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In this episode of 5 Minutes with Andy, Virtual, Inc. CEO Andy Freed highlights five tech trends every leader should have on their radar—from quantum computing to cybersecurity and blockchain.

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Andy explores:

• Why quantum computing is coming faster than you might expect.
• How emerging tech is creating new cybersecurity challenges.
• Practical tips to help your organization embrace new technology and adapt to change.

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Like what you hear? Follow 5 Minutes with Andy for more leadership insights!

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Hi, and welcome to Five Minutes with Andy. My name is Andy Freed. I'm the CEO of Virtual, Incorporated. For the last 25 years, we've been helping membership organizations that are forming, growing and changing.

But I'm going to go back even further than 25 years ago. I'm going to go back to when I was a little kid, and I bought the album, “Who's Next”. It's a great album by The Who, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend at their best, last track on the album. And for those that don't remember albums, look it up. It was a song. Won't Get Fooled Again. And that's when Roger Daltrey screams out the line, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”

Well, that line kind of applies to tech trends this year. Meet the new trends. Same as the old trends. And I've got five things that I'm watching this year as tech trends, some of which have been around for a little while. But they're all things that are important for organizations to know and be aware of.

Number one, I've talked about it before, so it should come as no surprise, is AI. AI is everywhere these days. It is something which, if you think you can avoid it and think you're not going to learn about it, you're wrong. It's your responsibility as a leader and responsibility as an organization to think about how AI is going to change your organization and where it's going.

Number two is a little bit harder for some folks to understand. That's quantum computing. Now, I'll be honest, I have sat in dozens of presentations where people talk to me about quantum computing and the idea that a bit can be both one and zero at the same time. I always end the same thing with, “Did I understand this presentation? Well, yes and no.” That's a quantum computing joke for the real geeky among you.

But the reality on quantum computing is that it is going to change things dramatically and happen in the next few years. The notion of computers being ever more powerful. The idea of encryption as we know it today being broken. These are things that used to be the subject of movies and they're going to change things dramatically for us.

Which brings us to another piece, which is a third trend of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity with all of the things that we're tracking and all of the things that are out there, AI, quantum and more. Cybersecurity is more important than ever. There are bad guys that are out there, and they're real bad guys. It's not just a teenage kid in the bedroom.

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It's people that are really looking to do real damage to your company, real damage to our country, real damage to the world as we know it, are out there trying to steal data and trying to steal things. If you think you're not a target, you're wrong. Because what cybersecurity folks will tell you is the hackers will go after the softest target they can find. And if you're not paying attention, that's going to be you.

The last two trends, well, one of them also has been around for a while, which is IoT and the idea of the Internet of Things. There's more and more things that are connected with the internet. They're getting smaller. They're getting more ubiquitous. And all of that starts to connect to one another. You start to see things that are all starting to connect to one another in a way of, you can have more sensors. Well, what does more sensors mean? More sensors means more things that could be threatened with cybersecurity.

The last of the trends is blockchain. Blockchain has also been around for a while. It was invented years ago, but we're starting to see it's becoming more ubiquitous and starting to become used more. Why? Because blockchain also could be, if used right, it can be a great antidote to the cybersecurity problems. It can be a way to make things more secure, make things that are not, that don't just have a single point of failure, but instead are decentralized and more secure.

Blockchain is another technology that's harder to understand and shouldn't be confused with crypto, with just cryptocurrency, that's a little piece of the puzzle.

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Blockchain's a lot bigger.

If some of these things aren't familiar to you. Well, that's you know, I'm not going to be able to explain all of blockchain and all of quantum in five minutes. But I'll say that's your homework. Learn more about these trends. Make sure you understand the five.

And recapping again we've got AI. That's number one. Quantum, cybersecurity, internet of Things and blockchain.

Take some time to learn about those and make sure they're things that you're thinking about, how they're impacting you and your organization.

Thanks for giving me five minutes today, and I hope you give me five minutes again. So, if you've enjoyed this, make sure that you like this podcast, subscribe to it and join us in the future. Thanks so much.