Tech Goes Emo fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

There’s a soul-crushing moment in The Iron Giant when [spoiler alert] the alien robot chooses to save humans from an atomic bomb. The 1968 story by British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes presents one of the archetypal intersections of technology and humanity. It was science fiction then but, in the near fifty years that have since passed, the delta between tech and humans has narrowed. Today we live in a world where technology is closing in on what may be our most complex asset: emotion. And while the long-term impact unleashes a provocative range of possibilities, the more immediate effects are starting to be seen in customer engagement.

Emotion isn’t a new frontier in business, of course; sentiment analysis and emotional branding have been in practice long before they were formalized. Focus groups date at least as far back as World War II and Mad Men fans will likely recall Draper’s tryst with consumer-research (and consultant Faye Miller…) And, of course, as the 20th century progressed, technology joined customer insight’s analog tool sets. But it’s only more recently that tech-powered emotional analytics have really stepped into the spotlight.

What’s driving tech’s emo pursuits?

There is a certain inevitability to it all; for years now, artificial intelligence has made its way into countless sci-fi narratives, laying out a trajectory of sorts for innovation. But a more practical driving factor is the business case—the seismic shift in consumer behavior (thanks largely to on-demand content and mobile devices) has challenged brands by turning neatly defined channels and dayparts into an always-on free for all.  And while the ability to reach consumers anywhere/anytime sounds compelling on the surface, try accessing a highway without a designated on ramp. Without a construct for when to engage consumers, you need to be a lot smarter about making your move.

How is it done?

Fortunately, the same innovations that have muddied the waters of engagement offer a path to clarity. Mobile devices—the digital appendages that we eat, sleep and everything with—offer data on consumer needs, wants and, increasingly, emotions, all of which can be leveraged for targeting and overall strategy. Microsoft’s Project Oxford’s work, along with Apple’s recent acquisition of Emotient, have triggered recent buzz around facial recognition technology, while MediaCom’s announcement that they would use emotional tracking via facial detection in planning suggests that this is more than buzz.

There are also a growing number of offerings that use biometric feedback (like body temperature, sweat and heart rate) to gauge emotional response. Innerscope Research and Lightwave offer such technology, the latter recently partnered with 20th Century Fox to measure emotional reactions to The Revenant. Biometric data was also (not surprisingly) a topic of discussion at SXSW, with companies like Under Armour, Microsoft and Samsung coming together to discuss how it can be used to make marketing smarter.

It’s an insight upgrade for marketers

The data available through these various technologies isn’t simply a substitute for the traditional practice of marketing-by-assumption—it transcends it by providing marketers with a much more granular and actionable set of insights with which to make marketing decisions.

Further, what’s different today than say, 20 years ago, is that the same sort of technology that powers martech platforms is also available in consumer products. Smartwatches and fitness wristbands and bras are opening the door to a more emotionally-aware exchange between consumers and brands. As the technology proliferates, marketers have the opportunity to gain real-time insight into consumer’s emotional state at scale. (Focus groups start looking quaint, don’t they?)

Is it too creepy?

The response to this question often hinges on the value exchange—in other words, consumers are more likely to share information when they get something of value out of it. In the case of emotion tracking, the marketer’s endgame is to deliver more relevant and effective engagement opportunities by presenting messages or experiences that fit a specific moment and emotional mindset. As advertising becomes more attuned and responsive to consumer needs—offering information and utility instead of just taglines—it may evolve into something that feels more like a service than an imposition. (This can already be seen in mobile ads that offer features like store finders.) If it’s handled correctly on the brand, publisher and technology side (that is, with transparency), then the value exchange can work in the consumer’s favor.

Of course, there are benefits beyond marketing, too. Samsung’s Look at Me app is designed to help autistic children improve communication skills by, in part, helping them decode emotions, while the recent Be Fearless campaign showcases the ability to use virtual reality technology to cure phobias. Similarly, Stanford’s Virtual Human Interactions Lab is exploring virtual reality’s potential for building empathy. A number of similar programs are in use by the likes of the UN and Amnesty International. In other words, there are a lot of feel-good things happening in the world of emo-tech.

What next?

What does the future look like for a world where technology is attuned to our emotions? From a customer engagement perspective, emotional analytics enables clearer insight into consumer needs and general receptivity. Giving marketers the ability to make smarter decisions about how and when they engage consumers can have a positive impact on the relationship between brands and consumers, which is timely given the tension around ad blocking and oversaturation.

It’s also becoming easy to imagine a world where the information exchanged via, for example, wearables makes it possible to skip that intermediary message and allow brands to instantly respond to a current emotional need. Imagine getting a serotonin boost from your earbuds while riding the hyperloop to a lunch meeting in San Francisco? (This opens up a longer tangent about opting in, which we can save for another conversation.)

Despite great strides in emotional analytics, marketers are still in the discovery phase—learning what data is available and figuring out how to most effectively interpret and act on that data. So, there’s still a way to go before we reach many of the possibilities. And, along that way, a fair amount of trust needs to be in place for emotional analytics to be effective. That’s trust in brand, of course, but also in technology. Consumers need to see that tech can interpret complex emotions with reasonable accuracy and then, based on that insight, take the most favorable action—whether it be delivering the most relevant brand message or, well, saving us from an atomic bomb. You know, the simple stuff.

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Problems with email integration for work management tools fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

I’ve been evaluating a long list of work management tools as part of the research for the Work Management Narrative report (see recent post, Work Management in Theory: Context). One issue that comes up a great deal is the integration with email, which is a common trigger for a user to create a task, as well as a means to communicate with other people who may not be using the same — or any — work management tools.

There are a number of approaches to email integration, which I will categorize like this:

• Low or no integration: despite the ubiquity of email, and the obvious need to communicate to the wide, wide world through it (and email’s insatiable hunger to communicate with us, too) some vendors offer little or no support for the realities of email. Not good.
• Loose integration: some vendors have opted for a loose integration, often through bookmarklets or third-party connection services like Zapier and IFTTT. For example, Azendoo supports a Zapier ‘zap’ where gmails that I star become tasks in a specific project. Subsequently, the user can open Azendoo, and perhaps move the task to another project, add notes, fool with metadata (due dates, assignment, etc.). A bookmarklet — like Wrike‘s — accomplishes more or less the same thing. In either case, the connection is one-way, and the work management tool does not try to ‘handle’ email in a general way: the precipitating email is just a starting point for a task. At present, I think loose integration is the best approach.
• In-inbox integration: Some solutions — like Todoist (a team task management tool) and Sortd (ditto) — provide a Google Chrome extension so that when you are ‘in’ Gmail you can easily convert an email to a task (and add metadata, etc.) in a window while never leaving the Gmail context. This is a lot smoother than loose integration, especially for people who communicate through email a great deal. Also, clicking on a link back to an email makes it more of a two way solution.
• In-app email: Some tools aspire to replace the email client’s functionality altogether, basically pulling in all emails and implementing the services that emulate — at least in part — capabilities of email services. It is this last case that I want to zoom into in this post.

I’ve tried at least two solutions in recent weeks that seek to bring email integration in-app: Fleep and ScribblePost. I had an exchange with the CEO of ScribblePost, Alon Novy, about his company’s model of email integration. One outcome was the following post, shared with him through the company’s support system. In that post I suggested a more sophisticated version of in-app email integration:

Alon –

I tried and rejected your competitor Fleep’s attempt to act as a email client.

The hybrid failed for some of the same issues I have with your approach:

1. I might have a number of other plugins or features that operate in the Gmail client that I can’t walk away from, like Google Tabs.
2. If I have to undertake email hygiene in both Gmail and in the work management tool, that is an impossible cost.
3. The design of an email client is distinct from that of a work management tool, and intended to meet a wide range of use cases, not just those related to work management.

My bet is that the best approach will be to have a close coupling, but not a full integration of email in the work management tool, like your SP [ScribblePost]. On the work management side, some emails — those that are starred, or labeled in a specific way — would have a handle created, so that the email can be indirectly referenced and annotated: for example, comments can be added to the handle, or a task can be created as a follow-up to the email that would be attached to link to the email handle.

I think that the email handle is a distinct type or object in the work management space, different from tasks, internal messages, and posts. An email handle is a specific example of a general notion: a handle to reference some info object principally or partially managed outside the work management solution. That could also hold for Twitter or Facebook messages, for example, or Salesforce contacts.

At any rate, SP could implement a set of actions for email handles that fall into two groups:

1. those that represent actions on the handle — like creating or deleting the handle, linking it to a task (as a special sort of attachment), sharing it, adding comments, moving a handle from one project to another, etc. — as opposed to
2. actions on the email linked to the handle — like reply, forward, archive, and so on.

I think such a two-faced approach covers the greatest number of use cases, including unforeseen ones.

You might also benefit from a chrome plugin for Gmail, so that some (or perhaps even all) actions that users might want to perform vis-à-vis the intersection of email and SP could happen ‘in’ Gmail. For example, I might read an email and decide to

1. start tracking this thread in SP,
2. associate one or more tags with the handle, and
3. assign a follow-up task to myself referencing the email along with some notes.

I could then get back to other email, some of which never crosses over into SP.

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Note that the info handle concept lines up fairly directly with a platform play, obviously.

I applaud Alon and his team for the innovative ideas they are developing in ScribblePost, and likewise the brilliant design of Fleep, both products which I will be reviewing in the upcoming Narrative. I’m sharing this to stimulate discussion around these ideas, and also (shameless plug) to demonstrate the sort of thinking that animates the report.

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Work Management in Theory: Context fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

This is an excerpt of the upcoming report, Work Management Narrative, in which I will be reviewing around a dozen products, including Asana, Azendoo, Basecamp, Clarizen, Fleep, Flow, Liquid Planner, Mavenlink, Smartsheet, Trello, Work Front, Wrike, Zoho Projects and others.

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Work Management in Theory: Context

Work management is a term that has emerged in recent years as task management tools were enhanced with various social communication capabilities, principally derived from design motifs from work media tools. This increase of capabilities — and the resulting overlap of work management capabilities with those of work media tools — means that trying to assess the trends that are prevalent  in work management really require stepping back. Today, there are a wide range of approaches to supporting cooperative work in the workplace, and they have many features in common. So, in many instances, groups or companies evaluating tools for  team cooperation may consider offerings that are very different in their underlying design, and require correspondingly different approaches to their use.

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Today, there are a wide range of approaches to support cooperative work in the workplace, and they have many features in common. So, in many instances, groups or companies evaluating tools for team cooperation may consider offerings that are very different in their underlying design, and require correspondingly different approaches to their use.

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The Lay of the Landscape

Here’s a table that attempts to make sense of a variety of technologies that are used in business to support cooperative work. It is not exhaustive, but I hope it will clarify some of the distinctions between these classes of tools. At the same time, there is a great deal of overlap so some degree of confusion is inevitable.

The primary distinction here is the degree of emphasis for task-centric versus message-centric tools. Those that we will focus on in this report are task-centric, even though there have to include some fundamental level of social communication to be considered work management tools. So for example, Todoist is a leading team task management tool, widely used in business. However, the tool lacks social communication aside from comments (‘notes’) associated with tasks: Todoist does not support messaging, discussions, activity streams, or ‘call outs’ (also called ‘@mentions’). While tasks can be assigned to others by the task creator, there is no other way that users can reference each other, or ‘talk’. And at the least social level of task management, personal task management tools don’t allow even the most basic level of business-oriented task assignment. As a result, team task management tools are not covered in this report, although Gigaom may develop a report like this one for that market, at some time in the future.

Work management tools share a lot of similarities with various message-centric work technologies. Note that I have divided the message-centric tools into two sorts:

1. Follow centric — like Yammer, where the primary orientation of messaging is around following of message sources, and messages are primarily displayed in activity streams based on the user choosing who and what to follow.
2. Chat centric — such as Slack, where the primary orientation of message is around chat rooms, or channels, and messages are principally displayed in those contexts when the user chooses to’ join’ or ‘enter’ them.

Some work media tools provide a degree of  task management, although it may not be the primary focus of the tool. And, as a general case, products like Jive, Yammer, and IBM Connections have little or no native task management, relying instead on integration with third party solutions. Likewise, many leading work chat offerings, like Slack and Hipchat, don’t have native task management, also relying instead on integration with task management tools, like Asana and Jira.

Lastly, the class of tools I refer to as workforce communications (like Lua, Avaamo, Fieldwire, and Sitrion One) have characteristics that are like those of work media and work chat tools, but are principally oriented toward communications management with an increasingly mobile contingent of the out-of-office ‘hard’ workforce, such as construction, retail and restaurant workers, field sales, security, and others.

At the bottom tier of the table in figure 1 are tools that are not principally oriented toward business use, like personal task management (Todoist, and Google Tasks), social media (Facebook, and Twitter), and consumer chat apps (Facebook M, and WhatsApp). This are widely used in business contexts, although they aren’t geared for it. Note however that this doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be recast as team or work oriented tools, like the trajectory of Facebook for Work.

There are other less-closely related work technologies that are also not investigated here, like curation tools, conferencing tools, and so called ‘productivity’ tools (like Microsoft Office 365, Dropbox Paper, and Google Docs/Sheets/Slides). These, again, are candidates for inclusion in another report.

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Next week, I will be posting another excerpt from the report. 

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Announcing Gigaom Change fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

Gigaom’s CEO Byron Reese is launching a new conference, Gigaom Change, which is ‘a hands-on summit designed to help those leading business get a grasp on the dizzying amount of technical change occurring around us and gain the confidence to accelerate enterprise adoption’.

I thought I’d ask Byron about the conference, and what his goals are.

About Byron

Byron Reese is an Austin-based serial entrepreneur, inventor, futurist, and historian who believes that technology will soon usher in a new golden age of humanity, where there will be no hunger, disease, poverty or war. He launched his first business while an undergraduate at Rice University and over the years has started several others.  Along the way, he became an award-winning author with the publication of Infinite Progress. He presently serves as the CEO of Knowingly Corporation, as well as the publisher of Gigaom.

Byron Reese

The Interview

Stowe Boyd: Gigaom Change is a new event you’re orchestrating. What was your motivation? Was there an itch you just couldn’t scratch? Does the world need another tech conference?

Byron Reese: Gigaom Change is something entirely new and different. There isn’t another conference quite like it. It is based on the idea that a series of technologies are all converging on us at the same time, and they promise to a cataclysmic impact on the world.  The seven technologies we will be looking at are artificial intelligence, virtual reality/augmented reality, robotics, human-machine interfaces, nanotechnology, cybersecurity, and 3D printing.

I have noticed that business leaders everywhere are having trouble keeping up with these technologies.  Everyone knows the high-level basic concepts, but this growing complexity is strangling corporate foresight and slowing business productivity.

If you think about it, it is no surprise that these technologies are so overwhelming. Humanity has only faced real change three times in the past: When we got speech 100,000 years ago, when we developed agriculture 10,000 years ago, and when we invented writing 5000 years ago. We are literally going to witness the fourth major change, when our technologies upend our society and its institutions.  Business leaders need to understand how to use these new technologies.

SB: The event will be covering a broad range of topics, so how will that done? Seven parallel tracks? What’s the experience going to be like?

BR: Gigaom Change is a single track event broken up into seven sections over two days. So all the attendees have the same conference experience.

SB: How does Gigaom Change articulate with Gigaom’s research focus?

BR: Gigaom’s research focus is exactly that: Helping our audience of executives understand the technologies they are confronted with. There are all kinds of research organizations covering the consumer space, there are plenty covering marketing departments and IT departments, but our unique focus  is serving business leaders confronted with the implications of emerging technologies on their business.

SB: What should attendees anticipate as the takeaways from the event?

BR: Gigaom Change is being built in such a way that we can dive into these seven technologies and understand three things about each one: 1) How we got to where we are, 2) How these technologies can be deployed today, and 3) Where it is all heading.

The intent to give leaders the most practical yet thoughtful insight into why these technologies matter and the very tangible impact they will have, collectively, on their business, their industry and the society of which we are all a part.

While it is a very practical conference in that regard, it is not going to be your typical “sit in your chair watching talking heads all day” kind of event. It is being built as an experience not just a conference that connects enterprise leaders with leading edge innovators.  If any attendees are ever served baked chicken, I have failed.

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Those wanting more information can contact Byron by email.

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10 reasons why nobody is going to be out of a job in the digital world fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

There’s a lot of chat about the dangers to employment being driven by technology — with both blue and white collar work being threatened, according to a report from the University of Oxford.

But how much of this is future hype, and how much short-term reality? Here’s 10 reasons why nobody should worry about whether they will have something to do in the years to come:

1. Because decisions are more than insights. We may be able to get a great deal of information from analytics, but there will often be the extra level of judgement that only a human can bring. This is as true in healthcare and politics, as in customer service and situation response.

2. Because we have hair, nails and teeth. All of which require cutting, grooming and generally maintaining. The amount of time people spend having themselves looked after is as much in proportion to their wish to be looked after, as any hygiene factor.

3. Because we ascribe value to human interaction and care. In hospitals or day care centres, schools or gyms, or indeed, in taxis and public services, nobody, young or old, wants to be cared for by a robot. Nor will they ever.

4. Because we love craft. Robots have been part of assembly plants for many years now, and will continue to be. But we still love hand-crafted stuff. It may be possible to 3D-print a statue, but the merit of having something hand-made will sustain.

5. Because we value each other and the services we offer. Our capabilities are open to exploitation, it was ever thus. But the fundamental nature of a value exchange — “I will do something for you, and you will recompense me” — remains a constant.

6. Because we are smart enough to think of new things to do. Innovation, design, new thinking comes from people, not machines. And even if computers suggest new ways of doing things, it will be people that pick the ideas up and run with them.

7. Because complexity continues to beat computing. Even as we harvest ever larger quantities of data via sensors and cameras, through algorithms and actions, the ability of computers to make sense of it all remains behind the curve. To get ahead requires brains.

8. Because experience and expertise counts. A plumber told me that when push-joints were invented, his father was concerned there would be no more need for plumbers — he needn’t have worried. In this complex world, domain knowledge, earned over years, will retain its value.

9. Because we see value in the value-add. If it is possible to produce a motorbike without manual intervention, it becomes a commodity — but then, the motorbike with customised artwork becomes the must-have item.

10. Because the new world needs new skills. A wealth of potential opportunity exists for future employment, if only we knew what it was — from drone pilots to 3D print shops, from data brokerage managers to IoT farm designers. And beyond.

The bottom line is that even as computer power increases, as we automate manual activities, we lose neither the desire, nor the propensity for work. We have evolved such that we see work as necessary: we derive satisfaction from doing it ourselves, and sharing the fruits of our labours.

Production line jobs may come to be seen as a historical aberration, the temporary consequence of industrialisation with primitive technology. And some people, who have spent their lives working in one area, may find themselves needing to work in others.

But while jobs may change, we face neither a future life of leisure, nor a world of depression and worthlessness. The final sentence of the Oxford University report states, “For workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills.” Well, it just may be we already have such skills, and if only we weren’t slaves to the machine we might be able to make better use of them.

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Reverse engineering retail for the post-channel world fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

The Retail Business Technology Expo held earlier this month at London’s Olympia exhibition centre was as remarkable for what people didn’t talk about, as what they did.

Zebra Technologies’ Mark Thomson hit the nail on the head. “Look around, at the stands — nobody is talking about omnichannel anymore,” he said. “Apart from a couple — and that’s just because they haven’t caught up yet.”

Indeed. The ‘omni’ term did get a mention at the panel session on future-proofing the supply chain I hosted, but just the one. It’s not that omnichannel is less relevant; more that the discussion about channels is evolving, adapting to the perspective of an industry already re-orienting itself.

Online and mobile are no longer new; they just ‘are’. And thinking about them as separate makes as much sense as making coleslaw without mayonnaise. “We’re seeing a shift towards customer centricity and a unified commerce approach, rather than a view that omnichannel is achieved,” explains Mark.

That’s the principle: of course, the reality is a work in progress. It’s still a major issue for a retailer to oversee the customer journey as an individual flits from online investigation, to in-store evaluation, then to mobile purchase (and potentially, physical return), which benefits neither retailer nor customer.

Technologies are far from seamless; it’s challenging to get it all working together, with the result that customers can bear the brunt, for example being asked for the same information over and again.  “The technology needs to get out of the way when the customer wants to buy,” says Ian Benn, Head of EMEA at Ingenico.

Part of the response could be tokenisation, originally conceived for customer privacy protection but with a spin-off benefit of acting like a non-intrusive customer ‘cookie’ within the sales process. “Tokenisation lets customers roam from point of sale to m-commerce to e-commerce and back again; often in the same purchase,” Ian continues.

Whatever the technological answer, according to my panellists, the trick is seeing what the whole of retail is about. In this complex, digitally augmented world, retailers can lose touch with the fact they are ultimately curators, managing the relationship between customers and their suppliers, and getting the right products to the right people.

This may sound obvious but it needs to remain front and centre of the retail and logistics strategy, whatever tools are available to achieve it and whatever their ramifications.

The other two key parts of any strategy are to deliver on foundation standards for data format and exchange, and to get the different parts of the business engaged with what such capabilities enable. Essentially, these two pillars provide a technology-up and a business-down response to meet retail’s fundamental goal.

Consumers may have changed how they buy but the market remains wide open for those who can meet their needs, working across whatever ‘channels’ they choose to express them and along the entire route from supplier to warehouse, to home and beyond.

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Enterprise Security in a mobile-first world does not stop at the device fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

Mobile technology has come incredibly far over the past few years, from smartphones and tablet computers being a luxury to becoming an essential tool for the enterprise, fundamentally changing how we do business. This transformation provided the backdrop for Gigaom’s recent Webinar Evolving Enterprise Security for the Mobile-First World.

As we discussed, mobile security has lagged behind the way we now use such devices, which have moved significantly beyond email to offering a wide range of complex functions. At least until now, as considerable strides have been made to secure the data and services that can now be delivered.

But security does not stop at the device. Speaking to Sam Phillips, Samsung USA’s Chief Information Security Officer and VP of Samsung Business Services for Enterprise Security, it became clear that while the features now available provide a robust foundation for mobile security, they should not be treated in isolation.

We are working in a mobile-first world. Many organisations see mobile technologies as a source of innovation, of new business models and growth. Quite rightly so, as they hold a great deal of promise for both externally facing and operational tasks, for suppliers and customers, for support engineers and warehouse managers.

The theme ‘security as a business enabler’ has evolved from its past, internally-facing beginnings. Where good security once reduced risk, enabling better business by freeing sales representatives or supporting home workers, today security has become an essential part of the trust all stakeholders place in an organisation.

In the platform economy, where a company is perceived through the services it offers online and via mobile, trust becomes a most important asset.  Lose this trust and you lose business, as many organisations have found out to their cost.

As a result, we discussed, mobile security becomes both a strategic business imperative and tangible opportunity. This is recognised across the business, but adoption can sometimes happen without the basics being in place. “Business adoption of Mobile has gotten ahead of CISOs and the CIOs they work with,” says Sam.

The mobile security mechanisms now available on devices, coupled with the services available from a variety of partners, enable mobile services to be locked down or opened up, depending on data to be transferred and apps to be installed.

While this gives organisations the flexibility to create secure mobile solutions to fit their own needs, it emphasises a key element of any mobile strategy. “Businesses need to decide what they really want to do with mobile,” explains Sam. With no one-size-fits-all, so organisations first need to understand what the data and apps are to achieve.

This means more than aligning mobile strategy with business strategy. In reality, mobile becomes a fundamental element of the business models required in today’s increasingly digital world, and therefore needs to be treated as such.

Understanding this, and getting the basics right in terms of securing the mobile assets of the business, implementing a secure development life cycle for apps and so on, ensures mobile can become a powerful platform for business model innovation and enterprise transformation. The alternative means building a castle on sand.

It remains to be seen how far mobile will go in the next five years, but it will only become a more embedded element of our business and personal lives. As it moves from an extension of the enterprise to an intrinsic part, getting the right pieces in place now will stand a firm in good stead for the future.

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Is logistics heading towards its final destination? fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

In this digitally enabled world, it’s easy to be distracted by the wealth of technology now available. Mobile apps and devices are transforming the nature of logistics, for example, with devices now being used to track consignments, plan and monitor routes. Features from identifying gas station locations to directly updating customers are becoming part and parcel of the logistical journey.

It would be trite to suggest that such capabilities are inadequate, as they quite clearly bring a great deal of value. For example, a local business with which I am familiar has improved visibility on its delivery team, to the extent that it can respond better to customer complaints. On one occasion, mobile technology proved that a driver was driving under the speed limit through a village, when a complainant said he was not.

At the same time however, the features mobile apps currently provide are largely aimed at the logistical process itself – as if it existed in isolation from what was being delivered, and more importantly, why. The transportation of goods has traditionally been considered independently, largely because it is so manually intensive and, in itself, complicated.

As technology advances however, this, more isolated nature of logistics is changing. A simple, yet profound example is the click-and-collect service, in which a retailer offers delivery of an online purchase to a location of choice – a shop or an affiliated delivery point. It’s a great idea, making for a significantly improved customer experience — if it works. If it does not, the dream can quickly turn to nightmare.

The key to success (or indeed, failure) is the ability to transmit clear information between the two most important components in the chain: the consignment, and its planned recipient — this could be a retail customer or, in the B2B case of spares management chain, a field engineer.

Mobile devices remain a very important element, as they offer a window onto the logistical world. For this window to operate effectively however, back-end systems and tools (such as inventory systems, maintenance schedules and sales databases) need to exchange information in a fashion that appears seamless. No room exists for doubt, when it comes to whether a delivery has taken place.

This may sound obvious, but it is not yet always the case. In one, anecdotal click-and-collect example, a customer went to a store to pick up a package, only to find it had already been returned due to a mismatch of delivery records. On another occasion, an order was cancelled as the product was no longer available, without updating the customer – who only found out when they arrived to collect it.

Logistics simply cannot afford to make errors such as these, as they jeopardise its very rationale. On the upside, get things right and a number of new opportunities emerge — not least to differentiate the business in both B2C and B2B markets, but also to extend product ranges and squeeze that all-important operational efficiency.

The threat is that incumbent logistics organisations may not have forever to get things right. Consider Uber: while it, and its competitors, have significantly disrupted taxi and private hire services, the company’s valuation is based on its potential as a delivery mechanism for all forms of physical delivery.

“Uber isn’t valued at more than $50 billion because it’s a ‘taxi app’” explains Adrian Gonzalez, president of supply chain consulting firm Adelante SCM, but because, “Investors see Uber as a logistics company.”

Despite such topics as 3D printing, self-driving vehicles and flying drones threatening to impact the delivery and receipt of products, these remain early days for logistics – and furthermore, the data integration points with other systems will remain the same, however a delivery takes place.

So, this is certainly not the time to paint any disaster scenario. Rather, it is the right moment to get the basics of offering an integrated service right, in the knowledge that whatever comes in the future, it will only grow in importance.

 

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Globalization, Technology, Customization & Overparenting — Meet the Millennial Generation fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

This article is the first in a series of six. It is excerpted from Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage the Millennials by Bruce Tulgan.

It seems that the vast majority of leaders and managers think Millennials have an attitude problem. But isn’t this always the case when a new generation joins the workforce? Doesn’t every new generation of young workers irritate the older, more experienced ones?

At the early career stage of life, young people are just learning to break away from the care of others (parents, teachers, institutions) and taking steps toward self-sufficiency and responsibility. As they move into the adult world with the energy and enthusiasm—and lack of experience—that is natural at that stage, they are bound to clash with more mature generations.

And yet as much as human experience—such as the rite of passage into the workforce—stays the same over time, the world doesn’t. What makes each generation different are these accidents of history that shape the larger world in which human beings move through their developmental life stages. So while every generation rocks the boat when they join the adult world, they also bring with them defining characteristics that alter the rules of the game for everyone going forward.

Millennials’ “attitude” probably is not likely to go away as they mature; their high-maintenance reputation is all too real. Still, the whole picture is more complicated. Yes, Millennials will be more difficult to recruit, retain, motivate, and manage than any other new generation to enter the workforce. But this will also be the most high-performing workforce in history for those who know how to manage them properly.

Meet the Millennial Generation

Although demographers often differ on the exact parameters of each generation, there is a general consensus that Generation X ends with the birth year 1977. Most agree that those born between 1978 and 2000 belong in the Millennial Generation. But by our definition at RainmakerThinking, Inc., the Millennials come in two waves: Generation Y (those born between 1978 and 1989) and Generation Z (those born between 1990 and 2000). Gen Yers are today’s thirty-somethings, no longer the youngest people in the workplace, while Gen Zers are the newest new young workforce, those who are filling up the rising global youth tide in today’s workforce.

Here’s the short story with the Millennial Generation: If you liked Generation Y, you are going to love Generation Z. If Generation Y was like Generation X on-fast-forward-with-self-esteem-on-steroids, Generation Z is more like the children of the 1930s… That is, if the children of the 1930s were permanently attached to hand-held super-computers and reared on “helicopter parenting” on steroids. Overall, the Millennials embody a continuation of the larger historical forces driving the transformation in the workplace and the workforce in recent decades.

Globalization and technology have been shaping change since the dawn of time. But during the life span of the Millennials, globalization and technology have undergone a qualitative change. After all, there is only one globe, and it is now totally interconnected. Millennials connect with their farthest-flung neighbors in real time regardless of geography through online communities of interest. But as our world shrinks (or flattens), events great and small taking place on the other side of the world (or right next door) can affect our material well-being almost overnight. Nothing remains cutting edge for very long. What we know today may be obsolete by tomorrow. In a world defined by constant change, instantaneous response is the only meaningful time frame.

Why are Millennials so confident and self-possessed, even in the face of all this uncertainty? One reason is surely that they grew up in and after the Decade of the Child. Gen Xers were the great unsupervised generation (they made the latchkey into a metaphor). But Millennials are the great over-supervised generation. In the short time between the childhood of Generation X and that of Millennials (especially Generation Z), making children feel great about themselves and building up their self-esteem became the dominant theme in parenting, teaching, and counseling. Throughout their childhood, Millennials were told over and over, “Whatever you think, say or do, that’s okay. Your feelings are true. Don’t worry about how the other kids play. That’s their style. You have your style. Their style is valid and your style is valid.”

For Millennials, difference is cool. Uniqueness is the centerpiece of identity. Customization of the self is sought after with great zest and originality, through constant experimentation. In the world of the Millennials, the menu of selfhood options is extraordinary and the range of possible combinations infinite. For the Millennials, customization is the Holy Grail, and it has always been right there within their grasp. From the first day they arrive in the workplace, they are scrambling to keep their options open, leverage their uniqueness for all its potential value, and wrap a customized career around the customized life they are trying to build.

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About the Author

Bruce Tulgan is an adviser to business leaders all over the world and a sought-after keynote speaker and seminar leader. He is the founder and CEO of RainmakerThinking, Inc., a management research and training firm, as well as RainmakerThinking.Training, an online training company. Bruce is the best-selling author of numerous books including Not Everyone Gets a Trophy (Revised & Updated, 2016), Bridging the Soft Skills Gap (2015), The 27 Challenges Managers Face (2014), and It’s Okay to be the Boss (2007). He has written for the New York Times, the Harvard Business Review, HR Magazine, Training Magazine, and the Huffington Post. Bruce can be reached by e-mail at brucet@rainmakerthinking.com; you can follow him on Twitter @BruceTulgan, or visit his website.

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The Untapped Market for Wearables and Aging fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

Aging societies worldwide pose serious challenges to both healthcare delivery and how it is financed. The financial challenges are not only for the healthcare system, but also for families and caregivers who spend a significant amount of time and money caring for elderly.  Carers UK, a non-profit organization, has estimated that over 2 million people have given up jobs and over 3 million have cut back hours of work in order to care for sick or disabled elderly relatives. Gallup estimates that lost productivity due to caregiving amounts to over $25 billion annually in the US alone.

These figures do not count the economic impact of chronic diseases and other issues that affect the elderly. Falls alone are estimated to cost nearly $15 billion/year and are a major cause of death due to sequelae (additional complications) after the fall.

While the headlines on wearables tend to focus on athletes and those who are already in good health, the business case for wearables for managing issues that afflict the elderly, coupled with the time and financial constraints on their caregivers, may be even more robust, if the right solutions could be made available.

A brief look at the current market for wearables reveals that solutions for the elderly are beginning to enter the market. Personal emergency response systems (PERS), which can be worn by the elderly in the event of a fall, have been available for many years. These devices allow the user to summon emergency assistance by activating a button on the device that is worn on the wrist or around the neck. The next generation of PERS, such as Artemis or Amulyte, has broader applications for safety while also considering fashion and the use of smartphones.

Even more importantly, we need to harness sensors to predict the onset of conditions that may lead to falls and other health issues before they happen.  AgeWell Biometrics is a cloud-based platform that can connect to a broad range of wearable devices and enable healthcare professionals to evaluate stability of an individual and the risk of falls and other neurological issues.

In addition, the market for remote monitoring technologies that utilize sensors to measure cardiac function, track illness symptoms (e.g. Samsung Gear Smartwatches) or track location while safeguarding privacy (CarePredict) looks set to grow. In the next several years we expect to see many of the expensive medical devices found in intensive care units become wearable sensors worn on the wrist or in clothing.

This development will help health systems transition patients out of the hospitals (where they can be at risk of infection) and into the home sooner, hopefully for a speedier recovery. Other applications include focusing on conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease and treating hand tremors, or applications for those suffering from Alzheimer’s (Smart Sole).

In order to realize the benefits of wearables for the elderly we will need to improve capturing and sharing this data with the right healthcare provider and/or caregiver, at the right time. However, advances made in recent years are on the right track to deliver solutions which will make a real difference, in terms of both cost and quality of life.

Photo credit: Neill Kumar

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Change Your Printer, Change The World? fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

Last month we touched on the dual role of IT managers as both internal support and tech influencers at GigaOm. It’s pretty much the same story at companies around the world, as are the core principles for doing business: maximize efficiency and productivity while reducing costs. HP sent us a shiny new toy to help us accomplish those tasks, and asked us to share our thoughts in a series of sponsored posts. You can check out our initial thoughts HERE, but now it’s time to talk tech.

We set up our new HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477 and decided to show it no mercy. If we were going to really #ReinventTheOffice with HP’s help, we needed to go full Thunder Dome on that machine. In the corporate world, that pretty much means we printed a lot of stuff on a tight deadline. The task at hand: financial reporting packets. That translates to 8 full color pages times eight packets plus spiral binding, stuffing, and labeling all before the UPS driver arrived at 3 p.m. We started at 2.

HP states their JetIntelligence toner cartridge technology is “engineered to make the printer print faster and enable higher page yields.” This is highly important when two-day versus overnight shipping is on the line (see need for cost effectiveness in paragraph one). As previously stated, we were pushing the limit by starting at 2 p.m., but we like living on the edge. As it turned out, we had a bit of time to spare: it took just under four minutes to print 64 pages. Printing the mailing labels went even faster. The packets were done so far in advance we vowed to procrastinate even longer next month. You might be thinking the quality had to go down for the pages to come out that fast, but you’d be wrong. The graphics looked great, even in full color, and the black and white was crisp. We were pretty pleased with round one.

Over the next few weeks, it was business as usual at GigaOm, except it wasn’t. It was better. The MFP M477 kept right on printing at top speed, producing quality pages at an impressive clip. The first page out was particularly fast at under 10 seconds, under nine when printing black and white. Most jobs printed right around the top posted speed of 28ppm, which we loved. And changing the dreaded toner cartridge wasn’t very dreadful at all, as it turned out. The built-in toner indicators were accurate and prevented premature replacement, and when it was truly time for a new cartridge, the auto seal remover feature made it easy and efficient. No more fighting, cramming, and messy hands.

One feature we were particularly interested in is the anti-fraud technology touted in the product materials. Printers are part of our network, as they are in most businesses, and if not protected, they can provide unsecured access for hackers. This is not good. To prevent unauthorized access, HP employs three security tactics to protect our data: HP Sure Start, which validates the BIOS code; whitelisting, which authenticates the firmware; and runtime intrusion detection, which monitors and detects anomalies in firmware and memory operations. Those are abbreviated descriptions of some rather complex processes, but you get the idea.

Adding a faster printer to the fray might seem like an obvious way to improve productivity in business, but it’s not that easy. Speed is great, but not when it means sacrificing graphic integrity, increasing cost, or complicating procedures. The MFP M477 goes beyond faster printing and really does simplify many aspects of office life. Removing the headaches of paper jams, toner explosions, frequent cartridge replacement, watching pages trickle out at a snail’s pace, and fearing a security breech are all big steps forward. You might even say they’re ways to #ReinventTheOffice.

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The Rise of Work Chat Anti-Hype fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

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Storytelling meets the power of the crowd fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

Here’s a confession: I hate horror movies. It took me a while to realise that I didn’t actually have to watch them – some point after The Silence of the Lambs, I thought, nah. If I never see another horror film again, I will not feel in the slightest bit bereft.

But here’s the other thing. It took me even longer to work out that horror movies are deliberately looking to make people scared. I thought it was just how I reacted – badly – but no, that’s the whole point. If a horror film isn’t turning you into a blubbering wreck who checks the fridge when you get home, in case someone is hiding inside… then it isn’t doing its job.

Which begs the question – what do stories become when we start to become participants in their creation? That’s exactly the question which the guys at the strangely named Mashup Machine have set out to answer. Their first story is Scary Cabin, yeah, you already get the plot. Or do you? What happens when you, or anybody else, can change it?

Clearly, Scary Cabin isn’t really my kind of story. I have a nasty feeling that my involvement would start with moving all sharp objects a good distance away, or simply getting the heck out of there (which is what the last person standing always seems to do – I want to be that person).

But there is something in this. Stories evolve in their telling; they are embellished, refined. Teams can collaborate on plots, or simply nudge lead writers in a direction. Brainstorms can generate scenarios that have to be integrated, sometimes with great effect. And we can now do all of these things with the power of a globally motivated crowd.

Whether or not Mashup Machine is the answer, remains to be seen. This isn’t the first attempt at user-defined stories, but it is coming at a time when a whole bunch of technologies are more readily accessible – the immersive nature of VR, for example, coupled with the machine learning power of the cloud.

Behind it all is storytelling itself, which is evolving in parallel with the digitally enabled society we are creating. Since ancient times we have told stories in order to learn, to cope and survive. For better or worse, the stories we create digitally could tell us more about ourselves, or the people we are becoming, than we could ever read in a book.

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Mobile Security: putting the consumerisation genie back in the bottle fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

Since the arrival of the first consumer-bought smartphones, enterprise security has been under threat. That all-important chain of defense against security risks has been undermined by its weakest link, people, in this case by using non-standard devices to conduct business and therefore making corporate data vulnerable to attack.

The alternative, to roll out company-issued mobile devices, has not been an easy path to follow. When historical market leader Blackberry lost its leading position in the market to Apple and Google’s Android, companies also lost a significant part of the ability to control corporate messaging and applications from a central point.

From the perspective of the IT shop, the consequence has been fragmentation, which has undermined the ability to deliver a coherent response in security terms. While solutions such as Mobile Device Management have existed, they have been seen as onerous; also, some devices (in particular those based on Android) have been seen as less secure.

Looking more broadly, many organisations have ended up adopting an approach in which corporate devices are used alongside personal equipment for business use. The genie of consumerisation is out of the bottle, say the pundits. But now devices exist that can deliver on an organisation’s mobile security needs, the question is, can it be put back?

The answer lies in addressing the source of the challenge, which is not the device but the person using it. Human beings assess risk all the time, and indeed, we are very good at it. In the case of a mobile device for example, we are prepared to put up with a small amount of discomfort if it will get us the result we want: sending a message, say.

If the discomfort is too great, we will assess other risks, such as, “What happens if I get caught using my personal phone?” If the answer is nothing, then the chances are that the behavior will continue. With this in mind, anyone deploying a mobile solution needs to consider two variables: the discomfort it causes, and the cost of avoiding the discomfort.

Considering the discomfort first, the point of any mobile solution is to enable productivity. Different security features — such as encrypted data storage, separation of apps and so on — may be applicable to different business scenarios.

Defining a solution appropriate for an organisation or group requires familiarity with the security features available on a device and the risks they mitigate. Better knowledge makes for more flexibility, reduced operational overhead and therefore increased probability of a successful deployment.

An equal partner to product knowledge should be an understanding of the organisation concerned, the data assets to be protected and what constitutes their acceptable use. If a policy is in place, this may need to be reviewed: note that it needs to be signed off at the top of the organisation to be effective.

Once a standard configuration has been defined, it will require testing. Too often, enterprise mobile security can fail “for want of a nail” — insufficient licenses on the RADIUS server for example, or lack of WiFi cover in areas where authentication takes place. Users need a solution that works from day one, or they will immediately lose confidence in it.

Putting all these measures in place can help minimize discomfort, but the need to go hand in hand with measures to ensure that the capabilities cannot be circumvented. Note that we are talking about the organisation’s most important asset — it’s people — who will respond far better to inclusionary tactics than draconian tactics.

At the same time as understanding why secure mobile working technologies are being deployed however, employees need to know that they need to act as a strong link in the chain, not a weak one. An Acceptable Use Policy should be enforceable, in that a staffer at any level’s card will be marked if they attempt to circumvent it.

In addition, the genie should be given a clear timescale for getting back in the bottle. For example, in an ‘anything goes’ environment which mixes personal and corporate mobile equipment, individuals should be given a cut-off date following which corporate data access will only be possible via a secure device.

A final question is about sustainability, that is, how to keep it all going? Reporting is important, with deprovisioning perhaps the most critical — it is one thing to know that resources have been allocated to the right people, but even more so is to know that any rights — and indeed devices — have been returned on change of role or exit from the company.

The bottom line, and the most fundamental challenge, is that any shiny new corporate devices deliver on what they are supposed to do — in this case enabling mobile users to stay productive without compromising on corporate risk. Provide people with usable security they will not try to circumvent, and you avoid consigning devices to the desk drawer.

If you’re interested in improving your business’s mobile security operations, join us for our upcoming webinar: Evolving Enterprise Security for the Mobile-First World. This webinar is presented by GigaOm’s Jon Collins, with sponsorship by Samsung. Register now for the webinar taking place on Wednesday, March 9 from 1 to 2pm EST.

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How the Great Generational Shift is Causing Transformation in the Very Nature of Employment fifianahutapea.blogspot.com

Excerpted from RainmakerThinking, Inc.’s white paper, The Great Generational Shift

What is the Great Generational Shift?
There is a “Great Generational Shift” underway in the workforce today. This is the post-Baby Boomer shift that demographers and workforce planners have been anticipating for decades. It is not only a generational shift in the numbers in the workforce, but an epic turning point. This is the final stage of a historic period of profound change globally and a corresponding transformation in the very fundamentals of the employer-employee relationship.

The Numbers Problem: Workforce 2020

While there are always different people of different generations working side by side in the workplace, today there are as many as six different generations, depending on which demographic definitions one uses. The workforce is aging on one end of the spectrum and getting younger on the other. In the middle there is a gap, with the prime age workforce shrinking as an overall percentage of the workforce.

Generations in the workplace in 2016. The oldest, most experienced people in the workplace, “pre-Boomers,” those born before the post-WWII “Baby Boom” began in 1946, are still greater than 1% of the workforce. The Baby Boomers (born 1946-64) are 30%, Generation Xers (born 1965-77) are 27%, and The Millennial Generation is 42%.

Because both the Baby Boomers and the Millennials are such large generations with such long birth-year time spans by the broadest definitions, we have found it useful to split them each into first-wave and second-wave cohorts. Based on our model, here is a chart of the generations in the workplace today:

The age bubble. On the older end of the generational spectrum, the workforce is aging, just as the overall population is aging. This is particularly notable in Japan, most of Europe, and North America. In North America alone, ten thousand Baby Boomers have been turning 65 every single day since 2011. The Boomers are filling up an “age bubble” in the workforce such that there are many more people at or near the ordinary age range for retirement. The exodus of the first-wave Boomers from the workplace – postponed for several years by the economic crisis that began in 2008 – is now swift and steady. By 2020 Boomers will be less than 20% of the Western workforce; older Boomers (born before 1955) will be less than 6%. What is more, Boomers who do remain in the workforce will continue trending heavily toward “reinventing” retirement and late-career-pre-retirement: Working less than full-time, often partially telecommuting, and often working nonexclusively for more than one employer.

The youth bubble. At the same time, the fastest growing segment of the workforce is made up of those born 1990 and later, so there is a growing youth bubble on the younger end of the spectrum. The youth bubble is growing even faster in “younger population” regions of the world. But even in “older” North America, Europe, and Japan, the youth bubble in the workforce is rising much faster than in recent years because employers are once again hiring new young workers after several years of formal and informal hiring freezes resulting from the economic crisis. By 2020, second-wave Millennials (those born 1990-2000) will be greater than 20% of the Western workforce and another 4 – 5% will be made up of post-Millennials born after the year 2000. And in most of the world, the youth bubble will be much, much larger. The rising global youth tide will bring to the workplace radically different norms, values, attitudes, expectations, and behavior.

Workforce 2020 – Remember “2020, 20, 20.” By the year 2020, the Western workforce will be made up of less than 20% Baby Boomers and more than 20% second-wave Millennials, (plus another 4 – 5% of post-Millennials).

The rising global youth tide. The youth bubble is much, much larger in Africa, Latin America, and much of Asia. Second-wave Millennials are already, in 2016, greater than 45% in India, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam; in Nigeria greater than 60%. By 2020, in these younger parts of the world, those born 1990 and later will be more than 60% of the workforce. Considering the increasing globalization of the workforce, one important feature of the growing youth bubble is that it will be increasingly global, with a much greater percentage of the new young global workforce coming from outside of North America, Europe, and Japan.

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