16 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 Continued on page 42 The past 300 of years provide a looking glass into the pattern of repeating cycles that include periods of invention, progress, and growth preceded by historical resets, sometimes cataclysmic events like world wars, or epidemics like the Spanish Flu. As we emerge from the COVID pandemic, we are entering one of these “reset moments,” according to Leonard Brody, a Canadian entrepreneur, venture and technocapitalist, and co-founder and executive chairman of Caravan, a joint venture with the Los Angeles-based Creative Artists Agency (CAA). The confluence of events, innovations, and changes of the past few decades set the stage. The disruption of the pandemic just ignited the massive cultural and technological shifts which now represent tremendous opportunity for businesses to transform their value propositions for a new era of growth and prosperity. “We need to think of these huge reset moments as part of a larger pattern with enormous cycles that literally reset the operating system of earth. The pattern has been repeating itself over and over for hundreds of years.” Since we have the benefit of historical hindsight, and we know that events like those we just lived through will happen again, it is critical that we use our experiences to “get on the right side of history” and make sure everyone is ready for another “new normal.” Leonard provided two examples of companies focused on understanding how to take advantage of the cycles. First is Amazon. At the start of the pandemic, very few people predicted we were going to be in a lockdown and that suddenly everyone would adopt e-commerce as quickly as they did. Seizing an opportunity, Amazon quickly made a bet that demand for its services would explode. Sixty percent of Amazon’s employees joined the company in the last 20 months, and they went from 500,000 employees worldwide to about 1.2 million in less than two years. Covid produced a dramatic decline in airline travel, causing most airlines to sell their gate slots or even abandon airports. It was the opposite for American Airlines. The company watched how U.S. citizens were shifting where they were living, moving to cities like Austin, Miami, Indianapolis, and Salt Lake City. So when gates were available in areas such as those, American scooped them up at a discount in hopes that travel would bounce back post-pandemic. And they were correct as travel rates have now soared past 2019 levels. “We must keep in mind that most processes end in growth and remember the pattern because we have no precedent otherwise,” Leonard said. “There is always opportunity in resets.” Critical to the lottery industry is current consumer trends which emerge from the cycles. It appears that the increasing importance of data is one of the latest trends. Apple has taken the lead of harnessing data from phones and putting it on customer’s wrists, thus making us more data-obsessed as we collect more and more data about ourselves. Corporate transparency has also become more important to consumers. “Research in Western Europe and the United States has shown that almost 70 percent of people will not buy products unless they know the value system of the company behind the product,” Leonard said. “It doesn’t mean that everything an organization does has to have a social cause. It just means that what the company stands for is important when people are making purchasing decisions. “Given that lottery profits go towards the service of society and good causes, it puts all of you in a pretty good place,” he told the crowd. Leonard said that lottery leaders should look at the companies with the largest market caps and see how their leaders are performing. “One commonality of the strongest leaders is that they are incredibly adept at seeing a grand picture of the world and then getting their employees and ultimately their customers to see the world in the same way,” he said. “It is critical to have a story to tell, a narrative with consumers that they understand and support.” Global resets typically ends in solid economic growth. What he is seeing now Positioning for the Growth and Prosperity that follows the Cyclical Reset Following is an executive summary of one of the fabulous keynote speeches delivered at the World Lottery Summit Vancouver. Given that lottery profits go towards the service of society and good causes, it puts all of you in a pretty good place
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