Author: Bal Bansal

When it comes to football, most of you will know, that i’m a Nottingham Forest supporter.

Now… yesterday, was an FA Cup match. Nottingham Forest (who are currently mid-table in the Championship with a caretaker manager in charge and a string of no-wins in recent form) Vs Arsenal (long term manager who’s won several trophies with the club, sat 6th in the English Premier League).

So, what was the score Bal?

Yep – that’s right… Nottingham Forest 4 – Arsenal 2.

We beat them! – Against all the odds and expectations… we beat them!

Now, there’s various reasons why we beat them… but i’m going to focus on a few, and how businesses can learn from these…

1. Talent Development.

Out of the team, there were 6 players who have come through the academy at Nottingham Forest. That means, the football club have invested in training and developing these young players.

Business Lesson – Invest in your Talent. As Richard Branson always says, your employees, the people working for you, are your biggest asset – Train them well. 

2. Young Players

Seven of the players in the team were under the age of 23… Ben Bereton (18), Jordan Smith (23), Kieran Dowell (20). Joe Worrall (20), to name a few. The average age of the team was younger than the average age of the Arsenal team – yet the manager of Arsenal wanted to field a group of ‘young’ players.

Business Lesson – Bring some young folk into the business, they’ll have fresh and new ideas. Look at various startups (such as Facebook & Snapchat) and their CEO ages… and then there’s the Forbes 30 Under 30. 

3. Goals and Action Plan

The aim of the game was to win. To go out, enjoy and win. How do you win? – well, by scoring more goals! – Eric Lichaj got 2 (of which the second was a wonderful goal), then there were two penalities, from which Ben aged 18 scored and Kieran scored.

Business Lesson – Have some clear and concise goals, with an Action Plan. What do you want to achieve, by when and how. Sounds simple, right? – yet many organisations have goals, though they’re complicated, too many words, unachievable… or not communicated correctly. 

Just to expand on the latter – there was a motivation for Eric to be scoring those goals – his wife promised, if he scores a hat-trick (3 goals in a game), he can have a dog!

Don’t believe me? – watch this…

https://youtu.be/JOMiWVbUVDE

So, a few simple lessons… from the footballing world… to the business world… train your employees well, bring in some young folk and have clear goals & objectives.

There were obviously other factors, such as being well organized, more passion… and a huge desire to win. We’ll talk about those in another post…

Many of you, who follow me on Twitter (@balbansal) will know, I recently shared, that I’ve been invited to talk at Oxford University.

For me, this is a big deal! – Let’s just take a moment – Oxford. University. What an institution. What a place. What history.

So, you may be wondering – what am going to talk about?

Well.. i’m going to be sharing my thoughts about AI. Without going into too much detail here – because that would a) give away what’s in my presentation and b) it’s not fair on the folk who have paid and are attending… I will be talking about AI now… and AI in the future.

There’s been a rapid rise in AI… and it’s only going to get stronger… bigger and more clever!

For those, unfamiliar with the term – AI is Artificial Intelligence.

What is AI?….

“Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform human-like tasks.

Most AI examples that you hear about today – from chess-playing computers to self-driving cars – rely heavily on deep learning and natural language processing.

Using these technologies, computers can be trained to accomplish specific tasks by processing large amounts of data and recognizing patterns in the data.”

Or as I would say, – it’s the development of computer systems which are able to perform tasks, normally requiring human intelligence.

Now, there was a great story in the news recently – about how the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK could potentially save £300m! by using AI.

Currently cardiologists in hospitals can tell from the timing of the heartbeat in scans if there is a problem. Now even, the best of humans or in this case, Doctors, can get it incorrect – and statistics show, this could be up to 1 in 5 cases.

After the scan, patients are either sent home and have a heart attack or they undergo an unnecessary operation (I know what you’re thinking… what a waste of money… because it’s unnecessary!)

But what has happened is, an artificial intelligence system has been developed at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford which diagnoses heart scans much more accurately. It can pick up details in the scans that doctors can’t see!

It’s suggested there are around 60,000 heart scans carried out a year, out of which 12,000 are mis-diagnosed. Reports suggest, using AI… the NHS could save around £300m a year.

And this is why, I wanted to share this story on my blog. 1 – we’re eliminating/reducing errors and 2 – Saving money!… and all this is because of Artificial Intelligence.

And back to my original point – there’s some great work being done by men and women wearing white coats. They are, on a daily basis saving peoples life’s… but what if,… what if computers could help. What if, the knowledge (intelligence) they have…  was used by computer systems to perform certain tasks… which resulted in saving money… and saving, more life’s…

You’re probably wondering… how much would all this cost?

If the current trials that are taking place are shown to be a success (early indicators show, that it is performing as expected)… it would be free to NHS hospitals.

First and foremost, I would like to wish you all a very, Happy New Year!

I really do hope, that 2018 brings you a wealth of joy and happiness.

I’ve made plans for 2018 – broken them down into months… and will be doing more with my blog. Firstly, videos! – I know… been talking about them for a while, but I have one prepared- about electric cars… and will be sharing it very soon.

I’ll continue to share my frustrations that I notice and see with processes, people and organisations.

I’ll also continue to share my insights into the latest technology trends, and how they’ll impact everyone and everything! – Let’s be honest, if you’re not ready and prepared…. you will be left behind. That’s for both, businesses, customers and personal (at home).

I’ll continue to collaborate – share input from my friends, that will help you look, understand and think about a number of topics in a different light. It’s all about diversity – and understanding.

Most importantly… Think Lean and Get Digital.

A big huge thank you for all your likes, support and love during 2017.

What a crazy year… starting this blog earlier in the year… receiving some great feedback and words of encouragement, I feel I’ve learnt a lot (mainly about blogging) and sharing knowledge.

Thank you, and i’ll continue to go from strength to strength in 2018!

Morning Everyone! – Hope you all have a very, Merry… Christmas!