Reflections from Gartner Orlando Symposium – “There is no safe place”

Reflections from Gartner Orlando Symposium – “There is no safe place” [To be read whilst listening to “Walking in the Shadow of the Blues” by Whitesnake] An ex-colleague once told me that she liked my posts, but they revealed an inner sadness. You better not read this one Poh Ling Lee 😉 I have been through multiple periods of sadness in my life. I suspect I have undiagnosed mental issues. When things are at their worst, when I feel sad about all aspects of my personal and professional life, the phrase that comes to mind is “No safe place”. This week I participated in Gartner’s biggest event, IT Symposium in Orlando, Florida. About 10,000 people on site, I think. I presented and hosted a roundtable on Disinformation, conducted about 30 one-on-one meetings with clients about various topics, usually AI-related. And had endless informal conversations with clients and colleagues alike. For me, a summarizing theme could be “No safe place”. Not quite as negatively as I mean it in my own life, but a feeling that nothing is certain, everything is changing. In the face of generative and agentic AI, geopolitics, physical AI, regulatory shifts etc. etc. Not all negative, but loads of change, loads of uncertainty. Life during wartime is terrible, but the one good thing is everyone has a singular purpose. The kinds of uncertainty that AI represents, along with shifting geopolitical sands, means that it is hard to know what to do, what to focus on, where the future lies. To underscore this feeling, whilst on my daily morning walk in Disneyworld, I accidentally witnessed a SpaceX launch. (See photo.) What can we do? We can accept that change and uncertainty will be the norm for quite some time. We can continually educate ourselves on the known unknowns. And try to be agile to respond to any unknown unknowns. One final thought: One of the wisest people I know, Leigh McMullen, told me that in turbulent times, I have to be my own “safe place”. Maybe this is also a useful mindset in a business context. #unthink #unask #unlearn #gartnersym