Ignited #SalfrodBSchool magazin: The Future

Salford Business School
IgnitedThe #SalfordBSchool Magazine
09.2015
the
future
issue
Our academics discuss the future of
Outsourcing • Robotics • Digital ID
Transportation • Manufacturing
...and much more
1

“‘The Future’ is an intentionally provocative title. The future hints simultaneously
at both uncertainty as well as hope. The articles in this magazine reveal just
how widely colleagues from Salford Business School have interpreted the
broad brief expressed through a range of creative thoughts and informative
comments about their own areas of interest and research. Too often within
business schools discussions of the future are reduced to the processes and
documentation associated with presenting a strategic plan. This collection not
only reaches far beyond conventional management thinking but David Beech
also offers a critical view on the very concept and future of strategy itself.
The theme of the future also reflects the School’s own ambitious and ongoing plans
for development. After a successful year as the Times Higher Education’s “Business School
of the Year” what does the future hold for the School itself? The short answer is that over
the next twelve months we will grow. This is growth at a time when many business schools
and universities across the UK are contemplating a contraction of their focus, services and
activities. The new academic and professional services appointments already set in motion
for Salford Business School over the next year will support our planned student recruitment
and external engagement activities. But these activities themselves are only part of the story.
We continue to work closely with organisations locally, nationally and globally by sharing
our knowledge and skills where it is needed but also in order for us to continue to learn.
Knowledge transfer is a reciprocal process and – as the articles in this magazine reveal –
there are so many things happening right now at the biggest and smallest scales of business
that as academics it would be remiss of us not to be participating directly.
The future is undoubtedly one that incorporates technology as the pieces by Alex Fenton,
Phil Scarf and Aleksej Heinze all confirm. The future is also one that places people at its centre.
Ralph Darlington and Jonathan Owens both confirm this separately in their own articles.
Chris Procter rounds out the magazine with an assertion for the importance of experiential
learning. Experiencing the world ‘live’ is an approach to learning that Salford Business School
has always placed at the centre of the student experience.
Gordon Fletcher
”
THE BEST
WAY TO
PREDICT
THE
FUTURE
IS TO
CREATE IT
Peter Drucker 1908-2005
Consultant, educator, and author whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation.

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07
23
25
31
33
29
09
11 15
17
21
CROWDOUTSOURCING
THEROBOTBUSINESS
CYBERPHYSICALMANUFACTURING
THROUGHTHECLOUD
POWEROFLIVE
WHATDOESTHEFUTUREOF
DIGITALIDENTITYLOOKLIKE?
WHAT’S INSIDE OUR FUTURE ISSUE
GOOGLE,FREERIDES
DRIVERLESSCARS.
THEFUTUREOF
STRATEGICLEADERSHIP
SILENCINGTHESTRIKERS
TENDISRUPTIVE
TECHNOLOGIES
FORTHEFUTURE
FUTUREFIT
BRUNELORBECKS?

The Future Issue 6
A simple idea
executed with
high grade
tech. Is this
the future
of workflow
management?
orking on the EU funded
UC-Crowd project has
been a great opportunity
to see how the concept
of crowdsourcing is constantly evolving,
taking on new forms and filling new
business niches. One of the most striking
new forms of crowdsourcing is the (very
simple) idea that it is possible to get small
and mundane aspects of your work done
by other people and actually pay them to
do this. This concept of crowdoutsourcing
has increasingly been refined to a high
level of digital sophistication and is
currently best exemplified by Amazon’s
Mechanical Turk.
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is based on a
straightforward workflow – define a simple and
usually repetitive task, set out the limit to what
you want to pay and then get crowds to complete
the task. Mechanical Turk’s strapline is “Artificial
Artificial Intelligence.” In other words, Mechanical
Turk gets people to do simple tasks that in reality
are incredibly difficult for most computers. For
example, the task of identifying whether a picture
is a sunrise or sunset is exactly the sort of task that
Mechanical Turk is designed to complete. The added
benefit of the crowd means than one or two false
responses are always outweighed by the common
sense (rather than wisdom) of the many. Once each
member of the crowd has completed their assigned
task and you are happy with the result you then
pay them. As an added bonus, as this is an Amazon
product, the payment process is as simple as buying
from the main Amazon website.
Crowdoutsourcing does contradict another form
of crowdsourcing that is described as crowd-
wisdom. Crowd-wisdom does not really fit with
the purpose of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk since it
is labour not knowledge that is being sought from
individual workers. Their task could be as mundane
as typing predefined queries into a search engine.
This distinction can be described as the difference
between syntactic labour and semantic labour which
necessarily incorporates analysis, interpretation
and thinking. Crowdoutsourcing is syntactic labour
while seeking crowd-wisdom is the exploitation
of semantic labour.
Similarly, other commonly acknowledged forms
of crowdsourcing lie outside the purpose of
crowdoutsourcing. “Crowd creation” is not directly
relevant to the form of crowdoutsourcing that
Amazon Mechanical Turk is currently offering.
Although the outsourced tasks always involve the
completion of a specific activity this does not usually
result in the production of new goods or services.
The primary purpose of crowdoutsourcing is to
outsource mundane and repetitive tasks to willing
workers who are present within the crowd in order
to free up others who can then focus on strategic,
creative and innovative thinking.
The Future Issue 7
W
What other applications could crowdoutsourcing
be successfully applied to in the future?
#crowdoutsourcing
Comment @salfordbizsch on Twitter
CROWD
OUTSOURCING Article
Aleksej Heinze
This brings us back to the core concepts of
crowdsourcing. In its purest form crowdsourcing
emphasises the positive and cumulative benefits of
collaboration over individual exertion. The various
forms of crowdsourcing including crowdfunding
and crowd-wisdom all look for a direct contribution
that the crowd can make to problem-solving,
innovation or innovating. Crowdoutsourcing
also makes a contribution to innovation but
in this case the impact of the activity is indirect.
Crowdoutsourcing – when it is used as part of
an organisation’s innovation strategy – is the
collaborative method that enables the maintenance
of a current and
temporarily sustainable
status quo of existing
business processes and
by doing so it enables
others to find the
time and freedom to
innovate and create
for an organisation’s
long-term success.
Mechanical Turk gets people
to do simple tasks that it turns
out are incredibly difficult for
most computers.

The Future Issue 9The Future Issue 8
With new technological
advances and bigger budgets
than ever before, is our
future an autonomous one?
Article
Phil
Scarf
S
trategic funding for advanced
robotics is a hot ticket. Governments
across the globe are investing in
initiatives in health (to support
an ageing population) and manufacturing
(to bring it back home). The European
Commission has announced a huge €2.8bn
investment programme. This is funding
that will benefit almost every industry sector.
The Japanese government has announced
that the future of Japan will depend on
robots, and has called for a Robotics Olympics
to run in parallel with the 2020 Olympics
that are also being held in Japan.
On the 1st of July 2015, the British government
announced a £400m investment for innovation in
Robotics and Autonomous Systems. France (€80m),
the US ($US2.2bn) and South Korea ($US316m)
are all investing. These plans will encourage
companies in various industries, such as logistics,
to participate strategically in the robot industry.
China, still far behind the rest of the world in robot-
engineering development, is seen as the biggest
market for robotics technology, not only as a result
of manufacturing development, but also because
demographic change and its one child policy will
make elder-care robots a vital component of its
economy in the very near future. This worldwide
investment is all great news for researchers and
for the encouragement of innovation in the field.
While health, manufacturing and logistics
dominate government strategies, consumer robotics
development is gaining pace. The interest in the
variety of offerings at the most recent Consumer
Electronics Shows reflects the speed of these
developments. The creation of humanoid robots
such as “roboy” (at the University of Zurich)
captures our imagination. However, there is
something of a misconception as to what advanced
robots in the home and every day life will eventually
look like. Not so much the metallic, humanoid
figure pushing the lawn mower that is found in
science fiction films of the 1990s, but more the
hidden autonomous systems that are sensing,
planning, learning and intervening in our everyday
lives (including driverless cars, the monitoring of
the elderly in the home, home environment control
and autonomous shopping systems).
The Future Issue 8
While consumer applications make the headlines,
advanced robotics and autonomous systems is
quietly pioneering efficiency improvements in
manufacturing. The University of Salford and
Salford Business School are driving research
development through a €4m EU Marie Curie
Training Network called SMART-E (Sustainable
Manufacturing through Advanced Robotics
Training in Europe). The SMART-E network
is a team of experts in embodied intelligence
(University of Zurich), soft robotics (Scuola
Superior Sant’Anna), compliant robotics and
dexterous end-effectors (University of Salford),
smart materials (Italian Institute of Technology),
safety and human-machine interaction (Technical
University of Munich), autonomous systems and
statistics (University of Salford), and leading
manufacturers and automation RD companies
(Rolls Royce, Marel, Kuka). The team will train
the next generation of researchers in Advanced
Robotics and Autonomous Systems. The project
is a mix of hard engineering and software systems
development, the former pioneering next-
generation compliant arms and grippers while
the latter will produce computational models
for knowledge processing and learning
manufacturing operations.
The SMART-E project exemplifies the contribution
that Operations people in business schools can
make to the wave of robot development, showing
how business schools can attract
funding at the interface of operations
management and technological
development, and demonstrating
the breadth of influence of business
analytics. The core of the advanced
robot is its “brain”, sensing, controlling,
adapting, and number crunching
analytics is a robot’s primary “thinking”
activity. In the near future, autonomous
systems (aka robot-brains) will be
managing factories, energy systems,
transportation, communications and
health care. The particular role for
Operations Management at Salford
Business School is to develop autonomous systems
for the planning and control of engineering services
in manufacturing, monitoring manufacturing
machines, triggering maintenance interventions,
ordering machine spares, and adapting and
optimising actions. In other words, to develop the
“brain of a maintenance robot”. The end result is a
factory that can reason from available knowledge,
utilise models that are continuously updated
through on-line observation, autonomously plan
actions and learn new models, actions and skills.
There is something
of a misconception as to
what advanced robots in
the home and everyday
life will eventually look like.
What do you expect robots will be doing in
business and in the home in ten years time?
#robotbusiness
SMART-E
The team will train the next generation of researchers
in Advanced Robotics and Autonomous Systems.
THE
ROBOT
BUSINESS

The Future Issue 11
SILENCING
THE
STRIKERS
Are we ready to embrace a trade
union bill, heralding the most
significant tightening of industrial
action since the Thatcher era?
The proposed legislation aims to further tighten
up balloting regulations in relation to strike
mandates. All unions will have to persuade a
minimum of 50 per cent of their members eligible
to vote to participate in any strike ballot in order
for it to be considered lawful. In contrast, current
balloting rules do not require any specific level of
participation by union members. In the ‘essential’
services – health, education, transport and fire
services – as well as the need to obtain the 50 per
cent minimum turnout, at least 40 per cent of those
eligible to vote must support strike action for it to
be lawful. Ballots currently require a simple majority
to back action to be consider lawful.
Not surprisingly many business leaders have
welcomed the prospect of another round of
legislation on strike action with its introduction
of ballot participation thresholds, concurring with
the Conservatives that it would stop strike action
on the basis of ballots that only involve a minority
of members. The argument is that this approach
increases the democratic legitimacy of any action
taken by unions. As the new Conservative
government’s Business Secretary, Sajid Javid,
has claimed: ‘We’ve seen…in the last five years,
strike action that took place where perhaps
only 10 per cent to 15 per cent of the
members of that profession actually
voted for it, and that’s not right, it’s
unfair’ (BBC News, 12 May 2015).
In some respects the pledge to
introduce further restrictive
regulation of strike balloting might
seem ironical given that strike activity
has for the last 20 years remained at
E
ven though strike levels in the UK
have fallen dramatically to their
lowest ever historical level, the
threat and use of strike activity by
trade unions – notably within the public
sector, the location for some 80 per cent
of trade union membership and where
the vast bulk of strikes have taken place
– clearly continues to concern politicians
and business. The Queen’s speech in
May 2015 confirmed the newly elected
Conservative majority government’s
intention to introduce within the first
Parliament a Trade Union Bill that will
effectively herald the most significant
tightening of the rules on industrial action
since the Thatcher era. The most notable
change are the introduction of new voting
thresholds in trade union strike ballots.
Strike activity has for
the last 20 years remained
at historically low levels.
historically low levels, notwithstanding some very
large set-piece one-day public sector strikes. So what
is it that explains the pressure for legislative change?
It would appear the Conservatives’ perceived
‘problem’ is less one that exists now but rather
what is foreseen and feared in the future. With an
economic and political imperative to proceed with
much deeper and more sustained spending cuts
than those previously seen and to tightly control
public sector pay increases, the new Conservative
government’s proposed legislation appears to have
been principally designed to try to make it much
harder for unions to take strike action and to
weaken potential future union resistance to more
austerity. As Dave Ward, the new general secretary
of the Communication Workers Union, has said:
‘This is a Tory government that is planning to
undermine the incomes and conditions of working
people whilst at the same time cynically sabotaging
the very means they have to speak out in protest’
(Express and Star, 27 May 2015).
Survey findings from a study conducted at Salford
Business School of 146 strike ballots conducted by
26 different unions over the period 1997-2015 show
that while in the past unions have generally been
overwhelmingly successful in winning majority ‘yes’
votes in favour of strike action. Under the proposed
legislation many unions would fail to achieve the
Tories’ proposed 50 per cent participation threshold,
and for those that did they would still often fail
to obtain the 40 per cent majority threshold of
those eligible to vote. Although there would be
significant variations across different sectors,
unions and ballots, many unions will find that
the legislation will make it very difficult for them
to mount legal strikes as a means of challenging
employers in national negotiations and in response
to government-initiated austerity measures.
How will the trade unions leaders respond to a
Trade Union Bill that will threaten to undermine
effective trade union organisation and the right
The Future Issue 10
FEAR OF THE ESTABLISHMENT
The threat of strikes in the public sector
still concerns politicians and businesses.
Article
Ralph
Darlington

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STRIKE
MANDATES
The proposed
legislation aims to
further tighten up
balloting regulations
in relation to strike
mandates.
X
to strike? Although Len McCluskey of Unite and
Dave Prentis of Unison have said the unions
might defy the new laws by holding illegal strikes
to fight against job losses and pay restrictions, it
remains to be seen whether such militant rhetoric
is matched by action in practice. While the unions
will undoubtedly campaign vigorously against
the introduction of the proposed new law, they
are also confronted with the dilemma that such
a campaign may well be doomed to defeat given
the Conservatives’ majority in parliament. In an
environment in which strike action that failed
to achieve the support of a legal ballot would
leave the unions exposed to injunctions, damages,
claims and even action for contempt of court,
it seems unlikely that union leaders will defy
thelaw, rather than ‘bend the knee’.
In the process unions will feel obliged to become
more consciously strategic by only balloting those
groups of workers who they can be confident would
attain a 50 per cent participation threshold and
40 per cent eligibility threshold. Any plan to utilise
the Human Rights Act to mount a legal challenge
to the new restrictions on the right to strike is
unlikely to be successful. The Conservatives have
already stated their intention to repeal the HRA
in the not too distant future, thereby breaking
the link between the UK courts and the European
Court of Human Rights.
A more likely prospect is a change in union tactics
with an increased reliance on so-called ‘leverage
campaigns’ or ‘citizen bargaining’ – whereby
unions (such as Unite in the Ineos dispute at
Grangemouth in 2014) use demonstrations,
protests, boycotts, and social media campaigns
to open up new lines of attack on the employers
and its senior management, with the aim of getting
shareholders, customers, suppliers and local
communities to put pressure on the employers
to back union demands.
The Future Issue 12
“
THIS IS A TORY
GOVERNMENT THAT
IS PLANNING TO
UNDERMINE THE INCOMES
AND CONDITIONS OF
WORKING PEOPLE WHILST
AT THE SAME TIME
CYNICALLY SABOTAGING
THE VERY MEANS
THEY HAVE TO SPEAK
OUT IN PROTEST
”(Express and Star, 27 May 2015)
What are the prospects for unofficial and
wildcat strike action as the austerity agenda
proceeds apace?
#futurestrikes
In the United States, community campaigns have
been used to help win improvements in pay and
conditions in different industries. The outcomes
have been to force companies such as Walmart and
MacDonald’s to offer pay increases after customer
and public protests outside stores. Likewise, in the
UK staff at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton, south London,
fought off redundancies and won the living wage in
2014 after the threat of a boycott by cinema-goers.
In the face of the tightening of the rules on industrial
action, these type of campaigns – which operate
outside the law on industrial action ballot are likely
to become the ‘weapon of choice’ for the unions.
Meanwhile, it is possible that, against the backcloth
of a new wave of spending cuts affecting pensions,
jobs, pay, and working conditions, some groups
of workers coming into collusion with the legal
liabilities of organising strike ballots will take
unofficial and wildcat strike action, thereby
undermining the legislation. In other words,
far from ‘improving’ industrial relations as the
government claims, the proposals may create a
much more bitter and destabilising state of affairs.

The Future Issue 14
The future of
transport is
around the
corner, but
who is in the
driving seat?
he recent claims that Google
may soon be offering free rides
for those willing to become
a passenger in one of their
driverless cars offers a small glimpse into
the future of transport. These rumours
of Google’s apparently charitable but
potentially Uber-breaking taxi service
were followed only days later by the
announcement that Amazon would be
offering a one-hour service from ordering
to delivery.
While transport logistics – and especially freight –
might appear to be at the most mundane end of
the retail consumer experience it still remains a
significant barrier – if not the most significant
barrier – to enjoying the combined benefits of the
sociality of the high street with the convenience
of ecommerce. The thought of driverless white
vans just does not have the same appeal as
driverless passenger cars. The attention grabbing
media headlines so far have been about the use
of driverless cars to create a continuously updated
Google Streetview and the near miss of two
driverless cars on “real” Californian streets. Away
from the headlines it is in logistics that the benefits
of combining artificial intelligence and “Internet of
Things” technology in the form of driverless vehicles
will have the most impact. In effect, driverless
vehicles can solve the “last mile problem”.
The “last mile problem” is a recognition of the very
many supply chain difficulties involved in getting
people and packages to their final destination.
Research shows that as many as 50% of home parcel
deliveries fail at the first attempt with a similar
figure being quoted for the second attempt. The
rates of failure are claimed to climb even higher in
specific regions including London. The problems of
congested transport systems are only compounded
further when over 40% of consumers regularly
order multiple sizes of clothes in order to get the
right fit while also taking advantage of retailers’ free
returns policies. But the problem of failed deliveries
and variable clothing sizes are only one half of the
last mile problem. The inability to get consumers
into the high street brought about by combinations
of high parking fees, restricted spaces and poor
disconnected public transport infrastructure
represents the other half of the “last mile” problem
and has been a major influencing factor on the
perceived decline in the quality of UK high streets.
A free ride from Google could provide the solution
to both parts of this complex, expensive and
polluting problem. Using driverless vehicles to
move parcels from retailers and warehouses to
residential areas – when the recipients are known
to be available to receive their parcel – could be
complemented on the vehicle’s return journey by
the movement of people from residential locations
towards the high street for socialising as well as
some “discovery” shopping.
This dual and hybrid use of vehicles for carrying
both freight and passenger seems unfamiliar in an
era where all of our public transport functions have
become neatly and functionally disentangled. Trucks
carry freights, buses carry people and different types
of trains serve different functions. To find an earlier
form of public transport that integrated multiple
functions requires a step back beyond the motor
vehicle to the era of the stagecoach when regular
services between towns took people and parcels
for varying fees but without discrimination.
The re-combining of people and parcels into a
driverless vehicle also solves a new challenge that
is the direct result of having no driver. Currently
drivers of delivery vans also perform the key
function of confirming the delivery of an item
to the recipient or a trusted third party. In a
driverless vehicle there is no one to cover the
“last yard” of the delivery (or the “first yard”
of the return).
The Future Issue 15
Is this the future of transport
and parcel deliveries?
#futuretransport
All those “free” rides being offered by Google
might have a cost after all. Taking a free ride could
also enrol those who take up the opportunity
for travel to become Google’s unpaid delivery
workers. The opportunity is also another example
of crowdoutsourcing on a potentially massive
scale. The passenger helps to make deliveries and
collect returns. The driverless car silently calculates
optimum routes to weave between the collection
and delivery of people and parcels constantly
managing a chain of trust through apps, facial
recognition and ‘mutual signing’ of deliveries.
It is in logistics that the benefits of
combining artificial intelligence and “Internet
of Things” technology in the form of
driverless vehicles will have the most impact.
GOOGLE,
FREE RIDES
DRIVERLESS
CARS.
T
Article
Gordon
Fletcher

H
ow would you feel if with a
simple finger tap while sitting
on your own sofa a whole
production process could be
triggered? And how would you feel if
this tap was just the beginning of a whole
series of processes that would bring
your favourite box of sugar-free assorted
biscuits to your home? At the same time,
the biscuit manufacturer would have no
excessive stock or inventory shortages
to control. This scenario is what happens
when mass customisation meets the
“Internet of Things” and when cyber-
physical manufacturing systems meet
big data predictive analytics.
The biscuit factory of the future (as well as other
manufacturers) is based on new manufacturing
and supply chain management philosophy. What
can be described as the “theory of multi-sequence”.
Although it sounds futuristic, a time when enabling
technologies - that bring the virtual and physical
worlds together – will create a truly networked
world where a consumer’s finger will initiate the
manufacturing process is not too far away.
There has already been a lot of debate about and use
of, cyber-physical systems. These systems represent
the next generation of manufacturing and they have
increasingly come to replace the embedded systems
that currently are used to deliver manufacturing
processes. For example, the bottle of fresh milk you
find on supermarket shelves with varying package
sizes and different fat content is the result of fully
automated systems with embedded technology.
However, embedded systems such as these are
isolated from the rest of the world. By connecting
data and services through the “Internet of Things”
will allow embedded systems to form more complex
and responsive cyber-physical systems.
The challenge for manufacturing companies in
the future is how they will build innovative data
products and services. The systems of the future
will need to turn large data volumes into meaningful
data assets that can interact with a range of different
types of devices and lead to quantifiable gains
in competitive advantage in the marketplace. In
almost all high volume manufacturing plants the
vast majority of data suffer from neglect or even
misuse. However, manufacturing companies will
only survive by recognizing the valuable data that
is obtained from their most treasured asset, their
own customers.
The solution lies in transforming into the factories of
the future by engaging in Industrial Revolution 4.0.
This manufacturing “rebellion” marries production
and network connectivity into an “Internet of Things”
complete with big data analytics that makes the new
industrial revolution a reality.
This new type of intelligent production follows three
trends. The first is connectivity, which is essential
to the development of the future workplace.
Manufacturing processes will seamlessly and
bidirectionally interact with real-world objects and
environments on a global scale and across a variety
of application domains and stakeholders. The result
is the “Internet of Things”. Machines will speak to
each other through cloud connectivity and will
integrate in order to manage the demands of
variable consumer demand and different physical
capacity. At the same time, workers’ direct interaction
with physical systems will enable processes that
are real world aware, event based, and significantly
more adaptive than today’s current processes.
The result is increased visibility, responsiveness,
and safety in the workplace of the future.
Mobility will play a fundamental role in the
workplace of the future by providing both operators
and supervisors with critical real-time data at their
fingertips. Mobility goes beyond the need of pure
connectivity to support manufacturing business
needs including the need to data and receive
contextual and intelligent analytics. Manufacturing
firms will develop a next generation of mobility
assisted applications such as manufacturing
and logistics tracking and tracing tools, product
genealogy, and cross channel product distribution.
Lastly, intelligence is required to assimilate and
make meaning from the huge amounts of data
originating as a result of increased collaboration.
As a result when you place your order of sugar-free
biscuits from your new self-driving car with its
enhanced connectivity it will render meaningful
information on the fly on mobile devices for
managers and supervisors on the factory floor.
The development of intelligent tools capable of
performing time data analysis and forecasting even
for the most complex event processing will become
essential for any manufacturer.
Which manufacturers will be the first
to become ‘smart’ manufacturers?
#futuremanufacture
TOMORROW’S
FORECAST
CYBER-PHYSICAL
MANUFACTURING
THROUGH THE CLOUD
Does the future of manufacturing lie in the “theory of
multi-sequence” where a consumer can initiate the manufacturing
process through cloud connectivity from their own sofa?
The Future Issue 16 The Future Issue 17
Article
Christos
Papanagnou
A truly
networked world
where a consumer’s
finger will initiate
the manufacturing
process.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT
WHAT ANYBODY ELSE
IS GOING TO DO...
THE BEST WAY TO
PREDICT THE FUTURE
IS TO INVENT IT ALAN KAY
ATARI AND XEROX PARC

TENDiSRuP-
TiVe
TeCH-
NOLGieS
FoR tHe
FUTuRE
1Personal
molecular
sensors
These handheld sensors can
provide a summary of the chemical
composition of an object. The
object in question could be any item
including food or clothing. This
sensor has the potential to disrupt
a number of industries as well as
bringing greater self-awareness for
dieters and the health conscious.
www.consumerphysics.com/myscio
Industrial
standard
FinTech
There is a quiet revolution going on
in finance. The application of technology
including social media and communications
technologies into the financial arena is
slowly threatening the position of banks
as the gatekeeper in personal financial
management. Peer to Peer loans were
only the start of the FinTech revolution.
www.theguardian.com/small-business-
network/2015/apr/24/fintech-traditional-banking-
tech-investors/
Kit based
building
construction
Systems for quickly constructing habitable buildings
is important in times of disaster and crisis.
Increasingly the housing shortage in the UK and
elsewhere is forcing a need to reconsider traditional
building techniques more thoroughly. Most systems
are inspired by Lego or Fuller’s Geodesic Dome.
www.domekit.cc
Connected
interactive
everything
The “Internet of Things” simply put means that
everything is online – always. The things in this
network receive data (about the who is nearby, other
things that are close and the current conditions) and
send out data. The potentially infinite combination
of things equally creates near infinite opportunities.
www.ninjablocks.com www.variableinc.com
High streets
become
tech-free
mini-breaks
As high streets in the UK risk becoming irrelevant
against the rise of high-speed ecommerce there
is an opportunity for these places to employ an
old technology – in the form of the Faraday Cage –
and make high streets a museum of the “old days”
before Wi-Fi, RFID and Bluetooth. The Faraday
Cage makes any form of radio communications
impossible and would turn the high street into
a place for mini-breaks away from email, phone
calls and texts.
www.computerworld.com/article/2547046/data-
privacy/faraday-cages.html
Distributed Autonomous
Corporations (DACs)
Using artificial intelligence, network technology and advanced algorithms
companies would run autonomously based on a set of pre-defined
business rules and would react to unexpected change based on
responses that the system would learn and improve over time.
The shareholders – the only humans in the corporations –
would have no involvement in the day-to-day operations.
These are the corporations made for the “Internet of Things”.
www.aeon.co/magazine/technology/are-we-ready-for-companies-
that-run-themselves
Tactile remote
telepresence
If everything is digital and virtual there is no space for touch
and contact. Tactile telepresence brings touch back into the
spaces created by social media and teleworking to enable
another form of human contact.
www.tinypaperclips.com
Integrated
and seamless
cross-platform
personal
marketing
Despite the early championing of social media by marketing
agencies there is still a long way to go to the achievement of
the current goal of digital marketing – true cross-platform
marketing. The aim is not to cover every possible social media
channel with the same campaigns
but rather to break away from
the constraints of a single device
in order to target a campaign to
an individual across all of their
own personal devices.
Personal
DNA
machines
DNA is already a big business for family history
research and is increasingly used in criminal cases.
As an individual fingerprint a person’s DNA is a
unique marker. Personal DNA machines open up
a range of opportunities as well as creating a range
of ethical issues and potentially worse.
www.openpcr.org
Small scale power
generation and storage
While the Polywell fusion reactor is an extreme view of personal electricity
generation there are a wide range of wind, solar and hydro projects that focus
on generating power on a personal or household level. The recently announced
Tesla Powerwall also tackles the problem of storing this newly captured energy
“off the grid”. The increased power consumption brought about by the wide
use of digital devices is only one reason why personal power generation is an
important technology.
www.esearch.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=238715
www.teslamotors.com/en_GB/powerwall
3
7
5
2
4
6
8
9
10

The Future Issue 22
igital fitness is a growing
phenomenon and it is a
connected fact that the market
for apps is expected to grow
from $US 2.4 billion in 2013 to $US 26
billion by 2017. These numbers are just
the start. All the major manufacturers of
hardware and software including Intel
and Apple as well as major social media
platforms like Facebook are furiously
working to gain market leverage in the
field of digital fitness or ‘mHealth’.
But why is this business so lucrative and what does
the future hold? With the massive explosion of
smartphones and apps, people are not only more
connected but are also more conscious about their
own health and well-being. Newsfeeds, activity
trackers and even Youtube channels all promote
the message of a healthy lifestyle. Couple this
exposure to information with the volume of people,
often competitive people, who are online within
local and global social networks and there is the
added incentive of comparing and sharing our
fitness and health-based activities with others.
The Future Issue 23
D
FUTURE
FIT
Combining
your fitness
data with
other more
conventional
‘social’ data
opens up a
myriad of
possibilities.
Article
Alex
Fenton
The future of digital fitness lies beyond the screen
as we now begin to connect ourselves to devices
such as fitness wristbands and other “no interface”
items that contribute to the creation of the “Internet
of Things”. In the future however, we may not need
or indeed want a wristband, armband or any other
type of cumbersome add-on. The sports watch
market is evolving rapidly and it is evolving away
from the current form of the watch. It may be that
your t-shirt, trainers or yourself contains the smart,
Internet connected sensors that will eventually come
to surpass the capabilities of current smartphones
and wristbands that we now use.
Instead of wearing a wristband or using a phone to
simply measure how far or fast you ran, how long
you slept or your heart rate during these activities,
smart sensors and the next generation of apps
will become your personal coach. With smarter
algorithms, better sensors and more artificially
intelligent software – your app will get to know you
and then give you sound advice for future activities.
The data captured from you and your surroundings
will enable better insights than any personal trainer
and the psychology of the interaction will motivate
you while continuing to adapt to your own
preferences. Your digital personal trainer will
know when you need to work harder or not. The
digital trainer will take into account the very many
variables it is continuously receiving from your
muscles, heart and sleep patterns and matching
them up with your current location and the time.
Perhaps we will eventually reach a plateau in the
number of people that would really want this level of
personal detail about themselves. Smartphones are
Which sports will be the first to share their
stars health data?
#futurehealth
already tracking your fitness data and this may
be valuable to you, but it is even more valuable
to others. For example, social networks and search
engines will be able to tell so much more about
you from your fitness data than simply who your
friends are, what you search for and the data you
share. Combining your fitness data with other
more conventional ‘social’ data opens up a myriad
of possibilities for you and for the companies that
provide the social networks and search engines that
you use and from them ultimately the advertisers
who can precisely target you in a way that could
appear to pre-suppose your future actions.
In the future, people will worry less about sharing
this real-time data and comparing fitness data will
be regarded as acceptable as sharing your social
media updates. Maybe nobody cares that you ran
10k today, but the mass capture and sharing of this
data in addition to other social interactions will
lead to new possibilities and better connections.
This constant monitoring of data will also be true
of top sporting teams and celebrities. The top teams
are already using player fitness data privately to gain
a competitive advantage and clubs and players are
using social media to engage with fans. In the future,
sports teams at all levels will benefit from the use
of this data for insight and engagement.
Rather than simply following Tweets from Cristiano
Ronaldo in the future, you will be able to see in
real-time how he is performing on and off the pitch
for a range of parameters. The world’s leading sports
teams will demand open access to this data, because
it will engage audiences globally and this fact will
outweigh the benefits of secrecy. When social media
engagement became the expected norm for sports
teams it was also a disruptive step forward. We will
eventually look back to this current situation and
be surprised that 37 million people following social
media health updates of a single footballer was
anything but the norm.
The future of digital fitness is about moving away
from the screen and the reporting of individual
activity. It is about using the data for better stories,
personalisation and for engagement. It is also about
becoming healthier, identifying potential problems
or risks before they occur and in becoming more
comfortable with the sharing of that health data
when it makes sense to do so. I am personally
looking forward to it.
A NEW AGE OF
HEALTH AND FITNESS
FOR WELL-BEING
AND ENGAGEMENT

M
E
U
O
A
Y
R
V
K
O
M
E
Salford Business SchoolSalford Business School
The Future Issue 25
Going forward,
will autocratic
control of power
in the economy
effectively crowd
out democratic
control of power
in the polity?
Can legitimacy survive this combination? Indeed,
more pointedly, what price do communities pay
for this combination? In the economic arena this
combination can provide bread and pop today.
But what of the future?
I have jumped from political democracy in
communities to the economic autocracy of business.
Following the democratic revolutions of the 17th
and 18th centuries institutional leadership in the
political arena was progressively subjected to citizen
control. However, at the same time, in the economic
arena the property rights of owners gave them
autocratic control over policy, strategy, operations,
and tactics. In other words, owners of property have
control of institutional, executive, operational, and
frontline leadership. As a consequence ‘within firms
tasks are doled out by fiat and strategies are set by
the Politburo of the corporate board’ (see Ronald
Coase obituary, The Economist, 7th Sept 2013).
The concern is that business schools typically
position strategic leadership of the enterprise as
being the combined responsibility for policy and
strategy and strategic leadership in the enterprise
as the responsibility for operations and tactics.
Levels of leadership are framed as strategic,
operational, and frontline leadership. Whatever
happened to community authorised institutional
leadership and to enterprise legitimacy? The
business revolution of the 19th century came
Article
David
Beech
ccording to Edward Snyder,
Dean of Yale School of
Management, writing in 2012,
business schools on the global
commons are required to enable students
to understand and to make a leadership
contribution that is relevant to:
• Increasing complexities within
and across business and society.
• The way markets work and the
unrelenting nature of competition.
• The way organisations function
and the role of teams, networks,
and individual leadership.
According to Clausewitz, writing in the early
19th century, strategy is the means to policy
ends through operations and tactics. From this
point of view strategy is goal directed thinking,
resource deployment, coordination, and learning
to produce adaptive action and outcomes in
evolving conditions. There’s a lot going on here.
In particular, Clausewitz makes a clear distinction
between establishing and renewing policy and
crafting and adapting strategy to realise policy.
In peace and war political leaders do policy and
policy is legitimate to the extent that it is accepted
by the community it is directed towards. In war
generals do strategy and deploy this through an
operational infrastructure and tactical engagement
with an enemy (competitor). However, generals,
like Napoleon, may capture power and combine
the institutional leadership responsibility for policy
making with executive responsibility for strategy.
A
between the earlier democratic revolution and the
educational revolution of the 20th century. In other
words the democratic political revolution laid the
foundations for an autocratic business revolution
and both revolutions contributed to subsequent
educational change. Going forward will autocratic
control of power in the economy effectively crowd
out democratic control of power in the polity? Is one
dollar, one vote the way ahead? Perhaps attention
to the political economy of leadership would better
equip students to understand and make a leadership
contribution to some of the ‘complexities within
and across business and society’.
In the meantime, at the very least, conceptualisations
of strategic leadership need to recognise the
distinctions between institutional, executive,
operational, and frontline leadership. Crucially a
distinction between institutional leadership and
executive leadership needs to be acknowledged.
Growing separation in firms of the roles of a policy
chair and an executive CEO offers some degree of
practical recognition of the distinction. More is
required if global citizenship is to mean more than
only better access for everyone to the ‘necessaries
and conveniences of life’.
A distinction
between institutional
leadership and
executive leadership
needs to be
acknowledged.
THE FUTURE OF STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
(AND THE PROSPECTS FOR DEMOCRACY)

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Salford Business School.
The Future Issue 26
Will business schools enable their students
to contribute to diminishing or to enhancing
general adaptive capacity?
#futurestrategy
4
INSTITUTIONAL LEADERSHIP
OF THE ENTERPRISE
A board level responsibility for enterprise identity
and legitimacy. Achieving and sustaining legitimacy
requires the board of an economic enterprise or
the legislature of a political enterprise (polity)
to gain ongoing support and authorisation from
the wider community for enterprise purpose,
actions and outcomes that are in the interests
of the common good. This is the governance
responsibility of institutional leadership.
EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP
OF THE ENTERPRISE
The top level management team who take
responsibility for crafting, realising, and evolving
strategic purpose – identity, direction, aims, and
values of an enterprise and its staff and associates –
in relation to competitive position and to constant
variation in configurations of external and internal
stakeholder interests and aims and associated
value chains.
OPERATIONAL LEADERSHIP
IN THE ENTERPRISE
The senior and middle manager responsibility
for crafting and evolving within and between
enterprise infrastructure – structures, systems,
capabilities, and cultures – through which people
implement, review, and evolve identity, purpose,
and coordinated action and learning for stakeholder
benefits in evolving circumstances.
FRONTLINE LEADERSHIP
IN THE ENTERPRISE
The frontline manager, team leader, and supervisor
responsibility for realising strategic purpose by
engaging people in action and learning through
which strategy is implemented and evolved for
stakeholder benefits.
THE FOUR BROAD
AREAS WHICH FALL
WITHIN THE SCOPE
OF STRATEGIC
LEADERSHIP ARE
RESPONSIBILITIES
FOR...
More generally leadership in each of these four areas
is the exercise of reciprocal influence which engages
people in action for common aims and mutual
benefits in evolving circumstances. Leadership is
the exercise of influence in relation to a common
goal. Every single person, including primary school
children, has the capacity to exercise influence.
What varies and differentiates between leadership
roles and practices are the scale, scope, and impact
of that leadership by an individual. Attention to
the common good of citizens, their communities,
and their ecosystems must be central to any
educational enterprise.
LEVELS OF LEADERSHIP
Leadership is the exercise of influence
and everyone can exercise influence.

Will the future blueprint for education
make aspiring to be an engineer as attractive
an option as becoming a footballer?
ith all the media hype
coming from Westminster
perhaps the great British
public could be forgiven
for assuming that UK engineering is well
on the road to recovery. The truth is that
the British connection to engineering
has never really left us. It is perhaps more
accurate to recognise that the traditional
face of UK engineering has changed
considerably over recent years. The entire
sector has become leaner, more agile, more
customer focussed and most importantly
has found ways to diversify in the global
marketplace ... this pace and form of
change on the whole has produced the
framework for an industrial success story.
Why have we – the UK public – generally been
so negative about this success? Put simply it is
proof of the validity of the old adage that headline
news always focuses on the bad news first. As a
consequence the negative images of UK engineering
has produced a serious impact on the sector. What
the UK Government is now putting at the forefront
of future engineering development – and what
many in the engineering sector recognise as the real
source of the problem is to address a serious and
worrisome skills shortage.
As ‘Think Tanks’ look at the future of the engineering
sector there is a recognition that there is no realistic
‘fast track’ or ‘quick fix’ to the dilemma. However,
at least for now, we are seeing something being
done. The long and continuous cry from the UK
professional bodies (today’s engineers) to bring
back apprenticeships is now starting to pick up
pace, particularly with the development of industry
supported University Technical Colleges (UTCs).
Nothing new here though! Many readers from
an earlier generation will remember ‘Technical
Colleges’. These institutions were great servants
in the development of the engineers of yesteryear.
The approach of these institutions worked and
we have the living proof.
So, something is being done and you could say
anything is better than nothing. However, it is no
use bemoaning the low number of school leavers
coming forward for apprenticeships or the poor
quality of engineering undergraduates if industry
and nationally very little is being done to sell
engineering as an attractive option for school-leavers.
Our future and urgent attention needs to be focused
on the very early stages of education. This process
has started but progress is slow. Slow uptakes could
mean that the UTCs will be closing before they are
up and running. Research from the UK Engineering
Council and Engineering Employers Federation
both show the critical importance of engaging
potential engineers at a young age. Beyond the UK
it is possible to witness youngsters from primary
school age saying they want to be an engineer when
they grow up. In the UK, youthful aspirations are
more likely to be expressed in terms of becoming
a footballer or pop star.
The situation is not all bad news. The engineering
sector itself is surviving well and with relative
success. The UK is still recognised globally as one
of the leading innovators and developers in new
products. For example, do you use a Hoover or
Dyson? “God Save the Queen” is regularly played
at F1 for the manufacturer. The apparent dinosaurs
of past glories have had to move with the times or
die. 97% of UK engineering companies are now
SMEs. This compares to twenty-five years ago when
they consisted of just fewer than fifty percent of
the engineering sector. Subsequently, the sector
itself has learnt to diversify into new products and
markets as a mechanism for competitive survival.
UK Engineering has survived some very tough
times in the past and, despite negative publicity, it
is still here. The UK has increasingly been branded
as purely a service country, but arguably for every
service company you can find an engineering
company that actually makes something. The reality
is that ‘Engineering’ as we knew and imagined it
has changed and diversified considerably in order
to survive and more importantly to succeed.
The major problem facing UK Engineering now, is
how to effectively resource and address a widening
skills gap in order to ensure future survival. Are we
really doing enough to make becoming a engineer
as attractive an option as aspiring to become a
footballer or pop star? I hope not. A closing thought,
albeit thanks to Jeremy Clarkson, officially our
second greatest Briton is Isambard Kingdom Brunel,
but would an average seven year old know who he
was in comparison to David Beckham?
Article
Jonathan Owens
So, is there a secure future for the UK Engineering sector?
#futureengineering
28
Axis of Rotation
Aspiring Engineer
Aspiring Engineer
4.12cm
4.12cm

What aspects of your identity are you happy
to share online?
#digitalidentities
WHAT
DOES THE
FUTURE
OF
DIGITAL
IDENTITY
LOOK
LIKE?
R
emember the now old adage,
“On the Internet, no one knows
you are a dog”? The statement
had meaning when there appeared
to be a clear line between ‘real’ life and
being online. Fast forward to the start
of 2015 and there were over three billion
global Internet users (Internet World Stats)
– that is a lot of identities and they can’t all
be of the canine variety.
Our online identity can be defined as the assemblage
of electronic information that differentiates us as an
individual, but unlike the majority of components
that form our physical identities many online
identities are ephemeral in nature, leaving behind
a trail of digital footprints in virtual spaces. It is at
this juncture we face a quandary.
Our public identity impinges on our personal
privacy. You can’t have one without impacting on
the other and with digital activities part of ‘real’
life we are now in the realms where the two entities
have become blurred beyond any sensible form
of separation. Our reality has become ever more
complex. A typical person is likely to have a range
of social networking profiles and sometimes
multiple ones; professional and educational profiles;
digitally enabled and accessible accounts through a
diverse range of service providers including banks,
utility companies, government and ecommerce
sites and different cloud providers. All of this is
consumed through a range of screens depending
on opportunity, time of the day and location.
The current three billion or so Internet users could
easily amount to over 30 billion aspects of online
identities (a very conservative guess). Almost every
one of these aspects of online identity contains
some sensitive personal information, and with the
growing sharing culture that comes with social
networking, this makes every identity potentially
vulnerable to a security threat. The most common
threats – and unsurprisingly not generally well
recognised by everyday consumers – are described
as man in the middle (MITM), man in the browser
(MITB) or now more commonly man in the mobile
(MITM). This form of malware is an eavesdropping
attack that allows attackers to intercept, send
and receive data not meant for them. A further
sophistication is Zeus-in-the-mobile (ZITMO),
one of the most popular botnets responsible for
hacking into thousands of online banking accounts.
Keylogging is also a common threat, which is the
act of covertly capturing, and recording the keys
struck on a keyboard. These types of threats have
one universal goal and that is to steal aspects of
a person’s identity.
So how does the individual manage the assemblage
of personas and accounts that make up their online
identity? On the one hand there is encouragement
from the social networking sites to not only use
their social network services, but also to take up
the offer of easy to use and consistent sign-ins so
that your Facebook, Twitter or Google+ account
becomes the gateway to other services on the
Internet. Many users are unaware that the price they
pay for this service is to release ever greater amounts
of their data. Common log-in systems offer the
prospect of enabling the tech behemoths to track
their activity across the web. The result is a
further erosion of privacy and even greater
overlapping of the supposedly different
personas an individual may have at different
social media sites.
The rapid explosion of wearables and health
related apps shows that the need for individuals to
take control of, and secure their personal data is
increasingly important. When one health insurer
has pushed the use of a Facebook-owned app
onto its customers as the price for them retaining
existing benefits it is clear that individuals cannot
trust every organisation they interact with to
keep their personal data private. What then, for
the user who wants to retain control? How do we
encourage young people who only know a world
of sharing to take control of their data? There are
some encouraging signs. iRights contexualises
young people’s rights for the digital world. Two
of these rights – the right to know who is holding
their information and the right to remove personal
information – go a long way to putting individual
users back in control of their identity. The proposed
EU Data Protection reforms are likely to include
some form of ‘right to be forgotten’, but these in
themselves do not help users manage their data
on a day-to-day basis.
Individual online identity is not fixed. It is constantly
shifting and evolving – like dunes in the sand, but
unlike footprints online identity is much harder to
erase. Users must understand what individual elements
of identity they have made public. As researchers we
need to better understand the extent of our online
identity and digital footprints. The authors have
undertaken the first steps in this project by attempting
to capture an individual’s digital footprint. In our
on-going study “A Day in the Digital Life” the
project aims to create a lightweight, repeatable
methodology to quantity the digital footprint of an
individual using a broad range of technologies; GPS
tracks, phone logs, key-logging software and video
technology, in order to interrogate all of a single
person’s online activity in one day.
Article
Maria Kutar and Marie Griffiths
Unlike footprints
online identity is much
harder to erase.
A HIVE OF
SOCIAL ACTIVITY
A typical person is likely
to have a range of social
networking profiles and
sometimes multiple ones.

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I
started my academic career in 1991,
the year the World Wide Web was
invented and arguably one of the most
significant technical innovations in
the history of humanity. In a quarter of
a century the web, together with digital
media more generally, has had and will
continue to have a greater impact on
education than any other development
in our lifetimes. If we reflect on the
impact of the web so far we will develop
our knowledge of the future.
In a thought provoking article in the Guardian
newspaper on 25 June 2015, Simon Jenkins
discusses where we are at in the ‘post-digital world’.
A good example is found in the music industry.
When Dylan played an electric guitar at Newport
folk festival in 1965 the audience booed, fearing the
death of ‘real’ music. The growth of recorded music
was thought to presage the death of live music,
and with online music streaming from the 1990s
onwards this was surely just a matter of time. Who
would go and see a band in the future? In fact, live
music is booming. There are 900 music festivals
in Britain alone this year with an expected
attendance of seven million people! Glastonbury
has continually developed the live experience over
40 years. Have poetry and books been killed by
the Kindle? Poetry and literary festivals are
booming. The crowds will all have their phones,
but listening and looking online is not comparable
to the live experience. You can meet people online
but Tinder’s rapid growth is because it enables
dating very quickly and simply. The importance
of the “live experience” is growing, facilitated and
augmented by ever more sophisticated digital media.
This is the future.
Understanding the power of live experience is
fundamental to the future of education. Some years
ago we thought that perhaps online
learning would become increasingly
sophisticated, cheaper and more
accessible and then who would
want to attend a University? Online
learning has indeed improved and
will continue to do so. There has been
rapid growth in online learning, but
when I recently asked students on
one of our online courses what the
best aspect of the course was – they
all replied that it was the live session,
meeting and working with other
students and tutors. Fees have not
deterred students. University numbers
are growing.
What are your best live experiences
in education?
#livepower
Article
Chris
Procter
Don’t underestimate
the power of
live experience.
Some years ago a colleague, Aleksej Heinze, and
I conducted some research on blended learning.
We were keen to point out then (which bears
repeating now) that a “blend” is not a mixture of
digital media and live experience in the same way
that a good meal is not just a mixture of ingredients.
Effective blended learning is a combination of
digital media (including online learning) and live
experience designed on the basis of research and
continuous improvement. Given that all learning
will be blended to some degree in the future,
it follows that the tutor of the future needs an
understanding of the best elements of the blend
and how to combine them. Use of new technology
will be essential and will change, but the real wow
for the student will remain the live experience.
It is this part of the blend that has to be designed
and planned with great thought and care. The live
experience will also continue to change and needs
to be continually adjusted to ensure that the blend
is never just a bland mixture.
The importance of
the “live experience” is
growing, facilitated and
augmented by ever more
sophisticated digital media.

Ready to work with us?
We’d love to talk things through.
Email
sbs-employability@salford.ac.uk
Call
0161 295 6171
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