Fuzzy Signals

Who is Fuzzy Signals?

Fuzzy Signals is a blog written by Nicole-Anne Boyer. That's just my formal name. It looks good on paper, but most people call me "Nic", "Nicole", "NAB" or a host of other nic-names I have managed to acquire over the years. To read more about me and what I do for a living – which is always hard to explain, since our language still doesn't have good words for it – please read on. So Mom, it's not really your fault after all that you don't know what I do!

A more personal biography, without writing a small opus, is forthcoming. But since my blog is semi-professional anyway, this might be useful background. It also had the advantage of being written already, which is always good on a Monday morning. Plug-and-play works for me.

Professional Biography (Version: October 2003)

Nicole's expertise is in helping people create better futures for themselves, their organisations, and the communities in which they coexist. The idea is that by thinking creatively, rigorously and wisely about the future (and past), more robust decisions are made in the present. As Charles Darwin famously said, "it's not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." Through a winning combination of world-class process tools and leading-edge ideas and content, Nicole excels at improving people's capacity to anticipate and adapt in time to key changes in an uncertain world. By surfacing and challenging key assumptions people are making in their "mental maps", Nicole helps people to understand their blind-spots and vulnerabilities as well as see new opportunity spaces and options for the future. Nicole helps people strike the balance between coping with too much uncertainty (which results in paralysis) and too little uncertainty (i.e. denial about what's changing, either through complacency or arrogance because of past success.)

During her six years at Global Business Network (GBN), Nicole was trained by some of the best in the field with mentors like well-known futurists, Peter Schwartz, author of The Art of the Long View and Inevitable Surprises and some of the most interesting thinkers and doers of our time (see GBN's network of remarkable people .) Nicole has also worked with Fortune 100 executives, public sector, and civil society leaders on a diverse portfolio of strategy and innovation projects, including the future of: healthcare and medicine, biotechnology and biosciences, air travel and airline industry, work in knowledge-intensive industries, the modern corporation, legal and professional services, business schools and business education, public education and pedagogy, biodiversity and climate change, global agribusiness, and the next phase of economic globalization.

Working at the intersection of so many things – industries, sectors, and disciplines – has given Nicole a privileged bird's eye view of emerging trends and important ideas shaping the future. Nicole has parlayed this insight into cutting-edge thought leadership; and her experience working across so many different cultures and contexts has made her skilled at enabling diverse groups of people to work more effectively together. As an independent practitioner, Nicole is currently working on developing a better "toolbox" for addressing complex global problems. This "toolbox" is a metaphor for practical, high leverage techniques including powerful processes like scenario planning and systems thinking, to new conceptual frameworks and theories (especially a better "meta-story" to organize action), to mobilizing social networks in order to create tipping points for action. Tapping into the energy, talent, and capabilities of the private sector to work on global issues is another focus of hers. For instance, Nicole has been very active in the burgeoning "Base of the Pyramid" community, which champions new approaches for creating wealth in the world's poor markets, and has written a primer called "Re-perceiving Business, From the Bottom Up." She is also working on a design methodology to help large corporations innovate business ideas for these poor markets.

Nicole's interest in creating new market spaces, and her knack for developing innovative learning experiences, came together in two conferences. With a keen interest in anticipating future ‘disruptive technologies' and business models, Nicole directed a meeting and learning journey called "The Clean Revolution: Technologies at the Leading Edge" (May 2001) in San Francisco. She was also co-director of the path-breaking "Customers of the Future" meeting in New York (October 1999), which tried to reframe and advance our industrial-age assumptions about consumers. Nicole has also spoken and written on the drivers of social and technological change, and has coauthored a chapter in the recent OECD book, "The Future of the Knowledge Economy" with colleagues Peter Schwartz and Eamonn Kelly.

Nicole is currently domiciled in Paris, France and Canadian by citizenship, but her worldview is decidedly global thanks to her experiences living abroad and enjoyment in learning about different cultures. Before joining GBN in San Francisco, Nicole was based in Singapore, and worked throughout southeast and north Asia, for a high-tech venture capital firm, with an interest in helping developing world countries stem the "digital divide" through the funding of appropriate information/high tech infrastructures. (An early, hands-on introduction to creating new markets at the cross-hairs of the private and public sectors.) Before that, Nicole was living in her hometown, Vancouver, BC, working as a public policy analyst and research manager at IPSOS-Reid, one of the world's largest marketing research and public opinion companies. She was responsible for writing a quarterly syndicated report on leading trends in public opinion, and worked as an analyst for a number of elections, including the controversial referendum in Quebec on its separation from Canada. Nicole's first job after graduate school was as a political speechwriter and Legislative Intern in the Parliament of British Columbia, which is a highly competitive program with just six positions awarded among hundreds of applicants. Lastly, to understand Nicole's full skill-set and formative training – in particular, her entrepreneurial spirit – we need to go even further back to her seminal experiences participating in the running of the family company, Aerco Industries, a nation-wide company in Canada focused on energy management solutions in the heating, refrigeration and air conditioning (HVAC) industry. She remains involved as an advisor to management.

Nicole's education is multidisciplinary,extensive, and of course a lifelong process. Through her training at GBN, Nicole has been schooled in the latest scenario planning, strategy, innovation, organizational development, and management theory and practice. She is an accomplished and sought-after facilitator, with over ten years of experience and a special interest in the recent research and pedagogy focused on breakthrough learning (e.g, "out of the box" thinking) and creativity techniques, including the use of visual information design. Nicole's knowledge base also includes: game theory, new risk assessment and uncertainty management tools, systems thinking, applied complexity (non-linear dynamics), and social network theory. Her work in the public and social sectors has ensured a fluency in the latest ideas on global governance, "adaptive" public policy-making, human development, and social entrepreneurship. Her formal education includes a BA (honours) and MA in political science from the University of British Columbia, where her published research focused on technology policy. Her undergraduate honours programme is well known in Canada for training future Prime Ministers (admittedly, they have not been the most successful PMs, but never mind that :) and influential academics. It is based on an Oxbridge model where you "read" in a peer group for two years with a senior tutor, the department Head. This education enabled Nicole to explore many interesting questions beyond the traditional confines of political science, as it is commonly taught. For instance, she remains intrigued and driven by the main question guiding her studies: why can't we – society, scientists, and business people – anticipate the unintended consequences of new technological developments? In her spare time, Nicole enjoys racing sail-boats, civil aviation, traveling, writing blogs and fiction, and the culinary arts.

Posted by nicole at October 27, 2003 09:36 AM