The 25th annual ISPA Conference and Expo got underway in Las Vegas yesterday (19 October). Randi Zuckerberg, CEO of Zuckerberg Media, author of Dot Complicated, and sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, opened the show with a high-energy talk about technology trends that are shaping the way we do business.
Zuckerberg shared her personal story of helping her brother get his company started in the days when it was a small operation located over a Chinese restaurant. Zuckerberg, a digital media strategist, said one of the things that helped make Facebook successful was launching with a sense of exclusivity – it started with a few colleges and waited till the demand was there before opening it up to more.
“There’s something to be said about launching with a sense of false scarcity,” said Zuckerberg.
She said focusing on internal company culture is also important, as what you do on the inside bleeds out to everything you do. Zuckerberg pointed to Facebook’s famous Hackathons – all nighters where employees work on passion projects and are able to present them in the morning – as an important part of its internal culture.
“It created a culture where a good idea could come from anywhere,” she said – and often the best ideas came from the youngest, newest employees.
Zuckerberg said these days, the line is blurring between entrepreneur and employee.
“We are in the age of ‘entremployee,’” she said. “There are so many ways to be entrepreneurial inside of your company....Each of us in our own lives can think a little bit more like an entrepreneur.”
She suggested adopting the Hackathon method for solving company – or even industry – problems.
“Pick a problem that’s been plaguing you or the industry, and get a group together,” she suggested.
Another big trend Zuckerberg pointed to is the fact that everyone is a media company these days.
“If you have an online presence at all, you are a media company,” she explained. “You have an incredible opportunity to be an expert, a thought leader – to do something in your industry – and you have a huge megaphone to do it.”
Zuckerberg pointed to the boutique 1888 Hotel in Sydney, where if you have 10,000 Instagram followers, you stay free, or the Birds Eye restaurant in London, where if you take a photo of your meal and post it, you eat for free, as examples of companies that are using social media to their advantage.
“For a lot of us in business, this is a new trend,” she said.
Zuckerberg also said that we are in the middle of The Maker Movement, with 3D printing becoming more and more mainstream, and things like Etsy gaining in popularity.
“Your customers and clients want to be in the DIY movement,” she said. “Give them the tools to take control of their health and wellness.”
Zuckerberg said she is excited about the trend of virtual reality, and what it can do for health and wellness. She envisions ways in which virtual reality can help people with phobias or PTSD by putting them in virtual settings to help them overcome their fears.
Zuckerberg said we are at a new frontier of education and healthcare. With today’s technology, there’s no reason for anyone to stop learning, she explained.
She pointed to sites like Skillshare, where you can take one-on-one lessons in anything from how to play the ukulele to a lesson with a yoga master in India, and suggested those in the wellness industry could take advantage of this, and create an online “infotainment” course that generates new clients.
Zuckerberg also said “gamification for motivation” – or using the techniques of online gaming to motivate people into a behaviour – has many applications for health and wellness.
She pointed to the Nike Running app, which is successful in motivating runners by automatically posting to social media when you’re going for a run, and every time a friend likes the status, sending cheering noises to your headphones.
But she also said there is a new generation of apps for motivation – everything from Zombie Run, which puts you in the middle of a story where you’re the last person on earth, to Gym Shamer, which posts to Facebook if you don’t reach your fitness goals.
“There are so many ways that tech can make this fun for health and wellness,” she said.
But perhaps the biggest trend with application for the wellness industry is that of ‘Unplug to Refresh.’
While technology has hugely improved our lives, “Maybe our habits with technology are not completely healthy,” suggested Zuckerberg.
Giving people a safe place to unplug will become increasingly important, she said, and unplugging is going to become a huge industry, with things like mind gyms and technology detoxes becoming increasingly important.
