Tag: postit

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artificial intelligence future just a reflection technology

AI optimerade vinstmaskiner

Var har jag sett detta tidigare? I alla fall, vilka delar i detta är bekant?

Två bra frågor när vi hör något nytt, ställs inför något okänt och måste hantera förändring. Sällan är allting nytt och 100% jobbigt. Vi känner ofta igen delar. Inget nytt under solen liksom. Fler närbesläktade frågor förfinar det hela, men det är ett annat ämne.


Läste NY Times artikel, i en serie av många, om sökandet efter grundläggande regler för säkerställandet av viss etik inom AI nyligen. Gruppen kom fram till en ganska stor uppsättning. Exempelvis, och föga förvånande, transparens kring företags användande av AI, säkerställandet av diverse utvecklar-team, industrisamarbete kring regler och regelefterlevnad m.fl.


Förhoppningsvis kan en ganska liberal hållning till AI och etik funka – vinstdrivande företag ska sätta egna “checks and balances” på plats. Men kan vi leva med “förhoppningsvis”? I en annan artikel utrycker Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer “We don’t want to see a commercial race to the bottom…law is needed”.

Var känner vi igen detta ifrån?


Lyssnade nyligen på en AI-podcast (det blir ett par) där Stuart Russell i en diskussion om AI och framtiden krasst konstaterar att (fritt översatt från engelska):

AI-system redan tagit över i världen. De kallas företag (corporations), vinstmaskiner som optimerats just mot vinst.

Good point. De är väldigt lika logiken i AI-algoritmer och utrycker lite av de faror de smarta människorna fnular på för närvarande. Vad händer om de optimeras på ett sätt så att de frikopplas från “vett” och “kontextuellt hänsynstagande” (läs: miljö, världen, välmående på lång sikt).


Intressant liknelse. Inte perfekt. Intressant.

Categories
business transformation technology work

Ska vi slösa några år på AI-frågan?

Eller lite mer utförligt: finns det en risk att vi (i onödan) slösar bort dyrbar tid på AI-frågan, precis som vi gjorde med “digitaliseringsfrågan” när det begav sig? Kort svar: ja, risken är överhängande. (För den stressade: förslag på en del av lösningen.)

I snart 15 år har jag på olika sätt arbetat med frågor kring digital teknik, nya beteenden, digitalisering, affärstransformation – det finns många namn. Gemensamt för arbetet, oavsett projektets plats i en organisation, har varit att det handlat om något nytt. Det var magiskt. Digitalt, svepande utryckt, löste det mesta. Specialister anställdes, som i ett slags vakuum skulle ansvara för och driva den digitala frågan. Dessa satt rätt ofta på marknad. Där var man framåtlutad. Buzzwords haglade som knott en sommarkväll.

Under en lång period, och i vissa fall pågår detta tyvärr ännu, slösades otroligt mycket tid. Avdelningar såg på saker och ting helt annorlunda. Inte för att det som en naturlag faktiskt var så, utan för att man lät det bli så. För att göra en lång historia kort, här är en förenklad diagnos på denna tid: dels de många specialisterna på olika avdelningar med olika drivkrafter, prestige och incitament. Helt klart ett mellanchefsproblem. Men en minst lika stor anledning är hur generalister underskattades. Det ser vi tydligt så här i efterhand. Det krävs kunskap och förståelse överallt. Ligamenten, lederna, synapserna, broarna. Kittet.

Nu är vi nog tyvärr där igen. Denna gång är fokusämnet AI. Det går inte en dag utan en AI-nyhet. Den ena sexigare och mer visionär än den andra. Det finns inte ett företag där ute som inte talar om AI. I vårt dagliga konsultarbete i en mängd branscher dyker ämnet upp titt som tätt. Det finns inte ett startupbolag i världen (känns det som) som inte hävdar att deras lösning bygger på AI (vilket de ofta inte alls gör). Förståsigpåarna blir fler och fler. Jag vill då bestämt inte framstå som en. Men jag gör vad jag kan för att försöka förstå vad det handlar om, och lika mycket vad det inte handlar om, samt hoppas ha fingertoppskänslan att balansera rätt. Slå till mig annars. Förhoppningsvis blir jag en god generalist med ett bra nätverk av specialister. För det, vill jag lova, behövs där ute. Generalister. Denna gång måste de vara på plats i tid, i alla de olika delarna av företaget. Det är arbetshypotesen.

Så nu tänker vi på Co:LabX att vi flippar på specialiststeken och fokuserar på detta med generalister. Vad gör man först av allt? Research och tar en massa möten. Vad gör man sen? En pilot. Och här är den. En 1,5-dagars utbildning för att bli generellt sett Startklar för AI.

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business culture business transformation work

working concretely with culture and behaviors

A while back I posted this list (below) from McKinsey showing a ranked order of challenges with regards to meeting digital priorities. Now, I’d like to add to that an initiative from colleagues of mine (with whom I also collaborate on the project) that seeks to spread solutions for how to deal with this situation.

Culture for a digital age - McKinsey Quarterly, July 2017

The initiative I’m referring to is a Kickstarter Campaign for a series of books that’s a part of a collaborative project called The Book of Collaboration. A project that is more than a book.

The need for working human-oriented

The basic premise for the project is quite depressing: Only 15% of employees are engaged… How about that for starting point when really needing to change, transform, build and all those things we need right now…

Now to the solutions. The project is based on 5 key pillars that help you ask better questions with regards to the diagram above and most business challenges. They help you work with what you can affect and not just the outcomes. If you look at the above items, they are the equivalent of lagging indicators, whereas the 5 pillars help you work with leading indicators that can actually be affected. Kind of like happiness correlating to innovation output. Just looking at output won’t help you affect or control it. Ok.

  • Reinforcing a human-oriented culture and building trust
  • Applying a growth mindset, unlearning, and learning in new ways
  • Creating effective teams and collaborating for real
  • Making everyone leaders and focusing on growing facilitation skills
  • Re-inventing leadership and organizations – with engagement as core

Leaders: mind your toolbox

If you’re a typical leader it’s unusual to you, you don’t immediately have tools that come to mind and you might think it’s fluff. If you’re an interested, great future leader, you understand the need to include this in your toolbox and catalogue of methods. I’m basing this on my day-to-day work from within, and not looking in from the outside. It’s not even debatable and it’s easy to see.

The good thing with this diagram is that the number one item – culture and behavior – indicates the realization of a human-oriented focus as a prerequisite. The challenge is still how this is done, but that’s a better problem to have. And that’s the aim of the project, so go back it if you’re smart.

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just a reflection media what is around us

kommunikation som påverkar

from Cecilia Edling Ostman on LinkedIn

Kommunikation är sannerligen ett brett område. Kommunikatörer i organisationer pysslar med internkommunikation och externkommunikation, som i sin tur kan brytas ner på säkert hur många underliggande typer som helst.

Det ultimata målet med kommunikation måste vara på beteendenivå. Det gäller för övrigt alla som håller på med människor… Kommunikationsbranschen i stort har varit, och är fortfarande, rätt dåliga på att definiera och mäta dessa. Mina närmaste konsultkollegor och jag talar rätt ofta om att gå från värderingar/kommunikation till praxis och beteenden. Alltså att se bredare på kommunikation utifrån frågan “vad kommunicerar detta”. Inte bara börja med kommunikation som innehåll utan lika mycket vad något i sin tur kommunicerar vidare. Vi arbetar inte specifikt med kommunikation utan förändringsprogram, men kommunikation blir där självklart ett av alla viktiga verktyg. Exemplet här ovan – från Kårrestaurangen på Chalmers – trillade jag över på LinkedIn, delat av Cecilia Edling Östman, en kollega från vääääldigt länge sedan.

Ett fantastiskt exempel på hur kommunikation, i det här fallet med uppgift att lyfta klimataspekten av vad vi stoppar i oss (gissar jag, oavsett så skulle det kunna vara det), kan ta ett fantastiskt steg från uppmanande budskap ofta en bra bit ifrån aktivitets/beteendetillfället till mer av en aktiv (“nudging”) roll exakt i beteendetillfället. Och med enkla medel.

Den här typen av kommunikation lånar mer från digital/tjänsteutvecklingen än traditionell kommunikationsstrategi och planering. Kommunikatörer som ännu inte lånat/stulit/berikat sig i den världen missar något.

Categories
business culture digital transformation ways of use

the fallacy of thinking about doing

Theory and knowledge isn’t real. That’s why we always look for empirical evidence. It’s also why you would never qualify as a car mechanic having only read about engines. You need to get a feel for things. You need to practice doing. Doing the actual behavior we’re studying, trying to fix or do more of. Don’t really know what to think about this:

When I ask him how he knows what he knows about these new platforms, he says, “I’m not active on social media; I am a student of it,” and waves an arm at a wall of his office covered in dozens of color printouts of pie charts, tables, line graphs full of digital metrics—proprietary information that he asked remain off the record. “I spend a lot of time thinking about the trends that are reshaping our industry. I spend a lot of time talking to people on the front line of those trends,” he tells me, “and a big part of my job is making sense of that.”

– Arthur Gregg Sulzberger of NY Times, in Wired

Why cut off some of your senses? Thinking about doing things does not provide sufficient understanding of the doings studied. The most bewildering part of this is why on earth, given there’s no cost associated with it (only learnings and benefits), would you not throw yourself out there to feel what it is we’re dealing with? Beats me.

Categories
future just a reflection technology

The threat of artificial intelligence more intelligent than ourselves

Detta med artificial intelligence va? EU-parlamentet släppte sin robotrapport. Massa möjligheter men också hot. Kill switch? Jo, det känns kanske tryggast så. DI Digital lyfter även denna biten:

Men utredningen belyser också att robotar kan utgöra ett potentiellt hot mot människor. Det finns en möjlighet att AI kommer att vara vida överlägsen den mänskliga intelligensen, heter det. Om det inte kontrolleras riskeras människans överlevnad.

från DI Digital

Jag slås av att vi också kan våga se det som så att om robotar blir mer intelligenta än oss människor så kanske vi har en bättre chans att överleva. För så intelligenta beslut har vi väl ofta inte tagit? Just a thought.

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business culture organizational soundcloud work

competitive advantage – how we work

https://soundcloud.com/hbrideacast/456-your-brains-ideal-schedule

I’ve experienced it, you’ve experienced it. Everyone has. To some extent, we know what’s not working for us, but often we don’t act on it. Some times, in many organisations (if I extrapolate on my own and colleagues’ experiences) it’s even hard to get acceptance when fixing the problem.

The problem of working effectively. With concentration. Focused.

I believe that industries in which you live by people, their minds, creativity and collaboration – how we work is going to be the primary competitive advantage. It’s organizational culture of course. Orgs can get really good people. Many of them can. Some are more attractive and have more traction (HR and employer branding being more and more important). But over all, they get good people.

Is it better to have 50% better people or an organization in which people can be 50% more effective and just work better?

I’ve touched on it before in another post. I keep coming back to it.

Categories
business transformation digital digital transformation organizational presentation strategy

Digital strategy deconstructed: key considerations, part. 2

This is the second part of a few, deconstructing and highlighting some important aspects of the concept of digital strategy and what to consider when approaching it. You’ll find part 1 here.

Part 1 was much about the power of words and definitions, and the need to actively reflect on this with the group responsible for thinking “digital strategy”. It also highlighted the power of using a networked perspective for understanding the integration, organisation wide implications as well as stakeholder alignment.

In this second part I’d like to touch on how brand culture and purpose matters greatly, and how reframing this, and ones market, creates a vantage point that fuels the thinking. I use two fairly well known examples to do this.

Ford manufactures cars, but a while back they redefined themselves as a mobility brand (actually, the original mission was to make America mobile, so not that drastic change…). What does that do? Obviously that depends. But there’s a number of things that fit very nicely together in business strategy, but I’d like to include it in digital strategy as we define that as broadly as strategic thinking in a digital (networked) world.

The mobility brand Ford saw the number of 16 year olds who get their first car drop considerably. More numbers are showing the same changes in demand. But if you’re not in the business of selling cars, but rather mobility, there’s another side to that.

Ford partnered with Zipcar which offers a subscription based model for access to mobility, in the form of cars. This could have been done without Zipcar. It is now done in different shapes and forms by many car manufacturers (I recently saw that Audi pushes micro-sharing experience, collective access to Audi cars)

Zipcar bought by Avis, but what if Ford bought it? Making money from providing mobility services in Volvos, BMWs etc? Competitors become collaborators. The revenue model drastically different. Not switching, complementing. All facilitated by new, networked, technology. But, more importantly: new self perception on behalf of the brand. The organisation, and how everyone sees value creation.

digital strategy – key considerations from funny you should ask

Slideshare: Part 2 touches on slide 5-7

reframing the market and the business

Product development vs business development. A networked perspective can dramatically fuel the thinking in business development. Looking at the brand, its purpose and meaning in peoples lives, is an important part of digital strategy. It might make it inseparable from business strategy, that’s fine. That’s actually just right. And here’s also where it becomes something bigger than a digital thing. That’s important, because when it’s a business matter, and even a cultural matter, you (still) have a better shot at getting more people excited and onboard.

The vast majority still don’t feel ”digitally savvy” and hence exclude themselves from ”digital” projects. Many are literally scared of it. But cultural transformation, processes, thinking about markets and business – there’s where you might find those people.

I’ve jotted down some thinking on meaning markets before. In the case with Uber, on slide 6, they think of themselves in a number of ways appart from ”taxi company”. One is as a logistics platform. What makes sense when you’re a logistics platform? Partnership with destinations. An open API. Revenue sharing between company and private drivers carrying out the transportation. All of the things that any taxi company could have done, but didn’t. Because their culture, self-perception and view on value creation, doesn’t allow for it. That’s right, it doesn’t allow for it. That’s how strong impact culture has on ideas. It’s back to definitions in a sense.

  • Always include, and even describe, your digital project/initiative as a (organizational) cultural one. You benefit from appealing to people who dislikes and even fear digital.

  • Rethink your market. Do the product vs. meaning exercise. What is your product? What is the meaning of you, and that product/service, in peoples’ lives? Then think about what your market really is. I’ve heard Unilever is very much in ”home care”, aiming to ”free up family time”. So how about a global platform for subscription based home-cleaning, laundry service, laundry pickup etc?

  • See also a method called Jobs To Be Done. This is not equating an initiative around digital strategy with innovation, but it is highlighting the perfect occasion for truly taking a stab at preemptively exploring ”how the business might change”.

OK. So two posts in and still no focus on media channels, social platforms and communication. I don’t think the next one will be either.

Categories
business business culture digital digital transformation presentation strategy work

Digital strategy deconstructed: key considerations, part. 1

In a previous post about a digital marketing lab in Singapore, I realized I should probably structure and share some of my thinking and learnings having discussed, presented, debated, consulted on, workshopped around and taught digital strategy.

So, the reason for this first of a few posts is for a number of reasons:

1) Deconstructing a couple of slides used in workshops and talks, in order to structure what I believe is often overlooked and missed. It’s good for myself to do it.
2) If we’ve had a workshop together or if you listened to a presentation I gave – Hello! Here are some things we touched on if you feel like a refresh or if there was a language/speed problem. You should have the full presentation already.
3) Basically, why not share it beyond rooms of people.

So here goes number 1.

The first, and most important, thing to reflect on when approaching digital strategy

the blogpost Can you invent something new if your words are old, Deborah Mills-Scofield highlights the power words have over us. She’s a consultant in innovation. But not only in innovation is that important. It goes for politics, pedagogy, and our dear subject digital strategy.


Part 1 touches on slide 2-4

Because – what do we think when we think digital? Words and definitions, knowingly or not, frames and maybe even dictates, how we think. And how we think, well, that very much guides what we do and don’t do. As Kevin Spacey put it, TV is simply episodically punctuated video streams. From that, what can you (and disruptors did) imagine?

Add to that, you’ll be in a room of people, perhaps from different parts of and organisation with different agendas, ambitions and painpoints. This further necessitates a discussion around, and a common view on, what it is we’re digging into.

– So, what would you say digital strategy is (yes, that’s how rudimentary my question is)? Take 3 minutes and try to articulate it concretely. Write it down if it helps.
Silence, looks, twisting in the chair. A few smiles. More looks.
– Would you care to go first?
– Hrm, well. It’s about how we communicate with the different target groups in different channels and social networks.
– OK, good. And what did you write down?
– Well, I don’t know. I wrote that it’s basically everywhere around us. It’s everything today.
– Wow, that’s quite all encompassing and massive. Personally I can nod to that. You?
– Actually, I would say that it’s our future business. Our business strategy.
– OK.
…

A typical conversation about the word digital and digital strategy. Often taken for granted as self explanatory and clear. Not so clear anymore.

Some people implicitly are talking about communication and channels, while others seem to understand it as something that’s basically everything. While some are very clear about the fact that it’s the future business strategy. Digital definitely affect communication and the communication landscape, but maybe that’s communication strategy that just happen to be hightly “digital” today? And surely we can agree that “digital” is effecting more or less every aspect of society today, and hence is everywhere. As a consequence it has to be taken into account when thinking about ones (future) business model, revenue models and business strategy. It’s all obviously correct, but until the whole room realises this, and recognizes the complexity (but also opportunity) in this observation, getting constructive and solution focused is useless.

The reality in which we strategise is networked. Networked is a very useful word as opposed to digital because it more clearly stresses the fundamental shift, change and impact (probably not the originator, but the guy I associate with stressing the benefit of using networked is Mark Comerford, @markmedia) in a way that we can feel and see as we mention it. If I’m in a store shopping and I’m all connected – is there brick and mortar vs e-commerce? Yes. Is there offline vs. online? No. From a networked perspective, that dichotomy is flawed and reframing this makes all the difference.

This is why the great variety in response to digital strategy is so natural. We see it from different angles. It’s like the proverbial elephant and the blind men. PR people see one thing, service design folks another and e-commerce managers yet another, and so on. The solution to this is to discuss ones business and reality from a networked perspective. This way, you’ll see the integrated and holistic nature of digital strategy.

These two activities are my suggestion for a start.

  • Mind the words you use (in general) in this case digital strategy specifically. Dig deeper into what we take for granted (I’ll touch on that again from another perspective). Understand the lens through which you see the concept, and understand what you don’t see.
  • Approach the project as strategic thinking in a networked world. That means departments, stakeholders, business units and even the business model itself, will reveal those clear connections and the need/power in approaching everything as an integrated totality. This can come across as massive and frustrating, but it’s also where the true power of a digital strategy lies.

More on that in the next post. Thoughts and comments are more than welcome.

Categories
business transformation digital transformation organizational strategy technology video clip

online mobile in offline and why it’s wrong

Margot Langsdorf from PSFK on Vimeo.

A good reminder of a few things. There’s not offline and online. Connectivity is simply a new dimension and mobile is hence about mobility. Which means there’s confusion to be experienced when/if working on mobile strategy and digital strategy and social strategy. Maybe it’s best to just talk about strategic planning and thinking for being real world ready…

The holistic approach to digital strategy is simply about the real world

In the article Why Nordstrom’s Digital Strategy Works (and Yours Probably Doesn’t), from Harvard Business Review, the three authors (from MIT Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan’s Center for Information Systems Research and University of Texas at Austin) stress the fact that although a great number of respondents (in their research) expect competitive advantage from SMACIT technologies (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud, IoT) – it’s unlikely to happen. Those technologies are rather minimum requirements, and highly available to boot.

The trick lies in how you combine, deploy and use them. Yes, that’s when you add a strategy behind it all. But as is often the case with strategy – it’s mostly a word used (bantered) and rarely a concept well practiced. Reasons being lack of a true aim, a real problem to overcome, no sober discussion around strengths to focus on and weaknesses to accept, overly unrealistic expectation (feels good and looks good, but doesn’t help with crafting strategy that actually helps) etc. So it’s unlikely to happen not because it can’t happen, but because the concept of strategy is so poorly practiced.

The Nordstrom example they use highlights the difference between disparate initiatives in different parts of an organisation – masquerading as digital strategy – versus a coherent and holistic approach that realizes that a powerful digital strategy that actually accomplishes something has to take the full picture into account. Not mobile. Not social. But how everything fits together in the real world, and in real situations, with the business in the center.

This is not a matter of having the best apps, analytics, or social media tools. Instead, it’s a matter of tending to the details of building integrated digital capabilities, one at a time, making the right data accessible, and simplifying processes. Most retailers will struggle to do this because they haven’t architected their product or customer data for easy access by the new digital capabilities. Without those core capabilities, integration with and among new digital capabilities is virtually impossible.

  • building integrated…
  • data accessible
  • processes
  • easy access
  • integration

Notice how all of that has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with how people are going to work with it. And that demands understanding why it’s needed at all (what can we do better, i.e. what problem do we have today). These aspects revolve around the business, they highlight the importance of stakeholder alignment, cross departmental understanding, processes etc.

The authors sign off by suggesting that we Develop a strategy for succeeding in the digital economy—a purpose that leverages your unique capabilities and responds to market opportunities. Then grab every technology that takes you there.

And thinking about how to succeed in the digital economy is, of course, equally thinking about how to be real world ready. So if strategy is a word that sets the wrong tone and triggers the wrong associations – just make it about the real world.