The genie is out of the bottle

The Blockchain is already a reality.  One of the truly disruptive aspects of the innovation created in 2008 is the fact that it took a number of well proven mathematical and computing techniques and drew them into one value proposition. 

The technology is not limited to supporting basic transaction validation and ledger management. The ability for complex secure processing, in response to transactions and messages, can enable automated activities.  This leads us to the world of Smart Contracts and Smart Property allowing transfer of ownership of any physical or intangible assets.  When we make this shift the ideal use case for this technology may not be payments, value transfer and banking. 

Those starting out with a blank piece of paper, the likes of Number 26 and Atom, could very well make use of the Blockchain, however traditional firms have much invested in existing systems and ecosystem arrangements. This is a new set of technologies and companies with active VC investor interest. Most firms are very small, loss making and very young but make no mistake the technology genie is out of the bottle.

We are all API remixers now

The dawn of the thin enterprise

In my role I get involved in lots of client discussions. People look at me to bring ideas to life that help tackle the disruptive challenges on their horizons. In supporting this we’ve created ‘The Future Enterprise’ a view of what an enterprise, city or government department will look like in five to ten years’ time. This explores the business drivers, technology enablers and the things to think about to prepare for the future.

One of the themes called out is the Dawn of the Thin enterprise.  This effectively represents the movement of an organisation to focus on the core value proposition or sticking to your knitting.  It explores what an organisation will look like if it outsources, crowdsources, open sources and digitises all of its non-core activities.

In this world digital will be the primary transaction channel, leading to more automation and targeted business process outsourcing. A place where robotic process automation will be widely used to replace repetitive tasks performed by humans and where many enterprises move their non-differentiated development to Open Source.

Going back to your youth

But how do you actually do this and what do you need to be in place? A component for this is the socket to which these blocks can be plugged. It’s very much like the digital equivalent of the Lego blocks we all used to play with. In the digital domain these are known as APIs or Application Program Interfaces.  A set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. Once common API standards are in place there is huge potential for the development of useful apps.

Thinking about the skills necessary to take advantage of this transformative power I’m inspired by the likes of Calvin Harris and Avicii, DJs who can mix and blend numerous channels simultaneously, monitor music via a laptop dashboard, and respond to audience (customer) requests on the fly. They crowdsource energy and channel it leaving fans wanting more.

Reinvention versus invention

Top DJs can take home more than the musicians whose content they are reinventing. The ability to take the available digital building blocks or APIs and quickly plug them together in a mix and match manner is powerful and highly valuable.

Add this capability, to the impact of Ray Kurzwell’s Singularity Theory and Moore’s Law and you have an incredibly powerful transformative moment.  We have a scenario that applications and products that a year ago weren’t economically feasible are now perfectly doable.  

APIs are everywhere. They are physical and virtual, hardware and software. We can wear them, implant them and plug into them. They are fuelled by data.  See my recent Big Bang Data Post.

APIs are the path to digital transformation and the thin enterprise. How are you remixing them?

Bring to life your virtual workforce… extreme automation and the Arsenal

Last week our Tomorrow, Today campaign kicked off. This involved a day out at the Emirates to talk about one of my emerging technology focus areas.  The whole new world of software robots and process automation.

Those in the know will appreciate my close affinity with Arsenal. In a couple of their games you could say that they’ve played like robots.  Arsene is an original thinker but automating the players maybe a step to far for now. For those of us in less creative and active roles extreme automation and connectivity will soon have an impact.

Biggest technology disruptor over next few years

Workforce automation and the use of software robotics is forecast to be one of the biggest technology disruptors over the next decade.  According to some recent work from Mckinsey, almost half the activities that an individual is paid to perform can be automated by currently demonstrated technology.  

At the recent World Economic Forum, the rise of the machines and fourth industrial revolution were hotly debated. The UBS report presents a very interesting framework to consider the potential impact of the technology.

The road ahead will be bumpy…but automated

The road ahead to run a new virtual workforce is less about automating individual jobs, and more about automating activities and redefining roles and processes.  No doubt managing and leading increasingly automated organisations will becomes a competitive differentiator.

A key takeaway for me was how the various emerging technologies we are dialling down into are becoming more integrated and will enable the smarter organisations to create a multiplier effect for true transformation.  Knitting technologies such as Blockchain 2.0 and software robotics together won’t be easy but the size of the prize is significant. 

More and more I'm seeing people explore new technology as pilots but the real value will come in the multiplier effect when we begin to think in combinations and integrated moves.   So maybe not that far away from Arsene and his thinking after all. 

Back with a ‘big data’ bang

It’s good to be back, I’ve certainly been away for too long. In keeping with many I’m sure the early part of January is filled with folks kick-starting their commentaries and blogs as they are spurred on by the influx of resolutions. 

I hope the holidays treated you well, which for me was spent with family, getting the compulsory James Bond movie fill and introducing my mum to the world of Fitbit and the concept of the quantified self.  This is the phenomena that has arisen from the access to the deluge of data and the need to record everything we do, to measure obsessively analysing our ‘quantified selves’.

With her new flex she can monitor the distance she walks and the calories burned. At night it monitors your sleep cycle, as well as waking you in the morning. This new generation of devices allows you to compare your progress in relation to objectives and others so that you are really living your life as a quantified being.  What fascinated me was how quickly someone arguably of a non tech generation, became engaged with her metrics.

Big bang data

Over the holiday break I also had the opportunity to go to Somerset House in London to see the UK’s first major exhibition Big Bang Data exploring the big data explosion that’s radically transforming our society, culture and politics.

The exhibition was an awesome, refreshing insight on many of the issues datafication of our world through the work of artists, designers, journalists and visionaries.  As the data explosion accelerates, it asks if we really understand our relationship with data, and explores the meaning and implication of data for our future.  Don’t be surprised if I refer back to this investigation in the future.

We are all Nicholas Felton now - the Personal Information Economy.

So how does this relate to Mum and her Fitbit? At the exhibition you learn about Nicholas Felton, who every year since 2005 has produced a report on himself and his life. The various bits of information are gathered together to form a database of his personality, habits and relationships. When this data is combined and visualised, what may seem like inconsequential details aggregate into a discernible narrative.  Back in 2005, it be fair to say his sanity was questioned, but looking at one of his visualisations now we can see the DNA of many a customer dashboard. 

Technology has become so prevalent in our lives that it now has a profound affect on our sense of wellbeing and ‘self’.  The Wellbeing Revolution is about empowering people to learn about themselves, for the benefit of their looks, their health and their general wellbeing.  It’s about the increasing use of science and technology to create confidence through knowledge facilitating the emergence of the Personal Information Economy.  As with equivalent new sectors, this journey has not created a one size fits all offering but as created sub categories along the way, where healthy living has become a manifestation of our self-identity with all its accompanying offerings.

Who are the players that can help digest this daily influx of data into something tangible, actionable an intrinsically linked to your world? I’m fairly confident we’ll see quantified self spinouts as the likes of my and her community are more personally catered for.

Signals, noises, elections and technologies of engagement

The views contained in this blog and all of my blogs are very much my own. For those in the UK it can’t have escaped anyone’s attention that we have a forth coming election on the horizon. My polling card arrived in my mailbox and it got me thinking how old fashioned the process of elections is.  I recently attended Nesta’s showcase event Future Fest. At this year’s event you could make a case for Edward Snowden to be the headliner with his session on the challenges and implications of his experiences.

Crowdsourcing democracy

One of the main themes of the event was future democracy and through a range of talks and presentations we explored the rise of new parties. The majority are pretty traditional in their methods, but one or two are radically reinventing how parties should work.  Could we have an internet led and based political party in the UK. This idea isn't new as these Open network parties are appearing across Europe with parties such as Five Star and various Pirate Parties. Further afield Democracy OS in Argentina has designed an impressive way for people to propose ideas and shape them online. When you describe it like that you could find yourself using an Innovation Management System such as Wazoku’s idea spotlight.

Signals and noises

At one of the sessions we heard from Matthew Falla, co-founder of Signal Noise who are mapping our digital cities with data and it reminded me of Nate Silver, American statistician and writer, and his stellar performance in 2008.  He’s known for his successful baseball analysis, think pre Opta and the world of data based training, and his work on elections. He is currently the lead editor of the FiveThirtyEight blog.

For the November 2008 presidential election predictions he correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states. He also correctly predicted the winner of all 35 U.S. Senate races that year. So some reasonable credentials and bring this closer to home.  I recently say the picture below

When you get behind the numbers makes for a very interesting race and if this picture turns out to be right, they’ll be changes on the horizon.

For those who want to find out more checkout the blog and Silver's book, The Signal and the Noise, was published in September 2012, not the most riveting read but if you are interested in the power of data definitely worthwhile. I’m sure they’ll be all manner of analysts out there taking note.

Beyond the hype : Delivering on the Blockchain’s Potential.

I attended the techUK Financial Services & Payments Programme and a seminar on exploring the Blockchain’s potential and demystifying the hype. The positioning of this session was very much along the lines of Blockchain has the potential to revolutionise the delivery of financial services and payments.  From disintermediating banks from the payments process by way of a decentralised system of exchange to facilitating the development of ‘smart contract’ applications the distributed consensus ledger (DCL) technology has in some parts been described as the enabler of the internet of value.

The session with an exceptional panel of Keith Saxton, Simon Bailey Director of Payments and Transaction Banking at CGI, Dave Birch, Director of Consult Hyperion and author of Identity is the New Money and Richard Brown ‘on the blockchain nobody knows you are a fridge’ the leading authority on cryptocurrencies in IBM covered how the technology industry can support, what are the implications and is there a direction of travel.

For me, as someone who has come late to this world but sees the incredible disruptive potential, the takeaways were the Blockchain isn’t a magic unicorn. That ability to make the make the virtual world more like the real world is its transformative effective and the usecase challenge hasn’t been solved. 

When it comes to choosing these I’m with the panelist in that the way forward is to do as is often prescribed, have a go and explore. The base technology you choose will have much depend on your objectives and whether this is an individual or organisational ask.  Whether you go for a Bitcoin or Ripple like offering is up for grabs as they offer different things and come with points of view and how much you see the world changing, with one working within the context of current financial structures and one looking to work outside it.

Disruptive journey ahead of us.

I also related to the idea that the disruption of the Blockchain is more likely to come from a solution for dishwasher warranties rather than an attempt to overthrow governments.  The real strength of its disruption is the ability to offer a vehicle to protect and reward the digital and creative industries.  Whilst we started in the world of payments and financial services, the thought of applying a blockchain concept coupled with a Kobalt type offering really does have incredible potential to disrupt the Music and Media content ecosystems. Just the start of the art of the possible, the journey will be bumpy, take longer and be more costly but the genie is out of the bottle. All this and we were supposed to be beyond the hype.

BIC goes large

Last evening, I went along to the Big Innovtaion Centre scale up party.  BIC launched in September 2011, exists to make the UK a global open innovation hub, to build a world-class innovation ecosystem, and re-balance and grow the UK economy.  Not small challenge by anyone’s marker.

It’s gathered together some of our great companies added in key institutions from across the policy landscape to carry out business-oriented research, taking emerging ideas and backing  it up with evidence.

Support across the board

The party was to celebrate and call out the work they’ve been up too across thought leadership, innovation promotion and their co-creation platforms.  It was also an opportunity to remind all the political parties the importance of its mission.  With speeches from Vince Cable, Chuka Umunna, and David Willets the support was flowing. Understandable really as it has the sense of kissing babies for any politician.

We also heard from Ashok Vaswani at Barclays as he compared the industrial revolution to the digital revolution, as well as Pradeep Sindhu, founder of Juniper Networks on the opportunity and challenges of the new age innovation.  He had offered a useful slant on the implications and ethics of artificial intelligence.

My challenge is that I would love to greater diversity and representation from across the commercial sectors. Where are the awesome SME’s that are disrupting these major players and leading the charge for the UK? I’ll be looking to champion them as it’ll be these companies that showcase the UK as a global innovation hub. 

The downloadable bank

I recently spent the day at WIRED Money, where the ideas design business and technology media entity brought together the people and businesses disrupting the world of finance. The event offered a range of sessions covering themes and technologies changing the face of money.

With Brett King from Moven saying that the traditional banking model involving branches, ATMs and application forms is redundant in a digital age and when you consider that the most powerful smartphone of 2014 has more computing power than RBS or HSBC had in 1985 then we are very much in a new world.

Another of the speakers Matthias Kroner from Fidor, an internet community bank, challenged the attendees by saying "to revolutionise banking in a truly global way, financial services need to be open – to their customers, to change and to innovation". He called out a powerful learning that process won over price citing same-day lenders with their ease and convenience as evidence.

The rise of the digital bank

The session amplified the takeaways from a recent Mckinsey paper.  A digital transformation will put upward of 30 percent of the revenues of a typical European bank in play.  Add this to the view that banks can take out 20 to 25 percent of their cost base by leveraging this digital shift to transform how they process and service. You then have an incredibly strong position.

Competing on Digital: the rise of digital banking services

In engaging with start-ups and entrepreneurs one can easily get lost in the analysis they call out as justification for change.  The BBA’s report provides an excellent state of the nation to back up most of the claims.

Finding that digital usage by the British public continues to rise. 14.7 Billion banking apps have been downloaded so far this year and GBP 6.4 Billion is being transferred via the Internet every week (up from GBP5.8 Billion last year).  6.6 million clients use Lloyds banking apps every week in 2014 so far. That compares to 4.7 million for the whole of 2013. 750,000 people have signed up to the new Paym service remitting a total transaction volume of GBP520 million.

Some serious numbers on the move to digital and with the use of branches continuing to fall and in the case of RBS/Nat West, branch usage has fallen from 25% of transactions in 2010 to only 10% today.

The world is changing

Digitization is changing the traditional financial services business model, in some cases radically. The good news is that there are substantial prizes to be had to those willing to embrace it. The bad news is that change is coming whether or not they are ready. 

The increasing value of going digital

More than accounting

Last July Mckinsey published a useful little paper on the changing relationship of intangible and tangible assets of digital capital and how what was once a small minority of business activity are becoming the rule in the digital economy.

The view being, we can see the rising importance of this shift in the recent copyright battles between Internet and consumer-electronics companies and in the major spending on patent portfolios.  Measuring the full impact of digital capital requires a new set of management and financial lenses that incorporates your intangible assets such as your designs, business models and brands.

This is echoed by the work that BCG have done and called out in my Digital Diamond Hunting post, digital capital has become a major contributing factor in global economic growth. In some economies such as the UK, Sweden and Japan spending on intangibles represents two-thirds of digital capital’s total value.

According to BCG the digital economy is being driven, too, by small – medium-sized businesses’ fast adoption of online commerce. These companies are the backbone of the UK and they've taken to the internet economy, creating a virtuous circle: more choice for consumers, more cash in the marketplace and more promotion of the internet as the way to reach and engage.

Not all rosy

UK startups, have blazed a trail, but for the larger FTSE 100 enterprises things aren’t as rosy. With a market cap of over £1tn and employing an estimated 6.5m people and only four chief technology officers sitting on their boards, an indication of the low priority attached to digital strategy.

With FTSE 100 companies far behind the public, small businesses, startups and even governments in the digital race, there is growing demand for them to be held to account. With various stakeholders considering some form of Digital Performance ranking indicator to showcase this as a key business metric, where companies with at least ten percent of revenues online will be championed. 

Want a playbook and fresh approach?

For the laggards a useful methodology to consider is Max Kreijn’s Open Activation work on how to evolve from enterprise to startup?"  He’s done some fresh work and introduces 7 of the many findings from the research that consolidates the method of Open Activation. Collectively they provide an initial guide to how a large enterprise can begin thinking, acting, and succeeding like a digital startup.

Check it out, as the importance of digital intangibles continues to grow, we are increasingly going to see the need for these types of fresh approaches where the Digital Davids transform the Enterprise Goliaths.

Digital diamond hunting

Last night I spent the evening at Wayra in London one of Telefonica's thirteen academies set up to offer an alternative to Silicon Valley and to unearth the disruptive digital diamonds of the day. 

Telefonica provide early stage investment to digital start-ups together with office space in their purpose built, 'state-of-the-art' Academy. Throw in the community, access and exposure to a network of mentors and you've got early site of some game changing offerings. 

Not everything you touch is gold

With the growing number of technology incubators, Google's is just around the corner, Tech city a stone's throw away and the various catapults and campuses it is becoming an increasingly challenging choice for the start-up to determine the best option. They offer an excellent vehicle to fast track you and your start-up but as with all partner selection it’s always worthwhile doing your homework so your choice best fits your objectives and direction of travel.

After the razzmatazz intro which felt more like the unveiling of a premiership footballer, with the host calling out similar stats to those concluded in the recent Connected World report, we got into the pitches of the current cohort.  They represented a wide variety of high growth industry sectors including security, quantified self, e-learning, music and health.

With the now ubiquitous pechakuchesque format the 17 companies had 5 minutes to cover all the bases and give us their ask.

Show me the money! Show me something!

The current intake had only been together under the Wayra banner for less than 12 weeks and were generating revenue and closing deals. I was surprised by the number that didn't offer a working demo to bring the product or service to life.  This will be on the roadmap but if you’re asking for cash from a potential client or investor, be it for a smartphone app or for an enterprise solution the default starting position has to be a demo that brings the offering to life.

Gems in the gaps

If I had to pick a star of the future my shout outs are; dattch’s dating service for lesbian and bisexual and bi-curious women, surprisingly there wasn't a dedicated offering for this group before, and ensygnia's Onescan mobile payments offering.

Riding the wave

According to the Boston Consulting Group’s 2012 report, ‘The Connected World’, the Internet economy's contribution to the UK GDP is at 8.3 per cent, higher than any other G20 nations. The report forecasts that this share will surge to 12.4 per cent by 2016.

By then, almost a quarter of sales in the UK are expected to take place online - more than double the percentage of the projected closest competitor, Germany.  In early 2010 there were 200 technology companies based in east London, by January this year this had exploded to 1300.

High return global races

Great results for the UK and whilst they are reported as best in class this is not just a London or GB based phenomenon. The creation of technology based innovative digital businesses is a global race that corporations, governments, investors, incubators and entrepreneurs are all placing their bets on.  With projected annual growth rates of 8 per cent for the next five years, these are some serious numbers.

Picking the right wave

With all this happening it could be argued that there isn't a better time to be a start-up to ride the wave as if you need help it’s out there.  The challenge for the entrepreneur with this all this activity is picking the right set and most appropriate support to ride it from. This isn't easy as even the support networks are becoming global.

Getting the fundamentals right

The Internet economy is a global game with highly competitive rules, but it comes down to doing all the fundamentals brilliantly and getting the right support in the right place at the right time. The winners will be those that view the Internet as a compliment to, not a cannibal of traditional ways of competing. 

Elon is the new Steve

Last year I met Elon Musk at Economist’s Innovation awards, where he was picking up the No Boundaries’ category. What with Richard Branson calling him out in Time Magazine’s 100 most influential and Iron man 3 with Robert Downey Jr basing Tony Stark on him, there’s no shortage of shout outs at the moment.

As some of you will know I’m a big fan, but have had my doubts on the whole Tesla take up. With the recent launch of Rimac’s Concept_One , coming in at the super car end of the spectrum and the mainstream manufacturers getting their act together with cool offerings such as the Mercedes Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive and Audi with their A3 E-Tron. Granted most are not cheap, but part of the challenge I see a lot when commercialising IP is getting the timing right.  One could argue that the opportunity was passing the great man by as he was focusing on getting to Mars safely.

My faith in the Elon followership (only for Tesla – it never waned on Space X) is slightly restored after reading this innovation story brought to you via @timkastelle  What will your next choice of car be? I have to admit I’m still rather partial to the Tesla Roadster and as the electric vehicle infrastructure is more available, in my home city of Düsseldorf, CGI are bringing this to life, we'll have to see if Tesla is the new Apple.  

Vending machine vs. the application store

Forget top-down control, give citizens data and tools and let them self govern.

At a couple of different events (Shakespeare Review and Innovate 2013)I attended recently  the question of how we can generate economic benefit from opening up government data was explored.  It got me thinking about the shift to government as a platform Tim O’Reilly and others have been writing about this for a while, and point the idea is built on a set of principles that are the exact opposite of the way government traditionally works.  These principles include transparency (open standards and data); simplicity (build a simple system and let it evolve); participation (design systems and programmes to be as inclusive as possible) open mindedness (learn from critics); experimentation (including the embrace of failure as the way we ultimately learn to succeed); and visibility (track all participation to be able to learn from data mining about aggregate behaviour). Governments that are able to adopt and act on these principles are going to be able to mobilise enormous economic and social power in the service of addressing problems. There will be governments who are not afraid of their own societies but rather seem to empower their citizens.

As resources for government as a vending machine fall and the speed of change makes government as control tower ever more difficult, government as platform will become ever more attractive. It is the very nature of platforms that it is possible to prescribe or predict how and where citizens will decide to use their newfound powers of participation and innovation.

In my world I’m beginning to see this come to fruition with an appetite for platforms such as the Government G cloud and interest in how the business application stores like AppWave can tap into the social elements of work.