Links for Nov 3 2013
- Inversion and The Power of Avoiding Stupidity
Quote: Spend less time trying to be brilliant and more time trying to avoid obvious stupidity. The kicker? Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.
- Innovate on Purpose: What to control and what to release for innovation success
Quote: Because innovation teams and their managers are unfamiliar with innovation, they apply two concepts: innovation is creative and artistic, so it shouldn’t be “bound” by definitions or process, and the mechanics of innovation should be as error free and as similar to existing, known processes as possible. In the “front end” the teams provide too little definition, but in the workings of innovation they expect it to resemble the process perfection they’ve come to expect from other activities. This dissonance means that innovation is often poorly defined, with narrow expected outcomes. Further, innovation is expected to work “perfectly” and in harmony with existing thinking and perspectives to deliver a refined new product, when innovation opportunities often exist in many more potential outcomes.
- A tale of two internets of things: Connectivity will invade your home and office in different ways — Tech News and Analysis
Quote: A third of businesses are already creating products associated with the internet of things but the evolution of connected networks will likely evolve faster in the corporate, rather than the consumer world.
- That Pesky Qualitative Side of Digital Customer Engagement – Highly Competitive – software industry insights
Quote: In the category of not everything that counts can be measured: listening, understanding, acting on what customers/buyers have to say are among the most important corporate ‘to-dos’ regarding real engagement. Responding to actual customer behavior and interactions is a much better route, than trying to “control” customers.
- Midsize Insider: Improve BYOD Risk Management
Quote: BYOD is expected only to grow in the near future, with predictions of upward of half of all companies asking employees to use their own devices for work purposes. Security has to be a priority. Developing information-centric perspective is key to managing BYOD risk.
- Selling And Order Taking | Partners in EXCELLENCE Blog — Making A Difference
Quote: Selling is different. The buyer and the situation is very different. We have to go find the customer, rather than counting on them to find us. We have to create the need to buy, often converting a latent need to an explicit need. We have to teach the customer, less about the product, more about the impact on their business. We have to persuade and influence multiple buyers. We have to execute a selling process aligned with the customer buying process. We have to help the customer move to a decision in their process. We have to create value through the process and differentiate the value of how we engage, as well as our solution against all the other alternatives the customer is considering.
- Ignorance is bliss for CIOs – The CIO Leader
Quote: Ignorance may well be bliss for many CIOs but it will also be career limiting and potentially career ending. Gartner believes that the CDO role will cease to exist by 2020 as, according to Sondergaard, “digital skills will be pervasive throughout the organisation.” If CIOs do not adopt a new model for IT this prediction may not come true. It could be the CIO and the IT function that cease to exist by 2020, replaced by an evolution of the CDO role supported by a business-focused technology team that sources and manages the technology services needed by the business. This is the role that CIOs and IT functions should be performing in the digital age. But they will only get the chance if CIOs acknowledge that the gap exists and that a new model for IT is needed.
- What the CIO Knows About Going Global – Business Value Exchange
Quote: Those of us working in companies who are on a journey of global transformation know it’s not a walk in the park. The relentless accumulation of early and late conference calls, a demanding travel schedule, the inevitable misreading of cultural cues (sometimes funny) can take their toll even on the most resilient colleagues. Try managing a team spread from Seattle to Canberra, as I did for a while. I promise working across 17 time zones will challenge your sleep pattern and that of your team.
- Making sense of the Internet of Things
Quote: One of the biggest challenges of IoT applications becoming widespread is the standardization of connectivity. Currently, a number of vendors actually have IoT solutions for certain verticals, but many are built on proprietary communication protocols. The simplest thing for the industry would be to put an IP stack on everything that needs connecting
- This CEO Says: Bring on the Data – CIO.com
Quote: David Williams is CEO of Deloitte Financial Advisory Services and a self-described data wonk. Here he talks about about data, social and CIOs.
- The Gigaom guide to deep learning: Who’s doing it, and why it matters — Tech News and Analysis
Quote: Deep learning is one of the hottest trends in big data right now and is currently underpinning the cutting edge in areas such as natural language processing and image recognition. Here’s a brief guide about what it is about who’s doing it.
Comments ()