Nick Webb

Interview with Nicholas Webb

One of the core topics you talk about is healthcare. How do you think will the technological development change one’s personal life?

There are three key future shifts that will have a major impact on the entire healthcare ecosystem. The first shift is Disruptive Innovation, this is where complete new business and clinical models will displace old business and clinical models in healthcare.

A good example is technologies like “Live Health”, that uses your smart phone to allow you to instantaneously have access to a board-certified physician that can quickly diagnose and treat as much as 80% of all conditions. This disruptive model also leverages game mechanics and social ratings to drive a significant patient experience. The net result of this new technology is that we will reduce clinical visits by as much as 50% over the next 12 to 24 months.

There are many other disruptive technologies that will both improve the quality of life for patients while concurrently managing the runaway costs of healthcare. Another major shift is consumerization, patients no longer will set still… literally in a waiting room and wait for an hour for the good doctor to see them. Patients are demanding experiences that are exquisite across the five key touch points of the patient’s journey, across digital and nondigital channels.

The last of the three healthcare trends is connection architecture and this is where we leverage wearable, EHR, grid data, spatial data and other connection points to build out what I called anticipatory health. This allows us to use cognitive computing to monitor patients across a range of sensors to anticipate illness and intervene before it becomes expensive or lethal.

You have been awarded with 42 patent over the years, how do you find the creativity for continuous invention, or is it maybe strategy?

Innovation and creativity is an equal opportunity human condition. We are all born perfectly innovative, however as we spend more time in traditional education, we are often taught not to take risks as innovation only belongs to the geniuses. The simple truth of the matter is that the best innovators did one thing and one thing only that allowed them to deliver amazing technologies to the market… they started.

The average person fails at innovation only because they never believed in their own innate innovative and creative self. This is such a problem in the way we expose children to innovation that three years ago I invented what is now one of the most award-winning educational toys in the marketplace, www.hanztoys.com our organizational motto was simple, “instructions not included” the future of innovation is teaching our children how to be innovators… not replicators. The secret to my innovation success is very simple – I started, failed, learned and ultimately succeeded.

You claim to make organizations “Future Ready”, how have the requirements for success changed in the last years?

As a Certified Management Consultant, I have the great honor of working with the best brands in the world. One of my biggest value propositions is helping organizations identify what the future is made of. I help organizations develop innovation infrastructures that allow them to identify opportunities before their competitor. I help them develop future – casting activities to help them identify trends that will affect their strategic deployment. I bring in the tools, systems, methods, processes and even technology stacks to help them build out future ready bulletproof organizations.

You emphasize that you work very client-centered. How do you prepare for your speaking engagements?

I probably have the most non-scalable speaking practice in the industry. Most speakers do the smart thing and build out a generic high level talk that they deliver to plumbing associations and biotechnology firms alike. In a hyper competitive and hyper complex economy delivering a generic talk cannot possibly deliver actionable takeaways that the audience can apply immediately in their businesses and job function.

In my practice, I begin with a client completing a pre-event form, then I review the form and conduct the necessary industry-specific research to identify how I can apply my body of knowledge to the unique needs, problems and opportunities within their market vertical. Then I schedule a pre-event scoping meeting to review a wireframe flowchart of my proposed talk to verify that my research findings are correct and highly relevant to their audience. At this point, I make any changes necessary to the wireframe and then I build out a custom graphic deck that is principally constructed of images that help communicate the points of my talk.

I believe strongly that my success as a speaker and my extremely high ratings have come from my willingness to not just deliver great talks but perhaps more importantly deliver talks that are relevant and surgically connected to the strategic goals of a specific event.

What do you personally gain from being a public speaker?

Simply stated speaking is my passion and happy place! I make 10 times more money in my consulting practice and you could easily argue that speaking is not the best use of my time. At the risk of sounding corny, I believe that speaking is my calling. I have a burning desire to share my passion about my topics with amazing audiences that want and in many cases need to hear my message. Speaking is not a business development activity nor is it an opportunity to sell books, I have more business on the consulting side than I can handle and selling books frankly to me is neither here nor there. I do this plain and simply because I love it!