More than half a million hours of video is uploaded to YouTube on a daily basis which, if you dedicated your life to watching them all and slept very little, would take around 90 years. This is the world we now live in where we will never lack information or knowledge but instead be bombarded by it. The result? A confusing, stressful and bewildering new world.
Welcome to the new VUCA reality of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity which not only affects us as people but which is already provoking big change in companies and their organisation. The pace of change that we are experiencing on all levels (technology, economy, business and personal) is exceptional. Although it seems an impossible task to be able to assimilate all this new information and knowledge, a continuous effort must be made to discover the information that will help us to improve.
The 20th century advances in industry, medicine, management, I.T. and telecommunications were extraordinary in terms of productivity, economy and society. However, as we leave the 20th century behind a new revolution is starting. The so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution will combine physical, technological and biological systems so that in a few years time it will be difficult to distinguish between what is “natural” and what is “artificial”. For the first time in history, this new revolution will change people instead of changing what people do and the effects of this transformation are still difficult to measure.
EADA Trend Lab: Analyse, create and implement
This type of change is so radical that it forces us to be constantly aware of what is happening around us. We have to analyse how change is taking place, how it can affect us and how we can benefit from it on a personal and company level. The EADA Trend Lab has been launched as a response to these questions. It is a mixture of laboratory, hub and meeting point which will be used to analyse the most important trends facing the business world and transform them into knowledge value which can be incorporated and evaluated at every level of an organisation.
We are launching this laboratory of experimentation and innovation by offering a wide range of training programmes to companies. These programmes are designed to keep companies up to date with the latest trends and improve their results and productivity.
The training programmes on offer at the EADA Trend Lab are based around three main elements:
- Analyse and experiment/detect: We receive a wealth of information every minute. We need to be able to filter the information that will be of value to people and the company.
- Create: It has always been difficult to convert knowledge into something useful for a company and many ideas and inventions have fallen by the wayside as a result. Today we have so much new technology, information and tools at our disposal but it is still not clear how it can be applied. We should be learning how to use this knowledge to be able to improve both the individual and our working environment.
- Implement: Finding out the value of a new idea and knowing how it can help us is only the first step. We need to know how to implement it successfully.
The EADA Trend Lab has been set up based on the motto KNOWLEDGE – TRANSFORMATION – VALUE. These are the three pillars which underpin our receptive and transformative capacity to change within a company.
In today’s world, it is not about being the strongest. The answer lies in improving our ability to adapt to our current reality. We live in a changing world and we must move with it. The EADA TrendLab will help companies discover what is most relevant to them in terms of knowledge and will offer them “training” in the most important skill of the 21st century: how to keep learning.
About the author
Professor Joan-Miquel Piqué holds a degree in Economics and Business Administration with specialisation in International Economics and Growth from the UAB. He is an entrepreneur, advisor to entrepreneurs, SMEs and managers with over 15 years experience in public and private companies, both locally and in the European and international context. He was Director General of local consortium Localret, deputy director of Servei Català d’Ocupació de Catalunya, economic advisor to the councilors of Employment, Industry and Education of the Generalitat de Catalunya and responsible for the European Social Fund in Catalonia. He is a founding partner of Maurilia Knowledge, coach and consultant at the UOC. Joan Miquel Piqué is currently director of the EADA Trend Lab.
