It’s already 2020. A new decade starts off.
If you had to search for three adjectives to define the previous one, what would they be? Because it’s a difficult exercise, we chose two-word adjectives: technologically restless, politically surprising and environmentally disappointing (however, the rise of ESG investments and sustainable finance, especially in the last two years, is set to play a major role in the near future of the financial services industry). Needless to say, we won’t claim to have the last word on this matter. The final opinion is ultimately an individual feeling depending on what each of us have live personally and professionally over the last 10 years.
The last decade was that of the influencers, memes and stories on the social media side. And data privacy scandals, alternative facts, Brexit, artificial intelligence, fintech and bitcoin. We even had an “end of the world alert”. Indeed, some people feared the world would end on December 21, 2012 because the famous Mayan Calendar apparently said it would be. It didn’t happen. You are reading this article.
Being technologically restless englobes many aspects, from the visible driverless cars, drones and 3D printers to the code behind distributed ledgers, machine learning or social media algorithms to serve tailored content to users. And there was also the slow but firm development of a particular type of content, podcasts.
Very recent statistics claim that there are over 800,000 shows—being TechTalk, our podcast focused on technology included in that list—and over 30 million episodes as of December 2019. This development goes hand in hand with mobile technology whose unstoppable incremental innovation model brings quality, convenience and accessibility to users.
When we launched TechTalk in early January 2019, we had one very clear objective: democratise knowledge around technology matters people are exposed to every day. Quite frankly, we’re still learning on the road because good podcasting is a science in itself. For now we would like to explain to you why we bet on podcasting with this nice paragraph taken from this article:
“Podcasts are designed to take up time, rather than to be checked, scanned, and rushed through: they are for those moments when you can’t be scrolling on your phone. For a digital medium, podcasts are unusual in their commitment to slow build and to a sensual atmosphere”.
“Slow build” and “sensual atmosphere”, these characteristics translate into the intimacy and pace of the conversation we wanted to bring to you, so you can filter out all the noise revolving around technology developments, and get them right. For a 2020’s good start, we have selected 5 episodes from TechTalk’s Seasons 1 and 2 whose themes will remain very valid in 2020 and can even gain more visibility.
Let’s get there!
Five podcasts on technology matters you have to master in 2020
1. Understanding Process Intelligence
Featuring: Daniel Trautmann—Manager, Risk Assurance Services
What we try to achieve with process intelligence is to actually address a problem we already know […]; identify the gaps between the promise and the reality of that process. Understand how to be “process-intelligent” with this uncomplicated explanation and valuable tips.
Listen to the episode here.
No matter where you work, you need to know how your process work
(Daniel Trautmann)
2. Why are we talking about Upskilling now?
Featuring: Christian Scharff—Partner, People and Organisation
Undeniably, technology is disrupting the way we are producing and the way we are consuming. Contrary to what plenty of people think of the impact of process automation and artificial intelligence, jobs will unlikely be less, but they will be different or “augmented”, at least in the short and medium terms. So we need to talk about upskilling.
Listen to the episode here.
50 million people need Upskilling every year in the world
(Christian Scharff)
3. The case of Data Privacy in the era of the Internet of Everything
Featuring: Rebecca Herold—US based entrepreneur and CEO of the Privacy Professor
How can data privacy and an abundant business model—there’s everything and everything is connected—that is on the rise, coexist? “The awareness of what your business environment is, is the key to being able to address privacy”, argues our guest in this episode. But how?
Listen to the episode here.
Awareness of the type of devices you have within your business environment is the key to address privacy
Rebecca Herold
4 . The ABC of Crypto
Featuring: Mike Delano—Partner, Assurance and Thomas Campione—Blockchain and Crypto-assets Leader
Crypto-asset, cryptocurrency, alt coins, crypto tokens…crypto what? If you’re constantly coming across these terms but you don’t get the full picture of what they are, their similarities and differences, this episode is for you. Tune in!
Listen to the episode here.
Let’s say, for a global picture, that cryptocurrencies are a subset of crypto-assets. So you have crypto-asset as an umbrellaThomas Campione
5. Questions about AI you want to know
Featuring: Dr. Anand Rao—PwC’s global AI Lead
In Europe, we often have this doom and gloom view that we are desperately behind in AI compared to the US and China with no hope left. But is there anything wrong with the EU having a more measured approach, thinking about its citizens? In this episode, Anand Rao tackles this and other hot questions on AI-related matters.
Listen to the episode here.
It’s tasks that get automates, no jobs
(Dr. Anand Rao)
An additional one, maybe?
Honestly, it wasn’t that easy to choose the Top 5 TechTalk episodes we wanted to propose to you to kick off 2020. Because of the increasing importance of people experience in products, services and processes businesses do or create, we think you also want to have a look at this podcast:
6. UX, CX, UI…what are they?
Featuring: Armin Prljaca—Experience Center’s UX Designer
With that great question kicking off the conversation, you will get a clear idea of user experience, customer experience and user interaction concepts, to use them rightfully and not interchangeably. Many people think they are synonyms but you don’t want to make the same mistake.
Listen to the podcast here.
We started thinking about the user experience way back in the 50s and 60s when IBM was developing new kinds of computers. They were huge, football stadium-sized computersArmin Prljaca