WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: this list of technology questions for 2022 feels like an answer to the question "what is digital disruption?".

We have reached a moment in time where old technologies - eCommerce or videoconferencing for example - are finally breaking into established industries. And the impact, at scale, cannot be found in technology but rather in every single industry it disrupts.

Very thoughtful piece, very good questions.

WHY IT MATTERS: a long read about tens of new developments in the works at Apple from a long time AR-VR industry watcher (he was very bullish about Google glasses back in the day). Nevertheless, the article is a good rundown of what the future of 3D in AR and VR may be. 

What I find great is that it goes beyond the classic AR-VR use cases and into a more fundamental trend of embedding digital into the real world in 3D. The examples of what is being developed in the labs is eye opening. But remember, this is R&D and will take years to become ubiquitous. 

WHY IT MATTERS: this post is a bit theoretical for someone not bathing in digital transformation all day as I do (mostly). It explores what could come next but more importantly stresses an important fact: we now have a new platform - the mobile phone - in our pockets that has the potential to transform our world. We have started to see this with eCommerce - physical retail stores become irrelevant and we can price compare from anywhere - but we have yet to see the real impact of eCommerce+mobile+cloud+5G. THIS is what I think about most days...

WHY IT MATTERS: 360 pages of reference material for any strategic planning exercice.

WHY IT MATTERS: this article and accompanying video explains the process that successful venture capital firms go through when deciding to invest - or not - in stratups. It breaks down the pitch deck to explain what works and what doesn't. This is great for startups but any business transformation - especially digital transformation - should have a pitch deck like this!

The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T_YP1n7kSE

WHY IT MATTERS: AR is one of those technologies that have been discussed for so many years and that will explode into the scene with a plethora of consumer and business applications in the coming years. An overnight success story that has been 10 years in the making (if not more). This paper helps managers see business applications for this technology.

What makes it so compelling in the fact that mobile devices (2B+ and counting) all have support for this technology builtin. Just checkout the video I made using my Google Pixel 2 phone camera this morning. It just works!

https://www.facebook.com/fmheir/posts/10155798075150309

And Apple iOS users have the equivalent.

WHY THIS MATTERS

I find most of my clients struggling to find time and money to implement technologies that have been around for more than 10 years: Internet, Big Data, mobility, cloud computing, etc. When they do make it to implement them in their organizations, it is often too little too late to make a difference with their competition. As Wayne Gretsky famously said, you should "skate to where the puck will be, not where it is". Thus, every company's strategy should have a clear view on AI, blockchain, robots, 3D printing, Internet of Things, etc. Does your strat plan include them?

WHY IT MATTERS

Forrester has recently produced a matrix of disruptive technologies that is worth sharing. More important is the article conclusion where Forrester recommends that cIO act as Venture Capitalists to actively scout new technologies and companies to leverage this innovation for improved competitiveness. This is a radical departure form traditional IT roles and responsibilities which I believe has important benefits in large organizations where All eyes are on the CIO to lead the digital transformation. Unfortunately we are a long way away from this in most organizations.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

This is an annual bag of goodies.

Highlight #1: retail stores are closing at record pace while Amazon opens stores. This is such a huge trend because it transforms stores from a mini-warehouse into something else: a destination for experience, service, and training. Think Apple store with the highest sales per square foot, genius bar, classes and a showroom. Amazon has pushed its Amazon GO, no lines, no registers concept and it is rolling it out slowly. This is just the beginning...

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Grocery is the last frontier for digital disruption, everyone knows (huge market but late adopter of digital, especially eCommerce see http://sco.lt/8ai7W5 http://sco.lt/6q1Ijx http://sco.lt/8Y94vh ).

But no one knows when exactly they'll get disrupted. Many are betting on eCommerce but from the looks of this report, we may see a lot of changes in our weekly trip to the supermarket, from shelf monitoring to augmented reality.

Then again, grocers are pre-historic in their use of technology because of low margins and a very repetitive shopping experience. We mostly always buy the same products and are looking at our store "experience" to be fast with low prices, not so much fun and experiential (see Amazon GO http://sco.lt/8MTY8X where there is no cash register to slow you down still needs to be cheap http://sco.lt/80HuqX).

So my bets are on the startups that enable faster grocery shopping at a low cost- all others I expect will have a hard time (sorry AR and VR startups...)!

Bloomberg video interview that provides motivations for the explosion on VR in the coming years:

1- applications are numerous, with opportunities in different space, not only in gaming but in medical, movie, etc.

2- big players are lined up : Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.

That being said, there have been multiple false starts for VR and #D (remember 3D TVs and google glasses?), so I remaining cautiously optimistic with both VR and AR. They may not be ready for consumer market but may expand into certain key niche applications and industries.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT

In that context, it is essential for digital transformation strategies to consider VR and AR in their roadmaps. There must be clear business needs to drive adoption of this relatively immature technology which requires a number of user constraint (least of which is wearing a headset which makes you look like a dork and prevents you from living in the moment). But there are multiple types of industries where professionals can find benefits in viewing things in 3D in a lifelike fashion: those should be prioritized.

5 must read papers to understand where we stand in the area of direct brain communication with machines. In a nutshell; still very early.

Just watch the video and you'll see. We live in the matrix! ;-)

Intel unveils a new virtual reality headset and this article summarizes where the technology stands today.

Olympics in VR is just starting. This article describes what it is like to look at volleyball in VR. and it is quite something. Actually it is part of a larger trend to push sports in virtual reality as described elegantly here: http://bit.ly/2aJv8lO

(in french, english here)

Canadian Tire follows the likes of IKEA catalogue, real estate, technical publication, tourist guides and other applications to extends its paper catalogue with additional information using mobile phone technologies. Not sure the IKEA project received huge success but again this was 2013 and a lot has changed in the past 3 years.

With virtual reality (VR) being trumpeted as the next big thing, Augmented Reality (AR) may actually provide something more useful and less intrusive - thus leading to faster and larger adoption? Microsoft hololens project sure thinks that way.

http://bit.ly/1SEJeS8 

http://sco.lt/6g6TZp 

http://conference.corp.at/archive/CORP2013_128.pdf 

http://www.inglobetechnologies.com/docs/whitepapers/AR_printing_whitepaper_en.pdf 

http://www.scoop.it/t/digital-transformation-of-businesses/?tag=Augmented+Reality 

A run down on different business models to shoot for if virtual reality is in your future. Useful to help foresee where this technology may become useful in the future....