Share

Baldwin Berges

B2H
HUMAN STRATEGIES FOR A
VIRTUAL WORLD

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 1 of 32
 Table of Contents

1. Foreword

2. Beyond B2B and B2C

3. Life in a real-time one-on-one world

4. What is the true purpose of our technology?

5. The essence of trust

6. So what is the essence of B2H?

7. To whom belongs the future?

8. The expert fallacy

9. The 4 megatrends that are changing the way we live

and work

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 2 of 32
 10. B2H presentation

Foreword

Business to Human “B to H” - the Investor paradigm of …

First of all, thank you very much for picking up this book.

Please allow me to briefly introduce myself: My name is Baldwin Berges. I run a

business called Business Development Strategist​​

My main focus is to help businesses and professionals revolutionise their business

development with simple technology to make deeper human connections.

I believe that business is personal because any transaction is only as good as its the
strength of the relationship between the parties.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 3 of 32
 My work consists of providing creative advisory to businesses to guide and help
them design ideas and strategies to get ahead of the game. I also spend much time
doing research and running training programs.

Essentially, most of what I do boils down to helping forward-thinking professionals

build stronger human connections in an increasingly crowded and virtual world.

Paradoxically, in a world dominated by technology, it is more important than ever

before to make strong human connections.

That is the belief that inspired me to develop the idea of 'B2H', which stands for
'Business to Human'.

B2H not only helps you focus your success strategy on building lasting and amazing
human connections with our customers, but it also shows you how to harness simple
technology to build stronger relationships with more people than ever before.

B2H is all about building human strategies for an increasingly virtual world.

I believe that B2H transcends both the established business development

frameworks of B2B and B2C.

Let me tell you why I think this is true…

Beyond B2B and B2C

A horizontal world
Today we can think differently about how we position our business. We can connect
with anyone, anywhere, on an individual level. We have gone full circle to a place
where direct human relationships replace mass marketing.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 4 of 32
 The ancient dynamics of individual trust and reputation are again in full play, only
now there are no borders.

Today's technology disrupts established hierarchies and traditional value chains.For

example, I wanted to publish this book for everyone to see, so I just did so by all by
myself. I didn’t need anyone’s permission because there are a set of simple tools that
allow me to put it out into the world all by myself.

The same is true if I want to gain visibility with my business. I no longer have to play
by the rules of traditional advertising model because if I choose to put enough effort
behind it, I can seek out my ideal audience and directly connect with them. This is
now possible because there are more than 3 billion people with online profiles out
there. It's a matter of getting smart and creative about finding them.

Last week, someone in South Africa stumbled upon an article I wrote about
innovation. It resonated with him because he was struggling with some of the
personnel-related issues that I wrote about in the article. He was compelled to get in
touch.

A day later we got did a video call to spend an hour working on a strategy for
his next hires. Neither of us ever left our desks, yet we made a real personal
connection with a complex problem and figured out a way to deal with it. This is how
a total stranger became an advisory customer in less than 24 hours! This ‘modus
operandi’ is now becoming the new normal.

Today's relationships transcend geography and hierarchy. CEOs can now hear what
their customers have to say, directly, without any filters or intermediaries. Politicians,
if they care to listen, can hear what any citizen has to say, no matter where they
stand in the crowd.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 5 of 32
 Not that long ago, there was no direct, global, real-time, ongoing global dialogue
between business and their individual customers. The only way to reach an audience
was to beam out our commercial messages across 2 main channels:

B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business)

Let's briefly revisit each framework...

Business to Consumer - There's no need to shout!

B2C is a legacy framework that dates back to a time before we had today’s hyper-
connectivity. Back then businesses had little choice but to mass-communicate with
their customers. an era of one-way advertising.

Although many businesses are starting to understand how to apply technology to

build individual relationships with their customers, the vast majority are still stuck in

And although some of us have seen the light when it comes to applying technology
to leverage the human connection, the vast majority of businesses have adopted
technology only to create an even bigger distance between themselves and their
clients. They see technology as a great excuse to avoid having to talk with their
customers. Think about all those annoying automated touch tone menus to interact
with inbound customer calls. And what about all those cold-calling robots pretending
to be real humans.

I can’t help but wonder whatever goes on in the minds of the people in those
marketing departments. Do they not understand how these 'robots' work against
building meaningful relationships with their clients? What part of human psychology
did they misunderstand to believe that humans might enjoy interacting with
machines?

What about all the businesses that hide their telephone numbers? They do

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 6 of 32
 everything they can to direct their online visitors to FAQ sections to their websites.
Can they not see that speaking to customers is a privilege? It could be the
opportunity to make a sale or get feedback about their products or services.

It very simple really, a relationship starts with a 2-way conversation.

Then there is the old adage of 'people do business with people they like and trust’.
So why are so many, supposedly ‘intelligent’ people, they spending so much money
to build systems to stifle those precious personal interactions?

What’s even worse are those who actually do care to have a conversation with their
clients often outsource this delicate task. They hand their clients over to people with

limited skills, who often work in noisy call centres with poor telephone connections.
They delegate their brand reputation to random operators who don’t care about the
business they represent.

In the asset management industry - my native industry - there is now a new drive to
encourage customers to interact with robotic advisors. My understanding is that they
believe that this would make their services more appealing to today’s young adults. It
makes me wonder if they have actually spoken to a real sample of this target
audience? They should because, just like anybody else, Millennials love human

connections!

Thankfully, there is now a reality check in play that comes as a result of a ‘yuck
factor’ as these strategies are achieving the opposite as what they were initially built
for. It turns out that those ‘millennials’ love personal connections and they love to
use technology to do more of it!

I strongly believe that the vast majority of businesses are missing out on the
opportunity to use today’s connectivity and technology to build the personalised
relationships they couldn’t have built before. We all obsess about customer loyalty.
And the thing is that we now finally have the technology that, if used correctly, will
help us build a lasting allegiance with our best customers.

So, in many instances, the legacy B2C thinking is causing companies to miss out on
leveraging the capabilities of today’s technology to create meaningful, scalable
human experiences with their customers…

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 7 of 32
 Business to Business - There are real humans in
those suits!
In contrast, B2B has always been more focused on individual relationships. And
while interactions are more bespoke and personalised, they also typically have a
more formal, or even an impersonal institutional feeling about them.

Usually, B2B business development is an insider’s game where professionalism is

often confused with complexity. This is an environment where jargon often clouds
clarity.

In my work, I am always amazed to see that messages that can be easily explained,
wind up getting lost in over-engineered messages.

I believe that in a competitive B2B industry, many companies have confused looking
and sounding more sophisticated than their competitors with resonating with their
customers.

Of course, it would be wrong to generalise, but although much emphasis is placed

upon reputation and trust, little effort is done to create the kind of emotional
connections that can fast track the creation of trust.

B2B buyers are humans. They buy from people they like and trust. I know this to be
true from my first-hand experience in the investments industry because no matter
how formal a procurement process was made to look, it never went anywhere when
that special positive personal chemistry between people was missing.

B2B transactions tend to have long and exhausting high-touch sales cycles. What
this means is that there is a clear opportunity to apply simple technology to supply a
consistent stream of guidance and education to the business development process.

Today, it is fashionable to speak about content. But it is pointless to produce content

unless it serves a clear purpose. The big opportunity here is to transform your
business development effort into a targeted, educational stream that helps your
prospect become better at what they do. More specifically, it is about helping your
prospects solve the problems to which you have the right solution.

Another way to put it is that today's technology allows us to deliver value more
easily that we have ever been able to do before. By becoming a regular supplier of

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 8 of 32
 easily that we have ever been able to do before. By becoming a regular supplier of
relevant knowledge we can earn the status of a mentor in someone's mind. This is a
privilege because people have a special kind of respect and affection for those who
they regard as their mentors!

Finally, the B2B process is usually about convincing stakeholders to support a buying
decision. This means that your success usually depends on your ability to
make others listen and pay attention to your proposition.

The best way to achieve this is by establishing real human relationships with the
entire decision-making chain. This wasn’t always possible to do in person, but once
you understand how to use technology to facilitate special and safe environments to
have ongoing conversations with members of specific groups, you will see how it
becomes possible to earn the trust along the entire hierarchy of decision making.

In other words, adopting technology in the right way in the B2B process allows you
to re-assemble all the moving pieces into a single mechanism that help you earn
more business in an honest and genuine way with only a fraction of the effort it used
to take not that long ago...

B2C and B2B need to be upgraded. Business is more personal than ever before.

It’s time to embrace B2H - Business to Human!

Life in a real-time one-on-one

world

The reasons to separate B2B and B2C are becoming less relevant in the global one-
on-one world.

After decades of communications via the media, today's technology makes it possible

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 9 of 32
 After decades of communications via the media, today's technology makes it possible
to have more granular, individual relationships with a global audience.

We live in an amazing time. Anyone with an internet connection and something to

say has the possibility to connect with billions of people. Today we all have powerful
and user-friendly tools to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Each and every
one of us has a more leverage and a bigger platform than anyone ever had in the
past.

You don't need any special skills to have a free video conversation with someone on
the other side of the world. It has become so easy that you can even do it on your
phone!

We hardly even consider how amazing it is that anyone can post an opinion for the
whole world to see. Any random stranger can influence how the world sees our
brand. It is both fascinating and terrifying and it has become the new normal.

We take for granted that we can just pull out our phone and do a fact check on
anyone, anytime, anywhere. Bringing this up even seems way too obvious!


Social media was once a new frontier, now it forms the framework of our everyday
lives. It became the operating system for our society. We have gotten so used to our
hyper-connectivity that we can no longer imagine a life without it.

I find it amazing that there are people in my life who I have never met in person. Yet,
I have the feeling that I know these people very well. The technology we use to
connect with each other has allowed me to gather a sense of their personality. Every
now and then I meet my virtual acquaintances in person for the first time and I am
always amazed at how much it feels like getting together with a friend.

And even though all the above seems normal, when you stop to think about it, you
realise we have already transcended into a new dimension beyond our physical
world.

The point is that we are all living our inter-personal experiences through virtual
relationships both in business and in our personal lives.

There is a good reason why we have adopted all this connectivity so quickly.

We'll explore this in the next chapter.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 10 of 32
 What is the true purpose of
our technology?

Technology is made by people for people

Many of us fear that technology is getting in the way our personal relationships. We
prefer to believe that a connection 'in the flesh' will always be better than any form
of 'watered down' virtual interaction.


The thing is that we don’t like change. We feel lost when we step outside of our
comfort zone. We avoid what is new because it brings risk and risk brings fear. But
despite our reluctance to embrace change, somehow we can’t resist pursuing
technological advancement.

If anyone out there in the universe is watching us, they must think that we are quite
amusing. It must be hilarious to see how we keep creeping ourselves out with our
own inventions, rejecting them at first, only to wind up being incapable of living
without them.

The reason why we behave like this probably has much to do with the way we stack
our priorities.

Abraham Maslow made this pretty clear. In 1943, he published a paper titled “A
theory of human motivation”. His idea - best known in the shape of his eponymous
pyramid - became the universally accepted standard for the way we rank our
essential needs:

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 11 of 32
 ​It comes as no surprise that our first priority is all about staying alive. This explains
why our default programming is to be risk-averse and suspicious towards any form of
novelty.

The next rung on our ladder of basic needs is to find love and belonging. Humans are
social beings. We crave a deeper connection with others. To fulfil that desire, we will
adopt any means necessary to achieve this goal. In fact, many of us will do anything
for love, even ignore our own need for safety. This is where things start getting a bit
more complicated.

Now, pay good attention here because we are about to make an important
connection:

It turns out that the fear that technology will distance us from each other is reversed
when we realise that it actually brings us closer together!

In other words, what is first seen as a threat to our need for love and belonging,
eventually becomes the enabler.

Most of our technological advances happen because they allow us to meet our basic
need to connect with each other.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 12 of 32
 need to connect with each other.

To get a better understanding of this, we need to take a short detour into a brief
history of innovation.

Let's explore our first major innovative leap. One we all use and take for granted:
LANGUAGE

It's development allowed us to share more nuanced information with each other. It
allowed us to properly name things, even ourselves. It gave us an identity and by
doing so, it also satisfied our human need for belongingness and self-esteem.

The use of language was the first human super app.

Now, let's take it a notch further. Consider the 'technology' of graphic expression
and/or the written word.

Before we figured out how to record our messages, we passed our information only
through direct human interaction. We would package our information in the form of
stories to make our messages more memorable.

The appearance of graphical art and writing was a revolution. It provided us with the
amazing ability to connect with others through non-human intermediaries.

I know this sounds a bit abstract but the essence of evolving our artistic expressions
was really about passing our ideas on to as many people as possible.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 13 of 32
 was really about passing our ideas on to as many people as possible.

Graphic expression was an enormous leap in human evolution. We could now leave
messages that transcend the here and the now. Think about the paintings on the
walls of prehistoric caves or the symbols of ancient civilisations. Consider how they
helped us understand the thoughts and lives of those who weren’t there with us.

Now it was possible to make 'mini-versions' of ourselves that told our stories for us.
This was powerful stuff!

Skipping over a few more chapters in our social innovation saga, the next big 'killer
app' was the invention of the printing press. It was now possible to distribute our
messages to the masses.

Mind you that back then, those who possessed the skills to read and write were part
of an elite. They used to keep this privilege to themselves until they finally
understood that there was a clear advantage to having widespread literacy.

Why?

First of all, the realisation that mass-produced literature could scale up yet another
insatiable human aspiration: the ambition to influence others. This motivation comes
from our need to achieve self-actualisation.

And secondly, and arguably more importantly, while it was the elite's priority to keep

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 14 of 32
 And secondly, and arguably more importantly, while it was the elite's priority to keep
their subjects as dumb as possible throughout history, it was the advent of the
industrial revolution that created an incentive to re-format the population into a
useful and reliable workforce. It is the reason that after being encouraged to remain
illiterate for as long as we can remember, we suddenly found ourselves in a
classroom learning how to read and write. It made us useful as employees. The
whole thing about sitting still, paying attention for hours on end and following rules
at school is still a legacy of the industrial revolution and its drive to format people
into functional and reliable employees.

The crazy thing is that today's school still works this way. But don't get me started
on that because I am saving that topic for another book...

Remote communication

Communicating at a distance had been around even before the proliferation of

literacy. For as long as we can remember, people would communicate over distances
with smoke signals, drums or alternative visual or audible means. If you are

interested in taking an excursion into the history of telecommunications, you may

enjoy this Wikipedia page.

In the mid-19th century, we eventually came up with the first real-time electronic
telecommunication system, the telegraph. This was yet another evolutionary leap in

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 15 of 32
 telecommunication system, the telegraph. This was yet another evolutionary leap in
our drive to remotely with others.

Our desire to communicate with each other put in motion an unprecedented leap in
exponential innovation. It didn't take very long to see the arrival of the telephone.
Then we invented the radio, television, satellite communications, … and onto even
more powerful propaganda mediums.

Now things started to move fast.

In the 1990s, the mobile telephone and the internet made their appearance. Both
breakthroughs not only became immediately irresistible but also indispensable.

How often do you deliberately leave your mobile phone at home when you leave the
house? No matter how much we hate to admit it, we simply can't live without our
devices.

Then, the internet took the world by storm. It was the ultimate way to achieve our
desire to connect with everyone, everywhere. Within a time-span of less than 2

decades, more than 3 billion people signed up for it. This is biggest and fastest
human mobilisation ever! The thing is that it has only just begun because we expect
another 3-4 billion people to come online during the next 5 years. When you think
about the impact of this mass-migration to the digital world, it is difficult to image
the impact all those new voices and minds will have on our world.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 16 of 32
 the impact all those new voices and minds will have on our world.

We eventually merged the Internet with the telephone so we could get even more
connected. We put cameras into our devices so we could see each other. We even
built apps to make it easy to sleep with each other!

If you fail to get a wifi signal, you will probably feel anxiety. No signal, no work! We
have become addicted to our ability to connect. We crave our ability to influence as
many people as possible. And because this is one of basic needs, to satisfy it, we just
keep overriding our resistance to novelty.

When the mobile phone first appeared, many of us (myself included) had serious
concerns about how these devices would invade our privacy. And although we all
love to moan about our loss of security, it usually adds up to little more than a
toothless protest. All our complaining is little more than an effort to pacify the
realization that we are, in fact, hopeless connection junkies...

Eventually, we just forgot about privacy...at least most of us did.

Take a moment to think about how, in less than a decade, social media platforms
have managed to convince more than 3 billion people to open up their lives for
everyone to see just so they could connect with others. This is yet again hard
evidence that we will do anything to connect with others, even if it means giving up
the safety of our privacy.

So the point I am trying to make here is that when technology and innovation allow
us to get closer to each other, they become irresistible.

Our basic desires drive technology. Our to need to belong helps us overcome our
first reactions of resistance to novelty. Our relationship with technology has never
been rational. It has always been driven by our need to satisfy the basic needs we
are not fully aware of...

The essence of trust

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 17 of 32
 In the film ‘Interstellar’ by Christopher Nolan, there is a scene that had a deep impact
on me. It is when Anne Hathaway’s character, DR. Brand, speaks about how love is
the one thing that allows us to transcend the dimensions of space and time.

Interstellar Dr. Brand/Love

​ ​

The reason why I bring this up is to demonstrate that our inherent belief that a
physical presence is required to build a true relationship is fundamentally flawed.

Love is one of the purest expressions of trust. So if we can experience true love
from a distance, we certainly can build meaningful virtual business relationships!

The one thing that determines the survival of a remote relationship is trust. And if
there is one thing we all strive for in a business relationship, it is to have confidence
in that other person. It matters because trust is the ultimate ingredient

that makes or breaks a business relationship.

Trust is an emotion. It is something you either feel intuitively or don't. There is

nothing rational about it.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 18 of 32
 The number of people who find their romantic partners online has now risen to the
point that it can no longer be a coincidence. There is an undeniable trend that online
dating is common. In fact, it is taking over from more traditional ways for lovers to
meet.

In 2015, Statistic Brain's research revealed that 17% percent of marriages originated
online. This number just keeps rising.

Here's why this matters:

If people can find their life partners through virtual channels, imagine what can be
possible for businesses to achieve for relationships with their customers.

The concept of ‘fans’ is not new to us either. Think about the unconditional support
that fans offer to their favourite sports teams, even if means putting up with long

losing streaks. Or they way some people worship celebrities they’ve never met.

We all want to experience love and belonging.

We don’t think twice about sharing pictures and videos with each other. We post
content that will make us more attractive and more desirable. Maybe you are
frowning as you read this but ask yourself why you can’t resist the desire to post
content that makes you look awesome to others.

The fact is that many of us are already ‘all in’ when it comes to using technology to

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 19 of 32
 The fact is that many of us are already ‘all in’ when it comes to using technology to
win approval from others!

And in this phrase lies a huge nugget of value:

‘Technology makes it easier for people to find the approval they seek’

Once you understand the power of this idea, you will start seeing a huge potential
for your business. This is something we will come back to in more detail later on.

We have accepted to push our boundaries to use technology to enhance our

personal connections with others. But the same is not true when it comes to
adopting the same technology to our professional lives.

When it comes to our personal use of the internet we are willing to be vulnerable.
We will share some of our most intimate moments. But everything changes as soon
as business comes into the picture. We take several steps back. We become self-
conscious about what we let the world see about us. The divergence between our
personal and professional behaviour is so striking that it borders absurdity.

Of course, you can’t generalise, but I am sure you would agree that the vast majority
of businesses still put up as much makeup as their faces can hold.

So what is the essence of

B2H?

B2H is not an alternative to B2B and B2C. Rather, it should be seen as an extension
or an upgrade.

The essence of B2H is all about using simple technology to create amazing individual
clients experiences. It is about leveraging the tools of a virtual world to establish and
maintain close personal relationships of trust with clients, regardless of the scale or

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 20 of 32
 maintain close personal relationships of trust with clients, regardless of the scale or
the level of sophistication of the products or services.

We all struggle with information overload so we appreciate simple and genuine

messages we can understand and relate to. What we value even more is when these
messages come from people we like and trust.

B2H is about creating a new framework. It redefines the thinking around the client
relationship. Consider it as an operating system or a business philosophy for a global
1on1 world.

Just as we use engines to power our transportation or our machinery, it is about

using technology to ensure a closer connection with every client. It is about building
systems that allow us to supply a remarkable personal experience to each customer.
It is about using technology as a value delivery mechanism.

As a result, B2C relationships will have the kind of personal services only B2B clients
had access to while B2B relationships will feel more personable and easier to
understand

Why does this matter so much?

In a virtual world, we have no choice but to improve our business to human skills
simply because the world is getting noisier and more crowded. The grand
opportunity is to become the trusted guide of the people we want to do business
with. Our job is to help them find their way around a maze of information.

To do this in a scalable way means that we must learn how to use technology to
create human interactions that build trust.

The business that is capable of creating the best human experience with technology
will win.

The ‘virtualisation’ of our world has only begun. As I write this, we are the eve of a
technological revolution that will make the internet seem only like a warm up.

But in order to acknowledge the opportunities that lie ahead, we need to stop living
in the past...

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 21 of 32
 To whom belongs the future?

Every new generation confuses its predecessors. If you were born in the 1970s or
the 1980s and you fortunate to still have your grandparents around, just try to
explain to them what you do for a living today. In turn, the baby boomer generation
simply doesn't understand why millennials can't put their phones away.

But when you look at it from their perspective, they see technology as a way to
connect with even more people. Millennials simply can’t imagine the world without
devices buzzing with notifications from their friends.

Consider the surprising success of snapchat. To most adults (including myself) this
idea seemed absurd. For the record, I still don't see the benefit of it but that is beside
the point.

So why would anyone want to share self-destructing pictures and videos? I guess it

has something to do with millennials seeking to emulate the ephemeral nature of

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 22 of 32
 real conversations with technology.

To stop living in the past, we should start by better understanding they those who
will inherit this world see things...

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs regularly publishes statistics of

the global distribution of ages across the world’s population.

As of 2013, just over 26% of the world’s population was younger than 14 years old.
This means that there are at least 2 billion teenagers who take today’s technology
completely for granted.

Ironically, most businesses still strive to resonate with a fading proportion of the
world’s people. They ignore the opportunity to resonate with what represents the
largest cohort of rising customers ever seen.

This is not just about a few million teenagers, who're world view we are struggling to
understand. No, it is much bigger than that because what we are looking at here is
one-quarter of the entire world population!

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 23 of 32
 We are about to experience an unprecedented surge in the number of global
internet users. It will be the biggest human mobilisation ever.

The world’s leading technology providers understand this and are in a race to beam
free or affordable internet access down to everyone in the world.

For example, Google plans to position a network of stratospheric balloons to provide

everyone on the planet with broadband internet access. They are not alone. Other
technology behemoths are also working on mega-projects to provide universal
internet access to everyone on the planet.

So, in the next few years, billions of new voices and minds will be coming online. The
online realm with become more diverse with all sorts of new cultures and languages
joining the global conversation.

Anyone, regardless of where they are, who cares to pay attention to these voices can
tap into these conversations. This creates more opportunity than we have ever seen
before and it will redefine the way we do business.

We are tempted to think of the internet as mostly a Western platform. But if we look
at the actual data, it turns out that its largest user base is in Asia.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 24 of 32
 But the arrival of billions of new voices and minds also brings along its challenges.

The first obstacle that comes to mind is the language barrier. However, we seem to
be making rapid advances in the development of simultaneous translation
technologies. Take a moment to absorb this article from the WSJ journal that put

these advancements into perspective.

What will remain a challenge for the foreseeable future is the different cultural
connotations

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 25 of 32
 connotations

around the world. It still seems difficult to imagine a technological solution that will
help us compatibalize all the different local presences and business customs.

And although this is nothing new for multi-national corporations, it is fair to assume
that cultural expertise will become an increasingly sought after skill set.

The expert fallacy

The reality is that innovation always creates a social divide. Early adopters thrive
while others get left behind.

Some of the world’s largest companies have had to step aside for businesses that
started in a garage only a few years before taking their thrones. Imagine telling
someone about this possibility 40 years ago. Chances are that you would get locked
up.

Some obvious examples of this are companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft,
Uber, AirBNB, and Amazon.

All these businesses had one thing in common: they had a vision of the future that
most organisations couldn't even imagine and if they did, they found it unlikely
and/or uncomfortable to embrace.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 26 of 32
 In the early seventies, Steven Sasson, one of the company's engineers was tasked

to find out if a 'Charged Coupled Device"(C.C.D.) had a practical application. Hardly

anybody knew what he was working on because the C.C.D. wasn't that big of a
project. The technology consisted of a sensor that took an incoming two-
dimensional light pattern and converted it into an electrical signal.

As is the case with most inventions, Sasson accidently made a breakthrough as he

was trying to find an alternative way to capture electrical pulses the C.C.D.
generated and turn them into images. The issue was that the electrical signals didn't
last long enough to make it possible to 'crystallise' them into images. Instead, Sasson
tried to capture the pulses with a relatively new process at the time: digitalization. It
allowed him to store the signals instantly and render them afterwards. He eventually
found a way to display the captured images on a screen and the first fully functional
digital camera was born.

Sasson presented the new device to executives from the marketing, technical and
business departments and the to their bosses and on to their bosses. No matter how
well Sasson explained it to them, they just couldn't see a future for his invention.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 27 of 32
 Referring to an article I found in the New York Times, what Sasson kept on hearing
went something like this: "No one would ever want to look at the pictures on a

television set" and "Print had been the proven way to handle pictures and nobody
was complaining about prints, they were inexpensive so why would anyone want to
look at their pictures on a screen?"

At the time, Kodak was the ultimate 'expert' in photography. It made money
throughout the entire photographic process. It had created a legacy that needed to
be defended at all times. Three decades later, digital photography - their own
creation - eventually put them entirely out of business.

Here's another story about how experience get in the way:

In the year 2000, Reed Hastings flew to Dallas to propose a partnership between
Netflix, his fledgling DVD mailing service to the almighty Blockbuster. But John
Antioco, Blockbuster's CEO dismissed the Netflix opportunity as just a niche market
so he passed on the offer and wished Reed the best of luck.

Only ten years later, Blockbuster went out of business while Netflix not only
reinvented the home entertainment industry but also became its largest player.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 28 of 32
 But it would be unfair to just dismiss Antioco's decision as foolish. He had, after all,
built a reputation of being a retail genius, backed by an impressive track record of
success so he probably gave the whole idea some thought and because it simply
didn't fit within his proven formula for success. There's a great Forbes article with a
more detailed story about what really happened at Blockbuster at the time.

There are stories like these everywhere and what they typically all have in common

is that the reliance on experience blocked their view of the future. We project the
past and the present into the future because we can’t imagine what it will look like.

Similar opportunities are playing out today. There are a few mega-trends that are
already changing the way we live and do business. It is tempting to see these
developments as threats, but they hold enormous opportunity.

No matter how you look at it, the destiny of humans is to merge with technology.

Do you find this difficult to accept?

If so, I urge you to take a moment to think about all the people you know with
pacemakers. Think about dental implants, silicon fillings and all the medicine people
need to take to stay alive. Try to go for a week without your mobile phone, or even
just for 1 day. No matter how you look at it, eventually we willingly merge with
technology.

It will be no different with communication technology. Today, the first viable virtual
reality devices are coming onto the marketplace. And if you haven't done so before, I
urge you to try a virtual experience and while you do so, pay attention to how easily
your brain adapts the virtual world around you in a matter of seconds.

We will dive deeper into the topic of virtual reality later in this book but they key
attraction of this technology is that promises us to connect with the world beyond
our current devices.

Actually, I believe there are 4 megatrends that are changing the world as we know it
today.

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 29 of 32
 The 4 megatrends that are
changing the way we live and
work

GLOBAL SUPER-CONNECTIVITY
This is all about the doubling of today's online population from 3 to 6 billion people.
This is imminent and it will happen within the next 5 years.

It is the largest human mobilisation ever seen. That also makes it the biggest
business opportunity for those who find ways to effective make individual human
connections through technology!

VIRTUAL REALITY
Few among us realise how virtual reality (VR) will completely change the world as we
see it - pun intended! This is not tomorrow's story. It is happening right now.

The impact of VR on the world is much like a flock of black swans coming down the
creek. VR will disrupt almost every industry as we know it.

The most obvious transformations will take place in the world of travel, real-estate,
and entertainment. But it is still difficult to imagine exactly what the impact will be
from our ability to virtualize and 'edit' the world we live in.

A DATA DRIVEN WORLD

This is the game changer that is best understood as the terms 'big data' and 'the

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 30 of 32
 internet of things' have now become popular buzz words.

What makes this trend so interesting is that it will devalue our acquired knowledge. It
will reduce the importance of our intuition. It will devalue professional experience. It
will be the 'end of guessing' because we will have real time access to everything we
need to know.

In other words, our opinions will not matter that much in a super factual world. What
does matter is how we can access, learn from and act on real-time data.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the most important and powerful of the four mega-
trends.

AI will completely re-define the jobs market as it is already vastly outperforming

humans in any form of task that is process driven.

However, it is still far away from effectively adding value to work that requires
emotional intelligence. This is the big opportunity that the B2H philosophy is built
upon.

The true impact of technological innovation is never really about the technology
itself, but rather all about the way it modifies how we live, work and behave...

B2H presentation

I regularly do talks about B2H. I'd like to share a recent presentation that I did at an
event in Luxembourg. In these 20 minutes, I'll take you through the mega trends and
what they mean for the way we will live and work in an increasingly digital world...

Business 2 Human - Presentation at Clearstream's Fun…

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 31 of 32
 Thank you very much for taking the time to read this short book. I hope it provided
you with a fresh perspective on the role technology could and should take in our
business relationships.

Maybe what you just read gave you new ideas or a fresh perspective on how you
can start building more human systems to thrive and survive in this increasingly
virtual world.

If you would like to explore this in more detail, please feel free to schedule a call with
me. Here's an easy way to find a time that works for both of us:

Book a 30-minute call with me​

http://beacon.by/bd-insider/business2human 11/6/17, 5<44 PM

Page 32 of 32