The Commerce of Things is coming to a retailer near you
Personally, I have over 50 connected devices in my house, from toothbrush to lightbulb to wearables, but they’re not monetizing those devices. I spent the $200 for the Nest product but that’s all Nest (gets) in terms of getting dollars from me. With Revolv, customers were spending their $150, but there’s a service behind the scenes of data analytics that essentially – with every customer they’re gaining – they’re also losing money because of the services they’re providing without monetizing. Think of the Oral B smart toothbrush. It’s connected and has the ability to provide feedback on how effective you are in brushing your teeth, effectively gamefying the brushing process.
5 Ways to Improve Agile Team Velocity
An agile team's velocity is based on how the team sizes stories and how many stories and story points they commit to each sprint. Agile's self organizing principals empower teams to make these decisions in exchange for their commitment to complete the stories and having "shippable code" at the end of every sprint. But what happens when management needs the team to accelerate its delivery? What happens if there is a significant opportunity or critical deadline and management wants the team to take on more stories or story points in a sprint? Here are a number of ways management can either help, or influence its teams when this is neede
The evolution of cloud computing
Some of the more interesting developments in server design are coming from the addition of new chips that serve as accelerators for specific kinds of workloads. Much as a GPU inside a PC works alongside the CPU and powers certain types of software, new chips are being added to traditional servers in order to enhance their capabilities. In fact, GPUs are now being integrated into servers for applications such as graphics virtualizations and artificial intelligence. The biggest noise has been created by Nvidia with its use of GPUs and GPU-based chips for applications like deep learning. While CPUs are essentially optimized to do one thing very fast, GPUs are optimized to do lots of relatively simple things simultaneously.
Does Agile Development Need Project Managers?
Change management is the one aspect of running an Agile workflow that is better done by one person looking at the whole environment, rather than by teams. This is also when an Agile manager can really shine, as preparing the team to adjust to new demands is key to maintaining the Agile spirit. A big part of this is also knowing which steps can and cannot be taken while thinking of making a change. It's mostly about balance between what can and should be achieved in a given time and what will simply block the flow, the productivity and the — key here — team's level of satisfaction. To sum up — it's very tempting to think that self-organizing teams need no management at all. But there are too many facets to running business in any way that need careful looking at and direct management.
Central Banks Can't Ignore Blockchain's Obvious Lure
Central banks should embrace blockchain to fight their own irrelevance. "Central banks, just like everyone else, can't afford to be Uber'd," a top Bank of England official, Andrew Hauser, told the SWIFT Business Forum in London in April. What could possibly "Uber" central banks? A supranational platform created by a big central bank, that is first on the blockchain bandwagon, could do it by leapfrogging others to dominate global trade payments, settling in real time and without counterparty risk. But central banks face more than just threats from each other. A de-nationalized system could also "Uber" monetary systems around the world. Denationalized money – such as bitcoin, ether or XRP – is tiny today but it is steadily gaining momentum in far-flung corners of the world. If central banks don't up their game,
Networking the Cloud for IoT - Pt. 2 Stressing the Cloud
Industries and competing companies within those industries will also be forced to weigh the economic impact of paying for this transport and processing. How will these parochial and business-centered decisions drive networking priorities across the cloud? Will all of the high-priority data get through? Will any data be lost? How will you know? If a piezo-electric sensor detects a crack in the drill pipe, will you get the notification, or will it get out-prioritized by the ambient air temperature reading that you get every 10 minutes? Every day, data gets delayed through the Internet and the results are not catastrophic. Tomorrow, though, a stock trade “trigger” could be delayed costing billions. Key economic indicators could be lost that could trigger large economic movements. As with today’s Internet, tomorrow’s IoT will need to ensure that the RIGHT data gets to its destination in a timely fashion.
Ericsson sees a wearable future that’s easy to swallow
The demographic of wearable owners has also changed over the past few years. In the US, the majority of owners are those who are focused on fitness, and range between the ages of 25-34. However, across the globe, new users are younger and less concerned about fitness and health. Overall, ownership of these gadgets has doubled in the past year, but users predict that it will take another year or so for the current market wearables to become mainstream. Stand-alone wearables are likely to become the next big thing. The constant use and need for smartphones makes it likely that smarter, more independent wearables may end up taking their place in the near future, offering the same if not better service than the current smartphones. In fact, two in five users expect that to happen, though it may take some time.
Keys to Enterprise Architecture Success
The strategic theme that underpins the EA practice, and helps guard against failure, is that of ‘running the EA practice like a business, with a clearly-defined solution offering’. Keeping this philosophy top-of-mind – across the entire ambit of people, tools, process, content, and products/services – is fundamental to ensuring that one’s EA practice is business-appropriate, sustainable, and ultimately successful. By running EA as if it is a business in its own right, in support of the enterprise’s strategic goals, the EA capability is positioned to evolve in scope and importance, and add increasing value to the enterprise over time. However, so many EA programmes fail to achieve meaningful results. More often than not, they either end up on the scrapheap of failed IT programmes and wasted investments, or limp along with limited and isolated impact within the broader organisation.
Enterprise Architecture as the CIO's Digital Business Advisory
Enterprise Architects are in the unique position of having a macrocosmic (top-down/company wide) view of the enterprise. The most immediate benefits of this is that EAs have a more clear view of areas of potential risk and disruption. However, the up sides go deeper than that. As well as being able to spot threats, the Enterprise Architect's macrocosmic view of the organization and its systems also provides them with insight into opportunity. In short, EA's are best positioned to see where a system or process could be improved, re-purposed, or in cases of redundancy, axed. The Enterprise Architect's perspective on the business can inform the CIO of the organizations current, and future state potential through the application of Business Capabilities for example, ensuring resources are spent in the correct places drive the organization forward towards its business goals.
How Fintech Startups Are Changing The Financial Sector
Fast on the heels of technology are changing expectations, and this is the factor that is truly at the heart of the fintech revolution. What these companies intuitively know is that consumers crave the kind of ease of use with their financial transactions that they have when they order an Uber or book a place to stay with AirBnB. Fintech companies were founded on this craving. Taking a single-minded approach to best in class customer service and giving consumers exactly what they're looking for in a simplified way is their most powerful achievement. It levels the playing field against their far bigger and more established competitors, and makes them a viable and attractive option despite their lack of brand recognition.
Quote for the day:
“A star wants to see himself rise to the top. A leader wants to see those around him rise to the top.” -- @Simonsinek
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