30 Inspiring Quotes about the Future

The other day, I stumbled into Dr. Travis Bradberry’s article about leadership quotes on LinkedIn. Reading his article, inspired me to write.. again. Thank you for the inspiration.

Let the journey begins.

If one needs a reminder, here it is. The past, present, and future are connected. Even the smallest things we do today will shape our future.

Confusius says, “The man that moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

Here you go, some of my favorite inspirational quotes:

1. “Real generosity toward the future lies in giving it all to the present.” ~Albert Camus

2. “Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.” ~Napoleon Hill

3. “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have today. Let us begin.” ~Mother Teresa

4. “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

5. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

The Future of U.S. Workforce in 4 Charts

The demographic makeup of the U.S. workforce is changing. We are looking towards a more diverse America where the future of U.S. workforce will be younger, more diverse (than today), digitally connected, and care about sustainability (including transparency).

Here are the four charts that show the workforce trend going forward.

#1. Millennials are the Largest Group in U.S. Workforce

It’s official that millennials overtake baby boomers as the largest generation. In 2015, the millennials generation surpassed Generation-X and baby boomers to become the largest segment of American workforce, where one-in-three American workers are millennials.

Millennials are those who were born between 1980-2000.

#2. Very Diverse Workforce

In 2010 census, minority children accounted for 46% of the population under 18 (2010) vs 31% in 1990 and they’re bilingual (more than their parents).

Since 2000, the three racial groups that have experienced growth are, Hispanics (39% increase), Asians B (31%), and mixed race (46%). According to Pew Research, by 2055, there won’t be no majority racial group.

#3. Smartphone Nation

The staggering number of smartphone users.

• By February 2016, 198.9 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones or 79.3% market penetration.
• Yes Apple sold the most number of smartphones (41.9% users) followed by Samsung (27.8%), however, Android phones (52.7%) still leading the platform use followed by Apple (43.1%). (source: comScore)
• It is estimated that the U.S. will have nearly 220 million smartphone users by 2017, which roughly corresponds to ten percent of the estimated number of all smartphone users worldwide for that year. (source: Statistica)

By 2020, eMarketer forecast 276.7 million people  in the U.S. will have at least one mobile phone.

 

#4. Work for Purpose

Millennials will make up 50% of the workforce by 2020 and they want to work for organizations that focus on purpose.

According to Deloitte Millennials Survey, two-thirds of millennials surveyed “they express a desire to leave the organization by 2020.” Generation of future leaders also want businesses to focus more on 3Ps — people, products, and purpose and less on profit — if they want the next gen to stay with the organization.

How these trends going to impact?

• Business: emphasis diversity and inclusion, potential for creation of (new) products, and going digital.
• Individuals: The world is connected 24/7. Some jobs will be eliminated, some will be relocated to other countries, and some will be created. This is the reality. Your competition is not only those who live in the U.S. but also people from around the world. The only way to keep yourself employed is to keep reinventing.
• Relationship building still matter — tolerant, understanding of other cultures, and collaboration.

 Where do you see yourself here?

The Growing Share of New Americans in Virginia

This is probably the biggest shift in Virginia. Until 1970, only 1 in 100 Virginians are born outside the U.S.; by 2012 1 in 9 Virginians are immigrants.

Immigrants, Latinos, and Asians constitute large and growing shares of the economy and electorate in Virginia. Immigrants (the foreign-born) account for 1 in 9 Virginians, and 50.3% of them are naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote. “New Americans” – immigrants and their children of immigrants – accounted for 10.8% of Virginia voters in 2012.

Immigrants not only essential to the state’s economy as workers, but also accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue and consumer purchasing power.

Moreover, Latinos and Asians (both foreign and native-born) wield more than $45.9 billion in consumer purchasing power, and the businesses they own had sales receipts of $19.1 billion and employed 126,000 people at last count.

Immigrant, Latino, and Asian workers and entrepreneurs are integral to Virginia’s economy and tax base – they are an electoral force with which every politician must reckon.

Read more: the New Americans in Virginia

The Four Moments In Consumer Journey That Every Marketer Should Not Miss

Photo: on Flickr by Ed Yourdon

For marketers moments people spend on cell phones are opportunities. According to Google, there are four micro-moments that are critical touch points within today’s consumer journey, and when added together, they ultimately determine how that journey ends.

These moments are moments when we turn on our device to take action on whatever we need – I-want-to-know; I-want-to-go; I-want-to-buy; I-want-to-do. These are  moments of decisions that your consumers expect you to be ready and available.

The four micro-moments, via Google.

The data is telling:

• Over two-thirds of smart phone users  – 68% say they check their phones within 15 minutes of walking or waking up in the morning.
• Millennials – 87% always have their smartphone at their side, day and night.
• People check their phones 150 times a day.
• People spend 177 minutes on our phones per day.

No question about it, that businesses must reverse their marketing strategy from going big on desktop to mobile.

Read more about micro-moments and how to win the shift to mobile, here.

Why These Mobile Trends Are Your Business Secret Ingredient to Success

Photo credit

It’s hard to imagine these days life without a cellphone. We become so addictive with our phones. Some 90% of 18-29 y.o. sleep with their phones and personally know a number people who sleep with their phones (me included).

Often times when we clicked on something to check an article or info on the site site and surprised that the website is not mobile-friendly at all. So we decided to not read the article of interest. That’s a missed opportunity! Don’t have the stats, however, they are out there.

This research done by KPCB find that we spent on average 5.6 hours surfing the Internet! About half of the time is we view it on our mobile device.

Let’s face it. Mobile technology change the way people search, buy things, get information, listen to music, watch video, read email, and other activities that we normally do with our smartphones. That means, if business want to reach people, they should reach them on their mobile.

With cheap, no-cost social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn available at your fingertips, every one can be a superstar and every business can rock some boats. Ask Michele Phan, then just a regular person who got turned down for a job at department store beauty counter. Her rise to fame came by way of YouTube and now works with big brands like Dr. Pepper and L’Oreal.

6 Mobile Trends That Can Rock Your Business

 #1.  Mobile is a Global Market

The number of smartphone users globally will surpass 2 billion in 2016, according to eMarketer forecast.

Inexpensive smartphones are opening new opportunities for marketing and commerce in emerging markets where many consumers previously had no access to the internet.

 

#2. The Number of Cell Phones in the U.S.

Nine in ten people in the U.S. own a cell phone of some kind, according to Pew Internet survey. Smartphones ownership doubled from 2011-2015, 35% to 68%. The younger the age the higher percentage of smartphone ownership. There’s not much of a different for ownership between gender.

 #3. Over Half of Email Opens on Mobile

Litmus has been tracking millions of email for four years since 2011. They found that more than half of emails sent are now open on mobile versus one-fifth on desktop.

Fast forward to 2014, and nearly half of emails are opened on smartphones and tablets—a 500% increase in four years.

Since iOS represents 45% of the market share, the top three mobile opens are on iPhone (33%), iPad (12%), and Android (10%) respectively.

#4. Time Spent Checking Status Update on Mobile

The device that most people use use to view social networks varies by the type of apps. The top four platforms people use mobile the most – Snapchat, Instagram, Vine and Twitter. Surprisingly, people also use their mobile to check on visual heavy Pinterest.

LinkedIn, however, seems to be the platform that people use desktop more than mobile. Maybe because the platform is being used more for business related.

#5. M-Commerce

Back in 2014, Shopify did a study looking at data of 100,000 e-commerce stores that use their platform. They found that mobile is now accounts for more than 50% of all e-commerce traffic.

The rise in mobile phone traffic to online stores is partly being fuelled by the overall trend of social-fuelled discovery becoming a major marketing channel.

• 82% of smartphone users say they consult their phones on purchases they’re about to make.
• 91% of them turn their phones for ideas  in the middle of tasks.

#6. The Smartphone-Dependent Population

This is probably an opportunity to make a make a dent, if and when you focus into building your empire in the small screen market.

The population is quite large. Not only that, there are people outside the U.S. that don’t even own laptops because of costs and this segment of the population is so heavily-dependent on smartphones to access the Internet.

The numbers, according to Pew Internet survey:

• 64% own smartphone
• 10% have no broadband access at home “other than” smartphone data plan
• 15% have limited options for online access “other than” cell phone
• 7% have limited options for online access and no broadband access at home

The question for you.

Knowing these trends, what would you do differently? 

The Power of Connectedness

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to interview Simon Mainwaring, the author of “We First,” at Social Good Summit. If in the past, brands controlled the conversation. With social tools at people’s disposal, that is no longer the case.

Game changing: We First

The use of social tools changed how consumers view their relationships with brands. (even for those that do not fall under the category of big brands, i.e. business or people – like you and I) Because consumers now have the power to drive ‘the’ conversation.

So we talked about how connected citizens – those who are actively sharing their values via various social networks like Twitter, Facebook, etc. – choose to communicate with brands.

Some of the things that we discussed:

– The power of connected citizens.

We saw what’s happening in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain how people are reaching out despite the state of oppression in communicating the value of what they care. In the business world, for example, citizens’ participation in Pepsi Refresh Project. This is a project, where anyone with an idea can get their initiative funded.

Share of Ethnic Minority Voters in Super Tuesday States is Growing

Super Tuesday was held on March 1 in which twelve states hold primaries or caucuses for the Democratic or Republican Presidential candidates.

The Share of Minority Voters

You’ll see from chart below the growing presence of minority voters,
that include Hispanic, Black, Asian, and other race (include American Indians, Native Hawaiian, and multi race Americans).

Via Pew Social Trends.

The App Economy in 4 Charts

Image by César Poyatos via Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Welcome to the app economy.

Apple coined the term ‘there’s an app for that.‘ Since Apple opened its app store in July 10, 2008, the number of apps downloaded from the store reached 10 billion downloads in January 2011.

From then on the app makers industry has grown exponentially and no longer exclusive to digital media companies.

Today, app makers could come from any industry that you know of, food, insurance, banking, photography, design, transportation, and more.

BY THE NUMBERS

#1. Smartphone Subscriptions

There are 3.4 billion smartphone subscription in the world. In 2015, around 45% of all mobile subscription associated with smartphones, compared to  40% in 2014, according to Ericsson Mobility Report. And this number could grow to 6.4 billion by 2021.

#2. The Number of Apps on App Stores 

The fact that mobile apps are relatively easier to create than computer apps, as well as their considerable lower price has translated into a growing industry which produces every year more and more.

The number of apps available in leading app stores, as of November 2015, according to data on Statista (subscription, if you want to read details):

• 1.8 million apps available on Google Play.
• 1.5 million apps available on iOS (June 2015).
• Apps from the Apple App Store were downloaded a cumulative 100 billion times (June 2015).
• 400,000 apps on Amazon Appstore.
• 340,000 apps on Windows Phone.
• 130,000 apps on Blackberry.

Source: Statista

#3. Apps Eating Web’s Lunch

How Being Transparent Actually Help This Nonprofit Empowered Its Supporters

Charity Water is a non-profit founded in September 2006, with mission to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in the developing nations.

In 2012 alone, Charity: Water raised $33 million with 100% of proceeds to fund water projects. By then, the total fund raised reach $93 million, funded 8,208 projects, and giving 3,223,000 people access to clean water. This kind of track record is very impressive, considering that they get to this milestone in less than 10 years!

When you think that there is more than 1.4 million nonprofits out there competing for resources, how could Charity Water created a league of its own in a very short time?

For one, Charity Water runs the organization like a startup: innovative, efficient, and continue to reinvent along the way. They embrace the power of technology and social media and use it to inspire and empower its supporters – from the get go.

Transparency breaks down barriers between an organization and its supporters to create openness that never before exist.

How Openness Empowered Its Supporters

#1. Business model: 100% donations go to projects

Any donors would love to see how their donations made a difference. So for a young organization that decided early on to embrace a business model where 100% of public donations goes directly to fund its water projects, transparency has to be at the core of their operational DNA.

By showing impact of supporters’ donations and sharing this information online, they gained the trust from people, especially those who may not be familiar with the organization and its mission at first.

How Little Bets Can Help Discover Your Big Ideas

Note: This interview was conducted few years ago at Social Good Summit in NYC. With all the changes going on, the idea of doing little bets to find your best idea still true to this day. It’s even more so now than before, as more people talk about failures and what they can learn from it.

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I recently had the opportunity to chat with Peter Sims, the author of “Little Bets,” at the Social Good Summit. Peter is also a co-founder of Fuse Corps, a social enterprise that partner up with government, mayors, etc. to help tackle the nation’s most pressing problems. This is part of his little bets.

Little bets are a way to explore and develop new possibilities. The idea is to start small experiment to discover big things. You have to go through the process to discover bigger and better ideas. There is no shortcut for that.

For example, comedian Chris Rock would practice (read: experiment) with his lines at small comedy clubs around where he lives – before he uses those lines (that worked) for the big stage.

The same is true with VCs, how they would invest in a number of different companies. Not all companies would succeed (if it works out 100% success ratio, it would be a dream!), however, from the companies they invest one of two would grow big and give multiple times payback to investors.

So before you dive in to the conversation, here are some the things you can learn from this conversation:

• where Peter finds his inspiration
• that it’s okay to fail