Thursday, 14 July 2016

Pokemon Go is just one beginning of augmented socialisation

I’m bemused by the social media debate surrounding the viral success of Pokémon Go! 
One camp bemoans a vision of twenty-something males playing an app or being seduced into alleyways to be robbed. The other celebrates a long-overdue repopulation of the streets, learning social skills in actual proximity to other human beings, or as my friend Dave calls them, “skinware”.
What really made me laugh is a meme posting: “So let me get this straight; People sitting on their arse crushing candy cartoons for five years and nobody bats an eye. Game comes out that makes people go out and actually explore their neighbourhoods and maybe meet people in the process, and THAT’s lame?”
You know a social phenomenon is taking place when parents, adult and young children are walking in their locality and interacting with each other and neighbours. This overnight change is ironically something the same naysayers had lamented as lost to game-created deserted streets.
Nintendo’s share price has increased by 30% within a week. Why? The app itself is free. Markets rarely respond sentimentally. An important insight is revealed by this phenomenon. 
The basis of this value is the phenomenal and overnight social acceptance of immersion using augmented reality across a wide demographic range.
We’ve seen the explosion in Virtual Reality (VR) games and headsets in the past year. The quality of content and immersion in an alternate world has long captured the imagination of the gaming community, and the technology is now maturing.
This is different. Pokémon Go augments the real world, overlaying the camera with GPS, with social tools, with convergent tech, behavioural reward and a globally known and successful game. You see your real world, not alternate reality, and it has people who do not exercise, walking over ten kilometres a day.
There are incredible commercial and social opportunities to create immersive experience and behavioural change spawning from gaming technology and Augmented Reality (AR). Pokémon Go is the first viral example of real-time augmented interaction across a huge audience. 
The surprise, is the instant acceptance, social capital and behavioural change exhibited. 
This is a taste of “Immersion Commerce” in infancy. Business and government would do well to learn, learn fast, and invest in the frameworks to deliver to this.
The next few years will see an explosion in augmented reality and immersive commerce design.
We are familiar with the embryonic Google Glasses, Rather than today’s goggles or mobile phones, we will wear ordinary-looking glasses tethered to the internet. 
If we choose to talk to a friend, we may pull out an imaginary phone and see the device as if it were really there. We may simply tell our glasses we wish to talk to Dave. If Dave answers, he will see us through his glasses and we will have a face-to-face conversation. 
I may owe Dave money for lunch. I will pull out my imaginary wallet and hand him imaginary cash. He will take it from me and instantly, back in the cloud, his account will be credited with the funds, transferred from my account and secured using blockchain type technology.  
I will take my last bottle of Asahi beer from my fridge. I will receive a message which will be my “concierge” asking me if I would like a delivery in time for my Barbecue tomorrow of cold beer, my friends’ favourite brews, and that he knows there is a special discount if I tell him to do it on the spot
Our workplace will untether from a desk. Interaction enhanced.
Immersion commerce is changing the makeup of business and jobs. Behavioural scientists and anthropologists will be as much a part of application design as architects and big data
So when you see that thirty year old catching a virtual pocket monster, and you feel tempted to snort in derision, realise you are staring at a massive business wave that is breaking before your eyes.
Want to know more? Contact us at Immercom

Tuesday, 5 July 2016

Can Community Startups help shape the future of work?

It took a while, but headlines now talk daily about the age of disruption and its impact on business and jobs. Automation, Artificial Intelligence, additive manufacturing, cyber security, and immersive tech are painting an ominous picture of dismantled jobs and radical business restructures. There is, however, a global trend that uses both technology and a human response that may help, and deserves attention.
In response to convergent disruption, business will form and reform, building and managing products and services by accessing a networked pool of professionals working across organisations. This workforce will, in turn, build and dismantle consortia. Legal frameworks will emerge to support warranty and intellectual property agreements.
This transition to a brave new world brings concerns, but it is not new. Mobile and flexible workforces were forecast in the 1980s by Tom Peters' seminal work, "Thriving on Chaos" and Charles Handy's portfolio works ('The age of unreason' and 'The empty raincoat')
Governments are concerned at the risk social dislocation. Ageing populations face vanishing traditional jobs while condensed roles focus on core skills provided by an increasingly self-employed workforce.
The prospect of providing a living wage, meaningful contribution and transition support for displaced workers is an increasing discussion among economists and business. These and other ideas are an attempt to soften the tensions of change while the market and workforce adjusts. Policy settings are in flux; On one hand, providing stimulus for entrepreneurial initiatives, while on the other hand, closing tax deductions as the workforce shifts to self-employed status.
Both business and Government should consider the ballooning global growth in collaborative co-workspaces in response. Today's co-workspaces are primarily short-term office rental, with platform based services such as WeWork, NextSpace and regus. Growth in these spaces is exponential, growing from a few hundred to over 20,000 in a few years.
The transformative opportunity however, is the rapid evolution into collaborative co-workspaces and platforms such as BizBuddyHub - a community startup in Melbourne's West
bbhpicThe emergence of collaboration platforms and workspaces will soon enable many-to-many commercial relationships. This will create both capability and intellectual property that may be independent of business directly, but harnessed by it. Where Uber platforms allow one provider to draw on many skills, Bizbuddy type co-workspaces and their collaborative platforms will provide a marketplace where business and workers trade and flux in response to demand. While the concept is not new, the scope, breadth and the legal and regulatory frameworks enabled, will be. 
This model becomes one resource element of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0). Protocols and platforms will emerge to provide the required legal and commercial constructs, using blockchain type integrity. Skilled workers will be sought after, forming virtual troupes and studios, delivering agility, productivity and professional outcomes. As trust grows, so will relationships and knowledge. Collaborative co-workspaces will form skill "guilds", interconnecting across geographies, providing the means for "greater than the individual" outcomes. 
The present opportunity for Government and business is to support these community collaborative workspaces to enable transition to the convergent economy. 
Businesses, well down the path of outcome-based active workspaces, will join KPMG and EY to increasingly subscribe to BizBuddyHub type spaces to attract and retain professionals. Lower costs outside CBDs will support the transition as leaders implement outcome-based work practices and replace 'presenteeism'. They will ensure their teams are engaged and delivering meaningful work. The flow-on effect of mentoring in these spaces will become significant in the path to the work of the future.
Workers will collaborate inside and across workspaces to create and knit capability across businesses and geographies. They will not lose productive time with commuting, business overheads and carer services. They value the social interaction, mentoring, and reduction of the isolation and poor practices that may come from home-based work.
Community co-workspaces increasingly attract local services to support their workforce, creating a multiplier effect on the local economy. Volunteerism and community engagement will benefit from working locally. BizBuddies will service each other's needs - offering financial, commercial and marketing and other services
BizBuddyHub is aligning with University and trade institutes to create skills hubs and education tailored to transition to new work skills and demands
Governments, through policy settings now have a vehicle to stimulate the work practices, access to work, development of social support fabric and training needed. Workers are thus not left to flounder, finding themselves irrelevant and lost in once-dormitory suburbs
As an opportunity to grow and stabilise community through disruptive times, in a commercially sustainable way, collaborative co-workspaces are an ideal transition mechanism.
Want to know more? Contact us at Immercom
 BizBuddyHub a community based startup is hosting a "pop-up" Co-workspace on July 12th. For a tour and a meet with CEO Sara Mitchell, follow the link or contact us at Immercom
Pierre Nunns is the founder of immercom - immersion commerce and a core member of the community startup BizBuddyHub

Tuesday, 6 January 2015

Where to next for IT Strategy?

A CIO recently asked my view on IT strategy in the five-year boardroom horizon. Here is my response.
There is an inevitable trend towards deep immersion and intelligent interaction with customers at the moment of consumption. The channel for this is a "smart layer" integrating the "Internet of Things", analytics, pervasive devices, behavioural marketing and content delivery providers.
Business knows the benefit of integration with production and supply chain. Extending and deepening a "neural response" to partners and customers, hungry for lower cost or better experience is already in train. We have seen banking and retail channel revolution; cost and risk reduced with improved consumer experience.
I see this moving much faster and further with an IOT Smart Layer. If products tell us where they are located, when and how they are used, and can respond intelligently; What could be achieved? What would you do?
Younger generations allow business subtle intimacy if it provides a rewarding experience. This is evident in growing use of mobile payments. Fit young people may, for example, choose cheaper health, life or car insurance in return for wearable devices providing their health status or location.
Custom-built products based on IOT-provided data creates enormous opportunity. Learning how much product is wasted at consumption enables a manufacturer or retailer to package, price and deliver with better environmental impact, increased profit, competitiveness and satisfaction. Products and services can be individually customised and delivered at the consumer's convenience.
Marketing and promotion will be executed with laser precision, be far more pervasive and conversational. Consumers can be instantly advised when the product they have used has a promotional prize and further offers and rewards made.
Smart fridges that know their contents will initiate targeted advertising via Smart TVs, Tablets or wearables when content or apps are accessed. "Tomorrow is going to be a warm day for your barbecue. XYZ has a "just for you" discounted price for your guests' favourite beverages delivered chilled and in time for your event."
Branding can be enhanced. If customers are environmentally aware, could you recognise and thank them as diligent recyclers of your containers because their phone or home hub told you?
Business to Business is not isolated from this. Enterprises will demand the same responsiveness and interaction from their services providers their customers want. Security and privacy management is a commodity to be negotiated and managed in real time. The focus will be on staff efficiency, supply chain, cost reduction and end-consumer experience delivery. New channel and integration specialists will enable the assembly and execution of these strategies.
Where is this disruptive force at? Work is advanced and standards emerging. Smart sensors are programmable and cost falling as scale, and interoperability standards grow. Gartner and Cisco predict between 20 and 30 billion connected devices in the coming 5 years. Business,regulators and consumers face challenges securing billions of interacting internet sensors; a concern recognised for the last two or three years.
Today, these devices are already common - but they aren't fully integrated. You can talk to a Smart TV. Your personal Point of Sale sits in a pocket or purse. Home hubs and technology relay personal data events via the internet to businesses. I counted twenty-one such devices in my four-member house. Smart electricity meters and addressable lighting optimise consumption. 
We are used to seeing analytics-driven customised advertising on social media and Google. Machine learning and intelligent response is advancing exponentially.  IBM's Watson system famously beat the best minds on TV's "Jeopardy" quiz, and is now solving large-scale complex challenges using intuitive machine learning.
Mobile technology is incredibly positioned to exploit real-time interaction if coupled with a smart-layer back at the office. I recently saw a demonstration of 3D mapping by a quad-copter and base station equipped with a high definition camera guided by an internet connected ipad far away. Resolution was down to less than 2cm (1 inch). This image build up was not developed by Google Earth - but by an enthusiast using freeware and standard technology.
The next two years will see to smart fridges and other household appliances proliferate the way flat screens did to TVs. Venture capital and kickstarter funds are creating Home helpers. Robots such as Jibo are interacting intelligently, friendly, recognising faces, voices and habits. These helpers are designed to educate and entertain, manage household administration, shop and keep an eye on both young and older family members.
The complexity CIOs faced managing BYO devices pales in comparison to responsive systems and the Internet of Things
CIOs will need to take a multi-tiered approach beginning with raising awareness, mapping and orchestrating business processes to adapt to new information, sales and delivery channels, adopting an IoT Application and security architecture, Access capability to exploit existing initiatives and leverage emerging capabilities. 
We will discuss getting started on execution in a subsequent article
In the longer run, consumer immersion will extend the integration of  analytics and connected devices, into responsive "smart layers" that respond in real time to the customer in a secure and valuable way.
CIOs will create production houses for interactive customer experiences in the same way Games design works today. Marketing departments will create "Data logistics" and "Behavioural response" units to design and deliver positive, subtle and useful immersion alongside new channel and service providers. Intuitive, "just in time logistics" is extending from the supermarket to the home fridge and the lounge room.
Seven years ago, using a phone to pay for products over the counter or online was fantasy. It was the mobility explosion that finally unleashed the latent potential of Dotcom. Behavioural response driven by a smart layer is not seven years away.
Sensor-based data gathering and interconnection is a reality today and growing in complexity. Most enterprises are correctly laying foundations for big data, but there is much more to prepare for. The question becomes what does business want to do when, not if, this pervasive technology hits and becomes accepted?
Look for the next article on steps to execute.