Lifelong learning, ok. Lifelong teaching?

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

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I believe in lifelong learning, getting new skills and enhancing existing ones.  I believe in expanding your horizons, exploring new options and meeting interesting people on your journey. I believe in maintaining a healthy network of contacts and renewing the relationships on a regular basis, not just if I ‘need’ something ad hoc.

But unfortunately, as a business school educator, what I am getting right now is lifelong teaching.  What do I mean by that?  Students who come back to you for project help, advice, recommendations, assistance, etc.  after several / many years after they have left the institution.  If this was a student who stayed in touch, who was in my field, who was working in industry with mutual interests, who I knew well and respected their abilities, I would not think twice about this.  That is normal.

Instead, I get the ones that have been out of contact for many years, do not know what I am doing now (as I have left the institution they knew me at, but found me via LinkedIn or the Web) and have no problem for asking for free use of my time. Not just for a quick question, but for something more elaborate.  I have received four of these queries in the last two weeks.  And I am not alone — my colleagues tell me they now get a few every month. One of them told me his policy is one short e-mail of less than 10 minutes time expenditure at most.  And then no reply to any other query.

When a client finishes a service contract, the client does not expect to come back for additional services for free. So did we not finish with these students in their own mind?

I wonder.

Did we teach them badly in the first place about expectations and networking, or about social behavior and good manners?   One gave my name to someone to provide a great deal of information on him without asking me if I would be willing to do so. Or even if I knew this information to begin with. I have not seen him in more than seven years. And although I recognized the name, I do not remember this student.

I have to say I do not understand these young people who think I will always rush to their aid with free services. Rush, as there is always a deadline attached, believe it or not.

But these might be future leaders, I hear you say.  What if I make a relationship investment in them again now — will it later pay off when they get established?  They have been out of school for several years, with additional work experience and a graduate degree since I saw them last.  Yet they only see me as still their teacher who gives them what they need, not a source of a networked relationship. They tell me about themselves in their request, yet are not curious about why I am no longer at their old institution and what has happened in my career. I am a service provider, not a person to which they have a working relationship. But that service finished many years ago.

I believe in lifelong learning.  Now I do not believe in lifelong teaching.

Is the decline of the PC a beneficial moment for device entrepreneurs?

10 Friday Jan 2014

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In this last week, I have seen upcoming layoff announcements from PC stalwarts HP and Dell.  As PC demand declines, the need for large workforces decreases and some decent folks will soon find themselves without a job.

This got me to thinking about previous large industry layoffs, and what small start-ups in the Valley and elsewhere did with these available resources when they hit the streets.  Imagine you have a great idea involving an electronic device.  And now you have access to people with experience in manufacturing, marketing, distributing and supporting devices.  People who have been frustrated in a large organization and are looking to rejuvenate themselves in their next job.  How fortuitous is that?

So those with vision and insight should look at these resources coming on to the job market with the opportunities these folks present in terms of experience and know-how.  The next shift of the s-curve in technology will be done by those who leverage this human capital to take advantage of their learning and experience combined with some really cool ideas.

This week, I went shopping…..

04 Saturday Jan 2014

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First of all, I am living an analog life right now during a holiday week, in that the sales have started in Belgium (only legally possible in Jan and July), so I physically went shopping.   But what I found truly surprised me.

Technology – beyond commoditization

I looked at smart phones, LED internet TVs and computing devices.   What I found was beyond commodity, the only difference is how big (literally and in terms of capacity) you want the device.   There are only two main brands of all items, and very little selection on offer. I walked away as I prefer a bit of selection, and there was basically none.  Samsung or Apple, Sony or Hitachi, and Acer or HP.   Nothing worth writing home about….

Clothing – tricky and misleading pricing

Even though signs promote a discounted percentage, unless the price tag has a sticker, it is not on discount.  So I went to buy a brand that said it was 30 percent off in the signage above the product to get to the cash desk to find it was not since it did not have a marking on the price tag.    Retailers appear desperate in their quest to get us to buy.  Most of the quality marks were not on discount, which tells me that the brand management has control in the distribution relationship which is good news…for the brand.

Foot traffic – only certain stores

The consumer seems quite picky this year as to where they physically go.  So much so that one major retailer has created three separate stores on the same high street to maximize locational opportunities.   Many stores remained fairly empty on the first Saturday morning of the sales.  When I was shopping before the holidays, the malls were full of people looking and eating, but not buying.

In essence, I did not have an urge to buy, as no rationale to buy was provided.  There was no differentiation, no incentives and no sense of urgency.  Very different from other years – – makes me wonder if physical retail given up and put most of its efforts online instead?

IoT : All this data – and no dialogue

03 Friday Jan 2014

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My POV:  In the Internet of Things (IoT), my dishwasher can be shut off remotely, I can check the temperature of my house from my office, and my doctor can get my body temperature from my bed. Yet none of these objects can currently have a dialogue with each other.

What bothers me now about all these mobile apps that cannot connect to each other also bothers me about ‘thing’ connectivity and interoperability.   You might ask why I want my toaster to talk to my refrigerator, but if I do not have bread, toast is not an option from breakfast.  Perhaps a silly example, but if we go to the example of data coming in from the different temperature monitors, and if this data cannot be correlated to a patient and a medical condition, and then acted upon without human intervention, then why gather the data?  Why have the object send the data (in heterogeneous standards from different types of beds) if it cannot be responded to in an automated fashion?

Seriously, we are becoming more disjointed in our data proliferation where we are generating more and more data, but having fewer dialogues.  Connectivity and interoperability are not just business phrases, but part of the way business processes succeed. Integration and efficiency are functions of data interaction, not data backlog.  We want information and knowledge, not just piles of data streams that cannot interact.

I know there are efforts to create standards around the internet of objects, but fear that brands and industries will slow, not speed up, the pace of these standards.   The AllSeen Alliance (with AllJoyn), the ITU (IoT-GSI), and the IEEE (Open Stand) are all working on standards basics, but  I suspect the heavy hitters per industry will be the ones really setting the pace.   I just hope we learned something from the evolution of IETF standards making and do not make the same errors again.

Selling cookies and privacy – thumbs up for BlueKai

27 Friday Dec 2013

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I just had a reasonably interesting privacy experience, and I wanted to share it with you. As many of you know, I am active in privacy research.   I had just watched a very interesting business show on TV, and went to look at the website for the programme.  At the very bottom of the page, there was a floating tab entitled ‘Cookie Consent’.  So, I was curious and clicked on the floating tab.   What came up was a list of cookie requests for that page, and a switch where I could opt out for all cookies.   I then opted-out, but one company in particular required that I went to their site for opt-out request.

This company was BlueKai. On their page, you can opt-out, but you also get a whole sales pitch on the BlueKai’s Consumer Initiatives and why they treat data in an ethical way.  I was intrigued enough to go through their sales pitch, and actually was impressed about how they go to market by highlighting their privacy relationships, transparency and choice.  I sure wish other marketing companies saw the light in this regard.  It also made me more respectful of the companies working with them, which is a first order privacy factor. Interesting business model…..

 

 

Predictions for 2014 – a few thoughts

24 Tuesday Dec 2013

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For me, technology is more than an enabler, it is a critical element of the business process.  When I see other firms predicting trends for the next year, I have to wade into the fray with my own thoughts on the matter. Hashtags are integrated in for Twitter usage…. 🙂

#Predictions for 2014 P1:  It’s not about the size of the data, but what it looks like during analysis. #datavisualization

Data gets bigger and bigger, but you have to see the forest for the trees to react in a timely and efficient way.  Visualization tools will be one of the hotter properties in 2014.

#Predictions for 2014 P2:  For business models being disrupted, it will be about the risk, not the reward. #riskybusiness

A number of industries are undergoing fundamental transformations, including journalism, tourism, retail and energy.   Business model shifts involve a great deal of risk, and the rewards are not so easily apparent. How you handle the risk says a great deal about the firm’s strategy and manageability.

#Predictions for 2014 P3:  Network infrastructural capacity will be a limitation businesses will creatively work around. #maxheadroom

Case in point:  The downtime yesterday (23 Dec) of the Belgian payment network.  Some creative retailers quickly offered alternatives to pay (invoice for later bank transfer, registering the transaction locally and transferring data once online systems were restored, etc.) to not lose the business this close to the holiday.  Many infrastructural systems are near capacity, or quite fragile when stretched.  Creative workarounds may soon be come the norm.

#Predictions for 2014 P4:  Data ingestion or data indigestion? Rate of data consumption critical for reflection& analysis #bigdata #eatwell

If you cannot properly consume, you may not see the trends quickly enough to react.

Hope these insights give you a taste of what I am working on for 2014 — happy holidays!

Omnicommerce – no more letters like ‘e’ or ‘m’?

06 Tuesday Aug 2013

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Just finished watching a press conference where SAP and hybris (now part of SAP) discuss their vision for multichannel commerce in the digital space. Their concept of Omnicommerce, where the customer experience is optimised across all channels of the brand (e-commerce, m-commerce, etc), is a strong vision.  But as I was discussing with Stefan Schmidt that the execution of the vision of data and process integration will be a tough balance between data security and customer experience optimisation.

Cross channel information and process integration will take a great deal of systems integration and process modification to get right, both with their partners and with the customers themselves.  Watch this space……