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Alea Fairchild – Strategic Views

Alea Fairchild – Strategic Views

Tag Archives: digital

Data in the Cloud ….and Weather as a Service (WaaS)?

30 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by afairchild in Uncategorized

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data analytics, digital, IBM, Met, weather

Are we seeing Weather as a Service (WaaS)? Perhaps it is viable more now than ever, as many businesses rely on weather data to maximize profits. Drug companies and pharmacies rely on weather forecasts to predict when to increase supplies of allergy medications. Agriculture companies use weather data to maximize crop yields. Better forecasting for adverse weather conditions could enable airport controllers, for example, to plan for disruption and enable flight path optimization to reduce fuel consumption.

So two announcements this week highlight the change towards a focus on smarter weather predictions and enhanced data analytics for making money from data on the weather.

IBM announced Wednesday that it has purchased the Weather Company. [It is essentially buying everything except the actual TV network.] IBM is taking the Weather Company’s digital assets, including the Weather Channel mobile app, weather.com, and critically for IBM all the company’s forecasting data and technology. The Weather Company owns the largest commercial meteorological database in the world, along with massive facilities that collect radar, satellite, and other weather information.

And in the UK, having lost the lucrative BBC contract in August, the Met (UK Meteorological Office) announced this week its plans to raise £2bn by offering commercial supercomputing services over the web using a powerful Cray supercomputer.

According to the article announcing the purchase in ComputerWeekly, the Met forecasts that it estimates it will generate its extra revenue for the UK Treasury between 2016 and 2020. “Almost half of the revenue (£933m) will come from companies working to predict the scale and timing of climate change. Another quarter (£526m) will be raised through providing services to the renewable energy sector, which includes wind, solar and hydroelectric power, as well as nuclear power generation. The Met Office estimates that potential customers in the aviation industry, including foreign air forces, could buy up to £295m of services.”

Are IBM and the Met on to something here? So much of climate change is about adaption and response to conditions that are somewhat unpredictable. In terms of big data and smarter analytics, can weather prediction become even more useful as a pattern predictor that can teach us how to apply analytics in other industries?

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Methods of communication

25 Saturday Jul 2015

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communication, digital

I really enjoyed this article from Regus this morning, as it is a point I have been making to my clients for quite a while.  I have learned that you have to direct communication to individuals in the manner that they wish to receive it.  And there are some communication issues that have to be done in an analog manner (i.e. giving bad news to someone) for sensitivity and nuance.

Too much communication these days is superficial and impersonal.  In an age where personalization is easier than ever, many do not take the extra step to add value in a message to make it resonate that much more and make it memorable.

 

Prediction check: 2014 review, and 2015 predictions

15 Monday Dec 2014

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2015 predictions, CDO, digital, marketing, mobile, omni-channel, risk

What did I say would happen in 2014?  Was I right?

In looking back at my predictions for 2014, I am reflecting today at how accurate I was, and what really happened.

P1: Data visualization tools did grow as a business. However, the growth this year was across different industry verticals which was fueling the demand for new tools that are more industry specific.

P2: Business model shifts involved a great deal of risk, and those shifts in 2014 included mobile payments, banking and news publications. For example, these publication shifts included less frequency in publication, different distribution models, and more sophisticated paywalls.

P3: I was wrong on this one, specifically WiFi networks. Bandwidth capacity is still a limiting factor, and who pays for the privilege is still up in the air for business models. One of the nicer hotels I stayed at recently in Berlin had a pay-only WiFi network in the hotel, no free model. Because it was paid, it functioned very well with good availability throughout the facility. You get what you pay for, it seems.

P4: Yes, the rate of data consumption is critical for reflection and analysis, but the tools are still not at the level to do this analysis with ease. Tool providers, listen up!

 My predictions for 2015?

P1:   More conversion of the CMO role to a Chief Digital Officer (CDO). Omni-channel experience marketing, combined with big data, makes for an experience effect that needs to be better controlled.

P2: Not mobile first, but desktop last. More combined interactions with multiple devices will make customer tracking solutions come of age. With opt-out privacy options, of course!

P3: Location based marketing and mobile interaction will increase. It will not be enough to personalize the experience anymore, retailers will be proactively luring you based on where you are standing.

And more to come….. !

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