As a coffee aficionado, I never thought the day would arrive that I would love an automatic coffee machine. But it’s true. I love my Nespresso machine. I bought my first in Hong Kong when I struggled to find a decent coffee anywhere on the island. And I’m embarassed to say, I sometimes even choose hotels based on whether there is a similar machine in my room. But if Nespresso, owned by Nestle, represents the past triumph of applying the Gillette ‘razor and blade’ business model to beverage consumables - it also points to the present failure of appliance brands to capitalising on their captured consumer base.

When you buy a Nespresso machine they ask you to provide your details to join their coffee club - ostensibly so that they can keep track of your consumption and prompt you to service your machine at the right time. Not a bad premise, and certainly a smarter engagement tool than the standard warranty database coupon. But what if there was a Nespresso app store that sold apps that let you customise your brew strengths or program automatic functions? How would that change the economics of the business? White goods manufacturers would certainly stand to benefit from similar thinking. You may buy a new washing machine only once every 5-10 years, but what if you could get consumers to upgrade their software applications that controlled energy usage, spin cycle programs and other features once every quarter? Turning durables into consumables was a neat magic trick for many appliance brands in the last ten years. But for the next stage in the game, they need to be thinking about the broader information ecosystem that surrounds their physical products.

Selling out your friends might not seem the best way to nurture your relationships, but if the transaction involves hooking them up with their dream job - they just might forgive you. Top Prospect is an innovative new startup that connects with your existing contact networks on platforms such as LinkedIn, and then allows you to suggest friends for job roles. If they get the job - you get paid a bonus - anywhere between US$5,000 and US$20,000 depending on the role.

Before you get too excited at turning your colleagues into cash, at this stage most of the job roles are in the US, and there is also a heavy tech sector skew. Nevertheless, Top Prospect is an intriguing concept and one of many new services that I predict we will see in the future that enable hyper-connectors to better commercialise their networks.
By attaching a financial reward to the matching process, companies like Top Prospect may actually enable the recruitment ecosystem to work more effectively.

Think about it. Much of the talent acquisition market is broken. You hire an headhunter to fill a role. He either strip mines his own network of people he has placed for another client, or charges you to advertise the role with either outdated web ads or expensive print notices which tend to attract the disenchanted and perpetual job changers. For the very top positions, industry focused recruitment specialists generally know who the best performers are, and are well placed to defend their turf. But for middle tier roles, connected professionals may have better knowledge of who is smart and open to moving onto a new opportunity. It is in this space, that I see emerging platforms doing the most damage to the traditional model.

During the first digital revolution, the Web killed print classifieds. Now that we are in round two, headhunters should stand warned.

When you travel a lot, you start to care about the in-between places. I’ve always loved airports - the super efficient ones like Hong Kong and Singapore, the chic and gorgeously designed ones like Oslo and Denmark, the retro fantastic ones like Charles de Gaulle, and even the bizarre horrid ones like Harare in Zimbabwe. In a way, airports are the ultimate soft branding destination for any country. There is a lot of discussion these days about the virtues of soft power. Nations are vying for supremacy - not just in terms of military, political or economic strength - but also in people’s perception of ‘coolness’. And what better place to start, than the first port of call? Turkey seems to be no stranger to the concept. Check out the ultra luxe new Turkish Airlines business lounge in Istanbul. You start to wonder whether the developed/developing country paradigm is almost set to be reversed!

One of my favorite hotels in New York is the Ace. It’s hip, idiosyncratic, and they even put record players and vintage vinyls in your room to enjoy. Best of all is the lobby - with its free wifi, great Stumptown strength expresso and communal desks - in other words, the perfect place to work. And that, of course, is also the problem. As you can see in this photo I shot on my last visit, hotel guests aren’t the only ones who have decided that it’s more fun to work away from home.

Of all the interesting sociological by-products of the digital revolution - the rise of ‘co-working’ is one of the more curious. The Web has liberated millions of potential office slaves. Either as entrepreneurs low on cash, digital freelancers with a global customer base, or simply creative types who like to pretend they don’t have a real job - coffee shops, hotel lobbies and newly styled ‘co-working’ centers are full of digital nomads who like to work alone, with other people around. As a writer, I totally get the paradox of social solace. If I’m alone at home, I get distracted by the echo chamber of my own mind. In a busy cafe, the white noise and activity can actually help me focus and be more inspired to create.

One of players to watch in this space is Loose Cubes. Think of the company as an Airbnb for the nomadic global co-worker. Jump online and you can find literally thousands of potential cool spaces to work in for the day - whether it be an artist studio in Berlin, or a gamer friendly tech cave in San Francisco. A funky place to work is only part of the appeal. There are also practical benefits of sharing work and projects with similar peers that you might meet at co-working facility. Where Loose Cubes is particularly clever, is that they integrate with Facebook to make office recommendations based on who you know. The dashboard shows if any of your friends know the office host, or whether your contacts have used that space before.

If you feel like you are missing out on all this fun because you are stuck at work - don’t despair. The good news is that ‘the office’ per se, is not the problem. Given the choice, freelancers seem to prefer somewhere to work rather than staying at home. So ask yourself this. How does your space stack up? if your office was listed on a website that people could choose to hang out in - would anyone do it? And if not, why not? Keep asking that question enough, and maybe someone will do something about it.

Being interviewed to work at McKinsey was one of the more interesting experiences of my earlier life. Ten rounds of interviews, rigorous analytical tests, bizarre psychometric probes and a final cup of coffee with a senior partner of the firm that felt like a scene from a John Grisham novel - and voila, I was in. The story about how I never actually turned up for work is one I'll save for another day. But I do remember one thing from the process - McKinsey were obsessed with finessing their strategy of hiring and retaining 'smart people'.

After one of the interviews, a manager at the firm described their ideal archetype as a 'spiky integrator'. In essence, their perfect candidate was someone who had an extraordinary talent spike (e.g genius chess skills, Olympian athletic discipline or knowing six languages), but were also capable of integrating that skill across a range of other capabilities and in association with other team mates. Or to put it another way - they wanted freaks with social skills. The only problem with that personality type, as many companies discovered when they put former high flying management consultants into leadership teams - is that spiky integrators need to be surrounded by other super smart people in order to thrive. Out of the fish tank, they don’t survive too long.

For companies today, hiring smart people is still a critical priority. And it’s harder than ever. The digital revolution has had two major impacts on the war for talent. Firstly, you are now competing with the fact that the best candidates can earn significant incomes as free agents. With the Web offering a global customer base and infinite opportunities for fame, being a digital ronin or an entrepreneur has never been more seductive. But the second impact is just as profound. The concept of work has never been more challenging. Traditional industries are being disrupted, competition more nuanced, and the demands on managers more pronounced. Your old school spiky integrator might be able to draw up some rather pretty strategy slides describing your industry - but will they have the level headed poise to ruthlessly execute and get things done in an increasingly ambiguous and uncertain operating environment?

In the future, I think there will be three capability attributes that senior managers will need to look for in their top performers:

1. Super Synthesizers

In the old days, smart employees gathered competitive information in traditional ways - phone interviews, focus groups and industry surveys. Basically - you were clever if you knew how to pick up the phone and make some calls. Now we have the opposite problem - too much information. Super synthesizers are people with the capability of scanning and processing huge amounts of information. They are like human meta filters. With enough technical savvy and familiarity with blogs, social platforms and search algorithms - they can assess the topography of available data, see patterns and collate them as trends, prioritize and then act.

2. Hyper Connectors.

One of these days we will laugh about the fact people used to get fired for using Facebook or LinkedIn at work. Hyper Connectors are people that know how to swiftly build and exploit relevant networks to get things done. They won't necessarily have the largest collection of contacts, but they will know how to use digital platforms to find and nurture just the right set of people to reach their goals. These could be internal networks in a huge enterprise, or external webs of journalists, industry influencers and taste makers. You will recognise them in meetings because they are the first to say in the answer to a problem, 'I think I may know someone who..'

3. Change Optimists

The final quality of the future super smart might sound a bit soft but in some ways it is the most vital personal attribute - positivity. The pace of change is accelerating and there are people for whom that is good news, and others who, if they are honest with themselves, view that fact with dread. You can reassure the change pessimists about the future all you like but believe me - in the end, when faced with disruptive change, pessimists fight for the status quo not for future growth. Your best performers may not know the future, but they should be happy to meet it head on.

What do you think? Are there other attributes of what would make someone ‘super smart’ in the future?