Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

Brain Change and Digital Strategies

The renowned military strategist John Boyd taught that people and institutions collect favorite philosophies, strategies, theories and ideologies over a period of time, and then try to align the future to fit them. The problem with this is the future is rarely like the past, and trying to fit new data into old paradigms often forces us to perform irrational mental gymnastics, which leaves us farther from the truth.

Our resistance to change and unwillingness to question our beliefs in the face of mounting evidence, leads us to analytical and execution failure. A more productive habit would be to continuously review our mental constructs to find out how to modify our interpretations to align with new evidence. This action, however, goes against our human nature that seeks stability and resists change. We see the consequences of these challenges weekly as we read about companies (especially retail) failing as a result of their resistance. In the future, developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning will have the potential to help us overcome many of our own mental weaknesses that cause us problems in our pursuit of truth.

In the digital era, our ability to change our thinking becomes even more critical as it must happen at a faster rate. I remember when updates to an enterprise’s mobile apps required all users to bring their mobile devices into the office to get them loaded and tested. This was a slow, tedious and expensive process. Today, as we all know, this can be done worldwide instantly and for very little money through cloud based app stores. Digital transformation equals speed and accelerated change.

In a world of integrated digital platforms and systems, new digital innovations can impact markets instantly and competitors must be able to react.

The bottom line - one of the biggest factors determining the digital transformation winners of tomorrow will be the brains of leaders – their mental constructs. Can executives and boards look at new evidence and innovations without biases, resistance to change and prejudices, and grasp how economies, industries, markets and competition will be impacted? Can they learn about new digital innovations, understand the breadth of the impact, and develop new business strategies based on the new realities? Can they overcome themselves?

It is quite the irony that digital winners will be not simply those with the best digital technologies, but those that can best overcome their own human brains.

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I invite you to watch my latest video on digital technology trends.

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict, connect with me on LinkedIn or read more of my articles on digital transformation strategies here:

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Kevin Benedict

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

Website C4DIGI.com

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Technologies

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

Combinatorial Nature of Digital Technologies and Legos

I came across the brilliant blog site of Futurist Frank Diana this week. In one of his most recent articles he discusses the concept of combinatorial nature. He states, "We are seeing exponential convergence across the areas of science, technology, economics, society, ethics, and politics. The combinatorial nature of an overwhelming number of building blocks drives an accelerating intersection across these areas." As an expert Lego player, I can appreciate the concept of building blocks, and the near infinite number of combinations these blocks can be used to form. The idea that we have now reached a critical mass of digital building blocks, and that we will now experience exponential growth through the combinatorial nature of them is compelling.

The World Economic Forum also describes the future in similar ways, “We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before... Billions of people are now connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge. And these possibilities are being multiplied by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing."

Both of these quotes, and the idea that we have reached a new era as a result of the combinatorial nature of digital building blocks, begs the question of what does this mean for for our organizations today? The answer can be found in the Lego block.

Legos come in standardized shapes, sizes and integration points that allow for the rapid build of billions of different combinations. The standardization of Lego blocks doesn't restrict our ability to create new and unique combinations, rather it enhances it. Organizations must recognize that the winners of today and tomorrow are not organizations that create their own bespoke building blocks, but that have the vision to use standardized digital building blocks to offer unique combinations faster than their opponents.

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

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Kevin Benedict

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

Website C4DIGI.com

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Technologies

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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Digital Transformation Crunch Time

Consumer behaviors are changing at speeds never before seen in many industries, which is impacting how businesses operate and bring products to market. In fact, more than a dozen retailers have closed this year as a result of having business and IT systems, and supply chains that are unable to meet the speed requirements of digital consumers. Most companies report they have  IT systems in their inventory that are too slow or incapable of supporting real-time digital consumers. That spells trouble. Consumer and competitive changes are forcing enterprises to rethink their strategies in order to speed up in just about all areas: R&D, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and sales.

Enterprises that I speak with today seem to understand that the need for digital transformation is being driven by advances in mobile technologies, automation, cloud computing, sensors, big data analytics and artificial intelligence. They realize they must upgrade their IT systems and business processes to accommodate these changes and increase the speed of their operations. They are also focused on how to improve their agility and flexibility, so they are nimble enough to respond to changing consumer behaviors, tastes and new competitors. Many companies today find themselves in a position where their past investments in IT systems, that once provided competitive advantages, are now anchors preventing them from moving into the future.

Achieving real-time operational speeds is required to support real-time digital interactions and experiences. Supporting these real-time experiences is more than just a technology issue, it requires companies to support real-time analytics, decision-making and business operational tempos. An operational tempo,  in the context of this article, is defined as the speed or pace of business operations. Achieving a faster operational tempo is a significant challenge for many. This is why we are seeing more applications of real-time analytics, automation and artificial intelligence.

Changing an enterprise’s operational tempo requires strong leadership that can transform the entire organization. It often requires significant IT updates and upgrades, organizational changes, and reengineering business processes and decision-making matrixes to align with real-time demands.

The biggest challenge for legacy companies today, is how to move to real-time.

On the 20^th of July I will be leading an online discussion with the CIO WaterCooler on "Sequencing Digital Technologies for Competitive Advantages Over the Next 40 Months of Digital Transformation".

At my Digital Boardroom we will be discussing that we (consumers) have all changed as a result of digital and mobile technologies and platforms. Enterprises must now follow and transform, in order to support these changes and compete fast enough to matter. If you agree with this premise, then an important question to ask is what sequence should digital technologies be implemented in order to maximize the ROI from digital transformation investments? Another important question is what enterprise business and IT doctrines should guide organizations through this transformation. These important questions and others will be discussed, and research findings shared. (Digital Boardrooms typically take approx. 45min)

If you’re a CIO or an IT leader and you’d like to participate you can register here: https://ciowatercooler.co.uk/digital-boardrooms/’

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Kevin Benedict

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

Website C4DIGI.com

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Technologies

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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Announcement: Sequencing Digital Technology Implementations Over the Next 40 Months

On the 20^th of July I will be leading an online discussion with the CIO WaterCooler on "Sequencing Digital Technologies Over the Next 40 Months of Digital Transformation".

If you’re a CIO or an IT leader and you’d like to participate you can register here: https://ciowatercooler.co.uk/digital-boardrooms/’

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Kevin Benedict

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

Website C4DIGI.com

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Technologies

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

Brain Change and Digital Strategies

Combinatorial Nature of Digital Technologies and Legos

Digital Transformation Crunch Time

Announcement: Sequencing Digital Technology Implementations Over the Next 40 Months

Interviews with Kevin Benedict

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