The 18 Laws for Winning with Data, Speed and Mobility

I have given nine presentations in the past 10 days on mobile and data strategies.  I have met with companies in the energy, media, insurance and banking industries.  I have brainstormed and discussed these laws for winning with data, speed and mobility, and they have held up.  In the age of mobile me, where information is the prize, a new set of laws and strategies are required to win.  In my new report, "Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me," I discuss many of these laws and how they are applied in mobile apps and mobile commerce.

1. Data is the modern commercial battlefield.
2. Information dominance is the strategic goal.
3. Real-time operations and tempos are the targets.
4. Advantages in speed, analytics, business operational tempos determine the winners.
5. Real-time business speed is enabled by advances in mobile information, sensors and wireless communications.
6. Competition is now focused on optimizing information logistics systems (the systems involved in maximizing information advantages).
7. Businesses that can “understand and act with speed” dominate those which are slower. 
8. In order to win or gain superiority over competitors in the age of information, you must operate  information logistics systems at a faster tempo, and get inside your competitor's decision curves. (Adapted from John Boyd)
9. Situational awareness enables insights, innovations and operations to be conducted faster and at lower cost .
10. Principle of Acceleration & Mobility – As demand for mobile apps increases, an even greater demand for changes will occur across business processes, operations and IT.
11. The more data that is collected and analyzed, the greater the economic value and innovation opportunity it has in aggregate.
12. Data has a shelf-life, and the economic value of data diminishes quickly over time.
13. The economic value of information multiplies when combined with context and right time delivery.
14. Mobile apps provide only as much value as the systems behind them.
15. Full Spectrum Information: Winners will dominate by collecting, transmitting, analyzing, reporting and automating decision making faster and better.
16. The size of opponents and their systems and platforms are less representative of power today, than the quality of their sensor systems, mobile communication links and their ability to use information to their advantage.
17. Information is a new asset class, in that it has measurable economic value.  There are significant strategic, operational and financial reasons for investing in it, and optimizing it. (Douglas Laney, Gartner)
18. If I can develop and pursue my plan to defeat you faster than you can execute your plan to defeat me, then your plan in unimportant. ~ Robert Leonard

These laws need to be known, and their relevance intimately understood and applied to every aspect of business and IT today.

Download the new report "Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me" - 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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***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.

Data Collection and the Modern Battlefields of Business

Dr. John Snow's Map

In 1854 Cholera broke out in the Soho neighborhood of London.  Hundreds of people were struck down and died within days.  No one, at the time understood where the disease came from, how to treat it or how it was transmitted.

A local physician, Dr. John Snow spent every possible moment of his day studying the victims and data in an attempt to understand the disease.  His biggest challenge was a lack of data.  He had only the list of the dead and a blank map of the neighborhood.  What he needed was more data.  This was solved when he met the local priest, Henry Whitehouse.  Whitehouse had recorded the time of death, and the location where all the families lived and died.  When these sources of data where combined, and then overlaid on a map, visual patterns emerged which ultimately led the two to see the common denominator for all the victims was drinking contaminated water from the Broad Street water pump.

The pump handle was removed, people stopped drinking its water, and the disease burned out.  Dr. John Snow is now recognized as one of the fathers of modern epidemiology.  The data that led to his discoveries were:

• Victims
• Relationships
• Locations
• Time of illness
• Time of death
• Behaviors and patterns of life

Adding all of these data sources to a map, for visual reference and clarity, enabled the insight that ultimately revealed the source and means of transmission of the disease.  Minus key data sources, the disease would have remained a mystery and many more people would have died.

In business, many challenges and obstacles today can also be solved with better data collection strategies and enhanced analytics.  We have all heard the phrase, "knowledge is power."  Knowledge comes from data, so data is power.

I sincerely believe that the battlefields of business today are around data.  The winners of today and tomorrow will be those better able to collect, analyze, understand and apply data to the customization and personalization of digital interactions.  My colleagues Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring wrote the book "Code Halos" last year to dive deep into these ideas.

Last week I published a new thought leadership whitepaper on the application of real-time data strategies and analytics to mobile commerce and consumer facing mobile applications.  The paper is titled, "Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me."  You can download the whitepaper 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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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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.

Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me - New Report

Supporting real-time enterprise mobility that is personalized and contextually relevant takes a lot of work. In fact, it takes digital transformation. We have all grown accustomed to using personal consumer apps that know and understand us (think airline apps and Netflix), our preferences and provide contextually relevant content. Today, we expect the same from all of our apps both consumer and enterprise.

Download the full report here "Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me".

Ninety percent of mobile users highly value personalized mobile experiences. In order to deliver these experiences one must have real-time data collection, analytics, personalization engines and mobile applications capable of supporting real-time personalization. One must also have an operational tempo within their IT systems and business processes capable of supporting real-time. These capabilities make possible innovative new business processes that provide significant competitive advantages for businesses that embrace them.

Delivering a personalized experience, however, requires data and lots of it. We have identified three key information rich sources of this data we call 3D-Me data sources:

1. Digital – online activities, preferences, sentiment and profiles
2. Physical – data collected from IoT sensors (on vehicles, buildings, equipment, wearables, smartphones, etc.)
3. Personal – user preferences, roles, jobs, skills, locations, etc.

3D-Me data sources enable enterprises to collect the right data to gain an understanding of real-time activities, and insights into the needs of their users. One of the key ingredients of a 3D-Me data source strategy is users must agree to share personal data in exchange for value. This requires a new kind of enterprise/user relationships we call MME Data Partnerships.
Personalized experiences are not the whole story. End users want contextually relevant personalization. Personalization becomes relevant when you add time, context and location to it. Sending me an SMS alert that my local coffee shop is offering my favorite hot drink at a 50% discount for the next 45 minutes is not relevant if I am on the other side of the country. Relevant personalization requires the use of data triggers that identify contextually relevant opportunities, moments and environments (CROME). CROME triggers are bits of data that provide context, which can be used to provide relevant personalization at a specific time and place. Think geo-fencing jobsites.

These CROME triggers provided the data that when analyzed, understood and integrated with relevant personalization engines, can optimize the user's experience and productivity on the job.

CROME triggers can automatically deliver the right content at the right time. They can be connected to tasks, jobs, timesheets, etc. There are at least six tasks/challenges when implementing a CROME strategies:

• Identify the required CROME triggers
• Understand the meaning of each CROME trigger
• Understand where and how CROME triggers can be placed, collected and transmitted
• Monitor and analyze CROME triggers in real-time
• Connect specific CROME triggers to specific personalization options and business value
• Provide CROME powered personalization in mobile experiences

CROME triggers inform that something different and perhaps significant is happening. Finding the meaning, and then relating it to a particular personalization task or action follows.

The implementation of 3D-ME enabled data and personalization strategies and CROME triggers, all supported by IT systems and business processes running at real-time operational tempos will help companies deliver to the highest expectations of mobile users today and tomorrow.

Download the full 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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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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.

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

Strategies for Combining IoT, Mobility, AI, CROME and 3D-Me

None of us like slow mobile applications or those that ask us stupid questions. Our time has value. Google reports 82% of smartphone owners research and compare prices in stores, and we don’t want to be standing in the aisle answering questions the mobile app and vendor should already know. We want our apps to recognize us, the context, and to understand our needs. We want real-time mobile applications connected to mobile commerce vendors running at real-time operational tempos.

In addition to speed, 90% of 18-34 years olds strongly value personalization in their mobile applications. Personalization comes in at least two forms, latent and real-time. Latent personalization means it lays dormant waiting for an application to be launched and then applies a stored personalized content profile. Real-time personalization, however, means dynamic real-time data, consisting of digital, physical and personal (3D-Me data) data, is being always collected and combined with CROME triggers (real-time contextually relevant opportunities, moments and environments) to instantly provide a personalized experience that is relevant now! For example, a security gate automatically opens because it is integrated with a mobile application that geo-fences the security gate. When you are 100 meters away it notifies the security system to open your front security gate, raise the garage door, turn on the inside and outside lights, deactivate the home security system and notifies your family members that you are home.  An AI algorithm understands the real-time meaning and context of the data it is receiving.

Real-time data collected via GPS on your smartphone automatically triggered a real-time, relevant event using real-time artificial intelligence algorithms. Combining real-time 3D-Me data, CROME triggers and artificial intelligence with smart devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) means more and more of your daily activities and behaviors can be understood and digital conveniences developed.

The scenario above requires an intimate understanding of the customer, their security systems, smart devices, passwords, locations and behaviors.  I predict that soon consumer scenarios will justify extending enterprise mobile security systems out to consumers.  This means enterprise mobile security vendors may soon expand beyond the enterprise into the integrated consumer mobility/IoT/AI markets as the entire integrated system needs to be secured.

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Kevin Benedict

Mobile Technology and Business Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.