It's a wonderful time of year!

If you’re like most business leaders we speak to, you’ll be aware of how disruptive technology is impacting nearly every industry. For many of them, understanding and keeping on top of the ever-changing technology can be an overwhelming task.

Packed with data, the Digital Trends Report tracks the big changes, progressions and fallbacks that are happening in technology and how businesses are responding to them. The data is compiled from the survey that you - our members - fill in, and is analysed by the Nimbus team to provide insight on market trajectories and trends. The DTR looks at all aspects of business - competition, foresight, strategy, experimentation, users and workers - and pairs the data with an interview with an organisation that is at the forefront of dealing with these challenges.

So far, we’ve visited Imperial College Professor and Director of FinTech, Andrei Kirilenko, to discuss the trajectory for financial technologies. He explained, from an academic standpoint, the big areas of potential for the financial sector and how these will affect other industries. He identified the battle between challenger banks and incumbent banks in the context of digitalisation. Consumer loyalty plays a big part here: research shows that people are more likely to get divorced than to switch banks. But are millennials and Gen Z-ers unbalancing that stat? And how has the rhetoric changed from destruction to collaboration over the last few years? Andrei delved into these topics and left us with much to think about.

This week, we chatted with Christine Ng, Talent Acquisition Partner at the Financial Times, at her London offices about changing skill demands in an age of automation. Automation of data input increases productivity: less time filling in databases means more time to work creatively. This marriage of productivity and creativity is certainly sought after - but perhaps more inaccessible than before in our 21st-century working habits. An even bigger question is how businesses can be working to cultivate diversity of thought in an age of filter bubbles and echo-chambers. For an organisation like the FT, top-quality journalism is defined by its ability to break expectations. Christine explained to us how the FT goes about breaking out of homogeneous thinking.

Upcoming interviews involve influential figures such as Rannia Leontaridi OBE, the Director of AI at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and Felipe Penacoba, the CIO at Santander.

A handful of the country’s most innovative people are involved in the report, and all we need now is your response to our survey to ensure that the data collected can be as informative and precise as possible.

It takes just 11 minutes to fill in. You can go get a coffee and a plate of biscuits to keep you company while you do it. You can send it around the office, so your colleagues can also join in the fun. Fill it in now and enjoy the sense of contribution when it comes out in print next year.

Find the survey here. 11 minutes starts now - ready… go!