On April 17, 2018, members of the New Jersey chapter were treated to an illuminating and electrifying presentation by Christina CK Kerley. Titled “The Tech Megatrends: 2018” it was a discussion of 4 technology trends that we, as Project Managers not only need to be aware of but also need to adapt to in order to be competitive. She also gave specific steps on how to accomplish this.

At this meeting, we glimpsed the future.

The first Megatrend is The Rise of The “Outernet”. This means that the physical world will be digitized. Every physical thing will be connected. We will go from smartphones to smart-everything, smart parking, smart cities, smart agriculture etc. Everything will be an experience. Any object that is not responsive, connected or smart will be considered obsolete. The key imperative here is to ensure your products are re-imagined and re-instrumented into connected solutions. This will give your company a competitive advantage.

The second Megatrend is The CoBots set us free. Now CoBots is short hand for Collaborative Robots. A lot of people have a fear that robots will take over their jobs. In actuality, robots enable people to be more productive. Automation has improved our standard of living and increased the number of jobs. Robots are also better than humans at crunching numbers, lifting heavy objects etc. Furthermore, they can never fully replace humans because they lack human skills such as creativity, empathy, strategy development etc. Rather than fear or compete with them, we should consider collaborating with them in order to free up our time to focus on more important things. Today, we spend 54% of our time on administrative coordination and only 10% on innovation. Imagine if a portion of that 54% was automated and how much more innovative we could be.  In the future, there will be more Man and Machine collaborations. The key imperative here is to identify 25% of your current tasks that can be automated so as to free up your time to focus on adding business value.

The third Megatrend is The Intelligent Enterprise.  We are moving into the Intelligence Era where companies that thrive will be ones that are Real-Time, Know-It-All and Data-Driven.  21st century businesses will live and die by the decisions they make and how quickly they act and those that adopt IoT (Internet of Things), Big Data and AI(Artificial Intelligence) will make better decisions. The benefits include predicting risk in financial markets, anticipating customer behavior, thwarting terrorism and much, much more. The key imperative here is to create a roadmap of the technologies, data and resources needed to transform your company into a real-time, know it all enterprise and work to make it a reality.

The fourth Megatrend is The Web’s Second Act. Christina predicts that the Web will change more over the next 5 years, than the past 25 years. Blockchain will be the next generation internet.  They are more secure, smarter and enable value to be exchanged as quickly as we access information. The action item here is to identify various applications for Blockchain technology in your company and initiate pilots.

Of particular note was that when it comes to AI, America is on the verge of becoming the next Blockbuster. Part of this is due to not having as many people in technology. Countries such as Russia and China are becoming big AI players in their own right and are on track to overtake the U.S. To remain competitive, we need to encourage more Americans, women, minorities to enter into the technological space.  Christina shared a number of resources such as coursera that can be easily utilized to learn about Artificial Intelligence and other courses for free.

At the conclusion of this very educative presentation, we were all left feeling emboldened, energized and inspired. Many, I’m sure, began considering adding coding to their skillset or recommending it to their family members. Overall, it was an excellent presentation.

As a PM, it’s not sufficient to be aware of new technology trends, you need to learn how to lead the change so that your organization can embrace the future and not get left behind!

In this session, keynoter and futurist Christina “CK” Kerley will showcase the tech trends that are disrupting and dominating the 21st Century business landscape.

Yesterday was about billions of smartphones—but tomorrow belongs to trillions of smart things digitizing our physical world. The AI Arms Race is officially on, and companies must turn into “real-time, know-it-all enterprises” to keep a competitive edge. Digital transformation is our destination . . . and blockchains may be key in getting us there.

As headlines of job-killing robots abound, the real story escapes our view: Automation’s not taking our jobs away, it's giving us back our time. Freed from administrative tasks, “CoBots” will let executives focus on creating new forms of value. And as this era of record-setting advancements unfolds, the most critical success factor won’t be technological: it will be uniquely human. A Reskilling Revolution—unrivaled in size, scope, and scale—is just around the corner.

One day soon, a recruiter will call to interview you for your dream job. Are you really ready to receive that call? Do you know how to answer the tricky HR questions? Are you really sure that you have what it takes to land that job? Join the fun as everyone in the audience learns how to interview like a rockstar!

 You will learn:

• How to really wow a recruiter in the first 10 seconds of a phone screen
• Why your choice of clothing can make or break your chances of success
• How to answer questions like "What kind of tree are you?" and why we ask
• How to brag but not boast and why you MUST learn these skills
• The topics to avoid at all costs during interview small talk
• How to close the deal at the end

Abby Kohut, widely known as Absolutely Abby, President of Staffing Symphony, LLC and author of "Absolutely Abby's 101 Job Search Secrets", has been on a mission since 2012 to help one million job seekers and is currently on a nationwide tour to accomplish that goal. www.AbbyAcrossAmerica.com Remember to bring your business cards and updated resumes!