WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

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More research = more discoveries so we can expect even more practical uses of machine intelligence in the coming years...

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We consume our digital mostly through our phones already and this trend is bound to continue for a while. This new OS from Google may shed light into options for the future where developers will be able to write one version of the mobile app that runs on all devices...?

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In today's eCommerce world, winners do not limit themselves to building great catalogs and payment processing experience. They actively analyze data to understand customer behaviour, to provide them with exceptional information to speed-up their shopping experience, but also maybe make them buy more or more expensive products. This is a great example of such a data analysis by grocery shopping leader instacart. It provides amazing insights into grocery shopping but also has open sourced the data for others to benefit.

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Looks like AR will be most powerful and useful in professional settings. This is a great example where surgeons get additional information to guide them during surgery without having to look up and away from their patient. Bravo!

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Pretty much your whole life is online and digitize today. Your only protection from crooks is strong passwords that you never reuse. This article provides in depth discussion on the millions of passwords that are being sold for few dollars on the dark web. It should help you understand why this is important and what to do to be more secure.

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If you thought fake news was bad, well an era of fake audio and news clips is about to dawn on us. We need regulations to govern this otherwise there will be consequences in the political, business and personal fronts for sure...

Also see this other blog post on the subject, as it related to fake actors in movies, a much less troublesome use of the technology: http://sco.lt/8Eglqj

This field is moving fast if you compare this to a blog post of January 2016: http://sco.lt/85op5l 

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Training data is crucial for machine intelligence. This kind of stuff will help researchers improve their AI solutions. What is most important is the data has been crowdsourced from youTube videos. It used to be we were the product, not it seems we are the data...

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This annual report on cybersecurity from Verizon is one of the best as it analyzes data from 2,000 breaches to draw a portrait of cybersecurity threats that is factual. Must read.

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Maybe the most important security measure you can take today, this 2FA website gives step-by-step guidance on how to enable it on most popular websites like Apple, Google, Facebook and others. 

For more on protection your digital self, read this blog post and do the other 9 actions in there: http://fmcs.digital/blog/digital-moi-get-started-10-actions/ 

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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...)!

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The Economist has made its April 08 cover "why computers will never be safe" to clearly state that we should all come to terms with the fact that improving our digital security and privacy will come from policies, rules and regulations, as it is impossible to ensure computer systems are built to be safe and un-hackable. I tend to agree with the statement and the conclusion, although I remain confident that over time the computer industry will find a way to make its systems safe by design. But we will live with a legacy of un-secure systems for many decades, so we must learn to deal with it.

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Interesting to see where eCommerce is strong- unsurprising that USA is king, clearly China is not far behind (or ahead?). And Canada is not even on the map.

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Amazon is a beacon in the digital transformation space - part of the famous GAFA acronym - Google Apple Facebook Amazon. This teardown from CBinsights shows that Amazon is way more than the eCommerce retailer we have come to love and rely on so much. The report reviews where Amazon invests and provides unique view into where it may be going. Retailers beware!

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Updated number from McKinsey show agin that digital transformation has room to grow but that companies that embrace it see positive impact on both EBIT and revenue. So why are not more doing it? The answers: humans.

Digital transformation is difficult to do because there is no fail-proof recipe to follow. It requires trial-and-error and investments that may, at times, have to shift from traditional to digital (for example moving $ from TV ads to Facebook ads), requiring some executives to feel they are loosing power in favour of others. Because in the end there are humans behind those decisions and one has to make sure they all see benefits for them of the digital transformation.

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If you are a retailer with physical stores or a real-estate owner, this chart should scare you into rethinking you long-term strategy regarding a decrease in physical store square footage and increase in eCommerce. From the looks of it, as soon as the cost of money will increase (interest rates), we may see many retailers from the old-wave (read: no eCommerce) be forced into bankruptcy...

Also read this for other very interesting stats, including sales per sq.ft.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-22/retail-bubble-has-now-burst-record-8640-stores-are-closing-2017 

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We all work so we should all be aware of this trend. For those of us that create strategy for others, this is essential to consider as an underlying trend.

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Great chart from McKinsey that shows how to select technologies for the value they deliver. Need to improve time-to-market, look at rapid experimentation, concurrent engineering or cocreation. Useful and simple, can be reused in many other areas.

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Digital transformation in manufacturing is not as sexy as in Marketing as it often does not improve sales but reduces costs. Nevertheless it is an essential part of the digital transformation and this old vs. new chart from McKinsey clearly shows the transformation affects many different activities and resources in the organization.

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LinkedIn has 450M members, 190M historical job listings, 9M companies, 200+ countries (where 60+ have granular geolocational data), 35K skills in 19 languages, 28K schools, 1.5K fields of study, 600+ degrees, 24K titles in 19 languages, and 500+ certificates, among other entities. Making sense of relations between those entities is a difficult task and this paper explains how LinkedIn does it. Not for the technically faint of heart.

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WE always think of grocery as non technical and very hands-on, touchy-feely. This is becoming less and less so, a testament of the profound impact that digital technologies are having in our society at large.

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Applying technology to the agriculture field has become huge business because it may have a profound impact on cost reduction, environmental protection and improve yields. This is one example of such tech.

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There is much work being done on improving sensors to place them on watches and other wearables to measure what humans feel and how they react to real life situations. The next logical step is of course for digital systems to modify human behavior. This is a very young field of research along with exoskeletons and other devices. But it can have a huge impact to make AR, VR, healtcare and fitness applications possible.

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For everyone concerned about privacy in the digital world, the mega digital record would provide visibility into what is currently a completely opaque process. But far more reaching is the possibility to extend this audit trail to all our personal data. 

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Requiring new computer algorithms to explain their reasoning process has become essential in this era of machine intelligence and deep learning. Here is why.