Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future: mobile expert

Showing posts with label mobile expert. Show all posts

Digital Transformation and the First Law of Thermodynamics

The First Law of Thermodynamics states, "energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.” In a business context that can be interpreted to mean if energy is being used to resist change, then it is not available for making change. Change is difficult. The default mode for most organizations and people is to resist change. Blockbusters’ own board resisted digital and business model transformation out of concern for short-term profits, which doomed it. Businesses that can direct energy to fast and positive transformation can exploit many more opportunities than enterprises mired in resistance.

Digital transformation and business agility are increasingly important in order to succeed, and both of these consume energy in the form of resources, available funds, credit, skills, change resistance, leadership, mental and emotional energy, time, etc. Enterprises need a method by which they can measure and monitor the amount of energy they have available to commit to digital transformation. Knowing how much energy is available requires a formula for calculating the number of digital energy units (DEUs) currently in reserve, how many are being created over a specific period of time, less the number of energy units each project and tasks consumes in a particular time frame. To that end, all business capabilities should be assigned DEU values so a total energy score (TES) can be computed.

All digital transformation tasks and projects consume and generate DEUs. As a result, the second step is to identify how many DEUs each task will consume. If digital transformation can be implmented with minimum resistance from the board, executive team, employees and customers, then those DEUs can be dedicated to making the changes required, however, if there is major resistance to change from any combination of these constituents, then there is less energy available for making the changes required.

Once the number of available DEUs are known, enterprises can track their total energy scores to maintain a self-sustaining agile business. Self-sustaining means you are NOT consuming all of your available energy, leaving nothing left to run the business, rather each digital transformation tasks is producing the same or more DEUs than it is consuming. Higher total energy scores that are self-sustaining, support a higher level of business agility, while lower scores limit agility and digital transformation possibilities.

It would be fair to ask why we are not just tracking ROIs. My answer is change consumes many things that are not reflected in P&L statements, such as emotional energy, time, goodwill, skills and other available resources. A company with a lot of money in the bank and the right skills to accomplish the tasks, but is emotionally drained and lacks goodwill as a result of overwork and too much change, does not have the required DEUs available for future business agility.

In a world in permanent flux, enterprises with higher total energy scores have a competitive advantage in the form of business agility and energy to use for digital transformation efforts. As real-time data is analyzed, and changes in trends detected, businesses with higher total energy scores are in a far better position to exploit emerging trends. What is your score and how long will it last?

Follow Kevin Benedict on Twitter @krbenedict, or read more of his articles on digital transformation strategies here:

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler

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

The Latest Mobile & Digital Expert Interviews by Kevin Benedict

Go behind the scenes of the retail and fashion world with SAP and enterprise mobility expert, Kevin Benedict. In this video Kevin Benedict interviews SAP's Tim Hood GVP, Retail Strategy and Technology.

Video Link: https://www.facebook.com/HANAbySAP/videos/1179750908715401/

Learn about mobile solutions for farmers in Brazil.

Video Link: https://www.facebook.com/HANAbySAP/videos/1180359911987834/

Learn about digital transformation strategies from Microsoft's Rob Tiffany.

Mobility expert Kevin Benedict interviews Box's Chief Strategy Officer and SVP of Platforms Jeetu Patel.

Kevin Benedict's latest video on mobile commerce trends and strategies.

In this interview, Kevin Benedict interviews SAP's VP of Platform Technologies, Ken Tsai on digital transformation and machine learning.

In this interview, Kevin Benedict interviews APAC mobility expert and Kony Solutions VP of Sales Engineering, Malachy Martin on the latest trends in enterprise mobility.

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler

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Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility

The C suite must understand the battle they are fighting before they can develop and implement a winning digital transformation strategy. The commercial battlefield is data, and the effectiveness and speed of competitors’ information logistics systems will make all the difference. The C suite’s overall doctrine must be achieving information dominance in their target markets.

Information, however, is trivia unless it results in correct insights, which leads to right actions at the right time. In the book, The Principles of War for the Information Age, author Robert Leonard writes, “If I can develop and pursue my plan to defeat you faster than you can execute your plan to defeat me, then your plan is unimportant.” It’s not the ability to collect more data faster, or analyze it faster, it is the ability to understand and act on it faster. Businesses that can “understand and act with speed” will dominate those which are slower.

In mobile commerce, the ability to identify the mobile app user, recognize their preferences, understand the immediate context, and then to provide a personalized and contextually relevant experience fast enough to satisfy impatient mobile consumers is the winning formula. That is a difficult job, but offers competitive advantage opportunities! So the question is how can I achieve those competitive advantages?

The C suite must recognize speed advantages in information logistic systems; analytics, business operational tempos and decision-making will determine the winners of tomorrow’s digital era. Competition is now focused on optimizing information logistics systems (ILS). ILSs are all the systems involved in John Boyd’s OODA loop (observe, orient, decide and act). They include the following tasks:

Collecting data
Transmitting data
Securing data
Normalizing data
Storing data
Analyzing and reporting on the data
Understanding the meaning and impact of the data
Driving decisions based on the meaning of the data
Acting on the data (manual or automated) to achieve competitive advantages

Achieving speed in the first six steps can mostly be accomplished with technology upgrades and improvements, but in order to achieve speed in steps 7-9, it requires deep thinking that is codified in algorithms supported by automation. It requires augmenting humans with artificial intelligence, sophisticated algorithm-driven intelligent process automation (robotic software processes), and machine learning.

To achieve competitive advantages and speed in these steps requires an enterprise to move beyond “human time” and into the realm of “digital time.” Digital time can only be achieved with the augmentation of robotic software processes that work far faster than humanly possible. When your mobile app is accessed by millions of users and the numbers of data transactions explode, supporting those apps in real-time requires automation and augmentation, i.e. algorithms.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing

Economies are changing. Industries are changing. Markets are changing. Consumers are changing and shopping differently. As competitive advantages evolve into market standards, areas of competition move. Today we see fields of competition move to data utilization and digital transformation initiatives. When considering how your company needs to digitally transform, there are three very important questions to ask:

How am I defining digital transformation?
What is motivating me to digitally transform?
Why should I digitally transform now?

As a definition for digital transformation I use - rethinking, redesigning and restructuring technology and business models to more quickly and effectively respond to and engage employees, partners and customers in digital environments.

To answer the questions about motivation, I propose there are eight key forces at work today that are motivating digital transformation:

Real-time mobile apps and data
Real-time sensor data (IoT)
Real-time analytics
Real-time situational awareness
Real-time business operational tempos
Real-time intelligent process automation
Real-time contextual understanding
Real-time personalization of user experiences

There is an obvious theme here, “real-time.” Real-time, as a mainstream requirement, first gained importance with the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, and then exponentially increased in importance when mobile devices connected to the Internet. Today mobile commerce represents 34% of the global e-commerce market, but by 2018 it is expected to represent 47% and these consumers are impatient. These consumers are mobile, and the context of their mobile searches and app usage changes second by second as they move throughout their day. Real-time context is key to a successful user experience in this environment, and businesses with consumer facing mobile apps need to be moving toward real-time now. That is not easy.

As competition increases and the sophistication of mobile apps grow, so also does consumer expectations. Today mobile apps needed to be personalized in real-time, contextually relevant, and mobile payments and wallets supported. These requirements break IT. Traditional IT environments are not meant for such speeds. Business processes are not designed for real-time operational tempos. Humans are not capable of scaling up to process, analyze and understand millions of data transactions daily.

As businesses recognize “real-time” requirements are not going away, and that “real-time” is mandatory to compete, they must take inventory of their existing IT environments and take the necessary steps to digitally transform.

Today’s competition takes place around data and speed. The winners of a digital tomorrow will invest in five key areas:

becoming a data-driven business
improving the quality and speed of their information logistics systems
achieving real-time operational tempos
redesigning and rearchitecting for business agility
utilizing real-time contextually relevant data to personalize digital user experiences

Businesses must recognize the demand for real-time operational tempos is only going to increase and this requires strategy, action and a budget.

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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It's Time for Technology to Disappear

In 2015, technology reached the tipping point for me, it moved from the efficient column, to the inefficient column, from a pro to a con, from a help to a hindrance. You can hear it in every complaint about how email messages are overwhelming our day, interfering with priorities, impacting our schedules, hurting our productivity and forcing more of us to take our work home at night and over the weekend.

In 2016, technology needs to disappear into the background, while productivity and purpose should be the siren's call. We have approximately 700,000 hours between our birth and our death. About 350,000 of those hours are spent in our careers. How many of those hours do we want to waste on poor technology experiences? I propose the following technologies must disappear, and by disappear I mean fade into the background:

We shouldn’t have to read through hundreds of useless email messages to find the three necessary to complete our job. Communications need to change and email must disappear behind a veil of utility and productivity.
We shouldn’t have to check dozens of different locations, apps and websites to communicate with our work colleagues and friends. All of these various collaboration and communication platforms need to disappear into a consolidated and efficient aggregated solution like Slack.
Communication technologies should disappear into the background, and the quality and utility of the message improved by technologies.
Email and meeting driven schedules must disappear, in favor of schedules that honor purpose and deliverables. This may mean prioritizing thinking time and mental productivity. Scientists agree that the creative parts of our minds work better at different times of the day. Those times need to be reserved, blocked and honored on schedules, to optimize their utility.
The requirement to develop, store and retrieve dozens of different passwords and user names must disappear. The ability to accurately authenticate a user must become more efficient and secure.
Trivial messages and alerts from hundreds of different sources arriving 24 hours a day must disappear. Trivial messages and an urge to immediately respond must not be allowed to negatively impact our thinking, creating, planning, sleeping, loving, relationship building, driving and the handling of dangerous equipment.
On-premise IT solutions, hardware and apps that serve to distract from the business, and offer no additional business value, competitive advantages or market agility must disappear into the cloud.
The 200+ mobile applications on my iPhone must disappear into an artificial intelligence engine (think advanced Siri) that will access their functionality and assist me even before I ask.
Mobile applications that are not personalized, and are not contextually relevant should disappear. I don’t care what you sell, if I am not interested, or it is not relevant to me, I don't want to see it.
The routine process work I do on my computer must go away. Intelligent process automation should be pushed down to individuals. An AMX mobile app should process my expenses without me. It should only alert me to exceptions, not the routine.
Everyone agrees that ideas, creativity and innovation are critical to the success of businesses, but technologies today are more often a hindrance than help in these efforts. Technologies and the use of technologies that hinder creativity and innovation must disappear.

In the lifecycle of technologies, there is a time when users are enthralled and distracted by the technology itself, we are there today, but these times must quickly pass and the technology must disappear into the background. In the year 2016, it should be all about making 2015’s technology disappear.

The challenge with making technology disappear, is it is hard, time consuming and expensive. Adding a layer of artificial intelligence, that can analyze data, understand context and personalize an experience is complex and hard, but that is how technology disappears.
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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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Time, Speed and Space - Mobile vs. Static Apps

Most of today’s technology was designed and developed for static, stationary environments. Even today, in a mobile world, mobile apps are most often developed based on assumed static endpoints. Why is that a problem? We are rarely static people.

Let’s consider two people in a vehicle. The driver, assuming they use their smartphone only when safely parked, searches for places, locations and directions based on a static starting point. However, if the person searching for places, locations and directions is a passenger in a moving car, a different set of information is appropriate. One based on movement, speed, direction, intersections, changing distances, etc. How should those variables change the way mobile apps are designed?

If you want to meet up with friends or family members who are travelling, in transit, or commuting, today’s mobile apps require you to select a stationary physical address in order to provide a map and direction. Mobile apps designed with static assumptions are not going to help you coordinate an intersection point based on time, space and speed. What if you want to meet as soon as possible to exchange children after a soccer game? Today’s apps are not going to help.

What if you want to meet up with a mobile business? Someone who sells handmade jewelry or crafts at different locations everyday? Wouldn’t it be useful to search and find a real-time and accurate address, rather than a static, out of date, physical address?

If you are working outdoors, or in a hardhat industry, you will often need to coordinate with contractors and subcontractors bringing specialized equipment and materials to a jobsite. Often these moving parts must all come together at once in order to complete a project. Wouldn’t it be useful if your project management software were using real-time dynamic information (GPS, IoT sensors, mobile apps, etc.) that utilized real-world times, space and speeds to update schedules dynamically?

Calendars apps assume static locations and times, but is that how the real world works? What if we assumed constant motion, changing variables, obstacles and dynamic schedules? You know, like in the real world. How would your mobile calendar apps behave differently?

A transformation in thinking and design needs to take place, one based on the real world, rather than on static models.
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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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Instantly Personalizing Mobile Apps - Cutting Through Chaos

Unique Consumers and Unique Profiles

Smartphones, laptops, PCs and in-store visits have made path-to-purchase journeys very complex and confusing for online retailers to recognize and support. Consumers can search and discover products and services using a smartphone on their way to work. In the evening they can pull out a tablet and engage in immersive research while laying in bed. They may decide to review some more on their desktop at work, then at lunch time stop at a brick and mortar store to look at the product in more detail. That evening, they purchase the product online using a laptop. How is a retailer or e-tailer going to cut through this chaos and recognize individual consumers and their needs along their path-to-purchase journey?

In our research at Cognizant's "Center for the Future of Work" we found online shoppers use different devices for different categories of products. In fact, 56% of online shoppers use multiple devices on many online path-to-purchase journeys. On the go search and discovery is often initiated on smartphones, immerse research on tablets, while completing transactions on laptops is a common pattern.

Some products consumers are comfortable purchasing on a smartphone, others not. We found online shoppers of different ages exhibit markedly different shopping behaviors. We found significantly different online shopping behaviors between those with different education levels, genders, ethnicity and technology preferences (laptop/desktop vs. mobile).

Our findings reveal these variables, all added up, equate to thousands, if not millions of different combinations of needs, preferences, unique activities and behaviors. These unique set of variables we call Mobile Me Profiles (MME-Ps), require different personalized content, at different times and locations, for each consumer in order to provide an optimal experience. In this age of "mobile me" where customers demand personalized and relevant user experiences, it is necessary to identify these differences, precisely and instantly.

If you are going to compete and win in mobile commerce today, you must target markets of one. It is no longer an effective strategy to treat your customers as one homogeneous market of unknown consumers. In today's world of mobile commerce, where devices are intimate extensions of unique individuals, knowing those individuals, as individuals is key.

Read more on how to deliver these strategies in my new report, "Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me."

Download the report here http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/Cutting-Through-Chaos-in-the-Age-of-Mobile-Me-codex1579.pdf.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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Latest Research on Mobile Consumer Behaviors and Mobile App Requirements

I just finished a major research paper titled, "Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me." Our findings reveal current mobile consumer behaviors, the challenges in creating mobile apps for them, and specific recommendations and business strategies for winning in an age of "Mobile Me." Download the full report here http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/Cutting-Through-Chaos-in-the-Age-of-Mobile-Me-codex1579.pdf.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/IqN6NbY_Q0A
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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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Mobile Expert Interviews: Dan Bricklin, Co-Developer of the First "Killer App"

I am excited to share an interview I conducted yesterday in Boston with a member of software programming royalty, Dan Bricklin. Dan was the co-developer of the world's first software "killer app", Visicalc. Visicalc, a spreadsheet app for the Apple II series of personal computers, was so popular in the 1980s, that companies spent thousands of dollars on computers just to run the $100 software program. Dan worked closely with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates many others in the early years of personal computers. His life is outlined here on Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Bricklin.

Dan still programs and designs productivity apps. He is the CTO of Alpha Software, the developers of sophisticated digital forms for mobile devices.

Dan has received many honors for his contributions to the computer industry from the ACM, IEEE, MIT, PC Magazine, the Western Society of Engineers, and others. In 1981, he was given a Grace Murray Hopper Award for VisiCalc. In 1996, Bricklin was awarded by the IEEE Computer Society with the Computer Entrepreneur Award for pioneering the development and commercialization of the spreadsheet and the profound changes it fostered in business and industry. In 2003, Bricklin was given the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award for being a technology change leader. He was recognized for having used information technology in an industry-transforming way. He has received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Newbury College. In 2004, he was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for advancing the utility of personal computers by developing the VisiCalc electronic spreadsheet." Bricklin has appeared in the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds, as well as the 2005 documentary Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks, in both cases discussing the development of VisiCalc. His book, Bricklin on Technology, was published by Wiley in May 2009.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/ucDlFmrHfpk
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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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Retail Evolution and Mobility

Farmers once sold their harvest bounty directly to their customers from beneath the branches of their fruit trees. Customers had a direct face-to-face relationship with the farmer and could express their preferences and demonstrate their buying patterns to the farmer. Over time farmers developed means to preserve and package their products, and to sell them through retail stores with large customer bases. Sales expanded, but the personal relationship between the farmers and their customers, and an intimate understanding of each of their customers’ preferences was lost behind the retail shelves of big box stores.

Over time retail stores seeking market expansion and competitive differentiators developed mobile commerce apps that enabled them to sell products across a much wider geographic area, and to larger markets at any time of the day or night. This expanded sales potential, but in the process disconnected customers from the retailer’s physical store and location.

Mass marketing to mass audiences depersonalized the shopping experience. It reduced the farmer’s products to mere commodities, and retail stores to logistic, warehouse and delivery centers. It shifted competitive differentiators from customer service, retail locations, store layouts, local product selections and building designs to the designs of mobile commerce apps and websites, their performance and ease of navigation. In addition, shipping costs and post-sales return policies moved from afterthoughts in fine print, to major competitive differentiators. Few were satisfied with these developments. Customer service, brand loyalty and the consumer’s retail experience suffered.

Today, however, technologies and business strategies are converging again to offer hope these relationships can be restored, and the quality of the consumer’s mobile commerce experience improved. The development of MyX (My Experience) personalization strategies and technologies are promising highly personalized digital experiences for consumers, and competitive advantages for businesses that can support them.

Creating highly personalized MyX mobile commerce apps for thousands and even millions of consumers requires business process re-engineering, new IT strategies, technologies, intelligent process automation and upgraded legacy systems and real-time personalized experiences. The competitive battlefields of retail are moving fast and demand urgent action today.

As consumers shift more of their work and personal time to mobile devices, we see rapid growth in both mobile marketing investments and the numbers of mobile commerce transactions. Today 34 percent of global e-commerce transactions are mobile, even though 73 percent of survey participants continue to use desktop/laptops for most of their online shopping activities. Mobile shoppers (those that shop online regularly using a smartphone or tablet) shop online more frequently than computer shoppers (those mostly using computers for online shopping activities), and as shoppers continue to migrate to mobile commerce these transaction numbers will see continuing growth. The bottom line, mobile commerce is growing fast across all demographics and represents the future of retailing. Developing a strategy for personalizing users' experience is the key component.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

The Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant

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IoT Sensors, Nerves for Robots and the Industrial Internet

Sensors are Nerves for Robots

Yesterday I interviewed two robotics experts on the growing demand for IPAs (intelligent process automation) robots. These robots are made of software code. They are assigned pre-defined actions based on steps in a process, the analysis of data, and the decision trees they are provided. For example, an IPA can review a car loan application and approve or disprove it instantly – based on the data. In fact, they can analyze the data from tens of thousands of car loans in seconds based on the parameters and decision trees they have been given.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of different use cases for IPA robots. IPA robots can also interact with IoT sensors and take actions based on sensor data. Not just by completing a digital business processes, but even by controlling physical equipment and machines as well. Sensors serve robots in much the same way as nerves serve us humans.

Earlier this week I was briefed by a company AMS AG, a developer of IoT sensors. They just released a new sensor that smells odors in homes and offices. Yes, indeed! The sensor is embedded in a home monitoring system from Withings. In Withings’ Home product, the AS-MLV-P2 (sensor) is combined with a 5Mpixel video camera, dual microphones, temperature and humidity sensors and Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® Smart radios. This means that users of the Home monitoring system can see, hear, feel and smell the inside of their home or office remotely via a smartphone or tablet app supplied by Withings.

AMS’s sensor detects VOCs (volatile organic compounds), including both human-made and naturally occurring chemical compounds. These include ambient concentrations of a broad range of reducing gases associated with bad air quality such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, organic acids, amines, and aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, all which can be harmful to human and animal health at high levels. These are most of the scents humans smell. In the Home app, the sensor’s measurements of these chemicals are converted to an air-quality rating as well as to a measurement of VOC concentrations.

If you combine IPA robots, AMS’s sensors and Withings Home monitoring system with your HVAC system, the IPA robot can ensure you have healthy air quality in your home or office continuously. In fact, an IPA robot could manage the air quality and security of tens of thousands of homes and offices at the same time. The results of these findings and actions can be displayed and controlled on smartphones and tablets as well.

Not only do you have robots sensing the physical world, but also automatically reacting to it on your behalf. In my opinion, how sensors detect and communicate the physical and natural world to humans and robots is one of the most interesting areas of innovation today.

An additional value of using IPA robots is the massive clouds of data they spin-off as a result of their decisions and actions. This data can be further analyzed to find new areas for optimization and potential business opportunities. Herein lies an emerging area where big data analysis can give us even deeper insights.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

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Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

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Mobile Apps, Blind Spots, Tomatoes and IoT Sensors

Master Tomato Gardener

A lot is written on mobile technologies, the Internet of Things, social media and analytics, but little is written on how all these might work together in a retail environment. I think best by writing, so let's think this through together.

Blind spots are defined as, “Areas where a person's view is obstructed.” Many business decisions today are still made based on conjecture (unsubstantiated assumptions), because the data needed to make a data-driven decision lies in an operational “blind spot.”

Smart companies when designing mobile applications consider how they can personalize the user experience. They ask themselves how they can utilize all the accumulated data they have collected on their customers or prospects, plus third-party data sources, to make the experience as beautiful and pleasurable as possible. To start, they can often access the following kinds of data from their own and/or purchased databases to personalize the experience:

Name
Age
Gender
Address
Demographic data
Income estimate
Credit history
Education level
Marital status
Children
Lifestyle
Social media profile and sentiment
Job title
Purchase history
Locations of purchases
Preferences, tastes and style
Browsing/Shopping history

This data, however, is basic. It is merely a digital profile. It has many blind spots. It is often not based on real-time data. As competition stiffens, the above profile data will not be enough to deliver a competitive advantage. Companies will need to find ways to reduce blind spots in their data so they can increase the degree of personalization.

Sensors connected to the IoT (Internet of Things) will play an important role in reducing blind spots. Sensors, often cost only a few dollars, and can be set-up to detect or measure physical properties, and then wirelessly communicate the results to a designated server. Also as smartphones (aka sensor platforms) increase the number of sensors they include, and then make these sensors available to mobile application developers through APIs, the competitive playing field will shift to how these sensors can be used to increase the level of personalization.

Let’s imagine a garden supply company, GardenHelpers, developing a mobile application. The goal of the application is to provide competitive differentiation in the market by offering personalized garden advice and solutions. The GardenHelpers use the following smartphone sensors in their design to provide more personalized gardening advice:

GPS sensor (location data)
Cell Tower signal strength (location data)
Magnetometer sensor (location of sun)
Ambient light sensor (available sunlight)
Barometer sensor (altitude)

GardenHelpers combine the sensor data with date and time, plus third-party information such as:

GIS (geospatial information system on terrain, slopes, angles, watershed, etc.) data
Historic weather information
Government soil quality information
Government crop data, recommendations and advice

GardenHelpers also encourages the user to capture the GPS coordinates, via their smartphone, on each corner of their garden to input the estimated garden size, and to capture the amount of sunlight at various times of the day through the ambient light sensor. This information is compared with area weather data and the amount of shade and sunlight on their garden is estimated.

GardenHelpers now understands a great deal about the gardener (mobile app user), the garden location, size, lay of the land and sunlight at various times. However, there remain “blind spots.” GardenHelpers doesn't know the exact temperature, wind speeds, humidity levels, or the amount of water in the soil of the garden. How do they remedy these blind spots? They offer to sell the gardeners a kit of wireless IoT sensors to measure these.

With all of this information now the blind spots are now greatly reduced, but some remain. What about local pests, soil issues and advice? GardenHelpers adds a social and analytics element to their solution. This enables gardeners to share advice with other local gardeners with similar garden sizes and crops.

GardenHelpers can now deliver a mobile app that is hyper-personalized for their customers and prospects. The products they offer and recommend are not selected randomly, but are now based on precise smartphone and sensor data. The mobile app combined with the IoT sensors become an indispensable tool for their customers which leads to increased brand loyalty and sales.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

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IoT Sensors, Tactile Feedback, iPhones and Digital Transformation

IoT sensors extend our physical senses beyond our physical reach and communicate the results from afar. They also allow us to share experiences remotely, not just mentally, but also tactilely. That is the first time I have ever used the word “tactilely.” It means to tangibly or physically experience something. For example, AMS’s MEMS gas sensor allows people to hear, see and smell inside their home remotely from an iPhone app. The Withings Home camera sends alerts to an iPhone if it detects movement or noise in the house. Its night-vision sensor mode enables the remote viewer to even see in the dark. The viewer can also talk through the camera to ask questions like, “Who are you, and why are you carrying my big screen TV away?”

Today you can combine 3D modeling apps for smartphones and tablets with sounds, vibrations and colors so you can augment your reality with tactile experiences. Wireless sensors and 3D modeling and visualization tools enable you to see and monitor conditions at distance - in real-time. A combination of sensors, analytics, visualization and tactile feedback tools can alert and inform you of changing conditions, patterns or variations in activity or data patterns. This experience can truly augment your reality.

The new Apple Watch enables you to signal somebody on the other side of the world with tactile vibrations that you customize. For example, while on the road I can signal my wife that I miss her by sending five quick “pulses” that vibrate on her wrist.

Digitally modeled realities enable experts, from anywhere in the world, to work and manage factories, farms and other kinds of operations from distant locations. The obstacles of the past, lack of information and monitoring capabilities, that resulted in operational blind spots are quickly disappearing as more sensors are put in place. Most of us either own or have seen noise canceling headsets. Sensors in the headset capture the incoming noise and then instantly counter with anti-sound that matches the sensor data. This same kind of sensor technology can capture noise and transmit it to distant locations where it can be recreated and listened to by others.

I can image near-term scenarios where entire factory floors are digitally replicated and real-time operations can be viewed and managed from great distances. Every component of the operation can be monitored via sensor data. Aberrations, out of compliance data, and other faults would instantly cause alerts, notifications and remedies to be implemented.

In the military arena, acoustical sensors can now pin-point the location of incoming bullets, rockets, missiles, etc., in real-time and activate various instantaneous counter measure technologies. Data means power.

Today's competitive marketplace requires companies to collect more data, analyze more data and utilize more data to improve customer interactions and engagements. Mobile devices are exceptionally designed to assist in this effort. Apple's iPhone and Apple Watch come with an array of sensors for collecting data about your surroundings:

Touch/Multi-Touch screen sensor
Force Touch sensor– measures different levels of touch (Apple Watch), determines the difference between a tap and a press
Taptic Engine sensor – tactile feedback via gentle vibration(Apple Watch)
Audio/Voice sensor
GPS sensor
Bluetooth sensor (supports iBeacon)
WiFi sensor
WiFi strength sensor – help track indoor activities
Proximity sensor - deactivates the display and touchscreen when the device is brought near the face during a call, and it shuts off the screen and touch sensitivity
Ambient Light sensor - brightens the display when you’re in sunlight and dims it in darker place
Magnetometer sensor - measure the strength and/or direction of the magnetic field in the vicinity of the device – runs digital compass
Accelerometer sensor- measures the force of acceleration, i.e. the speed of movement (uses movement and gravity sensing), steps counter, distance, speed of movement, detects the angle an iPhone is being held
Apple Watch sensors measure steps taken, calories burned, and pulse rate
Gyroscope – 3 axis gyro (combined with Accelerometer provides 6 axis motion sensing), Pitch, Roll and Yaw
Barometer sensor – altitude, elevation gain during workouts, weather condition
Camera sensor with a plethora of sensors and digital features: face detection, noise reduction, optical image stabilization, auto-focus, color sensors, backside Illumination sensor, True Tone sensor and flash
Fingerprint identity sensor
Heart rate sensor (Apple Watch) - uses infrared and visible-light LEDs and photodiodes to detect heart rate Sensor

Other sensor add-ons: Personal Thermal Imagery Cameras sensor (Flir)

I attended a defense related conference and listened to an IT expert in the CIA present on how they can use sensors on smartphones to uniquely identify the walking style and pace of individuals. For example, the intelligence agency may suspect a person carrying a phone is a bad guy. They can remotely switch on the smartphone's sensors and record the walking style and pace of the person carrying the phone and match it with their database records.

Sensors help bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds. They convert the physical world into data. Tactile feedback tools convert the data back into physical experiences – like a Star Trek Transporter.

Mobile apps can also be considered the API (application programming interface) between humans and smartphones. Sensors are the API between the phone and the physical world. For example, a mobile application for recommending local restaurants may start by asking the user what kind of food they prefer. The human queries their stomach for pain and preferences, and then inputs the results into mobile apps by touching the keypad or using their voice. Suddenly a server in an Amazon data center knows your stomach's inputs! That is one powerful sensor and API! Given the vast array of sensors in the human body incredible things can be done once those sensor convert them to data.

Until recently, the data from natural sensors in the human body were mostly communicated to analytics engines via human's touch, typing, drawings or voice inputs. The emergence of wearable sensors and smart devices, however, change that. Wearable sensors can bypass the human in the middle and wirelessly communicate directly with your applications or healthcare provider.

Sensors and computers are also connected to the non-physical. Applications can react differently based on recognized time inputs. Once time reaches a specified location (place?), an alarm can be activated sending sound waves to your physical ear. That is converting the non-physical (time) into sound waves that vibrate our ear drums.

The challenge for businesses today is to envision how all of these sensors and available real-time data can be used to improve sales, customer service, product design, marketplace interactions and engagements so there are more profits at the end of the day.

In the book Digital Disruptions, James McQuivey writes that for most of history, disruptions (business and marketplace transformations) occurred in a physical world of factories and well-trod distribution networks. However, the disruptors of tomorrow are likely coming from digital disruptions - sensors, code halos, big data, mobile devices and wearables.

The task and challenge of every IT department is to understand and design a strategy that recognizes the competitive playing fields of tomorrow are among the digits.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Mobile Apps, Analytics, Code Halos and Mass Personalization

Kevin Benedict, moderates this panel of digital experience and mobility experts including Benjamin Pring, Ted Shelton and Jack C. Crawford as they review and discuss the findings of Ben Pring's recent study Putting the Experience in Digital Customer Experience.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/xsPDWReccF4?list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Enterprise Mobility - Adventures and Lessons from the Mobile World Congress with Jon Reed

Diginomica's Jon Reed interviews Cognizant's Senior Analyst for Digital Transformation and Mobility, Kevin Benedict on what he learned this year at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. This year 93,000 people came together to learn and review the newest mobile, wireless and connected smart technologies at this event. Much has changed in the past 12 months and this interview covers many of these trends.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/8jwkhZgck1U

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Networked Field Services and Real-Time Decision Making

Investment in space travel has provided many direct and indirect benefits to society. For example, weather forecasting technology, solar energy, scratch resistant lenses, water purification systems, enriched baby food and air quality monitoring have all made advancements because of investments in space travel research. Likewise, the military has made huge investments related to the implementation of Network-Centric Warfare technologies and mobile data collection strategies that are now providing benefit and revolutionizing the way commercial field services organizations operate.

One of the most important capabilities that mobile solutions offer organizations today is the ability to provide better visibility, in near real time, into the activities and events taking place in the field – let’s call it situational awareness. Historically, it has been difficult to ensure that quality and service standards and processes are followed on remote jobsites and in mobile environments. The lack of real time visibility often means critical operational decisions and optimized scheduling choices are delayed which results in the inefficient utilization of resources and assets.

Better communication and visibility about the work completed or not completed on remote jobsites can ensure that proper policies and operational and safety processes are followed and assistance is provided when needed. Receiving, processing and sharing sensor (M2M) data from equipment, digital images, streaming video and real time mobile app updates with management and other process experts can often resolve challenging issues quickly and efficiently.

Today mobile applications support mobile data collection, real time database queries, alerts, mobile business processes, work order dispatch, location tracking, optimized scheduling, customer updates and alerts in most areas of the world. Situational awareness is a new capability for most organizations. It virtually enables managers and experts from anywhere in the world to be “digitally present” on remote jobsites. Being “digitally present” is accomplished today using a variety of tools available on most smartphones. These tools include:

Phone
Photos
Video
Voice/Audio
SMS
Email
Augmented reality
Bluetooth add-on equipment
GPS/Maps/Tracking
Custom mobile apps

Most organizations have yet to understand and exploit these capabilities to maximize efficiency and optimize returns. Each of these tools can and do play an important role in a networked field services operation.

The New Networked Organization

The most advanced militaries are developing and implementing strategies based on the concept of Network-Centric Warfare. These strategies, methodologies and concepts have direct relevance to commercial enterprises and field services organizations today under the name Network-Centric Operations or Networked Field Services.

The military uses rugged handhelds, radios, laptop computers, satellites, radio scanners, drones (UAVs), human resources, video surveillance, aerial surveillance, infrared cameras, remote sensors of all kinds and many other embedded mobile devices to create a web or grid of data collection points that are all wirelessly networked together.

Collected data is securely and wirelessly sent to a central server where it forms a real time and unified view of operations that can be used for analysis, forecasting, resource allocation, planning and real time decision making. This networked approach enables users to see where their assets are located, where they are needed and how best to manage them at all times to successfully and efficiently accomplish the mission.

Network-Centric Warfare, goes by the name Network-Centric Operations in commercial environments and is a relatively new military doctrine. It seeks to translate an information advantage (real-time data collected in the field) into a competitive advantage by using it for real-time decision-making. This networking, combined with real-time data, analytics, AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning, enable organizations to behave and respond in ways never before possible. This strategy is based on the following four beliefs:

A robustly networked workforce improves data sharing.
Data sharing enhances the quality of information and supports situational awareness.
Shared situational awareness enables collaboration, and management and resource agility.
Points 1-3 support an optimized and efficient workforce

In order to optimize the performance of a military operation or a field services organization, it is critical to know, in real time, the location of all resources, the status of each job, the assets and equipment needed, and the time each job will require. When effectively coordinated and managed, human resources, equipment, assets and mobile inventories can be shared between multiple projects, and the right experts with the right levels of experience can be used on the right projects at the right time. The bottom line is that a leaner, more efficient organization can be put in the field that can accomplish more work with fewer resources and generate a higher return on investment.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

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