Silicon Valley Series: Evolution of Cloud, Analytics, AI and Human Integration

In this Silicon Valley Series I was honored to interview a number of very smart and experienced Silicon Valley dignitaries on a variety of important business trends, technologies and strategies.  I hope you find this series of short interviews useful.

In this episode, I interview Silicon Valley veteran and three time CEO Tom Thimot on how artificial intelligence and automation are evolving from hybrid models to more trusted automation models.

The 12 Step Plan for Digital Transformation Speed

It took Magellan’s crew three years sailing ships to circumnavigate the earth.  Today, at hypersonic speeds of 7,680 MPH, it takes just over three hours to circumnavigate the earth.  Data on the Internet, however, travels at 670 million MPH, which means it only takes milliseconds to circumnavigate the earth.  In this age of digital businesses and digital interactions, companies must digitally transform to work effectively in a world where mass information moves at these unimaginable speeds.

It's not just IT systems that are impacted by the volume and speed of information.  The creators of business processes that were designed and developed in an analog area, simply never envisioned a business environment that would require these operational tempos.  Analog business processes were designed to have humans involved.  These dependencies were designed to slow down the process to ensure accuracy, compliance and accountability.  Today, however, operating at the slow speeds of an analog, human dependent business process, will doom your company.  Analog business processes must be quickly automated via robotic process automation using artificial intelligence and machine learning to effectively interact with impatient digital customers and B2B partners.

Artificial Intelligence, Combined Actions and Digital Strategies

Fingerspitzengefühl: A German word used to describe the ability to maintain attention to detail in an ever-changing operational and tactical environment by maintaining real-time situational awareness. The term is synonymous with the English expression of "keeping one's finger on the pulse".  The problem with fingerspitzengefühl traditionally, in addition to pronouncing it, has been it is hard for an individual to scale up. Today that is changing.  In a world of sensors, AI and mobile devices, having real-time situational awareness is far easier than ever before.  In fact, today the challenge is not how to do it, but what to do with the massive volume of data that can be provided.

Competition, Artificial Intelligence and Balloons

W. Edward Deming taught that quality is achieved by measuring as much as possible and reducing variations, and reducing variation is achieved by improving the system, not just pieces.  Japan widely adopted Deming's philosophies in the 1950s and became the 2nd biggest economy in the world.  Quality improvement didn't decrease jobs in Japan, it increased jobs.

AI now has the ability to expand and codify Deming's philosophies - to take them to the next level. AI can improve and standardize decision making based on logic, rather than the fear of missing objectives, bonuses or losing one's job.  It can continuously monitor for quality against specifications by analyzing streams of real-time data coming from embedded sensors connected to the IIoT, IoT and IoA (internet of agriculture). This means companies that are aggressive early adopters of these digital technologies will have more knowledge, higher quality and significant competitive advantages, which means more demand for their products, sales, customer service, manufacturing, distribution, etc.  It also means aggressive adopters will likely generate more jobs.

What Artificial Intelligence Can Teach Us

Most of us understand that artificial intelligence (AI) offers opportunities for productivity improvements in the form of speed, automation, standardized actions and responses, plus the opportunity for continuous improvements via machine learning. These opportunities are enabled by data inputs that are analyzed and processed through AI algorithms that execute a desired decision and action. For all of the great capabilities and benefits that AI can provide, there is also a potential dark side. AI solutions can easily codify our prejudices, bias, gender stereotypes and promote injustices intentionally or unintentionally. This threat, as real and serious as it is, can also be seen as an opportunity to evaluate who we are, what we want the future to look like, and then codify a better tomorrow.

The 7 Imperatives for Thriving During Digital Transformation

Center for Digital Intelligence

These days it's not hard to identify the challenges organizations are facing during today's rapid business and digital transformation.  What's more difficult is knowing how to succeed.  The following recommendations are the result of our analysis after interviewing 37 executives and over 80 high tech professionals involved in digital technologies.

1. Develop and monitor your own digital mindset and that of your organization's: Understand the need to continuously upgrade and update your own thinking, as well as your organization’s.  Accept that digital technologies and a connected world are here to stay, and that the path to business success resides in them. Understand digital technologies and their capabilities, and rethink every aspect of your business, and business strategy, with a digital mindset.
2. Recognize the role culture plays in being successful in three key areas: your leadership, institutional and customer culture.  Purposely develop a digital culture that accepts and embraces the rapid pace of change that comes with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Analyst Kevin Benedict Interviews OSIsoft's Sam Lakkundi on Industrial IoT Platforms

What makes an Industrial Internet of Things platform different from any other IoT platform?  How is real-time data treated differently from data that can be archived and analyzed later?  What role does AI play in IIoT?  All these questions and more are covered in this interview with OSIsoft's Sam Lakkundi.  Enjoy!



Read more articles and watch more interviews at C4DIGI.com.

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Kevin Benedict

President, Principal Analyst, Futurist, the Center for Digital Intelligence™

Website C4DIGI.com

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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.

Time Continuums as a Competitive Advantage in Digital Transformation

We humans have a finite speed at which we think, analyze and make decisions that is largely determined by biology, chemistry and physics.  These limitations were not a problem when business was conducted largely by face-to-face interactions with other humans.  Today, however, in the digital age, businesses must operate in “digital” and ultimately in “future” time. Here’s a closer look at these different time continuums:

Human time: Time governed by our biological and mental limitations as humans. We can only focus on a small set of data before our minds are overwhelmed.  When important decisions must be made, our brains need time, significant time, to weigh all the variables, pros and cons and possible outcomes in order to arrive at a good decision.  In times of high stress when making fast decisions is required, many of us don’t perform at our peak.  In addition, weak humans that we are, we need sleep.  We are not always available; we require daily downtime in order to function.

Precision as a Competitive Advantage in Digital Transformation

Throughout history military leaders have suffered through the "fog of war," where they desperately sought answers to six key questions:

• Where are my enemies?
• Where are my friends?
• Where are my forces?
• Where are my materials and supplies?
• What capabilities are available now and at what location?
• What are the environmental conditions?

These “unknowns” impacted the strategies and tactics military leaders employed. Their time and energy as leaders were heavily focused on defending themselves against these unknowns.

Speed as a Competitive Advantage in Digital Transformation

The concept of speed as an advantage is not new. Over the course of 700 years, the Romans built and maintained a system of roads extending over 55,000 miles to enable speedy communications and the quick movement of troops across the vast expanse of the empire.

What’s different today is that digital technologies have warped our perception of time. As an example, a person might say they live five minutes from town, but that can have widely different meanings based on whether they were referring to walking or driving a car.  Digital technologies compress our perception of time and space while expanding our expectations of what can be accomplished in a given time. We expect to complete the equivalent of one hour of shopping in a supermarket in one minute online.  These changes significantly impact the way businesses must operate in a digital era to compete and remain relevant.