Anders Sorman-Nilsson (Australia)

Anders Sorman-Nilsson is an expert on how the new world of online and digital has changed expectations whilst the need for real world and face-to-face interaction remains as important as ever, if not more so.

A former lawyer, Anders has gone on to found his own research company. Working with brands from Apple to Macquarie Bank, SAP to Johnson & Johnson, he looks at why individuals and businesses can be quick to invest in upgrading technology but less inclined to invest in personal and organisational upgrades.

Anders highlights the important influence on real people that the rapid change in technology is having and how to prepare for it. He looks at how best an organisation can prepare itself for the changes and the role of leadership in ensuring the best people are in the best position to meet the digital challenges of the future.

In his acclaimed book Digilogue: How to Win the Digital Minds and Analogue Hearts of Tomorrow's Customer Anders examines how consumers interact in both digital and real worlds and how to ‘provide value to digital minds, while connecting with analogue hearts’. In the follow-up Seamless, he considers how important it is for any business to allow customers to move from the digital to the real world without noticing a difference.

Contrary to many predictions, Anders states that as people live more of their personal and work life online, their need for the reassurance of tangible, face-to-face interaction increases. He considers concepts like the degree of trust people put in what they see and read online compared to their perception of being told in person and how to combine the immediacy and variety of online with the impact of the real world.