Insights

Unlearning to Evolve: Summit Keynote Summary

Dec 16, 2016

At the 2016 Toll-Free User Summit, we heard from a renowned futurist, author, and speaker, Jack Uldrich. Jack is a specialist in technology, change-management and leadership.  He has experience with organizations ranging from Fortune 100 companies to state governments which made him ideal to lead our discussion around technology and innovation, and the impact it is having on Toll-Free.

Jack talked with us about the future of Toll-Free, as well as about the world as a whole. With such rapid progress in technology across the globe, the world’s economy is changing at an incredible rate.

He stressed that the things people want and need isn’t going to change; the change is going to come from how they fulfill those wants and needs. Hyper-efficient computers, mobile accessibility, augmented reality, virtual reality, the internet of things — these are all evolving to map onto the way people are speeding up and enhancing how they perform the necessary tasks of life. So, how is the Toll-Free industry going to leverage these advances in technology to change how we serve our customers?

The key to successful adaptation and evolution is being able to see impending changes before they come, being able to accept them, and prepare for their arrival.  Netflix is a key example, with the founder’s foresight to adapt and lead the transition to streaming and then again to original content generation. In the Toll-Free world, we need to become the Netflix of our industry. Professionals still want Toll-Free Numbers, but which professionals want them, why they want them, and how they want them is going to change in the coming years. It is up to us, the thought leaders of the Toll-Free industry, to figure out that puzzle and deliver a solution to our customers.

It's Time to Unlearn

To achieve the evolution that is so necessary to our industry, we need to be willing to unlearn the things we think we know.  Jack laid out for us the principles of unlearning. Even today, at this very moment, there are old, outdated assumptions that we still hold true about the way the world works. For example, most of the audience believed that yield signs were yellow, when they’ve been regulation red for decades. The task of unlearning, however, doesn’t have to be scary or challenging. We simply need to be always willing to learn new ways to do our business and be humble enough to accept the changes as they come.

The future is a world of opportunity and unprecedented advancement. Where does Toll-Free fit in? The answer is for us to discover as we work together to incorporate these technological and social advancements into our business models. In the age of innovation, the time has come for us to boldly look to the horizon and make Toll-Free an industry of the future.

Missed the Keynote Session at the 2016 Toll-Free User Summit? Click here to view it now on-demand.