deal architect

More New Florence

on the innovation blog

Predictive Policing

The largest move since WW II

Sensors to detect volcanic ash

Somebody left the gate open!

More innovation

On New Florence

The Atlantis prepares to become a museum piece

CES: Year of the Ultrabook

KO-SU mobile education

Google Search, plus Your World

Our Third Jobs

I have written before about “customers as workers”. In their 2007 book, Revolutionary Wealth, the Tofflers called it our “Third Jobs” - “the unnoticed work we do without pay for some of the biggest corporations”.

Back then, they may have been overreaching, but today when you look at all the self-service, it really hits home. Here is a quick list of some of the tasks we do that an employee used to do:

• airline reservations and check-in
• ATM and mobile banking
• self check-out at grocery stores
• web payments to various suppliers
• IVR based routing when phoning call centers
• self-help using website FAQs
• scan QR codes on real estate for sale signs and self-tour through videos
• rental car check-out and check-in and driving directions
• hotel check-in/check-out and touchpad control of many room functions
• voice mails
• tax calculations and returns
• personal health care monitoring
• basic auto maintenance
• dining buffets and vending machines
• hr/benefits enrolments and other tasks

The problem is very few HR execs (or unions or government agencies) view this as their responsibility. Worse,  many corporations are opportunistic about how they deal with such self-service

• many banks, airlines and telcos expect us to pay for the “convenience”
• web based self-service and our smart devices are exposing us to a new set of privacy breaches and security challenges
• many of the self-service kiosks, UIs, IVR paths are poorly designed
• there is very little human back up for consumers who do not want to self-service or seek an option when the self-service path is not satisfactory
• many corporations trust their customers even less than their employees (I asked the manager of a large retail chain why the checkout kiosk insisted I put items in the bagging area. He sheepishly told me there was a scale under the bagging area which double checked the weight of the scanned item was actually the one being taken out. Some rental car companies assume you did not refuel your car and automatically add a fuel charge)

In a broader “social design” context in my next book, Sukumar Rajgopal, CIO at Cognizant says “It would be nice to move to a “productivity income statement” where we charge the IT department $1 for each data item users enter and in return we charge users $1 for each data item that the system prefills for them. Think how differently we would think about enterprise
systems if we did that.”

Indeed, think of that as applied to our Third Jobs!

A Rare Medium Well-Done

I am introducing a new category of periodic posts to recognize articles, blogs, books, videos interviews I think are well executed.

I appreciate the compliment when people tell me I am a prolific writer. Actually, I am a much more prolific reader. The New Florence blog cites/embeds over 4,000 articles/videos from over 500 different sources. My next book had over 500 citations in the back credits.

This category will allow me to recognize items that stand out as I continue to research for my blogs, books and consulting.

They may be pithy like Richard Corliss’ short column about Hollywood’s challenges in Time I referenced last week. They may be substantial on a somewhat obscure topic like Dr. Michael Lamoureux’s paper on Spend Visibility this week – 130+ pages, 70+ figures!  They may be investigative pieces. They may be period pieces. But they will stand out in my broad reading.

Hope you enjoy my selections. And, of course, I would welcome reader recommendations on any items they found impressive and should merit mention in this category.

First lot of book reviews

Books go through waves of reviews – executives, media, US readers, international readers. You appreciate them all because people take the time from their busy schedules to read, then provide feedback. Over the last couple of weeks I have received the first set of reviews for the upcoming book – comments from executives and influencers I respect. Most read a late draft of the book over the holidays so I am particularly thankful .

Here are some

Michael McNamara, CEO, Flextronics

“Technology enabled innovation is the future, but make no mistake, that future is here today.  Mirchandani uses technology athletes to inspire us in that even the things we may think are impossible, are in fact either a current or near- future reality.”

Phiroz Darukhanavala (Daru),  VP and CTO, BP plc

“This book will inspire and energize you. Countering the prophets of doom who proclaim the “death of IT”, Mirchandani vividly illustrates through dozens of case studies that IT and related digital technologies are thriving in organizations big and small, public as well as private, changing the very nature of business products and processes. To the CIOs of organizations currently focused on spending millions of dollars on supporting traditional IT, this book is an urgent wake-up call that the emerging CIO role is to lead their organizations boldly into this digital world…… or else risk getting swept away by the relentless tide of new technology.”

Francisco D’Souza, President & CEO, Cognizant Technology Solutions

“In The New Technology Elite, Mirchandani reveals the secret sauce that separates corporate leaders from laggards, market winners from also rans in the unforgiving global economy.  He neatly deconstructs the creative spark, innovative thinking and excellence of execution that successful companies must continuously master to translate smartly conceived and efficiently delivered technology solutions into market outperformance and sustainable competitive advantage.  Doing so, reminds us that while technology innovation may start with tightly orchestrated ideation in the dark recesses of the virtual back office,  success is often determined by the industrial scale that is unleashed to create products and services that deliver vibrant and intuitive user experiences, as well as rich and utilitarian capabilities, that anticipate customer needs, today and tomorrow, and measure up to, if not exceed, rising consumer and business expectations.”

Peter Fingar, Business Strategy Advisor and author: Business
Innovation in the Cloud and Enterprise Cloud Computing.
(www.peterfingar.com)

“Mirchandani has done it again. After opening our eyes to compound technology innovations in his last book, The New Polymath, he now instructs us to become technology prosumers (producers and consumers), no matter what our business or industry. Traditionally technology consumers for back-office automation, smart companies are now learning to embed smart technology in their products and become technology producers that delight their tech-savvy customers. Carpe Diem, or become a footnote in business history. Mirchandani tells us why and how."

Chris J. Murphy, Editor, InformationWeek

“This book isn't for those who want to stick to "IT as usual." Mirchandani uses real-world examples to catalog the wide range of forces driving IT leadership to adapt or fail in the digital economy.”

Timothy Christen, CEO,  Baker Tilly

“Today, every company must ‘rethink everything’ from their core processes to their fundamental business models. In his new book, Mirchandani shows countless examples of how new technologies have removed historic barriers thus allowing companies to rethink everything. Mirchandani’s book is a must-read for business leaders who want to inspire and re-dedicate their workforce. More importantly, it will serve as a guide to the new ways with which collaboration, innovation, technology and more will fundamentally, permanently and perpetually change the businesses of today. If your firm has the will to change, this book has the guidance.”

More New Renaissance

on the innovation blog

The Intel/Qualcomm faceoff

CES: The New Car Show

Move over Bellagio!

Stephen Hawking turns 70

The Consumerization of Enterprise Tech. The Enterprising of Consumer Tech.

SAP has hired Julie Roehm as an SVP of Marketing. I don’t know the lady and think it is unfair that the stories about her border on tabloid reporting. But it is an interesting move for SAP to hire someone with a background in consumer advertising at Chrysler, Ford and Walmart.

At IBM’s Lotusphere this morning, Paul Gillin reports “Lotus social business platform, which borrows liberally from Facebook, Hootsuite and paper.li. The user interface is a Facebook/Google+-like internal social network”

It’s good to see consumerization finally impact the enterprise world. 

Even as IBM’s Sam Palmisano retires, he talks with pride about having spun off the “consumery” PC business. A couple of years ago, at an SAP event I wrote about consumer tech being characterized as “toys and buzzwords”

Better late than never. It’s only taken a decade. As I wrote in The New Polymath

Of course, it was not just Apple. Microsoft introduced the Xbox in 2001; HP announced more of a focus on entertainment with its Media Center PC in 2002; Skype arrived in 2003 and would change calling habits for millions around the world; the massively multiplayer game World of Warcraft disrupted our lives in 2004; and in 2005, with  the Sony Rootkit issue, consumers started to hear about intellectual property issues previously limited to corporate corridors. Since 2005,
Google’s growing Web and mobile presence has introduced consumers to analytical power that big companies paid bucketloads of money for. The Apple iPhone—considered one of the most successful product launches ever—and all kinds of GPS, gaming, entertainment, and other gadgets have only accelerated the consumerization trend. The Wii
reshaped our expectations of computer interfaces; the Kindle, our expectations of books. Electronic House magazine has celebrated houses with all kinds of home theaters and elaborate security systems. eBay has built a cottage industry of individuals doing business from home. JetBlue has moved call reservations to agents working from home. SOHO is no longer just a Manhattan neighborhood but a growing revenue category for technology companies as the acronym for small
office, home office.

The problem is the consumerization trend has accelerated. Consumers are getting used to music in the cloud, Siri voice interfaces, Kinect gestural interfaces while enterprises are still struggling with cloud security, and still only improving keyboard and mouse interfaces.

And even more dramatically, my research for my next book showed “enterprising of consumer tech”. Apple’s Retail, Google’s Green initiatives, Facebook’s data centers, eBay’s (Paypal) financial processing, Amazon’s logistics are absolutely top-notch. Tim Cook of Apple, Tony Prophet of HP, Jim Miller of Google and several other consumer tech executives are  operational/supply chain geniuses.

The ways things are going, enterprise tech will not just need to learn about consumerization, but also enterprising, from consumer tech. 

Life post-SOPA?

I had couple reminders over the last few weeks of how messy attributions and permissions already are – so what about life if SOPA passes?

a) My book editors went through and highlighted several quotes from articles which exceeded 50 words. I shortened them so we would not need specific permissions – we already provide credit citations in the book. Far more messy were music lyrics and photos. I had a 2 line quote from Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. My publisher deleted it. Forget 50 words, the music industry has a zero word policy. Everything needs specific permission. We were going to have an interesting photo for the case studies in each chapter (you can see several I had lined up if you scroll down the excerpts here). But getting permissions from a couple was difficult – so there will be no photos at all in the printed book.

b) On New Florence I posted a blog on Citi’s commercial “Somebody left the door open”. The scenery, the climbing and the song are all inspirational. CNN’s Jeanne Moos did a piece which was part parody, part feature on the artists. My post embedded on the blog a YouTube video of that CNN piece. 3 days ago there were no problems – yesterday several readers alerted me the video had been pulled. I thought CNN had posted it. The YouTube message said there were numerous complaints against the person who had posted it. So, I changed my post to a YouTube post from Citi and a link to the CNN site for that segment.

As I reviewed the CNN site, I noticed in its 2 minute length it credits Citi, Getty Images, CBS 60 minutes, Carlos Mason, WMP and Libero. Technically, it should have also credited some websites including Twitter. Post-SOPA, they likely would.

I agree on the need to combat piracy. But we also need to rationalize “fair use” concepts. The way we are going we may end up with rolling credits after every 30 second commercial!

The rumors of the PC’s death are greatly exaggerated

If I read another piece which praises IBM for exiting and calls HP dumb for staying with its PC business, I will scream. As CES showed this week, we are moving to the form/factor of thin and light Ultrabooks. With Intel’s scale and three phase processor rollout schedule and Microsoft’s marketing muscle around Windows 8, with touch screens and innovative use of Gorilla Glass (version 2 is 20% thinner) in lids and keyboards we are going to see an explosion of attractive models.

And let’s not forget, the growing affluence in China, India and elsewhere opens up many more first-time consumers who want portable and home based devices.

More New Florence

on the innovation blog

Reengineering the server supply chain

Technology and Music

The Hexagon Project

Brookstone: Integrated QR