Jonathan Brill, a seasoned inventor, the first person to hold the position of “global futurist” at HP, and a former adviser to the U.S. Secret Service, will speak in Green Bay on Feb. 28 at Envision Greater Green Bay’s annual Global Futures Day Forum.
In anticipation of that visit and connecting with leaders in Northeast Wisconsin, Brill joined co-hosts Ann Franz of the NEW Manufacturing Alliance and Kate Bruns of Insight on Manufacturing magazine on this week’s episode of the NEW Manufacturing Insights podcast, sponsored by Appleton Airport.
On the episode, Brill says “how did you become a futurist” and “what is a futurist” are certainly among the questions he is most commonly asked. He describes the evolution of how he has come to understand his work since he was first surprised to be handed a business card by HP that gave him the intriguing job title in 2017.
“I work with organizations to really understand, what does the world look like five years from now and how do they make better decisions today, in the next year and in the next three years to set themselves up to take advantage of that five-year future,” Brill tells the co-hosts in a remote conversation from his office in Silicon Valley. “I help companies look at the range of what’s plausible and what’s not plausible within the next five years. There’s so much more we can know about the future than we imagine, but we need a bit of a process and that’s what I help companies do.”
Among the topics Brill identifies on the podcast as being important in the next five years are AI and automation, preparing for the generational leadership shift, the uncertainty surrounding the incoming U.S. presidential administration, process innovation in manufacturing, and even the very rules of sciences like physics and economics that may undergo dramatic shifts before our eyes.
The conversation includes unique insights specifically for manufacturers and contextualizes issues that will be pervasive in our region’s business community in years to come.
Hear everything Brill had to say, including what he considers his best leadership insight, by listening to this week’s NEW Manufacturing Insights.
NEW Manufacturing Insights is a joint production of the NEW Manufacturing Alliance and Insight on Manufacturing magazine, produced by B.J. DeGroot of Woodward Community Media. New episodes are released on Thursdays.
Listen to this week’s episode, as well as past episodes, on the Insight website, on Spreaker, or anywhere you get your podcasts.
