Building a Better Future

Many years ago, I graduated with a degree in political science from Portland State University.  Through a long and winding journey working in high tech for companies in Silicon Valley, Seattle, Atlanta, Dublin and Boston, I ultimately moved into the role of being a full time futurist.  One of the unexpected things I discovered along the way was how much a futurist studies history.  

History has taught me that government policies, laws and regulations often play an important role in creating better conditions for humans to thrive.  We see it revealed throughout history, and I expect we will see it in the future as well.  

For most of human history, our standard of living and quality of life was terrible. Century after century it didn't improve.  Fifty percent of children died before age five, and the average person was not likely to live beyond 30 years of age.  This pattern continued for thousands of years.

Moving Physical Interactions to Digital During a Pandemic

When major disruptive events like the Covid-19 pandemic happens they can act as an accelerant or as an obstacle to change.  The pandemic we are experiencing today is no different.  In a recent report by TrustRadius 2020, the following technologies are currently experiencing large increases in demand during the pandemic:

• Telemedicine
• Electronic signatures
• Web conferencing
• Mobile app development
• Antivirus
• Remote desktop
• Video platforms
• Webinar
• Web portal
• Live chat

All of these technologies are designed to facilitate human interactions via digital interaction points thus keeping us safe from virus transmission, and to help us be productive working remotely.   In the case of these technologies the pandemic is accelerating their adoption.

A Deep Dive into the State of Video and Web Conferencing with Zoom President Dave Berman

In this episode we review the history of web and video conferencing with the president of Zoom, Dave Berman.  We explore how the new generation impacts management, sales, marketing, internal and external communications, and why it should be an important component of every company’s digital transformation strategy.



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Kevin Benedict

SVP Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.

Website Regalix Inc.

View my profile on LinkedIn

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobility and Real-Time Capability Projection

This weekend I was clever.  That is newsworthy because it doesn't happen very often.  Our son is stationed at a military base that did not receive TV coverage of the Boise State football game on Saturday night.  It must have been the government shut-down.  I can't think of any other reason they wouldn't have shown it.  The solution was a three hour Google+ Hangout whereby mom and dad got to talk to our officer son while the laptop camera "inadvertently" captured and streamed the Broncos game showing on our big screen TV.  It was a nice Hangout - they won!  We tried Skype first, but the picture was blurry.  Google+ Hangout, however, was picture perfect.

Our son is stationed a great distance away, however, using real-time communication and video we can communicate and share what is going on in our lives.  This same kind of technology can be used in the context of "capability projection" for companies.  Here is my definition of capability projection, "The ability of a business to apply all or some of its capabilities such as marketing, sales, distribution, etc, over great distances to respond to and take advantage of new market opportunities."

What does it take to project your capabilities over great distances?  The ability to in real-time collect data, analyze data, and distribute the results in order to make good decisions.  It takes the ability to view information and operations at a distance and have the ability to act instantaneously from afar.  Without this capability, you cannot implement good business tactics.  Tactics are the art and science of positioning resources for optimal use and maneuvering them to keep them as such.

The bottom line, you can't expand your operations and business over great distances and/or remote markets unless you are implementing a good real-time SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) strategy.  A good SMAC strategy provides the technical platforms that enable distributed organizations to effectively collaborate, design and execute plans.

The Internet, mobile devices and collaboration platforms have greatly empowered organizations to be able to expand beyond historic geographic barriers.  This capability opens the door to expanding your influence and business efficiently and cost effectively across the globe.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

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Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

SMAC Expert Series: SAP's Sameer Patel

Is your company thinking about enterprise social collaboration platforms?  Many CIOs are in the process of testing collaboration platforms today, but not quite knowing what to do with them.  In this short video interview, recorded at SAPPHIRE NOW 2013 a couple of weeks ago, SAP's GM for Enterprise Social Software, Sameer Patel answers my questions on social platforms.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/8nUf5NXF-go

Watch Part 2 of this interview here.
Watch Part 3 of this interview here.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

17 Questions to Ask When Developing Mobile Apps

In this short video I review the 17 questions to ask when preparing to develop a mobile app.  These are basic questions, and I cover them fast!  Enjoy!

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Is Social and Mobile Collaboration a Thing for the Enterprise?

This week I have been working with companies in the Benelux on social and mobile strategies.  Today, I met with one CIO who says they have done POCs (proof of concepts) with three different social collaboration platforms, and each time the projects failed to catch on and be used by employees.

I also recently read a ZDNet article that included an interview with Jive's CEO Tony Zingale.  In this article, "Zingale acknowledged that the failure rate on social software that's merely flipped on and expected to work wonders is 'pretty high.'  He adds, 'You have to learn how to be social and collaborate.'"

How does a company learn to be social and collaborate? Is this a technology issue or a change management issue?  We as individuals have jumped into the social and collaboration scene pretty easily.  We use Facebook for ourselves and our soccer clubs.  We tweet and use Dropbox to share all kinds of files, we use email distribution lists to organize school events, and we follow our friends and business contacts on LinkedIn.  The big question, however, is where does a business receive value from incorporating "social collaboration" internally?

My analysis is that business "collaboration" is an absolute requirement.  Mobile communications, smartphones and tablets have brought real-time data and real-time interactions to us all.  We receive real-time news, updates and business intelligence that enables us to make real-time data driven decisions no matter our location.  However,  we don't work in isolation or in a vacuum.  We still often need other people's input, recommendations and feedback.  It is a logical next step to have the capability to collaborate in real-time - to form a real-time and mobile collaboration group that can discuss and debate an issue, make a plan and act via mobile devices.  This capability is just as important when working with family, soccer clubs, friends, employees, customers or partners.  

Today, we all collaborate, it is just done badly.  We schedule 10 individual's entire day around a conference call that is often irrelevant or dominated by only a couple of opinionated people.  A great deal of time is wasted and little collaboration happens.  A better use of time and talent would be to create a collaboration session, and schedule a time period (e.g. 1-3 hours) to collaborate on a topic.  Invitations are sent, and people can share their thoughts and opinions back and forth during the designated collaboration period.  They can collaborate when it is convenient for them.  They can collaborate while listening in on endless conference calls.  They can conduct research and return with a thoughtful opinion.  They can fit their collaboration around customer calls and meetings.

Collaboration is a requirement for business.  The question is simply how to best collaborate, and what platforms and mobile technologies are best suited to help us.  

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Devices, Management Structures and SMAC, Part 2

Last week a gentleman called asking my advice on mobile CRMs.  We discussed the size of his company and the specifics of his needs, but then he said something that was profound.  He said, "I don't think I need to collect and update a lot of contact information in the CRM these days, because it is all available online on social networking sites."  It is true!  I can track down just about anyone in seconds on my iPhone.

Today, if someone gets a promotion or changes job status, we can see that instantly on LinkedIn.  We can stay connected no matter if his work phone number and email changes.  The social and mobile CRM is upon us.

I was reading an Aberdeen report this week on SoMoCo (social, mobile, cloud) trends.  Here are the reasons companies said they are embracing the social CRM in particular:

• Converse with customers on channels preferred by them (66%)
• Provide information to groups of customers (54%)
• Monitor customer sentiment (47%)
• Collect customer feedback without solicitation (31%)

In addition, 66% of companies surveyed said they are using social channels to collaborate internally on customer issues.  My next article will explore how using social collaboration platforms and mobile devices used internally are changing the nature of management.

Also, I just finished a book entitled Social Business By Design that was quite enlightening.  I will be discussing this book and how it relates to mobility later in the week.

Read Part 1 of this Series here.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.