Where are the entrepreneurs coming from? Where is the new generation of leaders emerging? #dmingml

In Young World Rising: How Youth, Technology, And Entrepreneurship Are Changing the World From the Bottom Up, author Rob Salkowitz takes a look at global trends in business and the forward-thinking approaches to economic and social problems from a new generation of doers (not just thinkers!) from Latin America, Africa and South Asia.

Salkowitz brings some great insights to the topic of how global markets are changing and the challenges this presents to organizations that want to forge productive business partnerships. Author of Generation Blend and Listening to the Future as well as having worked with Microsoft in developing market strategy, Salkowitz brings a considerable pedigree to his work.

In a book with less than 180 pages, this book packs a punch and literally provides any organization – commercial, not-for-profit or faith-based – with solid information on changing markets, social trends, and how an emerging generation of young leaders and entrepreneurs are grasping hold of opportunities where many traditional business models are redundant or at the very least, ineffective.

Some of his key insights include –

·      There are three forces reshaping the world: youth, ICT (information and communications technology) and entrepreneurship

·      The importance of the global knowledge economy

·      The rich old world (old economy) and the poor young world (new economy)

·      The digital divide between the rich old world and the poor young world is closing, albeit slowly. However, the young world is going mobile fueling the spread of the knowledge economy

·      The technology age gap: whereas the old economy sees technology as problem to be solved and something to beintegrated into existing frameworks, the new economy sees the possibilities of networks and data

·      Innovation is increasingly occurring at the bottom of the pyramid

The possibilities emerging with this new younger more mobile generation that are net-savvy, can naturally cause some traditional leaders to be threated and even daunted by the seemingly endless opportunities arising.

There is also another group of leaders who are genuinely excited by the possibilities that exist and want to catch the wave. They don’t want their organizations to be left behind with ageing infrastructure that has simply become redundant. Nor do they want their services and products to become irrelevant. It reminds me of an outstanding presentation given by Dr. André Martin who delivered some key insights to the Centre for Creative Leadership from research conducted with global leaders. Having identified The World of Interruption as a key social trend leaders must deal with today (11 minutes is the average time spent on a task before an interruption, and 25 minutes is the average time it takes to return to the task), he contrasts how in the 1940’s, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) was a huge factor in determining a person’s job suitability, in the 2000’s, a person’s Emotional Quotient (EQ) became important, and today, increasingly a person’s Fluid Intelligence (FI) is considered to be critical.  It is not what you know, but how quickly you can access it. It is the ability to overcome the two major obstacles of interruption and speed.

This observation by Dr. Martin is a key argument to Salkowitz’s premise that a young generation of entrepreneur’s and leaders can see that there are significant market opportunities to be capitalized on as information, social and technology networks and technology are aligned.

While Salkowitz provides numerous practical and innovative initiatives launched by these young entrepreneurs, underpinning them are six distinctive qualities. Young World entrepreneurship:

1.    Blends social and commercial objectives

2.    Creatively aligns public, private, and NGO resources

3.    Leverages communities and collaboration

4.    Is well-adapted and sustainable in Young World environments

5.    Embraces the globalization of the knowledge workforce, and

6.    Solves systemic problems while meeting market needs.

Honestly, as a leader who has had many opportunities to interact with leaders while mentoring young leaders acrossvarious continents, I found Salkowitz’s work on Young World Rising to be inspirational: I also realize that being inspired is simply not enough. As I continue to work with leaders in various organizational contexts and industry sectors, I must constantly be seeking how to forge potential partnerships that have the capacity and the capability to achieve greater things together, rather than independently pursue more narrow goals, at the risk of possibly not achieving them at all. Furthermore, no longer can the constraint of geography be used as an excuse for overlooking the importance of building effective partnerships – nationally and globally.

It is as Seth Godin states in Tribes, “Leaders challenge the status quo. Leaders create a culture around their goal and involve others in that culture. Leaders have an extraordinary amount of curiosity about the world they’re trying to change…Leaders connect their followers to one another.”

That’s Young World Rising.

#Dmingml