Why so many marketing campaigns fail. How simple things create marketing magic. Why most people are tired of marketing. Focus on INFORMATION and REVELATION. 

First step is to challenge your own blindness about your own customers. If you have been working in the same company for more than three years you are probably suffering already from an element of customer blindness.  This interview was after a Virtual keynote for pharma executives on the future of health care, but the same marketing principles apply to every industry.

"I wish we could exterminate the word marketing from our vocabulary." 

"Let's forget marketing and decide that the only messaging we will ever give is information and revelation."

"Life is too short to sell things you don't believe in".

"The only messages you should give are ones you would tell your friends or members of your own family."

What will happen to the workplace beyond COVID? Over the past few months / years I have delivered a large number of virtual keynotes for global corporations, with up to 800,000 on a single live event  - and everyone is now asking about the same thing.  

What is the future of offices?  Do we still need the same office capacity? Will teams go back to commuting to work, or remain virtual working most of the time?  How much office space will we really need post-COVID?  And what will happen to corporate events?

I have been forecasting global trends for over 25 years now, working with hundreds of the world's largest corporations, who invest billions of dollars each year in offices and expensive HQs. History shows that most major historic events almost always turn out to have smaller long term significance than people usually think at the time.

Most debates about the future in board meetings are NOT about what is going to happen, which is usually obvious to those in a particular industry, but are issues of timing - by when. COVID has accelerated many pungent term workplace trends.

So what does all this mean for workplace management, human resources, leadership development, change management, virtual working, distance learning, agile decision-making?

* "How AI Will Change your life - A Futurist's Guide to a Super-Smart World" - Patrick Dixon's latest book on AI is published in September 2024 by Profile Books.  It contains 38 chapters on the impact of AI across different industries, government and our wider world, including impact of AI on the future of work, impact of AI on virtual teams, automation, motivation and career development.

A major trend in the future of health care is the boom in medical tourism. One way to reduce future health costs for individuals, insurers or government is to move patients abroad for treatment, and we will see a lot more of this in a world beyond COVID.

‘Medical tourism’ is already a $40bn industry, growing 20% a year, with over 11 million people annually travelling to another country for private treatment, and possibly convalescence in a nice hotel.  The market could be worth over $130bn by 2025. 

The savings in all types of medical tourism can be huge: private health care in Brazil is only 25% of the cost in America, India 73%, Mexico 50%, Thailand 65%, Turkey 60%. Within the EU itself there are also major cost differences – for example, dental treatment in Hungary is far cheaper than in Paris.

* "How AI Will Change your life - A Futurist's Guide to a Super-Smart World" - Patrick Dixon's latest book on AI is published in September 2024 by Profile Books.  It contains 38 chapters on the impact of AI across different industries, government and our wider world, including impact of AI on the future of of health care.

As I predicted when the COVID pandemic began, we've seen very few if any new trends, just acceleration of existing ones.

Here is the truth about the longer term impact of the COVID pandemic. I have been forecasting global trends for over 25 years, with a strong track record of proven results, advising over 400 of the world's largest multinationals, in every industry, across every region, often sharing platforms with their CEOs at their most important events.  And I also warned many times of new global pandemics like COVID-19.

It's easy to get carried away by sensationalist headlines, and to imagine that life on earth will never be the same again, that COVID-19 will permanently reshape our whole world, causing revolutions in every industry and nation. But the reality is going to be rather different...  (Article posted July 2020 with minor edits in October 2021 - Judge for yourself how accurate it was.)

* "How AI Will Change your life - A Futurist's Guide to a Super-Smart World" - Patrick Dixon's latest book on AI is published in September 2024 by Profile Books.  It contains 38 chapters on the impact of AI across different industries, government and our wider world.