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Showing posts from January, 2016

Fast Tempos and Digital Transformation

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“ What matters most is the tempo of change. ” ~ John Boyd Few businesses would argue that data collection and analytics are not important to their current and future success.  Data can provide situational awareness, enhanced customer service and more personalized experiences.  It also supports vigilance and the ability to recognize both problems and opportunities early.  The problem, however, is not many enterprises can act on the data fast enough to matter. In most companies, organizational structures, decision-making processes, business models and business cultures aren’t nimble enough to change at a tempo fast enough to capture competitive opportunities and respond to challenges.  In today’s world of digital transformation and fast changing mobile and online consumer behaviors (see Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me ), businesses must be as nimble as their customers, or they risk losing market share to a nimbler competitor. The First Law of Thermodynamics states,

Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time

We humans have a finite speed at which we can think, analyze and make decisions.  We can only focus on a small set of data before we are overwhelmed.  When important decisions must be made, our brains need time, significant time, to weigh all the variables, pros and cons and possible outcomes in order to arrive at a good decision.  In times of high stress where making fast decisions is required, many of us don’t perform at our peak.  In addition, weak humans that we are - need sleep.  We are not always available; we require daily downtime in order to function. Humans operate in human time, a biological time influenced by the environment and universe that we live in.  Computers, though, are not subject to these human limitations and can act on algorithms and pre-determined decision trees 24/7 in milliseconds. Human time challenges and limitations are not going away.  As IoT sensors and mobile devices proliferate, so also does the volume of real-time data and required analysis.  Hum

The Role of Sensors, Real-Time BI, Big Data and Personalization in Mobile Commerce: The Report and the Video

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I just completed a video that accompanies my latest research on mobile consumer behaviors, and the strategies retailers must implement.  If you design, develop or deploy customer facing apps, this content is relevant and important. ************************************************************************ Kevin Benedict Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler View my profile on LinkedIn Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies ***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Human Thinking vs Technology - Digital Intrusions

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In a world filled with millions of instances of hyper-stimulating digital content - thinking, learning and the development of intellectual assets suffer.  In a recent article I authored titled, It’sTime to Make Technology Disappear , I shared that technology has increasingly become a hindrance to my thinking, a distraction to thoughtful, productive work. I love technology, but it has reached the point where it has overwhelmed my senses, and I doubt I am the only one. Thoughtful thinking, and by that I mean thinking that utilizes analysis, comparisons, judgment, creativity, planning, forecasting and imagining requires dedicated time to ponder, formulate and connect ideas and thoughts.  These activities require a mental focus void of interruptions. I had the opportunity to manage teams of programmers for many years.  You quickly learn that quality programming requires dedicated time absent from distraction.  I read once that programmers, if interrupted, take 2

It's Time for Technology to Disappear

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In 2015, technology reached the tipping point for me, it moved from the efficient column, to the inefficient column, from a pro to a con, from a help to a hindrance. You can hear it in every complaint about how email messages are overwhelming our day, interfering with priorities, impacting our schedules, hurting our productivity and forcing more of us to take our work home at night and over the weekend. In 2016, technology needs to disappear into the background, while productivity and purpose should be the siren's call. We have approximately 700,000 hours between our birth and our death. About 350,000 of those hours are spent in our careers. How many of those hours do we want to waste on poor technology experiences? I propose the following technologies must disappear, and by disappear I mean fade into the background: We shouldn’t have to read through hundreds of useless email messages to find the three necessary to complete our job. Communications need to change an

Time, Speed and Space - Mobile vs. Static Apps

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Most of today’s technology was designed and developed for static, stationary environments.  Even today, in a mobile world, mobile apps are most often developed based on assumed static endpoints.  Why is that a problem?  We are rarely static people. Let’s consider two people in a vehicle.  The driver, assuming they use their smartphone only when safely parked, searches for places, locations and directions based on a static starting point.  However, if the person searching for places, locations and directions is a passenger in a moving car, a different set of information is appropriate.  One based on movement, speed, direction, intersections, changing distances, etc.  How should those variables change the way mobile apps are designed? If you want to meet up with friends or family members who are travelling, in transit, or commuting, today’s mobile apps require you to select a stationary physical address in order to provide a map and direction.  Mobile apps designed wit