Presentation Materials Now Live!

You can now find all the presentations from the Presentations page on the blog, from all of the conferences split between the morning and evening. You can also now connect with us on Scribd where you can download the presentations direct and comment and share them with colleagues and friends.

Thank you for all of you who were able to attend, stay tuned over the next few days to the blog for the wrap up video and news about the continuing work from the Future Focus programme.

VLOG 19: Future Focus Dublin – Ronan Lyons on the Irish Economy

Following on from Edinburgh, we catch up with Ronan Lyons and get his perspective on the Irish economy and how the government may be able to intervene to ease the pinch of the recession on mid market businesses.

Future Focus Edinburgh – Live Case Study: The Balmoral

We move to the beautiful city of Edinburgh today to the wonderfully decorated Hub in the city center. Today’s Live Case Study comes from The Balmoral hotel chain – find out more about them here: http://www.thebalmoralhotel.com/

Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh

The Rocco Forte Collection’s Balmoral is a luxury hotel in the true sense of the word. With its majestic clock tower, the hotel is a unique and contemporary luxury five-star property in the very heart of Edinburgh. While many Edinburgh hotels claim to have Edinburgh’s landmarks on their doorstep, few can say their doorstep is a landmark. Located on Princes Street, in Edinburgh’s main shopping area and next to Waverley Station, The Balmoral is close to the leading luxury department stores and within walking distance of many Edinburgh attractions.

David Hennery from The Balmoral mentioned this afternoon “Every time you interact with a customer is a ‘moment of truth’ when you succeed or fail” – and motivating staff in these difficult times is a tough job, as well as continuously finding investment whilst maintaining customer service.

As today’s case study they came to Future Focus with their own set of challenges, and so we want your help to solve these issues.

Here are there main challenges:

• Maintaining and enhancing service delivery
• Maintaining or leading Market Position
• Employing technology that meets business travelers needs
• Embracing Social Media to communicate with customers

Big challenges require even bigger ideas, so we want to hear yours, submit them as comments here, and follow the conversation on twitter.

Presentation Materials From Future Focus – Coming Thursday

After a great day on Thursday, many of you have been asking us for the presentations from the day, to continue learning from all the great insights from the day. Just wanted to post you all a short note to say that these will be going online on Thursday (11th  June). We will pop them up on slideshare so you can find them there, here on the blog or on the Telegraph Business Club Website

As we look forward to tomorrow in Manchester, we want to know your thoughts on the programm so far. Did you attend in London, what were your thoughts on the presentations from the day? what were your key learnings? What did you take away?

Let us know by commenting on any of the content from the day here on the blog, check out the VLOG to see all the videos from London, or join the conversation on Linkedin or on the Facebook Page.

Don’t forget you can also follow all the action from Future Focus in Manchester and Edinburgh this week by following the #futurefocus hashtag or the @FutureFocus twitter feed.

VLOG 8 -Future Focus London – Looking Back On London

As we draw activities to a close in London and look forward to Manchester and Edinburgh for the next week of Future Focus we chat to Dr James Bellini, Futurologist and Chairman of the Future Focus conferences.

With over 300 delegates in London debating and learning about becoming “future proof companies”, Future Focus London has sparked a lot of debate, and that will continue in the coming weeks as the conferences head for Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin.

For more information about the conferences and to register – check out www.telegraphbusinessclub.co.uk/futurefocus

VLOG 6 – Future Focus London – Richard Farleigh

In our second conversation with investor extraordinaire Richard Farleigh (formerly of Dragons Den fame) we talk to him about his views on the future of global economy, and on how taking risks can sometimes blossom or backfire.

VLOG 5 – Future Focus London – Euan Semple

We are privileged to have Future Communications Specialist Euan Semple speaking across the Future Focus Events. For those of you who are not able to make it to a conference over then next couple of weeks, we caught up with him at the London conference today!

Euan gives us some thoughts on how to avoid the easy mistake of leaping into social media too quickly, but encourages SME’s to get educated about these topics, otherwise they could find themselves being left behind.

VLOG 3 – Welcome to Future Focus London

Welcome to Future Focus 09 – Kicking off in London’s Westminster Central Hall, we chat to Dave Sumner Smith from Telegraph Business Club, about why they have partered with IBM to bring together these events, we also hear from delegates as they look forward to the days events.

Backgammon Vs Chess: Why Richard Farleigh prefers to manage elements of randomness in business

In his Keynote opening speech at today’s Future Focus event in London, Richard Farleigh opened by comparing business to a game of backgammon rather than a game of chess.

It has been well documented that Richard plays chess as a hobby and is an internationally-ranked player who has represented both Bermuda and Monaco at the Chess Olympics. His interest in chess began at an early age and was a joint winner of the 1978 NSW (Australia) junior chess championship.

But shining knight Farleigh made his name, not in chess, but in financial investments. Today he enjoys legend status in the financial community – inspiring Dragons’ Den rookies here in the UK. At age 34, he made enough money to retire in Monaco. Did his love for the black and white checkerboard help him in business? It would appear not.

His original view on business success was to approach his investments in the same way as he would play out a game of chess: purely analytically. His theory was that as in chess, if you make the right moves, you should end up winning. However he soon realised that it is in managing randomness (a strategy frowned upon in chess) you’re more likely to succeed in business as you maximise your chances of a clear win.

Farleigh calls this the ‘backgammon strategy’ and points out that often in business, the best ideas and strategy can end in failure whereas sometimes the worst plans can often reap the highest rewards. In Richard’s mind, it is this randomness that proves that actual outcome doesn’t necessarily equate with merit.

Richard isn’t the first person to draw the clear distinction between chess and backgammon. Why have the two games been always compared against each other, when chess is not a gambling game unlike backgammon?

I came across an article online which highlights the similarities and differences between the two games which raises a few interesting metaphors for business strategy. Here are the key take-outs:

• Without analytical thinking, game players would be lost in backgammon. Like chess players, they need to learn certain attacks and strategies to be able to win. That is why a lot of books about this game have already been written, for beginners, for intermediate gambling players, and even for the professional ones. There is so much to learn, and it hard to perfect the craft of this game, much like the game of chess.

• Certain strategies in this game can also be used in chess. Backgammon players may choose to be aggressive, which chess players also do in chess matches. Some people opt to hit a lot of their opponent’s checkers as soon as possible, and then make it to the homeboard fast. They may also raise the stakes quite too often. In chess, aggressive players are the ones who try to do a checkmate on their opponent early in the game.

• Another backgammon strategy that players use, which can be applicable to chess, is the passive strategy. Passive players in backgammon set up traps instead of attacking their opponents’ pieces as fast as they can. These types of players wait for their opponents to fall into their trap which is why the game speed is much slower. Chess players on the other hand are on passive mode when they seem not to attack the king directly, and scatter the pieces in a strategic set up on the board.

• Backgammon players may also influence or even force the opponent to move his pieces in their desired way. This they do by moving their own pieces to positions that would leave the other opponent little or no choice at all. As for their part, chess players also do this which results in the opponent sacrificing his queen or even getting himself in checkmate.

• The biggest difference between backgammon and chess is the factor that luck brings to those games. In backgammon, players rely heavily on their luck in casting the dice; however, afterwards, moving the checkers depends on the players’ skills. Meanwhile, chess players need very little luck to win games. They win almost totally because of their good strategies. If luck is any factor, then it may only come in the form of the opponent’s mistakes.

Having listened to Richard Farleigh’s keynote speech in which he humbly outlined his dotted career as a tech investor, he is an extremely charismatic speaker who has benefitted from years of diverse business experience. He has made millions of dollars after investing his own capital in British technology companies. The Rich 200 list estimated his personal wealth at around AU$160,000,000. He is ranked as the 876th on the Sunday Times Rich List 2006 with an estimated net worth of £66million. His management of randomness is a testament to his undisputed success.

I’ll hopefully be interviewing Richard later on today. Perhaps we’ll film it in the bar here in Westminster where I guess the round will be on him. Question is, will the chessman be paying by cheque, mate?

Richard’s book, Taming The Lion: 100 Secret Strategies for Investing is available on Amazon

Rax Lakhani is a social media consultant specialising in brand marketing. You can read his blog at raxraxrax.com or follow him on Twitter @raxlakhani

The Countdown To London Has Begun – And We Want You

 

We Want You!

London Calling

We are just under 1 week away from the first of the Future Focus event’s, kicking off next Thursday (4th June) in London’s Westminster Central Hall. To sign up head over to the London Registration Site to sign up to attend, the event is FREE but places are LIMITED.

Become a Guest Blogger

If you are attending the Future Focus events, not just in London but at any of the conferences, and are keen on blogging, twittering and all things digital we would love to hear from you. Get in touch by emailing us, outlining what aspect of the events you would blog about  (Economic Realities, Communications or Technology) and whether you would be able to write blogs from the event.

We would love to have you either feature as a guest blogger here at The Future Focus Blog or on your own blogs. Plus we will be filming live at the events, and if you would like to interview a speaker or delegate then please get in touch – our on site team can facilitate a wide range of production, so just let us know!

In the mean time, head over to the Facebook Page or join the LinkedIn Group to get involved with the conversation – or drop us your thoughts on twitter (@futurefocus).

Hope to see you in London next week!