Saturday, May 14, 2016
21 top Email Marketers pay tribute to Ray Tomlinson
Friday, April 22, 2016
What drives Elon Musk to Succeed
Real money allocated to support innovation
Friday, April 15, 2016
What is the one thing that leaders will need to be successful in a disruptive market?
The upside to disruption
Disruption may seem like a scary word sometimes, but it shouldn’t be. The world is changing - and when there is change there are opportunities
Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are fundamentally reinventing the workforce. Drones and driverless cars are transforming supply chains and logistics and challenging policymakers to rethink existing approaches to infrastructure and regulation.
@ Changing consumer preferences and expectations are also having a massive impact on industry — most notably in millennials and Generation Z. These groups are leading the change in consumption patterns and demand for everything from cars to real estate to entertainment.
@ Jobs and employment are potentially at risk - and the current norm of a job is changing.
Business leaders and governments will have to understand this and work together to strategically redeploy people to new roles and offer retraining and education to growing sectors. The winners will be those who can identify the problems - and for every problem there are many solutions, which result in opportunities . Change and disruption is inevitable - Government's will have to do this in an environment of social stability. Not an easy ask!
Those that embrace change and disruption and are not afraid to make mistakes and take risks and fail and transform the way they operate – will be the winners.
We are discussing what leaders need to think about in this new world to survive in today’s environment and to get ready for the future. New ideas and technologies are rapidly disrupting traditional models; we’re examining how organizations and governments can adapt.
Here are some key takeaways from Day 1 of the retreat:
- Creating new markets—new products for new customers—is what’s disruptive and therein lies growth.
- Innovation has to become everyone’s DNA at an organization. The tone is set at the top, but it’s not someone’s title or corner office.
- Every disruptive idea comes from the space of what we don’t know that we don’t know.
- You can’t expect innovation without building slack into people’s days, give them time to think and create.
- Identify what part of your business model has already died and have the hard discussions about the implications for your business.
- Achieving cognitive diversity with your workforce is as important as other kinds of diversity.
Today’s disruptive environment is ripe for new market opportunities. Every industry and government body must rethink how to connect to their clients and constituents. Asking the right questions and not jumping to conclusions will also help make it clear that they are open to innovation as a way of life, not as lip service.
Leaders in every industry are responding to shifts that would have seemed unimaginable even a few years ago. Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are fundamentally reinventing the workforce. Drones and driverless cars are transforming supply chains and logistics and challenging policymakers to rethink existing approaches to infrastructure and regulation.
Changing consumer preferences and expectations are also having a massive impact on industry — most notably in millennials and Generation Z. These groups are leading the change in consumption patterns and demand for everything from cars to real estate to entertainment.
Responding to these forces, including the potential negative impacts on job availability and employment, is one of the biggest strategic imperatives facing today’s business leaders and policymakers. Governments and businesses will have to work together to strategically redeploy people to new roles and offer retraining and education to growing sectors. Through all of this, they will have to figure out how to bear the resulting costs while maintaining social stability.
At a time when there are many unknowns and no easy answers, it’s all the more important to first ask the right questions. This is our primary purpose this week.
Behind every challenge is an opportunity. Our approach of asking better questions seeks to find the upside of disruption, which in turn helps build a better working world. The ultimate better question is how you find the opportunity in the challenge. How do you seize the upside of disruption?
The era of being afraid to make mistakes and take risks is over. Over the next 5 to 10 years, those that embrace the upside of disruption – that transform the way they operate – will be the winners.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Venture Capital in Australia: New appointments strengthen Innovation and Science...
Saturday, February 27, 2016
How Augmented Reality is changingbthebfave of retail
Life and Tech #41: Cosmetic Retailing of the Future
• 131 Views • 16 Likes • 1 Comment
This week I got a very rare look inside Sephora’s Innovation Lab in San Francisco, where they test out new store concepts.
While I was there, I met with Bridget Dolan, the head of innovation for Sephora, who showed me what’s currently possible inside retail stores.
That video is at:
https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153906685284655/
She showed me how Sephora is using augmented reality on signage and other items in the stores. You aim your phone at the sign, and the sign has virtual items that pop off of it.
In another demo, I saw how you can virtually try on lipstick. You aim your phone at your face and then click on various products and shades.
Fantastic stuff, but our conversations went a lot further. Sephora has developed a color match system that keeps track of not only your purchases, but your color preferences, so that you can easily match other products in the future.
I also got to see the importance of Sephora’s community, hosted on Lithium, which they call “Beauty Talk.” http://community.sephora.com/sephora/
This community includes both employees in stores as well as everyday customers, who discuss Sephora products. On an associated site called “Beauty Board,” they show off their latest makeup and discuss how they did it. http://gallery.sephora.com/
Sephora uses those communities to discover new trends, like contouring, and then quickly develop new products based on those trends and get them into stores. Bridget showed me one such product aimed at the contouring trend they discovered several years ago, and said they’re selling tons of those kits.
They also use beacons to let customers automatically bring up their shopping lists when they enter the stores, among other features. But, they also said they were proceeding very carefully with such features because they don’t want to freak out customers or make them feel uneasy with tracking technologies.
Like other innovators who are using beacons, such as the Coachella music festival, this team focuses on delivering utility to customers and making sure they aren’t freaked out.
One last thing that got my attention -- they aren’t pushing augmented reality as hard as other apps on the market are.
Some apps, like this magic mirror, let you see entire makeup sets, while Sephora so far has focused only on lipstick: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153904336884655
This is because they want to make sure the quality of the experience matches Sephora’s brand promise. Colors must match exactly to what the products actually deliver.
Sephora is hugely important to the future of retailing and you regularly see their work demoed on stage at Apple and other keynotes. They’re worth paying attention to, and I was so happy I got the chance to do a live video with this incredible team.
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Scoble World Tour, research for new book “Beyond Mobile”: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153910905124655
While on the road I’m seeing companies like RealSpace 3D, which does amazing audio systems for VR headsets: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153896359244655/
Here’s the Futurecast I did at CES with Andrew Keen: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153894755694655&set=a.10150326718589655.360975.501319654
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Microsoft shows off Hololens (its version of augmented reality glasses) at TED:
https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153910964134655
The Meta video is coming March 2nd. First images of Meta’s demo are here: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153908499494655
If you want a taste of augmented reality, visit the Hunger Games demo at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, or watch this video: https://www.facebook.com/shel.holtz/videos/10156495931695368/
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How will VR change the way you sell things? Check out this demo about how condo sales are changing: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153908693704655/
VR Studios builds motion capture rooms for enterprises. Here its founder shows off one such room and discusses how enterprises are using them to both design new things, but also sell new things, like condos that haven’t yet been built: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153908566834655/
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Investor Mark Suster breaks down valuations: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153901930349655
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Nice list of tools to use in business: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153902913949655
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Apple’s CEO Tim Cook spoke up against a government attempt to get Apple to hack a terrorist’s iPhone and Rackspace’s CTO, John Engates, agrees here: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153909417639655
I agree with both.
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Can you keep up with me? Rackspace employee Thomas Weeks wrote up what I did in just one day in Virginia. Whew! https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153898406624655
Hope you have a great week, if you see me checking out lipstick don’t worry, OK? :-)
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