How could Melissa Clark-Reynolds ONZM predict the pandemic collapse of seaports in the US? And Why is your board bad at strategy?—If you can answer these two questions, your firm would be much better off.
This is only part of the full episode that is available on Business Games Premium's private podcast feed.
Breaking News (at the time)—Omicron!
A note about the new Omicron variant of Covid discovered in South Africa in November 2021.
We recorded this episode with Melissa in early 2021, a good 6 months before the news broke about the new variant B.1.1.529 that later got the name Omicron.
With Melissa, we talked about many things on predictions, the central topic being how she was one of the first within the business community to have predicted the coming pandemic.
We covered what a foresight professional should do, and how to predict the next pandemic—including some signs that she was monitoring in early-mid-2021 when she had concerns that there could be something else popping up in late 2021.
We put up this episode on Monday the 22nd November.
On Thursday the 25th, the news broke about the variant B.1.1.529.
Revisiting this episode, it is startling how ever more relevant the content is.
Now, normally, we only release full episodes to Premium Members.
This particular episode was available in full for almost a week now, and I communicated on social media that I'd be removing the full episode from the public feed.
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Show Notes
How could Melissa know the pandemic was coming before most? How to read weak signals. How does anthropology help in forecasting? How did Melissa predict the pandemic-related collapse of seaports in the US? What should your board understand about strategy? How is prediction like experimentation? We cover all this and more in this episode.
Last interview, we discussed Corporate experimentation with Dawie Olivier.
Next interview, we cover SME and solopreneur sector experimentation with Ashlee Berghoff MBA.
Contents (time stamps from the Full version)
- Introduction [00:00]
- On Predicting the Pandemic: Habitats, Mammals, Climate Change, Patterns, and Weak Signals [02:47]
- On Linking Forecasting and Experimentation, Chess as an Analogy for Strategy, Anthropology, Culture as the Basis for Business Moves, Creative Writing and Analytics [17:24]
- On Where to Play, How to Win [27:30]
- On Business Model Innovation versus Tech Innovation [28:40]
- On Strategy Versus Strategic Planning [39:01]
- On Experiments at the Board Table [46:24]
- The Homework: Read Widely, Capture and Review Signals [56:52]
- Own Work of Melissa as It Relates to Experiments, Signals, and Subscription Services [1:10:53]
- On Covid, Ports, and Behaviour [1:13:35]
Links to Melissa’s Work
Some Other Links Mentioned
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Full transcripts of everything if you want to have notes or prefer reading + deep dives into selected topics.
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