Once described as “human caffeine” on Twitter, Dr Nicola Millard injects a people-centred expresso shot to innovation and future strategy. Half social scientist, half technologist, all academic, she uses techniques from disciplines such as design thinking, psychology, anthropology, computing, behavioural economics and business consulting to generate data, provocations and stories to engage and create conversations from the board room to the front line. No frothy coffee; just solid research.
Formerly BT’s “futurologist”, Nicola Millard concentrates on the intersection between future strategy, people, and technology – including debates about home and hybrid working, the impact of innovations such as artificial intelligence and the metaverse on how we might work, the psychology behind why we adopt technologies (or not), how expectations of customer experiences are evolving, and how contact centres and front-line jobs are impacted.
Nicola brings experience to the coffee table from a long and varied career at BT Group where she has worked in areas such as innovation, research, usability, customer service, marketing, and business consulting. She was involved with some BT firsts, including the application of artificial intelligence into BT’s call centres, BT’s experiments with home working, and helping to develop BT’s “net easy” customer score.
She is an award-winning presenter, with 2 TEDx talks and hundreds of conference panel, chair, and keynote sessions under her belt. She occasionally pops up on radio and TV around the world, including appearances on ‘Woman’s Hour’, ‘Tech Tent’, ‘The Media Show’, ‘The Genius of Invention’ and ‘Back in Time for the Weekend’ for the BBC.
Nicola Millard got her PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from Lancaster University in 2005 and has authored over 50 publications – including 1 book and numerous book chapters. She is a mentor at Cambridge Judge and an external examiner at Cranfield Business School.
She is a judge on numerous award panels, including the European Contact Centre & Customer Service, Institute of Customer Service, the CCMA, the BQF UK Excellence, & the Association of Business Psychology awards. In both 2020 & 2021 she was listed as one of the top 20 UK CX Influencers by Customer Experience Magazine.
Trends shaping the future workplace.
What’s the data telling us and how do we make it work better?
Artificial intelligence, chatbots, and the impact on skills/customer experience.
Why the contact centre still matters in an age of automation.
How to use customer easy scores to improve customer experience.
How the devices that we use tether us back to the office wherever we are, and why that might be an issue.
Case studies from the mundane (ticket machines) to the bizarre (the internet of useless things).
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