WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: the cloud has profoundly changed the way we do things. Here are very good article on the cloud-native architecture, what it should be. Take note an apply to your own architecture whenever possible.

WHY IT MATTERS: a clever overview of the digital media world that highlights the importance of digital technology and in particular of unified customer data to break down silos. Very true indeed!

WHY IT MATTERS: many of my clients will select a digital platform to support their transformation - Adobe, Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP, etc. Platforms sound than a collection of best of breed solutions that all evolve in different directions with much different timing - sometimes ending in an acquisition by a platform such as magento by Adobe or Hybris by SAP. They hope that by doing so they will de-risk their projects and surf on the coat tails of an integrated solution with a wise and aggressive roadmap. Unfortunately, betting on the wrong horse means years of stagnation and pain - ask any executive that has selected IBM websphere commerce platform for their horror stories. This article provide 4 key elements to look for in your platform selection to help determine if they have a long term future.

WHY IT MATTERS: cloud computing has moved infrastructure to the cloud, limiting visibility and control of IT teams on key components of the infrastructure that may be required to monitor and troubleshoot. This report from Gartner highlights the different solutions and skills required to cover cloud computing solutions from private cloud to SaaS.

WHY IT MATTERS: marketing automation requires tooling to manage workflows and ensure single version fo truth - this article lists a number of key tools for social media management.

WHY IT MATTERS: an update to the technology radar - always good to stay abreast of the new tools for software development.

WHY IT MATTERS: website page load speed - it's performance - has direct impact on the conversion rate. The faster a site loads, especially on mobile devices, the better are its chances that users will continue exploring, enjoy their experience and possible convert (ie. buy your product/service). To achieve this there are a myriad of things that must be done, starting from design decisions all the way to technology you deploy. This is BIG and has been known for years, with Google being the first in late 1990s to present a very simple home page for its search engine. Yet it seems that we do not learn...

WHY IT MATTERS: I reported in 2015 that Netflix + YouTube accounted for 55% of web traffic. Their share is down only because the other streaming video services are growing. Also interesting from this chart that HTTP (good old web browsing), now only accounts for less than 10%. This means video is the medium of choice, cable TV is on it's way out (so expect more growth) and 5G mobile coverage will be in high demand when it becomes available soon...

2015 reference is here: http://fmcs.digital/blog/netflix-youtube-55-of-internet-traffic/ 

WHY IT MATTERS: companies have been building website for close to years now and this post reminds us all that most still do not leverage the full power of analytics, personalization and other high end features of web platforms. Basically companies continue to create informational websites with little or no data analysis and gathering. My experience confirms this is mostly true. Sad.

WHY IT MATTERS: this very detailed research from Netflix shows how important it is to keep web pages skinny - and highlights that so few of the 1000 top websites watch this important metric. Imagine the others...

WHY IT MATTERS: always a great reference when looking for solutions to web and marketing automation problems, the RSG provides here valuable information regarding Digital Asset Management tools.

WHY IT MATTERS: Google has been capturing and translating data for a very long time and by doing so it can provide digital services that way better than anything else their competitors can do. This example of maps is just one in many but this one is particularly well documented. Kudos.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

This is the basics you need to know: incognito mode, VPNs and TOR network. If you don't read this.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Another look into new web and mobile CMS solutions.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Web is very dynamic and there are many new developments in technology to help improve website and mobile development. Here is an interesting look at new technologies for Content Management Systems (CMS).

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

I wrote about social engineering in the past and find this to be one of the most important security concern we should have when thinking about digital transformation: the end user. It is essential to educate users so they do not fall prey to scams like this one.

See here fro more on this topic: fmcs.digital/blog 

Mozilla has always been promoting Internet security and privacy and this new report paves the way for a very interesting ongoing look at key elements of the public Internet.

Read this important post to understand just how many traces we leave behind as we lead our daily lives.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

On this Data Privacy Day 2017, I thought I would review what Google, Apple, Facebook and others know about me. Unfortunately, it looks like this information is difficult to find and pretty much the only data we can find is from Google. So, let's assume Apple, Facebook, twitter, and others know as much if not more.

Google tools that will show you what they know about you:

• https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity 
• https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/authenticated 
• https://myaccount.google.com/dashboard 
• http://visual.ly/how-much-does-google-really-know-about-you

Other articles about those tools:

• http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-google-knows-about-you-2016-5/#to-delete-all-of-your-web-and-app-activity-in-one-shot-go-back-to-the-main-web-and-app-activity-page-and-click-on-the-three-dots-at-the-top-corner-of-the-page-then-click-on-delete-options-then-on-advanced-and-then-on-all-time-4
• http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-see-everything-google-knows-about-you-2016-6
• http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-much-google-know-about-you/ 

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

We are being tracked everywhere as I reported in a previous article about behavioral tracking: http://fmcs.digital/blog/behavioral-tracking-explained-in-9min-video-by-gary_kovacs-via-ted-mustsee-privacyaware-dataprivacyday/ 

This new tracking method is very clever as it uses your browser configuration settings to derive an almost unique fingerprint to track you everywhere, even in the absence of cookies or ad beacons on a web page. On this Data Privacy day 2017, be aware, and be careful.

Essential read on this new technology from Facebook that was made possible because of the social graph that Facebook builds. Impressive if only because the solution was easy to build.

Also read the companion article for a high-level description rather than this detailed one: http://highscalability.com/blog/2015/11/14/how-facebooks-safety-check-works.html

A simple overview of a very useful and powerful tool.

Always good to know what is trendy to make sure we can support it with digital technology.