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2020 is looking to be a busy year! Here’s a quick update on my whereabouts this year (or at least the first half). I am continuing my ‘Deep Disruption‘ series of talks where I mix up ‘Enterprise Digital Transformation’ with ‘Near Future Techno-realism’.

First up, I will be speaking at SwitchOn in Stockholm on 13th Feb:

“Deep Disruption – How Business can Survive the coming ‘Great Global Weirding’.
The 2020’s are set to be the decade of backlash. The first Millennials will be turning forty. Gen-Z will be shaking the gates. Negative Interest Rates, Modern Monetary Theory and Universal Basic Income will disrupt the very concept of money…

What does it all mean for the successful enterprise wishing to navigate the next decade?”

On 13th May I will be heading to London to give the opening Keynote at the EDW Conference:

“A SciFi author’s perspective on the next decade of corporate change.
How Drones, AI, IoT and Augmented Reality will shake up the workplace and enable a generation of new Exponential Organisations.”

Then from 21st-23rd May I will be at Fantasy Basel, where I am planning on presenting:

“Deep-Fakes, Propaganda-Bots, Robo-Bosses, Mirror World, and more! The 2020’s – they gonna be weird!
As we enter the 3rd decade of the 3rd Millennium we find ourselves slipping closer to technology’s event horizon. Toby Weston—author of Big Idea Hard Science Fiction—talks about what to expect from the ‘Pre-Singularity’ years ahead and how his books chart a course through the Deep Disruption towards our glorious glittering future…”

If you are about in these cities around these dates, let me know. I try to walk the tightrope between ‘Enterprise appropriate content‘ and ‘wacky speculative futurism‘ but the corporate talks might be a bit dry for most of you SciFi fans. In any case, I’ll take the best of the more futuristic and light-hearted stuff into my Fantasy Basel talk. Hope to see you!
Toby

There is a lot of great content out there!

There is also a lot that is, hmmm… well, let’s just say, of less than impeccable quality. Finding the good stuff can be like looking for a needle in a haystack—or worse, like trying to find something good you haven’t already watched on Netflix!

With this in mind I will be doing my bit to surface the cream by sponsoring and featuring some of the indie content I have enjoyed recently.

First up, the ‘Civilised Podcast‘. A really cool, improvised, episodic, dark comedy science fiction series which I’m sponsoring this week!

Check it out!

Back on the topic of finding the gems. I only have so much time and am happy to crowdsource this endeavour. Please let me know in the comments, or on Twitter, if you have any recommendations of indie authors of high quality, well edited, BigIdea™, hard SciFi.

So here we are. Summer is a distant myth. We had our first frost last night. Clouds hover only inches above my head. It’s claustrophobic and cold…

…perfect writing weather!! 🙂

So here is a short November update:
I am making good progress with book four. Sorry it is taking longer than the previous three! I set myself a challenging task to braid the threads into a satisfying whole. I only recently got everything laid out properly in my mind. Now the only thing left is the relatively trivial task of converting thoughts into ink. (There really should be an App for that!)

If you are the type of cynical person that needs proof 😉
…here is a mock-up of the cover—still very early draft…

…and the Table of Contents. Bold chapters are mostly done.

When the urge takes me, I post shorter writing on Medium. “Anyone for Rat Tartare” (LINK) is dark and necessary, let me know if it is irreverent enough to be amusing too.

On a lighter note, if you fancy a SciFi glimpse at the Future of Work, I gave a nice talk in Berlin (LINK). Audio is a bit sketchy as this was not the live talk.

As always, the best way to support my writing is by leaving a review.
This will take you to my Amazon profile
(You can click the book you would like to review, scroll down to the “customer reviews” section, and click “write customer review”)