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Alea Fairchild – Strategic Views

Alea Fairchild – Strategic Views

Tag Archives: mobile

SMACS of trendiness

07 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by afairchild in Uncategorized

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analytics, cloud, mobile, SMAC, SMACS, social

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. 🙂

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Are we no longer device driven?

09 Friday Jan 2015

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desktop, device, functionality, innovation, laptop, mobile, PC, performance, power, user

Although we hear many reports from CES this week on tech innovation, a telling conversation I had yesterday with a long-time colleague really pointed out where we are in terms of technology innovation at present.

She had just gotten a new laptop computer from her office the day before, and we were trying to connect for a video concall, but I could not hear her as her microphone set-up was not working.   Once we picked up the phone, she explained she had just gotten a new PC and it had a number of problems with it.

And the she made the telling statement that ‘she was very surprised in that her new laptop was not better (faster, more powerful) than her old one’.  And that every time before she had gotten a new system, ‘the new one was better than the old one’.   So why is this happening now?

I believe we all are feeling this right now, which is slowing down the sales of new hardware (laptops, desktops, tablets, smart phones).  The devices on offer are not noticeably “better” in terms of performance. They may have better screen size, but the OS, the lack of design innovation and the horsepower under the hood does not make things better for us.  This is especially since the software is becoming more complex and memory hogging. And the networks are slowing down with traffic and a lack of investment in more bandwidth.

More importantly for me, the technology being designed right now are not for users like me.  I want to do productive work with my system — not watch videos for pleasure, touch screens, play games or take photos.  When I got my new desktop last Spring, I really had to search for a system that met my needs, as the consumer desktops were all fun and games driven.   I am not a user of ‘apps’ — I prefer finished software for multifunctional use.  I despair the next time I have to go desktop shopping, as I already had to hold on to my old keyboard as the new one was not as functional.

Although I appreciate growth in the market is coming from mobile devices, even laptops are become more a commodity item with cheaper quality and lesser functionality IMHO.  This opinion comes from anecdotal evidence from friends and colleagues who have gotten new laptop systems in the last year.

Wait, you say.  Why don’t I change the way I work to meet the new technologies?  I have tried, I do own a tablet for a few years now, but it requires additional add-ons to do keypad entry easily, and I never bothered to go buy more kit for it.  It is my one day travel companion for checking things en-route.  I occasionally ‘talk’ to my mobile phone to search, but half the time it does not hear me properly (like a lot of people I know 😉  )

The nature of work has not changed the need for document creation, which is why I am sitting here at 06:30am writing on my desktop before I hit the morning rush hour.

In summary, if software and services are going to be the drivers for innovation going forward, then the weakest link will be the device we access for that innovation.

Prediction check: 2014 review, and 2015 predictions

15 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by afairchild in Uncategorized

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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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