David Espindola - The Exponential Era

Wright is a graduate of the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power Program, and a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology and Kellogg Executive Programs.

This book would not have been possible without the wisdom, support, and guidance of many incredible people. First, the authors would like to express our gratitude to our families for their love and patience as we spent endless hours immersed in our thoughts in front of a computer. We would also like to thank all the people at Wiley‐IEEE Press who worked diligently to make this project successful. Our special thanks to Dr. Tariq Samad for his guidance, reviews, and insights in the early stages of this venture, and to Mary Hatcher for helping us through the publishing process.

We would like to thank all the reviewers who kindly provided thoughtful input that further guided the development of the book, including Patrick McKinney, Don O'Shea, Jeff Hand, Dr. Alfred Marcus, Dr. Juan Bardina, and Dr. Rob Bodor.

Our special thanks to the University of St. Thomas, and in particular to Stefanie Lenway, Lisa Abendroth, and Carleen Kerttula for believing in us and giving us an opportunity to share our thoughts on converging technologies shaping the Exponential Era, resulting in the conception of the Contex Conference. Our thanks also go to the Technological Leadership Institute (TLI) at the University of Minnesota, its leadership, staff, and the advisory board for the opportunity to turn our passion in technology and education into contributions, as small as they may be, that hopefully will have a positive impact in the education of future technology leaders.

We would like to acknowledge all the organizations and individuals who we have had the privilege to work and interact with throughout our careers. You have allowed us to learn, to experiment, to gather, and to synthesize a lifetime of knowledge and experience, much of which has been shared in the pages of this book.

Finally, we would like to thank all of our colleagues, partners, contributors, and customers at Intercepting Horizons who have supported us and who continue to inspire us to do our work.

As the Commander of United States Central Command from 2016 until 2019, we confronted unprecedented complexity and change daily. If it was not the adversaries we faced in places like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, it was the deep underlying tensions coursing through the region: corruption, disenfranchisement, poor governance, extreme poverty, toxic sectarian narratives, and malign influences. On a day‐to‐day basis, we navigated near‐term problems reasonably well. Still, the region’s complexity and sheer chaos challenged us in charting a long‐term strategy that would preserve our national interests. Any achievements that we could obtain came on the backs of skilled military planners and policymakers using the best analytic and planning tools available. I suspect if you spoke with any of them, they would tell you that an appreciation and comprehensive understanding was crucial for prevailing in this region.

Complexity reigns in today’s strategic environment. We see it in our domestic and foreign policy discussions. A hyper‐enabled information environment that reshapes facts to new truths fogs clarity for business executives and government leaders. Add to this the emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning – technologies that are as promising as they are terrifying. Today, the United States is locked in a global competition with a rising China and, to a lesser extent, with a resurgent Russia. The battle is not just about military or economic dominance. The contest is also about the influence and domination of emerging technologies, and the one who gets there first will likely write the rules and enforce the norms. The stakes could not be higher.

The Exponential Era – Strategies to Stay Ahead of the Curve in an Era of Chaotic Change and Disruptive Forces by Michael Wright and David Espindola is a groundbreaking contribution to sense‐making and strategy development. With a revisit to various planning tools and approaches employed over the last several decades, this volume offers a fresh new approach to understanding and assessing complexity and getting ahead of the curve.

Importantly, this book offers a new methodology known as “SPX” – short for Strategic Planning for the Exponential Era. SPX is a norm‐busting approach focused on driving innovation and mapping risk, opportunities, and capabilities to create plans designed to stay ahead of exponential change. SPX is a comprehensive method of looking at exponential change caused by technology, operating environments, and conflicting interests.

The authors are highly experienced and well‐qualified in this field. Michael Wright is a global senior high technology executive and strategist at scale. David Espindola is an accomplished technology executive and consultant. Together they are the founders of Intercepting Horizons, a strategic advisory service that focuses on teaching leaders and organizations to apply SPX to stay ahead of the change and complexity curve. Both serve on the Advisory Board for the University of Minnesota Technological Leadership Institute. I work with Michael on the Board of a small private company in Saint Paul, and through him, I have come to know David. Having spent a career dealing with complexity and chaos, I can attest that these two are onto something new, relevant, and exciting with SPX.

For those who may be concerned about reading a book on strategy written by technologists – rest easy. The Exponential Era is a logical and easy read, well‐organized, and crisp in its overall presentation. I spent my military career around complexity and strategy development – I not only enjoyed reading this book, but I found it incredibly insightful and fresh in its overall approach. You will find it similarly satisfying.

Joseph L. Votel

General, US Army (Retired)

In the fall of 2018, we had the opportunity to engage in a discussion with a board member of a Fortune 500 logistics company. Having recently founded Intercepting Horizons, LLC we shared our thoughts on how we had entered a new era in which strategic trends and converging technology vectors were impacting organizations at unprecedented speeds. We called it the Exponential Era.

We discussed how existing planning cycles were no longer effective in this new environment, and how our services would focus on helping companies identify inflection points and develop an innovative strategic planning process that is responsive to fast‐changing conditions. We would help companies pinpoint not only what strategic trends and converging technologies would impact their business, but equally important, when.

We felt confident in our ability to provide such services because we had learned over decades of successfully chasing Moore's law that it is possible to develop a time‐enriched strategic planning process to intercept business inflection points and stay up with and sometimes ahead of exponential change.

This was enough to get the board member intrigued. He confided in us that his CEO had been contemplating these exact questions – when would these business inflection points impact their industry and business?

This informal conversation led to an introduction, and subsequently we started researching the company, its industry, the competitive forces, and the converging technologies that could represent a threat or an opportunity to this very large enterprise that for more than 100 years had been tremendously successful.

What we discovered in researching new entrants to their industry and identifying technology vectors relevant to their business had us concerned.