Category: Digital Transformation

The Autonomous Hot Tub and other moving Rooms

by adminAutonomous Vehicles / Digital Transformation / Future of Work / Ways of Working

Humanity continues to make the same innovation errors in every generation, instead of finding out “how technology could evolve our human experience” they focus on how to upgrade or change our existing experience. This is most evident in autonomous vehicles and it has missed the essential point the if there is no human driver autonomous vehicles are moving space with humans inside them. If we considered travelling instead of driving, then using the time in a different way is understandable. It also perhaps changes what the purpose of travel from being destination focused to being movement focused.

Trusting Technology Autonomous or Not

It is startling that few people understand how much of their travel already relies on computers and automation. Autopilot on planes is the standard and they fly through three dimensions unlike ground vehicles in just two dimensions. It may simply be the psychology of control, few people currently control airplanes but many control cars and that loss of control may be the bases of fear regarding autonomous vehicles. Certainly mistrust of technology is pervasive yet abandoned when need overrules such concerns. It is common for people to give away their personal data in order to gain a service as is seen in social media and many service applications. It’s also worth noting that trust in technology is generational there are currently people in their 70’s and 80’s who don’t trust credit cards in online ecommerce, even though all transactions even in physical shops are online.

Autonomous Hot Tub

I have to admit that this is my prefered option, since we don’t all have jetpacks I’ll settle for hot tub vehicles, I will certainly arrive rested. And this is the point of autonomous vehicles they change the meaning of travel the options become endless.

Autonomous Hotel Room

What if our means of travel also became our meaning of staying. The vast expense of building static hotels would be removed and replaced with parking bays for hotel rooms, that are styled for the owner or renter. Parts of peoples homes could travel with them and their view and location will change but personal comfort won’t. I would be nice if hotel rooms could meet us at the airport and then take us on a tour of a country.

This may seem all too far fetched but consider that entire music or book collections now exist in subscriptions, how about autonomous meeting rooms that collect the participants, autonomous restaurants or bars. Perhaps we need to move away from reframing our existing world in new technologies and just change how the world works. We all need to let technology be the servant of humanity rather than its drug and get rid of pointless things so humanity can be inventive and creative.

About the Author

Karl Smith is a futurist and inventor with creative design, engineering and scientific backgrounds focused on how human life is evolved by technology. Karl Smith is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, a member by invitation of BCS ELITE (Effective Leadership in IT) the CIO & CTO group and European CIO Association. He mainly works as an interim consultant, CIO, CTO or CXO but also joins companies on a permanent bases to deliver the change they are seeking.

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Fail Fast, Fail Small to avoid Failing Big and Failing Slow #BusinessAgility

by adminAgile / Banking / Business DevOps / Business Transformation / Change Management / DevOps / Digital Transformation / Organisational Design1 Comment on Fail Fast, Fail Small to avoid Failing Big and Failing Slow #BusinessAgility

You would think by this late stage in the life of Agile and Agility that the concepts would be well embedded in organisational transformation, people assessments and processes. From my experience I’ve never seen Agile actually fail, I seen people pervert its meaning and make up their own versions then blame a framework for personal incompetence. Likewise I’ve not seen DevOps fail either.

There is something at the heart of business that hates the idea of being associated with failure in European culture. It’s not even logical as Socrates proposed a logical form that constantly tested (hence willingness even a desire to fail to find truth) by debate. The Socratic method is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions. Concern around failure relies on deep seated fears around not being able to prove worth and conversely the chance that any hint of failure transfers on to the person rather than the thing.

“Fail Fast, fail Small to avoid failing Big and failing Slow”

Fail Fast in organisational transformation, people assessments and processes

If your going to really take this on you should start at the beginning, planning the programme and making the case. Instead of getting some expensive consultants who want to try something in your company (no many how many times they say they have done it elsewhere) get one or two Agile DevOps strategists (these are certified Scrum practitioners) and get 60/100 of your staff from all levels into a room and do a two day hackathon. Will they hack your company, no they will hack the problem and hidden problems to define the ‘Problem Statement’ on day 1, on day 2 they will map out all the moving part to define the scope. Could it fail, absolutely, could it save 12 months of 6 consultants on £2500 a day absolutely.

Start at the beginning with people too, most management exists either to direct work (which should be automated or manage people who are not trusted) or to circumvent freakishly hard processes to get the most simple things done. If your planning on changing the emphasis in your company from hierarchy to teams and outcomes, you must offer the incumbents a way to revalidate themselves or they will actively seeking to cripple or pervert the programme to suit themselves. Quickly test the water with an alternative career path based on knowledge not prestige or headcount. See how many people will sign up to not having to manage people, be appreciated for their knowledge and be paid them same as now? You may be surprised.

Processes in this scenario begin to take care of themselves but its always go to run some ‘what if’ or ‘unhappy path’ testing too, to create checks and balances around change.

Fail Small in organisational transformation, people assessments and processes

When you have worked out your plan, don’t enact the whole thing choose a critical path (if thats what fits with your company targets), a happy path for customers or a low risk path and do the MVE, that’s minimum viable experience to success. Viability in transformation is really important and often missed, viability is the whole not the part in transformation.

“Don’t make a door handle that doesn’t unlock the door”

You’d think that would be impossible but the MVP of a door handle is a door handle that looks like a handle making the mechanism to open a door is the MVE. Often in a transformation people focus on rebranding, a new and more exclusive hierarchy, but that is just the look of things, making it work means that the people and machines that customers and colleagues interact with it, do so with higher quality, are quicker, traceable, with measurable delivery.

Fail Big and Slow

This is pretty much a description of most businesses in their current state though many would not see themselves that way. My first question to any organisation is ‘where do you get your money from’, ‘why do you get it’, ‘are there anythings expected of you to continue to get it’. Weather your a corporation, government organisation or corner shop, getting the money to operate and pay people is part of the clear line around purpose and value. When you have clarity on those compare your ideals with where you are now, are you failing steadily, but very slowly? If the answer is yes, you need help. Contact us here

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#Huawei works to end the #digitaldivide by #recycling #infrastructure for #rural #ultrabroadband

by adminDigital Key Opinion Leader / Digital Transformation / Smart Living / UbiNET / Ultra Broandband

I attend a great deal of meetings all over the world and yes it does cost a fortune but feeding your mind with innovation and insight has yet to be virtualised to the point where a face to face meeting is not preferable to using web technologies. So it is from the #UBBF2017 event supported by The United Nations (Digital Human Rights) and Huawei that following information comes from.

UN transforming the world

Digital Human Rights

Being unconnected in a world moving from physical to virtual affects a great deal of people in fact 3.9 Billion people world wide have no digital connection.

  • Africa 716 million people
  • Arab States 229 million people
  • Asia & Pacific 2.4 billion people
  • CIS 93 million people
  • Europe131 million people
  • Americas 349 million people

Worse there are also whole communities of people in supposedly advanced countries who have been left behind because the cost of involving them has been deemed too high. For example in the USA, England, Wales and Scotland whole communities lack the ability to download and upload at the speeds needed to enable digital business and so are discriminated against based upon their geography. The UN has created 5 recommendations to achieve “Broadband for All”

5 UN Recommendations

Huawei Recycle Infrastructure for Rural Broadband

The thinking is incredible really and that’s what standards out. Instead of forcing the world to buy more stuff Huawei have done some #SmartThinking for #SmartLiving and employed wave slicing in conductive cables (Vectoring) as a way to deliver Ultra Broadband using existing electrical infrastructure to towns and villages, who then from a central location install a local fibre optic system.

Huawei have done some #SmartThinking for #SmartLiving

Case Study SIRO

SIRO is Ireland’s new National Telecoms Infrastructure brought to you by ESB and Vodafone and has recently.

Digital Divide in Ireland

SIRO is the only network in Ireland that uses the existing electricity network to provide 100% fibre broadband directly into your home or business, enabling speeds of 1 gigabit per second.

SIRO Network has a grand ambition, SIRO and Huawei Successfully Trial 10 Gigabit Broadband in Ireland

SIRO and global ICT leader, Huawei have successfully showcased the power of Ireland’s first 100% fibre-optic broadband network by testing a technology known as XGS-PON on SIRO’s 100% fibre-optic network, delivering speeds of up to 10 Gigabits per second. This technology is the roadmap of SIRO services, which will future proof Ireland broadband requirements for generations.

https://youtu.be/cyrv-AfN4lw

Digital Key Opinion Leaders

All in all #UBBF2017 was a highly insightful the link below has a Huawei website page with a film that given the opinion of the event by Digital KOL’s http://www.huawei.com/en/events/ubbf2017/opinions-and-impressions-from-ubbf2017 

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#Situational #Awareness #Shopping

by adminDigital Transformation / ecommerce / IoT Design / IoT Ecosystem / Shopping1 Comment on #Situational #Awareness #Shopping

#Situational #Awareness #Shopping

Consider, currently we see things we want to buy through advertising or by seeing it in films or when around other people or places.

Why not; while having a coffee with a friend in their house you see a nice bowl and you say ‘buy bowl’. Your personal IoT ecosystem checks the area and finds three bowls, it asks ‘white bowl’ you say ‘Yes’ the bowl is ordered based upon your personal preference which could be Speed, Price, Colour or anything else, for this scenario it’s Speed it locates the nearest supplier and orders it for immediate delivery. You carry on chatting and the bowel is delivered to your home and waiting for you when you get home. Payment is automated, you unpack look at the bowel and say ‘Great Condition’ feedback allocated.

There are more scenarios in our Open Networking Ecosystem Protocol Patent which will be published soon.

Situational Awareness Shopping #UX

I’m just going to get this out there because there is a great deal of lying going on that IoT does not affect the UX profession and E-Commerce business.

IoT system design does not require UX wireframes as the are no GUI’s

The IoT is a complex ecosystem that not only changes interactions but also removes many of the common processes that have been adopted by people to use technology.

Situational Awareness Shopping #UI

Graphic User Interfaces are not a consideration for the IoT as the interactive methods used to select and buy are no longer through container websites, advertising (as a separate activity), payment gateways or any other existing copy of a shop.

digital versions of shops are irrelevant in a society run through situational awareness.

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#Paradigm #Interactions #Venture #Capital Buyout Declined

by adminBusiness Transformation / Digital Transformation / IoT / IoT Ecosystem / News

The company that I am a CEO of in the United States of America, Paradigm Interactions Inc. has just issued the following press release;

To confirm Paradigm Interactions Inc. has been contacted by a New York City, Venture Capital company regarding investment, a defacto buyout.

At this time we have declined

Paradigm Interactions Inc. is involved the next generation post smart device internet as part of it’s project Charlemagne and based upon our Open Networking Ecosystem Protocol Patent until this project is completed in 2017 we are not considering any offers.

We said no, because it was a significantly under valued offer, given the IoT and Blockchain US Patents we are working on, still I was not aware we were even on anyones list yet. The yearly value of the market represented by our Open Networking Ecosystem Protocol (ONEP) patent in just the USA is estimated to be worth $100,000,000,000.

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#Digital #Transformation is #About #People

by adminBusiness Transformation / Conference / Customer experience / Digital Transformation

Karl Smith will be talking at Digital Transformation 2017 on 23rd Feb Our Dynamic Earth Edinburgh organised by Scot TECH http://www.scot-tech.com/

Digital is about People, not technology. Digital is a response to the desire of people to focus their lives towards quick and easy tasks, simplify processes and utilise their time in micro experiences. The challenge for Digital Transformation is to not get trapped in limiting technology solutions but to really meet the desire of people to have less stress, highly engaging and focused experiences with shorter duration’s while maintaining quality and accountability.

  • Prioritise creating highly engaging, positive experiences

  • Focus on the simplification of process

  • Avoid getting trapped in limiting technology solutions

  • Ensure transformation strategy is evidence-led

  • Understand the relationship between culture, people & process

For more details register here http://www.digifutures.co.uk/register

Karl Smith has learned from clients in USA, Russia, China, Japan, Switzerland, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Brazil, Sweden etc how to transform them, not just, what to change.

BIO

Karl Smith Experience ConsultantKarl Smith is a highly creative and motivated person with keen insight ability. He is a critical thinker and is able to rapidly discover the essence of problems then define, communicate, create buy-in and deliver solutions. He positively motivates those around him and is able to engender a great team dynamic by leading from the front. He has business experience spanning 28 years at comparable levels in fields including defence, industry, construction, fashion, finance, banking, FMCG, property, publishing, healthcare, travel, policing, crown office, local and central government.

Recent organisational design roles include launching Enterprise User Experience in Accenture and setting up Wipro Digital.

He has a wide experience in management consultancy and digital technology including business management, strategy, innovation, marketing, advertising, governance, change management, project management, definition, design and delivery. He has been honoured by the British Computer Society for his eminence in IT leadership over the last 15 years with a Fellowship.

He mainly focuses on customer experience engagement and management in both B2B and B2C sectors but is also an inventor involved in creating new human-computer ecosystems. He works with directors and stakeholders whose main focus is increasing efficiency, transaction frequency and accuracy through the provision of knowledge driven, context focused, human-centered and responsive, future proofed (IoT, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence), progressive interactive organisational change, innovative business processes and technology systems.

“the difference between an engaged customer and an enraged customer is their experience, which customers would you prefer to have?”

“as a customer experience expert, I have no opinion, I wait and get the opinion of the customer as they are the subject matter experts and combine it with business strategy and acumen”

He is involved in defining new business concepts, strategies, requirements, governance (ISO/IEC 38500) and solutions that support businesses and organisation’s involved in transforming themselves to be adaptive and future proof themselves for market disruption.

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#Digital #Transformation a #Business #Guide

by adminBusiness Transformation / Change Management / Digital Transformation / Organisational Design / Transformation Projects

But we already have Digital, how can it be coming?

For the most part what companies have is Technology being sold as Digital Solutions or Digital Strategy, however Being Digital and participating in the Digital Economy is about fundamental change in how your company works, not by adding a channel.

Digital is not just another name for Technology or a Delivery Channel but it is a Pervasive Customer Engagement Productization

Having a digital channel, a CRM tool or a marketing strategy involving social media, does not make you a Digital Business in fact Digital Businesses have Digital Products. A Digital Product is not the envelope, like a website, app, message or other container, but the thing that is purchased, transferred or acquired by customers. 

As Technologies come and go, Customers are eternal

Without Digital Products your company won’t be able to access the coming benefits of the Internet of Things, Big Data or Artificial Intelligence.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital Transformation is an evolutionary step towards the true open market that the Internet of Things and the Internets of All represents. For many companies digital transformation is about digitising existing processes which should be discarded completely. 

What does transformation and change look like?

There are many factors that can create the need for transformation and change changing markets, changing customers, disruption from unexpected sources to name a few.

There are a lot of people who miss the point of transformation or change programs, who simply revert to their worst fears.

Kurt Russell’s portrayal of Wyatt Earp in Tombstone does appear to be lots of people experience of transformation projects and in every view there is a grain of truth. The truth in this view is he has authority, drive and power and that the change is terrifying to people who thought they could control it.

Are you sure you need Digital Transformation?

It’s really important to count the cost and the gain before embarking on digital transformation.

Digital Transformation will disrupt you business, your staff and your customers.

And people who claim otherwise have never done one.

Why do we need to Transform, did we fail?

There is always a faint feeling of fear and desperation on a transformation or change project. This is because concerns over perception of value, the person or persons involved value to their organisation and their sense of self worth.

DID YOU FAIL, YES your not superhuman

You have not managed to pack the detailed life of a subject expert life into your already business expert life. So in effect NO, its supposed to be the first step in wisdom, the recognition that you need help.

The real issue for business people is how do you acquire that help, do it in a way that does not damage your credibility and still be able to influence that change so that it does not wreck your carefully crafted world.

Creating a Terms of Reference Document (TOR) and Business Case

The main role of the business is to own the problem, not the solution. It’s really important that the business is candid in their appraisal of the issues. Often businesses will focus on perceived solutions, to the perceived problem. That is a way to waste huge amounts of money and never fix anything.

Writing the Terms of Reference defines where the business thinks the problem is, sets out who is engaged from the business and suggests a high level timeline. The TOR is a guideline to the Transformation but not a rule book. The TOR provides targets and key performance indicators (KPI’s) so that the Transformation is measurable and understood from the “as is” situation described in the TOR.

For example; we need a mobile site, why? because our competitors have one and everyone needs to be mobile, why? So we are buying a mobile platform, whoa! Let’s go back to the beginning, what is the problem? “We are losing market share”, okay, what are the demographics of your target market, do they use mobile devices? “We don’t know”. Don’t you think you should find out before you buy a mobile platform? That’s not a made up conversation.

After the initial consultancy to determine the target of activity in the TOR a Business Case can be created to gain funding by explaining the impact of transformation. The Business Case is critical to distil and focus the programs activity so that actual value is given from all the ensuing activity.

Both the TOR and the Business Case are created by the Business with assistance from internal resources or contractors.

The Psychology of Change Management

How transformation is framed, communicated and done in organisations is often not enough to overcome the deep seated fears of the people it will affect.

This is why you may have been invited to be involved, it is not to steer the solution but to provide expert knowledge, regardless things will either change or the business will contract. Being on the project team from the client side is not your time to shine, you already did or you would not be there.

I have worked on both sides of transformation projects and I really do understand the personal and professional need to have impact. But most importantly was your impact an enabler, if you sort to set limits was it for reasons of context? Can you explain the rich knowledge behind your behaviour and passion, the articulation is critical to getting this knowledge into the project and benefiting your company.

Transformation and Change is not just focused on Technology 

If you plan to start this process of transformation you will need to accept that nothing is sacred. Transforming anything means looking at everything without preference and changing or removing it completely without regret. It will change people, their roles and responsibilities, divisional politics, funding models and budgets, business governance may be rewritten completely, processes may be discarded and loved software and technology scrapped.

But the choice is stark either engage digitally or accept second or a hundredth place in the market, until the customers who don’t use Digital die off and your business joins them.

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#Global #Digital #Consultancy Start-up Pt2 #Adjusted #Governance #Magic #Bullet

by adminBusiness Transformation / Change Management / Digital Transformation / Organisational Design / Transformation Projects

I offer several strategic consultancy services one of them is Organizational Design this can involve launching a new service or creating new divisions or even whole Global companies.

Governance is a Business Enabler

Having written several enterprise governance documents using ISO/IEC 385000 as a template I am well aware that governance is one of those areas that is much misunderstood.

Well constructed and managed governance is open and obvious, it is designed to enable business and has an active and transparent policy creation and updating process. However, there is a huge amount of governance set up to chain the business to policies that are truly complex, meaningless in the current context and have become a power base in their own right.

Governance should be used as a route to evolve policies (that in  turn establish processes) that are market responsive in a framework that effectively manages risk and regulatory compliance.

Governance can build Design Thinking and Service Design directly into the core policies and processes of an organisation

Digital is a new type of Business not a Channel

The reason Governance is an important factor is that different behaviours in business require different Governance.

From Global Digital Consultancy Start-up Pt1 – Founding a New Consultancy is all about Market Differentiators it should be clear that a Digital Business, does something different from an Existing or Established Business.

Digital is established, interacts and delivers differently from other businesses, it creates conflict with the existing status quo

These stages and the processes they create in a start-up will create conflict or roadblocks to success with Venture Capitalists and existing internal Business structures, institutions and organisations unless there is Adjusted Governance and ultimately adjusted accountability, effectiveness measurement, recruitment policies, recruitment process, career paths etc.

Adjusted Governance is the magic bullet in setting up a Digital Business

Adjusted Governance enables Digital to work quickly and effectively within the more volatile framework of immediate and rapid response business strategy, investment rules and return on investment than those used in existing enterprises or global organisation structures.

I have yet to work on a Start-up that has got adjusted governance set up before it becomes a critical hinderance

I always ask if there is adjusted governance and without fail, I am told it is not required. This comes down to a basic misunderstand of the usage of the word Digital. Digital Consulting really means Agency Consulting with Scaled Delivery, it is not the Digital Market Channel that Commerce thinks it is at all.

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#Global #Digital #Consultancy Start-up Pt1 #Market #Differentiators

by adminBusiness Transformation / Change Management / Digital Transformation / Organisational Design1 Comment on #Global #Digital #Consultancy Start-up Pt1 #Market #Differentiators

I offer several strategic consultancy services one of them is Organizational Design this can involve launching a new service or creating new divisions or even whole Global companies.

Being a founder of anything is quite exciting, especially if you are funded in advance. I think that was the thing that really helped get this project off the ground. While you know history will be written as you work and rewritten after you leave the following case study in several parts is about how you really set up a Global Digital Consultancy.

Founding a New Consultancy is all about Market Differentiators

The starting point for this consultancy was a discussion between the CEO and an up and coming Executive. I can only relay the gist of what was said as it was relayed to me to get me onboard with the project. The names have been removed because it’s not important exactly who only what is said;

CEO: Executive we need to get into Digital, digital is the next big thing, can you get some people together who can tell our digital story to the world?

Executive: Yes I will get a mix of people and keep mixing until we find people who the market will accept as our face.

CEO: Executive what is digital to you, its not Technology or Consulting we have tried those angles and have not got traction in the market?

Executive:  I’m not sure, but let me come back to you.

It started with three of us, plus an Executive.  We worked together to define what is Digital, for while we all had our own ideas, we needed a consensus view to build a business that people could relate to, buy into and attribute value to.

Definition of Digital

If digital is not technology or consulting, what is it. For us we looked at the experience of digital to define it.

  • Digital is adaptive, agile and lean
  • Digital is rapid, cuts through red tape, evolves
  • Digital is engaging, exciting and challenging
  • Digital is tangible, easy to explain and does not rely on PowerPoint

Digital is about people’s experience of a product or service not the delivery mechanism.

Digital sits at the cross over point between strategy and design*, design* and technology and technology and strategy, with people at the centre

note*: the others wanted to use UX, but because of the infighting between UX, CX, IxD, Service Design, Design Thinking, Etc., I suggested just using Design to catch them all.

No one thing Strategy, Design, Technology is more important they all need to be engaged in a Digital Solution else they become a point of failure in the future. Everyone in a client business is part of digital too, including accounts, legal, production, operations, delivery, marketing as they are all the experience customers have of a companies Success or Failure to fulfil the engagement.

From my perspective we appeared to create a hierarchy but most importantly internally we got rid of the separation between consultants and technologists because useful people are not just one thing, they are complex.

For me like most people who have focused on Customer Experience the ability to work at a Strategic level or on complex Technology was often not possible because recruiters and clients don’t understand our profiles as technical. In this start-up it was important for me to break people capabilities out from the narrow points of reference of “I don’t see it on the CV”. This also enabled me to hire widely and easily people whose real skills were lost on the market, but not on me.

Once we had this concept of;

Blended people providing a Blended Service

we were ready to start Defining the Propositions, Processes and setting up the Capability Management. If only it was that simple, the next instalment will explain why.

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