Trends from BlackFriday, CyberMonday, and the Reshaping of Retail
The dust has settled. The results tallied. Black Friday, CyberMonday, and the entire weekend these two days bookend proved to be a strong thrust for holiday shopping. Here are 5 trends that materialized over the weekend. Some of these trends are continuations of story lines we’ve followed in past years that have grown and expanded […]
Influencers Are Quietly Taking Over Retail Circulars
It all started innocently enough, with seemingly normal individuals blogging about the less glamorous parts of their daily lives. In those early days we were attracted to the rawness and honesty of their writing. We laughed at their stories and looked in on their personal mishaps and adventures throughout the week. Strongly curated content began […]
Amazon’s Football Experiment is about Data
Amazon’s foray into streaming live sporting events is about digital data. It was never about audience size, new activations, or subscriber retention. Last night Amazon streamed their second NFL Thursday Night Football game. Bloomberg reported Amazon’s first NFL live streaming event last week attracted 372,000 viewers who watched the game an average of 55 minutes […]
Cyber Risk and Changing Corporate Structure
With a growing list of CEOs losing their jobs because of cyber attacks and data breaches, it’s time for corporations to change how they operate. Escalating cyber risks necessitate two core corporate structural changes. First, the role of the CIO should be elevated, reporting directly into the CEO and gaining corporate board visibility. Secondly, corporate […]
Apple Watch and Cellular Connectivity – from Internet Experiment to Healthcare Application
We are introducing the internet to more and more diverse places through the wide deployment of digitized, ‘sensor’ized, connected objects. Each new introduction is an experiment. And the question we are asking is “does the internet make sense here and if so, what are the use-case scenarios?” When Apple announced the Apple Watch in September […]
Augmented Reality is Changing the Supply Chain Workforce and Improving Operational Efficiency and Profitability
We are starting to see viable applications of Augmented Reality (AR) that are improving operational efficiency and financial metrics. These applications will begin to scale across the industry in the coming years. Consider DHL’s experience. After a series of pilots over the last three years, DHL is expanding the use of augmented reality (AR) in […]
Trendcasting in AI: The Real Shift We’re Ignoring
To forecast the future of artificial intelligence, we must go beyond predictions and dive into trendcasting in AI—spotting the deeper shifts that often go unnoticed. And one trend is clear: we’re giving too much credit to General AI and not nearly enough to the Narrow AI systems already transforming our lives. Trendcasting in AI Through […]
What Apple Really Accomplished with the iPhone
Last week was the iPhone’s 10th anniversary and there were dozens, maybe hundreds, of articles written articulating how the iPhone changed everything. Most narratives build off the now famous line in Steve Job’s iPhone keynote: …today, we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second […]
I Hope You Will Be Treated Unfairly…
Last month Chief Justice gave the commencement speech at Cardigan Mountain School, an independent junior boarding school in New Hampshire for boys in grades 6th through 9th. The entire 12 minute speech was posted to YouTube and I’ve included the video below. The entire talk is worth a quick listen. As someone who writes physical letters each […]
A Purposeful Life in a Land of Robots
Bill Gates writes on Yuval Noah Hattari’s most recent book Homo Deus: I am more interested in what you might call the purpose problem. Assume we maintain control [of robots and artificial intelligence]. What if we solved big problems like hunger and disease, and the world kept getting more peaceful: What purpose would humans have […]