Shaping Leadership and Beyond (Part 1.)

Hello, friends! It's Dan Sodergren here, after an amazing July doing some keynotes and talks for clients around the country. Mainly talking about the future of work and AI. The one I particularly loved doing was for Manchester DevCon (as it was in my home town of Manchester and the organiser Amy Newton is a friend of mine)

And it was sponsored this year by Oscar Tech Recruitment.

So let me spill the beans about why the event was so good. And some of the truly riveting discussions shared recently after my talk at MCR DEV CON and some of the thinking behind my talk as well.

This conference is to become one of the major highlights on Manchester's technology calendar. And its first year has gained popularity for boosting local innovations and speakers onto global pedestals. And having amazing local speakers and hosts come together for it in its first year.

All thanks to Amy Newton's foresight, dedication, and highly motivated team, that have been able to bring together impassioned technologists from Manchester and beyond at this exhilarating event.

The Vitality of Purpose in an AI-Dominated Landscape

Kicking off today’s speech, I’d like to quote Abraham Lincoln -- a timeless gem that reads as a mantra for success.

“If I had 8 hours to chop down a tree - I would spend 6 hours sharpening my axe.”

As this event was all about sharpening our minds and changing the way we think about things. Not just AI and the future of work. But leadership as well and the technical skills and emotional skills of those attend, Honouring it, the keynote delivered by yours truly delved deep into comprehending essential 'WHYs' responsible for driving our actions.

Reiterating these learnings, Simon Sinek’s book titled “Start with Why” explicitly exemplified how these insights remain instrumental in shaping purpose-driven decisions. Building on this ethos, we're offering you path-breaking courses incorporating a strategic milestone at www.aimarketingcourse.co.uk . With my reason (my why) being to help a million marketeers be happy at work. Why because I used to be an overworked marketeer myself.

Our mission doubles up as a scaffold supporting your steadfast pursuit towards personal & professional growth leveraging out-of-the-box, innovative tactics powered by AI.

(BELOW IS ME AND MY ADVENTURES AT MANCHESTER DEV CON 2023)

As for those who haven't been acquainted, I'm someone with a perpetual thirst for transformation. U started off my marketing journey with an ecological t shirt company called THTC. (Europe's now longest running hemp streetwear label) Here we used guerrilla marketing techniques due to our limited funds - which then paved the way towards global explorations with Spearfish, an arts and events firm I founded.

Like everyone else, life threw surprises my way rendering me penniless at one point. Yet, this adversity carved into me an unwavering resolution - empowering small enterprises. Fast forward 25 years later, here I stand championing entrepreneurial growth and technology - stories that taught invaluable lessons, lessons that led to wins.

One of those wins was to build a company called Your FLOCK which works in employee engagement which is why this was a part of the talk as well. This value (or values) piece will be key to everyone of our businesses and their success with people moving forward.

Drastic declines in employee engagement levels represent a growing crisis worldwide today. Disengagement roots majorly in incongruence between personal ideologies and corporate culture - something requiring immediate attention.

“Workplace study records illustrate nearly 60% personnel wouldn’t consider working for organisations conflicting with their individual values”

Today, the younger workforce yearn for employers to be more engaging and engage in making meaningful contributions. A conventional outlook of jobs being a mere livelihood necessity is slowly rising in favour of finding purpose and belonging within their profession. When such ethos resonate with organisational objectives, team members have reported 5X elevation in job satisfaction.

Undeniably, COVID-19 was a wakeup call - shaking conventional mindsets across established systems ushering evolutions transforming leadership ethics. The ones who dared to embrace changes manifested better balance nurturing positive synergy fostering shared aspirations—an indispensable attribute forming victorious heights within an AI-powered world targeting progressive trajectories.

In recent times, AI has rapidly progressed its stature gaining domination over individuals and businesses equally. Further strengthening this wave, this year's sponsor, Oscar Technology aligns its ideologies backing these path-defining technological forces and recruiting the right people to your businesses - often tech business themselves - so they were perfectly suited to help Manchester Dev Con become a reality. Whether they use AI in their marketing or their recruitment is still to be seen.

But it was great they invested in the tech scene in Manchester with their sponsoring of this event. I will talk about it in more depth in my next blog next week. In the meantime, a huge thanks to following me and if you would like to join my newsletter please do at ….

References for this blog

The speaker - www.dansodergren.com

The AI course https://www.letslevelup.app/course/TheAIMarketingCourse

The AI marketing course https://www.aimarketingcourse.co.uk/ 

Manchester Dev Con https://www.mcrdevcon.co.uk/

Dan Sodergren at McrDevCon https://www.mcrdevcon.co.uk/about/speakers/dan-sodergren/ 

The sponsor: Oscar Tech Recruitment.