This article, here, from the world economic forum is about the current Davos agenda.

If you didn't know

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has an annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos. It's the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe that the event will return to its former scale last seen in 2020.

In attendance, 50 heads of state and government from a mix of G20 and G7 countries are due to attend, as well as 200 cabinet ministers and 1,500 business leaders. All in all, 130 countries from around the world will be represented at the meeting in the picturesque town high in the Swiss Alps.

As with every previous meeting, the most pressing issues facing the world today will be up for discussion as the 2,700 invited speakers grapple to find potential solutions.

Polycrisis

WEF talk about 5 megatrends that are hitting the world today.

Adam Tooze, who is Professor of History at Columbia University in the City of New York.  He recently wrote an article where he used a old buzzword "polycrisis".  Which is more than one megatrend. 

This term is there to capture multiple cascading shocks.  This disruption is not the sexy disruption promoted during the unicorn era, this disruption is bad. 

The megatrends are ...

  1. The cost of living crisis

  2. The ongoing war in Ukraine

  3. The climate crisis

  4. The growing food crisis

  5. The 'Fourth Industrial Revolution'

Why the 4th industrial revolution?  I wrote this blog based on WEF data in December.

Why the world economic forum argues that your company should embrace digital soft skills 

The WEF argues, as do we here at DLA Ignite, that digital transformation does not come from a new cloud ERP system, it does not come from any new systems.  It comes from empowering your people with digital / social media and creating efficiencies in your business from these skills.

To quote my article ...

I'm of an age that I remember before Excel, Word and Powerpoint existed, now, we all need those skills.  I remember, being given my first PC and sales people resigned, saying "I'm a salesperson I don't type, I should have an administrator to do that". 

Of course, we laugh at that now, but the same goes for digital skills; business seems to be dodging empowering their people with these digital skills. 

It's a business imperative today to gave social media skills,  as we call it, being able to "walk digital corridors and have digital conversations".

The World economic forum argue that

"At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly nine in 10 (87%) of workers lacked cognitive, interpersonal, and leadership soft skills for the future labour market. Now, as the pandemic transitions into endemic, it has left us with a new hybrid workplace.

Soft skills define how we engage with one another and typically include leadership, team building, communication and problem-solving, among other cognitive and socio-emotional skills. Today, they are not considered to be part of digital literacy.

However, it is impossible to engage with each other in the hybrid workplace without digital tools. We are thus witnessing the rise of a new set of digital soft skills that will become ever more important as engaging digitally becomes the norm. The earlier people master these new skills, the better prepared they will be for the future hybrid work."


Want to know more about social selling, check out my new book

"social selling techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition".

In this brand new edition, I have updated all the text, I have also got 15 practitioners, so people who are doing this already to explain how they are get (practical) business benefit. From the CEO that has been running a digital business for over 18 months to sales leaders who use social selling every day.  

Articles on how these business have and are implementing digital, from Mercer, Telstra Purple, Ring Central, Cyberhawk, Namos, Ericsson, Crux Consulting, DLA Ignite and more.

What does Mark Schaefer, Marketing guru think of the book "social selling - techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition"? watch the video here


It's available on Amazon worldwide.  Link to Amazon.com here and Amazon.co.uk here.