Monthly Archives: August 2015

Learning from those who tread there before…..

28 Friday Aug 2015

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Today it is more a personal note. I’ve making a number of personal and professional decisions recently; some naturally occurring and some influenced by personal choice.  As I have moved through my career, I have always relied on a network of professional contacts and personal friends as sounding boards and sources of information. Some of them have recently being extremely helpful during my recent convalescence through my hysterectomy and I have been grateful for them in sharing their own life experiences.

What I have found interesting is there are certain subjects we do not discuss (one example being menopause).  And yet, when we do discuss them, we find a vast wealth of information and support available from those who have tread there before.  Maintaining networks across different age groups is critical for personal growth and support.

What I have found interesting lately is how few people network properly.  They only network when they need someone, and then do not stay in contact afterwards.  For me, it is about the longitudinal relationship built on trust and mutual respect that adds the value. “Shallow networking” for the ‘here and now’ is actually more work to build, decay and rebuild relationships.

On the other end, one of the (few) joys of being an educator is the ability to see someone go through personal growth over time, and see what they can become, as well as your subtle role in that growth process.  As I network for the long term, some of these relationships become fruitful now more frequently and with great blossoms than expected.

Like most of us, I use LinkedIn and I was touched yesterday to see how much influence I had on a particular person’s career path when they called me out in an Update as to one of the strong women in their lives (in this case not referring to my weightlifting hobby 😉  ).

Why do you network?  For me, it is not only a way of growing my personal brand but adding fulfillment to my efforts, and knowing I have a source of strength behind me, and in front of me.

Wishing you a successful weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

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… a great piece of digital real estate…

18 Tuesday Aug 2015

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As I dig into my mailbox this morning, I am reminded by one of my mails to make sure I use my email properly, in that “Your email signature is a great piece of digital real estate you can use to introduce yourself further and keep people up to date…”

Self-branding has gotten to be huge in terms of volume of the message these days. You need to stick and label yourself where ever possible to let people know who you are and what you do. We can define this as digital real estate, or measurement of the digital footprints you leave when you stomp all of the Internet. What used to be mind share is now digital real estate impact (a la Trump or Kardashian).

As I do several things, I was recently challenged personally by one of the better self marketing gurus to create a tag line for the bottom of my mail to sell myself best in one sentence. I did that, and now you see my one liner:” I have a finely honed sense of strategy after 20 years as a market analyst, and can help you cut through all the slideware to get to the specific message you want to get across. ”

As someone who has loved stand-up comedy, I associate a one liner with a good joke.

Is digital real estate a good joke?   Like many, I have created digital real estate to help sell me and my narrative out in the vast internet wilderness.   If you do not, it is hard to make an impact.  But if you do, then like real estate it needs to be properly managed and maintained.

Can your digital real estate get so large that you cannot manage it?  For some rock stars and politicians, this may be the case.  Reputation management is getting to be a good business to get into.

But I am focusing on refining my message, and need to upkeep my digital real estate more often in this era of instant messaging and messages.

But this intrigued me into looking at digital real estate measurement (as a good economist, I like a nice index), so I am examininig how digital real estate can be measured.

If you have seen a good measurement, let me know.  I am starting with this article as a basis for discussion.

 

Next XaaS – Robot as a Service (RaaS)

11 Tuesday Aug 2015

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Doing some interesting research for an upcoming report on intelligent hotels. While reading about Aloft’s Botlr and Crown Plaza’s Dash, as well as Japan’s robot oriented hotel, I came across Savioke.  Both Dash and Botlr were built by Savioke, which is based in Santa Clara.

In a recent Hospitality Technology article, Savioke describes itself as a “”Robot as a Service (RaaS)’ company that is leading the market in autonomous delivery robots, starting with the hospitality industry. Savioke further plans to revolutionize the way things move in hotels, elder care facilities, hospitals, restaurants… anywhere people sleep or eat.”

Will robotics increase the productivity of the hospitality industry? I believe it is a complementary activity, providing a faster level of service than throwing more manpower at non value added positions.  Just like the PC became a tool to improve productivity, becoming a gateway to another way of working, the robot as a service delivery mechanism enables new models of customer service. And this may change how we perceive customer service as a whole.

One of the pictures shown in the advertisement is a woman in her bathrobe getting something delivered by the robot.   Not having to worry about what you are wearing to get service is one comfort, I suppose.  😉

 

SMACS of trendiness

07 Friday Aug 2015

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SMACS (social, mobile, analytics, cloud and security) are trendy topics for most ICT marketing bumph these days.

The real issue is how digital has transformed how processes work and what outcomes you should expect. It’s not an analog world anymore and every digital footprint can tell you something or add value to the experience of the user.

I wish that the marketing was more about the user experience and the added value of the solution, and less about coined phrases like social and cloud.

Just my two Euro cents. 🙂

Smarter hotels and IoT – researching the business model evolution

06 Thursday Aug 2015

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In a follow-on from my post of yesterday, I am currently doing research in #IoT on smart spaces in the corporate world, looking at how devices and objects can create a better working environment for mobile workers.

One area of interest of mine is smarter hotel rooms, and how devices can make the room even more profitable and efficient.  This goes beyond energy management and into a level of personalization that a guest can opt-in to share their data (with appropriate privacy clauses) to enhance the experience. This goes beyond temperature preferences and pillow choices, but can add when they like the room cleaned, what kind of amenities they prefer, etc.   And for the hotel, the room can become even more revenue productive.  For example, if the hotel knows how much WiFi bandwidth you consume and when, and make the assumption that you are watching a movie on your laptop given the time of data and the data flow, they could create a movie bundle that included video on demand, soda and popcorn and/or a pizza delivered from room service.

I also believe that hotels can become the location of choice for mobile workers, if they can create work spaces for travelers that surpass what a coffee shop would offer in terms of amenities to work while on the road. There is a lot of conference room space in hotels that could be utilized as coffee shop alternatives for mobile workers.

Two good examples of hotels that understand that a stay is an experience that can be enhanced by technology are Starwood and Premier Inn.

Let me know if you want to reach out to share some of my business modelling on the subject with you.

What is an Intelligent Room?

05 Wednesday Aug 2015

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Like many analysts, I am fascinated by the integrated possibilities that the internet of things (IoT) might be able to bring us.

Unlike many, my interests are more corporate in nature. I find the concept of a connected workplace very interesting, as it incorporates many roles and functions, more than a consumer space.

One example of this is the intelligent room. I define an intelligent room as a room that can make decisions on your behalf on the basis of sensors and role profiles. This goes beyond temperature, lighting and ambiance, and includes rerouting of communications, preferences of the occupants of the room at the time, and the rules of the organization in which the occupants represent.

Rerouting of communications may also impact mobile devices in the room at the time.  For example, if the rule is no interruptions, then calls coming into the room are rerouted to voice mail.  Or if the room is using the VOIP for a concall, any incoming calls to that number are rerouted to a human or voice mail as the users prefer.

Occupant preferences are role-based, and rules-based.  If there are several occupants, then the role of the most senior occupant takes precedence. The rules are an interesting aspect, as a more common working space in an airport, hotel or business center may have to program parameters for several kinds of organizations. Which applications are enabled for the room may be both rule based and organizationally adapted.

One company that is on trend to get to this point is Robin. Their view is: “Remarkable things can happen when a room knows who is using it. We believe buildings in the future will be like another device. You’ll install apps onto rooms instead of screens, and walking in will log you in.”

My own view of this is that facilities management as a function going forward will be one of added intelligence on how facilities work in terms of efficiency, as well as how intelligent rooms add value to the organization. My own research work highlights the needs of organizations going forward in terms of intelligent office space, and how general contractors will have to specify intelligence in the leased office space market.  The concept of connected real estate will take on new meaning for leasing companies who will need to highlight the services provided in a whole new way.

How smart is your office space now?