future back then? Why did we miss some of the most important new developments such as the personal computer and the impact of the mobile phone? And learning from perfect hindsight, what can we realistically predict for the 2020s?
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| The Quantum Workplace: How to harness the power of individuals and relationships in a fractal world
- How critical to your business are the fundamental shifts taking place in the workplace? How seriously are your people and business partners being affected by the new fractal networked world? Can you improve your competitive position and staff morale while increasing productivity and cutting costs?
The reality is that the next few years will further amplify the individual’s personal power, ever increasing turbulence! Technology connected by the world's digital skin will create massive new options.
So, how can you thrive in the new economy? And, how can your business capitalise on the fractal individual? Can you make your staff and customers resonate in chaotic markets? How do you lead and motivate these new empowered employees? Can you herd all the cats to create alignment and synergy for your bottom line?
This topic takes a journey through the future scenario for knowledge-based organisations and the implications for business and employees. It discusses how companies may operate and interact with their stakeholders – in order to survive and grow. |
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