This document summarizes EE's journey in developing their first internal mobile app to more effectively disseminate data and insights across their geographically dispersed company. It describes how EE had a wealth of data but needed a better way to share it. They launched an intranet site but saw an opportunity to further engage employees mobilely. After user research and design, CrowdLab helped build a simple, robust internal app focused on key metrics and allowing customization. The app was launched for iOS and desktop and will continue to evolve based on user feedback.
Only few organizations wise up to new digital competitors, as they usually come from outside their own sector and are not taken seriously at first. Their allegedly inferior propositions confuse prominent players, who should in fact be the very first to be fully aware of potentially disruptive innovation.
To swing into action rapidly, existing organizations would be well advised to properly analyze anything resembling digital competition. Evidently, there are clear patterns behind the startup success marking a new techno-economic reality. Ecosystems, APIs, and platforms characterize this New Normal where customers have more freedom of choice and better service at lower costs.
These successful disruptors are called two-sided market players, also known as multi-sided platform players. Companies like Uber and Airbnb are getting all the media attention, however there are over 9000 players (and counting) active in almost every industry.
The new VINT report explores the new digital competition and presents:
A analysis of the success factors of disruption
10 design principles of the new digital competition like Unbundle your organization processes, APIs first. Access over ownership and Building trust with social systems
The need for every business to develop a API-strategy
An appeal to the CIO and the IT department to use a leading digital approach and map out an offensive technological route.
taming the digital tiger: seizing opportunities from new ways of workingOrange Business Services
This paper describes why ways of working are changing, how the digital phenomenon
is transforming business and the impacts on different parts of the organization. It
offers inspiration through what others are doing to find their way and prosper.
For more information on the digital workspace visit http://oran.ge/1hfu4MV.
The Future of Mobility, Multi-screen and Cross Screen Engagement
A Virtual Roundtable Discussion with Industry Thought Leaders
Moderator:
Mark Bard — Founder at Digital Insights Group
Panelists:
Craig DeLarge — Global Leader, Multichannel Marketing Strategy & Innovation at Merck
Erik Hawkinson — Global Head of Strategic Marketing at Roche Diagnostics
Lisa Flaiz — Group Product Director, Digital Marketing at Janssen
Kim Levy — Vice President, Strategic Solutions at Epocrates
Bob MacAvoy — Senior Vice President at Doximity
Over the past 10 years there has been a tidal wave of innovation specific to the market of devices we use to access digital content, services, and to conduct transactions. We were introduced to the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010 and although we’re not sure what the next “big thing” will be (from Apple or a competitor) — we are all sure we’ll be using more digital devices in the near future – not less. This roundtable with a diverse group of pharmaceutical, device, publisher, and technology executives will review the multi-platform shifts and trends specific to a physician audience and what that means over the next year — and next decade.
Global Data Management: Governance, Security and Usefulness in a Hybrid WorldNeil Raden
With Global Data Management methodology and tools, all of your data can be accessed and used no matter where it is or where it is from: on-premises, private cloud, public cloud(s), hybrid cloud, open source, third-party data and any combination of the these, with security, privacy and governance applied as if they were a single entity. Ingenious software products and the economics of computing make it economical to do this. Not free, but feasible.
Only few organizations wise up to new digital competitors, as they usually come from outside their own sector and are not taken seriously at first. Their allegedly inferior propositions confuse prominent players, who should in fact be the very first to be fully aware of potentially disruptive innovation.
To swing into action rapidly, existing organizations would be well advised to properly analyze anything resembling digital competition. Evidently, there are clear patterns behind the startup success marking a new techno-economic reality. Ecosystems, APIs, and platforms characterize this New Normal where customers have more freedom of choice and better service at lower costs.
These successful disruptors are called two-sided market players, also known as multi-sided platform players. Companies like Uber and Airbnb are getting all the media attention, however there are over 9000 players (and counting) active in almost every industry.
The new VINT report explores the new digital competition and presents:
A analysis of the success factors of disruption
10 design principles of the new digital competition like Unbundle your organization processes, APIs first. Access over ownership and Building trust with social systems
The need for every business to develop a API-strategy
An appeal to the CIO and the IT department to use a leading digital approach and map out an offensive technological route.
taming the digital tiger: seizing opportunities from new ways of workingOrange Business Services
This paper describes why ways of working are changing, how the digital phenomenon
is transforming business and the impacts on different parts of the organization. It
offers inspiration through what others are doing to find their way and prosper.
For more information on the digital workspace visit http://oran.ge/1hfu4MV.
The Future of Mobility, Multi-screen and Cross Screen Engagement
A Virtual Roundtable Discussion with Industry Thought Leaders
Moderator:
Mark Bard — Founder at Digital Insights Group
Panelists:
Craig DeLarge — Global Leader, Multichannel Marketing Strategy & Innovation at Merck
Erik Hawkinson — Global Head of Strategic Marketing at Roche Diagnostics
Lisa Flaiz — Group Product Director, Digital Marketing at Janssen
Kim Levy — Vice President, Strategic Solutions at Epocrates
Bob MacAvoy — Senior Vice President at Doximity
Over the past 10 years there has been a tidal wave of innovation specific to the market of devices we use to access digital content, services, and to conduct transactions. We were introduced to the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010 and although we’re not sure what the next “big thing” will be (from Apple or a competitor) — we are all sure we’ll be using more digital devices in the near future – not less. This roundtable with a diverse group of pharmaceutical, device, publisher, and technology executives will review the multi-platform shifts and trends specific to a physician audience and what that means over the next year — and next decade.
Global Data Management: Governance, Security and Usefulness in a Hybrid WorldNeil Raden
With Global Data Management methodology and tools, all of your data can be accessed and used no matter where it is or where it is from: on-premises, private cloud, public cloud(s), hybrid cloud, open source, third-party data and any combination of the these, with security, privacy and governance applied as if they were a single entity. Ingenious software products and the economics of computing make it economical to do this. Not free, but feasible.
HorizonWatching: How IBM Develops Views of the Potential FuturesBill Chamberlin
This deck provides an overview of eight initiatives at IBM designed to help IBM understand emerging trends, technologies, and business issues that will face IBM and our customers in the future.
Ctrl-alt-del: Rebooting the Business Model for the Digital AgeCapgemini
Our research with the MIT Sloan Management Review reveals that only 16% of organizations are leveraging digital technologies to develop new business models. Most organizations follow traditional approaches to innovation that focus on new products and services, rather than on business models. However, research suggests that the returns from traditional approaches have been diminishing with time. As Serguei Netessine, Professor at INSEAD Singapore says, “Pharmaceutical companies spend as much as 30% of their revenues on R&D, trying to develop new products or technologies. But the return from this enormous expenditure has been very elusive and it is a common problem across industries.” Business model reinvention can be as good a route as technology, product or service innovations. This research highlight five different approaches that organizations can adopt to reinvent their business model with digital technologies.
some personal observations on the topic and rhetoric questions... as well as an architectural perspective on the Industrial IoT respectively Industrie 4.0 realizations
This is a discussion of how firms that build strong skills in software development and data analytics, especially intelligent analytics, will dominate their industries in the next few years.
Cutting Edge Predictive Analytics with Eric Siegel Databricks
Apache Spark empowers predictive analytics and machine learning by increasing the reach and potential. But, before jumping to new deployments, it’s critical we 1) get the analytics right and 2) not overlook less conspicuous business opportunities. In this keynote, Predictive Analytics World founder and “Predictive Analytics” author Eric Siegel ramps you up on a dangerous pitfall and a critical value proposition:
– PITFALL: Avoiding BS predictive insights, i.e., “bad science,” spurious discoveries
– OPPORTUNITY: Optimizing marketing persuasion by predicting the *influence* of marketing treatments, i.e., uplift modeling
Microsoft Mobile Oy Story: IT Operations Fit for the 3rd PlatformHCL Technologies
This case study looks at how Microsoft Mobile Oy engaged with HCL to transform and manage its IT infrastructure operations. It examines the journey the two companies made to modernize the IT operations of this global high-tech manufacturing firm
The pace and scale of change across high-tech manufacturing is a once-in-a-century transformation. The resulting convergence and disruption—affecting every corner of the manufacturing sector—is profoundly, permanently altering the industrial landscape. The old rules are changing: New competitors are emerging, consumer expectations are shifting, and market share is up for grabs.
Situational applications and their role in enterprise it strategyNewton Day Uploads
In this article a describe how situational applications have come of age through enterprise situational applications platforms - and how they are helping organizations to rationalize IT platforms and empower innovation by producing tens if not hundreds of applications
The Work Ahead in Manufacturing: Fulfilling the Agility MandateCognizant
According to our research, manufacturers are well ahead of other industries in their IoT deployments but need to marshal the investment required to meet today’s intensified demands for business resilience.
Diginomica 2019 2020 not ai neil raden article links and captionsNeil Raden
The balance of my articles on Diginomica 2019-2020other than AI: HPC/Supercomputers, Quantum, Cognitive, Complexity, Supply Chain, IoT, Edge Intelligence, Data, Telemedicine, healthcare Industry, For Good
The Digital Transformation Symphony: When IT and Business Play in SyncCapgemini
Digital Masters, such as Starbucks, that leverage digital technologies effectively, differentiate themselves from their peers by consciously striving to build a close relationship between IT and the business. However, Digital Masters are exceptions. The IT-business relationship in most organizations is often a fractious relationship rather than a marriage of equals. Business teams often find the IT department’s high costs and long implementation timelines unacceptable. In addition, IT leaders are often faulted for not speaking the language of business. Leading CIOs take this disconnect head on and try and fix it. Our research shows that leading CIOs take three key actions to align the IT department with the needs of the business: 1. redesign the IT department to unlock digital innovation; 2. create strong digital platforms; 3. rationalize IT Infrastructure to fund digital initiatives. We explore each of these actions in this research paper.
Why research lags behind the mobile explosion and what to do about it. Rethink research, rethink design, rethink methods and avoid putting online research on a phone - but create truly smart mobile research projects.
Life, actually: An All Channels Open approach to real time research on the moveCrowdLab
We know that people behave irrationally, spontaneously, sub consciously, and non-sequentially. However, research is still largely isolated, linear, and at a single point in time. Why do we tell people they have to fill out a survey in one sitting, or join a discussion at their desktop at 8pm on a Monday night or drive 20 miles to a focus group facility on a wet Wednesday in January only to be asked to remember what they were doing in Waitrose at 3pm last Thursday?
This is not how people live their lives.
Mobile research methodologies have started to open the door to a new way of collecting data, but its potential will remain unfulfilled if the prevailing methodological wisdom is to simply think of mobile as another way to deliver the same techniques, or simply focus on gathering insight quickly.
Designing platforms for research should be done solely in the best interest of the people taking part in the research, allowing them to complete tasks on any device they want, maximising the potential of that device, and blending devices as needed. We can then allow people to tell us their thoughts in an online discussion one day, from any device they have to hand at the time, record experiences via their phone in real time, via both qualitative and quantitative means, before engaging in a dialogue with a skilled researcher about their behaviours or sharing with their peers and discovering new insights about each other as a group.
When research reflects how people make decisions, based on how we know people to be, and that they live their lives in a series of disconnected moments, we will get more natural, open, engaging and real insight.
HorizonWatching: How IBM Develops Views of the Potential FuturesBill Chamberlin
This deck provides an overview of eight initiatives at IBM designed to help IBM understand emerging trends, technologies, and business issues that will face IBM and our customers in the future.
Ctrl-alt-del: Rebooting the Business Model for the Digital AgeCapgemini
Our research with the MIT Sloan Management Review reveals that only 16% of organizations are leveraging digital technologies to develop new business models. Most organizations follow traditional approaches to innovation that focus on new products and services, rather than on business models. However, research suggests that the returns from traditional approaches have been diminishing with time. As Serguei Netessine, Professor at INSEAD Singapore says, “Pharmaceutical companies spend as much as 30% of their revenues on R&D, trying to develop new products or technologies. But the return from this enormous expenditure has been very elusive and it is a common problem across industries.” Business model reinvention can be as good a route as technology, product or service innovations. This research highlight five different approaches that organizations can adopt to reinvent their business model with digital technologies.
some personal observations on the topic and rhetoric questions... as well as an architectural perspective on the Industrial IoT respectively Industrie 4.0 realizations
This is a discussion of how firms that build strong skills in software development and data analytics, especially intelligent analytics, will dominate their industries in the next few years.
Cutting Edge Predictive Analytics with Eric Siegel Databricks
Apache Spark empowers predictive analytics and machine learning by increasing the reach and potential. But, before jumping to new deployments, it’s critical we 1) get the analytics right and 2) not overlook less conspicuous business opportunities. In this keynote, Predictive Analytics World founder and “Predictive Analytics” author Eric Siegel ramps you up on a dangerous pitfall and a critical value proposition:
– PITFALL: Avoiding BS predictive insights, i.e., “bad science,” spurious discoveries
– OPPORTUNITY: Optimizing marketing persuasion by predicting the *influence* of marketing treatments, i.e., uplift modeling
Microsoft Mobile Oy Story: IT Operations Fit for the 3rd PlatformHCL Technologies
This case study looks at how Microsoft Mobile Oy engaged with HCL to transform and manage its IT infrastructure operations. It examines the journey the two companies made to modernize the IT operations of this global high-tech manufacturing firm
The pace and scale of change across high-tech manufacturing is a once-in-a-century transformation. The resulting convergence and disruption—affecting every corner of the manufacturing sector—is profoundly, permanently altering the industrial landscape. The old rules are changing: New competitors are emerging, consumer expectations are shifting, and market share is up for grabs.
Situational applications and their role in enterprise it strategyNewton Day Uploads
In this article a describe how situational applications have come of age through enterprise situational applications platforms - and how they are helping organizations to rationalize IT platforms and empower innovation by producing tens if not hundreds of applications
The Work Ahead in Manufacturing: Fulfilling the Agility MandateCognizant
According to our research, manufacturers are well ahead of other industries in their IoT deployments but need to marshal the investment required to meet today’s intensified demands for business resilience.
Diginomica 2019 2020 not ai neil raden article links and captionsNeil Raden
The balance of my articles on Diginomica 2019-2020other than AI: HPC/Supercomputers, Quantum, Cognitive, Complexity, Supply Chain, IoT, Edge Intelligence, Data, Telemedicine, healthcare Industry, For Good
The Digital Transformation Symphony: When IT and Business Play in SyncCapgemini
Digital Masters, such as Starbucks, that leverage digital technologies effectively, differentiate themselves from their peers by consciously striving to build a close relationship between IT and the business. However, Digital Masters are exceptions. The IT-business relationship in most organizations is often a fractious relationship rather than a marriage of equals. Business teams often find the IT department’s high costs and long implementation timelines unacceptable. In addition, IT leaders are often faulted for not speaking the language of business. Leading CIOs take this disconnect head on and try and fix it. Our research shows that leading CIOs take three key actions to align the IT department with the needs of the business: 1. redesign the IT department to unlock digital innovation; 2. create strong digital platforms; 3. rationalize IT Infrastructure to fund digital initiatives. We explore each of these actions in this research paper.
Why research lags behind the mobile explosion and what to do about it. Rethink research, rethink design, rethink methods and avoid putting online research on a phone - but create truly smart mobile research projects.
Life, actually: An All Channels Open approach to real time research on the moveCrowdLab
We know that people behave irrationally, spontaneously, sub consciously, and non-sequentially. However, research is still largely isolated, linear, and at a single point in time. Why do we tell people they have to fill out a survey in one sitting, or join a discussion at their desktop at 8pm on a Monday night or drive 20 miles to a focus group facility on a wet Wednesday in January only to be asked to remember what they were doing in Waitrose at 3pm last Thursday?
This is not how people live their lives.
Mobile research methodologies have started to open the door to a new way of collecting data, but its potential will remain unfulfilled if the prevailing methodological wisdom is to simply think of mobile as another way to deliver the same techniques, or simply focus on gathering insight quickly.
Designing platforms for research should be done solely in the best interest of the people taking part in the research, allowing them to complete tasks on any device they want, maximising the potential of that device, and blending devices as needed. We can then allow people to tell us their thoughts in an online discussion one day, from any device they have to hand at the time, record experiences via their phone in real time, via both qualitative and quantitative means, before engaging in a dialogue with a skilled researcher about their behaviours or sharing with their peers and discovering new insights about each other as a group.
When research reflects how people make decisions, based on how we know people to be, and that they live their lives in a series of disconnected moments, we will get more natural, open, engaging and real insight.
How mobile done smartly can add pop to your online communitiesCrowdLab
This recent presentation at a Vision Critical Breakfast Summit describes the impact our platform is making for giving online communities extra pop and value and getting you closer to your target audience moments of truth and real behaviours.
Using marketing principles for internal customer service improvement of support teams such as operational communications, human resources and information technology.
Customer experience & mobile for circulationCrowdLab
How mobile research can improve understanding of the customer experience and journey through innovative methodologies, missions, and real time analysis
One-in-two mobile owners in the US owns a smartphone, and many more own tablets. As most of these same consumers adapt their personal lifestyle to be “mobile first,” they expect their employers to be there to meet them. With the growing number of personal mobile devices in the hands of users, as well as increasingly remote organizations , there’s a great opportunity for organizations to increase productivity of their employees by allowing the use of these personal devices. Taking this on seems daunting, as IT has less ability to enforce a single standard than ever before. Not taking action, however, and ignoring this trend risks exposing corporate data to public clouds with no visibility on the part of IT. Enforcing a single standard will do a lot to serve all users partially, but none particularly well. "Power to the People: Identify and Empower Your Workforce," the new report by Altimeter Group analyst Chris Silva explores how companies are deploying mobile strategies to meet the the specific needs of their employees and the organization at large.
Es bien sabido el hecho de que la tecnología de la información está cambiando.
Es necesario conocer las 5 tendencias claves que afectan la hoy por hoy:
1) Visualización
2) Big Data
3) "La Nube"
4) Social
5) Móvil
OTOinsights Mobile UX Webinar, April 15 2010One to One
At OTOinsights we have conducted over 40 research projects in the mobile sector for mobile application developers and mobile manufacturers helping design products that connect with customers in meaningful ways.
Using our experience and knowledge we have created a new study called 'Mobile insights'. Key points include:
- details of research methodologies and techniques that can be used to understand the customer 's 'informational landscape'
- explores how to make mobile applications not only 'usable' but also 'engaging' so that your customers want to use them time and time again
Overview of major factors in big data, analytics and data science. Illustrates the growing changes from data capture and the way it is changing business beyond technology industries.
Business Intelligence provides the tools and practices for users accessing information needed for decision-making.
Most people obtain information about their business by reading reports.
On December 9 & 10, Deloitte hosted over 20 business executives and thought leaders at the Internet of Things (IoT) Grand Challenge Workshop at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. The objective of the gathering was to work collectively to solve one of the more largely unexplored areas of IoT: revenue generating IoT use cases. The following report captures what was discussed during this extraordinary event where an open, collaborative dialogue focused on advancing the field of IoT.
Explore the key findings here or learn more at www2.deloitte.com/us/IoT-challenge.
Product guide for Solution Set providing advice on Developing a Mobile App
For more details visit:
http://ataresearch.alltheanalysts.com/infotech/develop_a_mobile_app.html
Going Mobile With Enterprise Applications - A study on user behavior and perceptions.
This paper presents findings from three research studies carried out to understand the user behavior and explore the value in using mobile devices for accessing enterprise products.
The focus is essentially on the expectations of the end-‐users, namely, information technology (IT) administrators. In this case, we were exploring how the users of enterprise products might want to leverage mobile technology to access their everyday tasks and information, and therefore identify potential opportunities and challenges for extending their user experience to such devices.
A Connected Enterprise - Transformation Through Mobility and Social Networks IJMIT JOURNAL
Due to rapid changes in business dynamics, there is a growing demand to encourage social
conversations/exchanges and the ability to connect and communicate with peers, partners, customers and
other stakeholders anytime, anywhere which drives the need of mobile-enable, the existing enterprise
applications.
This paper highlights a distinct set of needs and key customer challenges that must be considered and
addressed for deployment of Social Collaboration applications and Mobility services in enterprises. It not
only addresses the Critical Success Factors for enterprise mobility enablement but also outlines the unique
business requirements to rapidly create social collaboration culture and the discipline of turning social
data into meaningful insights to drive business decisions in real-time
Similar to Data in your hand:Using mobile internally (20)
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*
Data in your hand:Using mobile internally
1. Data in your hand. Using mobile internally.
Richard Owen, Founder & CEO, CrowdLab
Anna Tozer, Senior Insights Manager, EE
Abstract
Everything Everywhere was formed in 2010 as a joint venture between Orange
and T-Mobile. Initially it was just the corporate presence for the two brands’
operations in the UK, but in 2012 it become EE and the public face of the
organisation, Britain’s first 4G brand and the network that services both the
Orange and T-Mobile brands.
CrowdLab is a new kind of research agency, launched in April 2011 with a
mission to fuse research and technology, initially via a mobile application.
CrowdLab was founded as a joint venture between partners offering research
expertise of twenty years and a decade of software development and UX
design experience. CrowdLab offers software applications to research
agencies and corporate insight teams. With an in house development team it
flexes its core offering to provide bespoke mobile/research services for a
variety of purposes.
This paper follows the journey of EE’s mobile intranet. EE’s Insight Team held
a wealth of data, but needed to find an effective way to disseminate that data
across the various constituents of a geographically dispersed company. We
start with a discussion of the excellent Insights Site intranet, the “wow
moment” of seeing their technophobic CEO immerse himself in a tablet, the
development of a big vision for the first ever EE internal app, through the
evolving development journey and the impact on users in the organisation
since its launch.
With twists, turns, tips and tricks, we hope the reader enjoys the story and
finds plenty to ponder and inspire them on unleashing the power of insight in
their own companies in smart, mobile ways.
2. Chapter 1: In The Beginning
The Insights team is a large and critical cog in the EE organisation. They have a
wide remit and cover the collection, distillation and dissemination of insight
across four core areas:
1. Market Intelligence – who look at the broad industry picture, keeping an
eye on operator movements and KPIs.
2. Market Research – who look after information from the ongoing studies
that track customer experience, brand health and market sizing, through
to ad hoc projects ranging from product development to proposition
testing.
3. Base Analytics – who perform strategic analysis using the information
held about the customer, such as transactional and behavioural
information.
4. Segmentation, Trends & Planning – which pulls together all the other
areas of information to tell a more holistic story about the consumer from
a macro level down to very specific behavioural information.
There is a huge appetite at EE for insight, and the organisation sits on a large
amount of information; from research studies, market intelligence reports, as
well as data created out of customers’ mobile usage habits. There is almost no
end to the data that the company can play with, but the tricky part is
synthesizing that data into manageable chunks, to make it accessible so that
end users can do something useful with it.
Spreading The Love
As the first stage in the process of giving people access to this wealth of
existing data, the team launched the “Insights Site”, which sits on the
corporate intranet and acts as a knowledge bank of all of the Insights Team’s
output.
3. The site allows users to access all currently available insight without the need
to contact the team, or wait for the team to respond to queries. The site is a
significant library of debriefs, presentations, summaries as well as containing a
rich array of video content and news feeds from the press and internal
management.
It is a widely used resource, with around 3,500 users who visit the site each
month, and it also acts as a great piece of resource management which saves
the team lots of time in answering queries from colleagues. It opens up insight
to the wider company, giving everyone access to the same information, in one
place and accessible from the multiple locations around the country that make
up the EE family.
A Moment of “Wow”
As one of Britain’s leading mobile technology providers, EE were well aware of
the rising tide of smartphone and tablets that were proliferating the market,
and were already looking for opportunities exploit the potential of mobile in
research; whether this was conducting research on mobile or using mobile to
push information around the EE network.
One moment did however, light the touch paper for this initiative, and that was
seeing their then CEO interact with an iPad for the very first time. He was a
man who didn’t have a laptop or any form of computer in his office, and didn’t
find presentations and debriefs a particularly engaging way to absorb
information and learn new things. When people saw him completely absorbed in
a tablet, the light bulb went off around using such devices as a means to
connect and communicate with senior audiences in the business.
4. After The Watershed
Separately, there was an understanding that since smartphones were going to
change consumers’ lives, they would also impact internal clients (since internal
clients are consumers too). The final catalyst that propelled the growing desire
into full bloom was a segmentation that launched into the business in 2010:
As most readers will no doubt agree, if it is not fully embraced by a company,
even the most insightful segmentation will fall flat. Too often segmentations
are conducted and then left on a shelf, gathering dust, instead of being
absorbed into the fabric of the company. Continuing to drive momentum
around the segmentation was key, as was being able to tell clear and coherent
stories about the performance of the business against the segments over time.
Fortunately, this segmentation had a consistent presence across a number of
the many data sources in the business - from the customer experience
tracking, to the base analytics - so if an information system was anchored
around the segmentation, it could be the glue to stick a large number of data
sets together, to produce one cohesive whole. Smart devices could then be the
vehicle to propel this information out around the organisation.
The other impetus for the drive to mobile was that one side effect of the
success of the Insights Site was that nobody was printing things off to read
on their way home anymore. Whilst the environment was thankful for this,
there seemed like a missed opportunity to further engage people in the
information outside of sitting at their desks, and reach them whilst they were
on the go.
As mentioned, , with offices in places as far afield as Oxford, Darlington,
Hatfield, Bristol, Plymouth and London, keeping people in touch with the latest
information from remote places was critical – the intranet had started this
process, but there was no doubt that mobiles and tablets would take this even
further in terms of mobility and convenience for internal clients.
With all of this thinking in place, it was time to write the brief, find the right
partner, and get building the first ever internal EE app: exciting times.
5. Chapter 2: The Journey
When CrowdLab met EE, it wasn’t quite like when Harry met Sally - we couldn’t
afford such amazing sandwiches for one thing - but it did bring together two
parties who shared a common view of how technology could power research,
not only to gather insight but to share it too.
We agreed there were four key requirements to the system:
1. It needed to be anchored in the new segmentation and engage users
consistently in it
2. It needed to offer simple, at a glance, views of the business KPIs
3. It needed to allow users to be able to create and customise their own
pieces of analysis.
4. It needed to pull in the four key areas from the four divisions of the
Insights Team into one simple source
These last two points were particularly important:
• Customise Content – Talking to external customers frequently about how
they interact with EE products and services, increasingly highlighted to the
team that the things that worked best were those they could tailor to
their own needs, to customise and personalise. The team wanted to take
these same principles and apply them to the way they talked to their
internal clients. While the data needed to be easy and simple - so KPIs
could be viewed in an instant - it was also important to be able to
manipulate and cross analyse sources of data in ways that were never
previously possible.
• Cohesive Curation – Tying together data from research, market
intelligence and base analytics had been done before on a sporadic and ad
hoc basis, but nothing had been put in place to standardise this process.
Using the segmentation as the central pillar would give further traction to
this and give the team the opportunity to present insights in a holistic
way to the business.
User Centered Design
Whilst the general vision and requirements of the app were set, we knew that
the most important part of the process would be engaging with end users. So
nothing could begin until we had convened a series of meetings with
stakeholders across the organisation.
CrowdLab designs products along the principles of User Centered Design. User
Centered Design is (or should be) a key part of any development process, and
can be defined as:
6. “An approach to interactive systems development that aims to make systems
usable and useful by focusing on the users, their needs and requirements, and
by applying human factors/ergonomics, and usability knowledge and
techniques. This approach enhances effectiveness and efficiency, improves
human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility and sustainability; and
counteracts possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and
performance”
(ISO 9241-210:2010 Ergonomics of human-system interaction --
Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems).
In creating our own software for Market Research, CrowdLab always works
closely with the University of Leicester, and in particular with Dr. Will Green to
talk to researchers and participants to ensure it are user friendly, intuitive and
offer the features that users require.
Dr. Green gained a Bachelor’s degree in Ergonomics from Loughborough
University, and worked as a usability and user experience consultant at IBM.
His PhD at Loughborough University was awarded in Human Factors and
Ergonomics. Subsequently, at Philips Research in the Netherlands, he carried
out a fellowship, studying social intelligence as an approach to development
and as an attribute of home healthcare technology. Just before joining the
School of Management, he worked as a senior design researcher within
Vodafone Global Marketing, in the user experience strategic design team.
Dr. Green interviewed a variety of EE staff and from those depth interviews
embarked on a series of meetings with Anna and CrowdLab to start to draw up
the user journeys that people would take; from logging in to the app and then
through all of the functions and features that were desired. From this process,
changes were made in terms of the scope and scale of the app, and the
navigation layouts were devised and wireframed so that the development team
had a design to start to build from. Things were beginning to take shape.
7. Simple & Robust
One of the interesting findings from the user design conversations was the
conflict between the big vision the Insights team had and the reality of
implementation both from a technical perspective, but also the end user.
As you’ll recall (it was only a few pages ago after all) we described a key facet
was to bring four data sources into one. This means that we had 61 different
data points, each by the 9 segments of interest, leaving the user with a
possible 549 data points to choose from.
Add in the fact these would be updated monthly and in one year, and you would
have 6,588 bits of data to potentially navigate.
8. Our user design process had told us that we needed to build something that
you didn’t need to be a data geek in research to navigate, and although the
desire to be able to cut everything by everything was high on the team’s list of
requirements, the reality was that it would both create a major data mining
exercise that users who were unfamiliar with data would not then be able to
quickly create their own charts or view things at a glance.
So we had to pare back expectations.
There are many philosophies and approaches to technology and software
development, and you could choose from any number as your guiding principle.
Almost all, however, will say the same thing: keep things simple and robust.
Take, for example, the UNIX philosophy, originated by Ken Thompson: a set of
cultural norms and philosophical approaches to developing small yet capable
software based on the experience of leading developers. The most pertinent to
this discussion are:
• Rule of Transparency: Design for visibility to make inspection and
debugging easier
• Rule of Simplicity: Design for simplicity; add complexity only where you
must
• Rule of Robustness: Robustness is the child of transparency and simplicity
Let’s take each in turn.
Transparency:
A software system is transparent when you can look at it and
immediately understand what it is doing and how. At a minimum, this
implies that debugging options should be designed in from the
beginning — the program should be able to both demonstrate its own
correctness and communicate to future developers the original
developer's mental model of the problem it solves.
For a program to demonstrate its own correctness, it needs to be
using input and output formats sufficiently simple so that the proper
relationship between valid input and correct output is easy to check.
Transparency should also encourage simple interfaces that can easily
be manipulated by other programs — in particular, test and
monitoring harnesses and debugging scripts.
9. Simple:
Many pressures tend to make programs more complicated (and
therefore more expensive and buggy). Excessive complexity comes
from project requirements that are based on the whim of the month
rather than the reality of what customers want or software can
actually deliver. Many a good design has been smothered under a pile of
“checklist features” — features that, often, no customer will ever use.
The only way to avoid such traps is to encourage a software culture
that knows that small is beautiful, that actively resists bloat and
complexity: an engineering tradition that puts a high value on simple
solutions that looks for ways to break program systems up into small
cooperating pieces.
Robust:
Software is said to be robust when it performs well under unexpected
conditions which stress the designer's assumptions, as well as under
normal conditions.
Most software is fragile and buggy because most programs are too
complicated for a human brain to understand all at once. When you
can't reason correctly about the guts of a program, you can't be sure
it's correct, and you can't fix it if it's broken.
It follows that the way to make robust programs is to make their
internals easy for human beings to reason about. There are two main
ways to do that: transparency and simplicity.
We observed above that software is transparent when you can look at
it and immediately see what is going on. It is simple when what is
going on is uncomplicated enough for a human brain to reason about all
the potential cases without strain. The more your programs have both
of these qualities, the more robust they will be.
Taking all of this on board then, we designed the creation interface around a
set of rules that would only allow certain combinations of data to be displayed;
this was largely based on what would make sense in terms of output (there
were many combinations you could have potential done that would be illogical
or that would plot a nonsensical graph). In essence, we wanted to protect the
end user from making data errors.
We also restricted the choices people could make so a graph wasn’t plotted
that, for example, had 17 columns of bars which would be almost impossible to
work out what it was showing.
10. We therefore developed an iterative approach to chart selection, whereby you
could choose between:
• One segment, one brand and multiple metrics
• One segment, multiple brands and one metric
• Multiple segments, one brand and one metric
This step by step process gave people the choice to create multiple variants of
output suited to their needs, but also gave them clear guardrails so they
wouldn’t career off the analytic road.
By keeping everything simple yet robust, we were able to launch on time, on
budget and most importantly, with a much more user friendly interface than
was originally conceived.
Evolve & Grow
Part of the reasoning behind “simple and robust” is also that you want to put
out early versions of applications and then allow users to shape the experience
as they get familiar with it. You’ll never create the perfect tool, even with
extensive user centered design research, or if you attempt it, the more likely
scenario is that you’ll never launch anything.
Leaning on software development philosophies again, we employ an “Agile”
approach rather than a “Waterfall” one. “Agile” divides the tasks to be done
into small sprints of work, which are then reviewed on a frequent (fortnightly
in our case) basis. At the end of each sprint, it becomes clearer what works,
what needs adapting and what the next sprint needs to achieve. By taking this
approach, we can also incorporate user feedback and adapt and evolve as we
go. By contrast the “Waterfall” approach seeks to build towards a bigger
launch, and may involve the team agreeing the brief and then going off for
months before anything emerges – by which time it may not be quite the thing
the client wanted anymore.
Taking this spirit to EE, we agreed to launch in the simplest way possible on
the most popular devices. Thus, instead of starting by building for every
possible handset in the organisation, we built only for iOS (most popular) and
desktop (most familiar). We also decided to launch with a web app for iOS
rather than a native one, again purely for simplicity.
11. Once launched, we were able to receive feedback on the experience and start
to make adjustments to optimise the user experience. We also had to discuss
with EE the levels of engagement in the app based on Google analytics. This
suggested that whilst the uptake of the app was strong, in depth usage was
limited, largely because once you’d seen the data when updated, you could
easily forget the app existed until the next large announcement.
We also started to see the rise of Android in the business, so the focus of the
next major release was to launch an Android version – but as a native
application, so that we could include push notifications; these would allow a
more direct way to inform users that new data was available and also open up
the possibility of sending other messages of encouragement or reminders to
use the app; a more engaging engagement strategy.
Finally, once the Android version had been rolled out with success, we upgraded
the iOS version to a native app in order to provide Apple users with the same
levels of engagement and communication as Android.
It’s not an unfamiliar process; Facebook launched its mobile app as a web app –
a single build to cover all smartphones but learned that users were not having
such a great experience - with slow load times and poor navigation - due to
some of the limitations of web apps versus native apps. They then rebuilt their
iOS app entirely in 2012, followed soon by doing the same for Android. It
reaffirmed our on belief that native apps are a much better way to develop
than web apps or browser based mobile research, but that is for another paper
on another day.
Events, Dear Boy
It was Harold MacMillan that coined the above phrase, to President Kennedy, or
a journalist, or never at all depending on whose fuzzy recollections of history
you prefer to believe.
But it resonates because it’s true. The discussions about transparency,
simplicity and robustness and developing through the “Agile” lens, means that
we can quickly and easily react to changes in scope or client demands that
were not foreseen. If we build anything too ambitious, bulky or dense then
when events catch up with us, they can catch us out.
In our case, the launch and rebrand of EE, the new consumer facing brand was
a bolt from the blue:
12. So, with the new rebrand came the request to rework the app in all the new
brand glory.
The good news was, because of the way the system was designed this was a
relatively (always a good term to use in software development!) easy reworking
of the app given its simple and transparent design ethos. In fact, for the same
price as the original work (which was desktop and iOS web app only) we were
able to apply the design across desktop and two native app versions also.
The results of all our work to date can be seen in the overview of the user
journey below:
The Loading Page:
13. The Homepage:
At a glance scorecard with accordion style
“reveal and hide” device to keep on screen
information manageable
The create function with easy to select
“stepper” that only allows manageable
and sensible choices:
The visualisation screen that can then be
saved into personalised reports:
14. The segment carousel that can be flicked
through, zoomed in on and flipped for
further information:
The FAQ guide and notes:
15. Chapter 3: The Present And The Future
How has the app been received within EE?
The Insight app was the first internal app created within EE and remains so to
this day, which is something that the Insights team is extremely proud of. New
ways of adding further features or “chapters” are being discussed – for
example, sharing video content from films created around the customer
experience.
The app created a huge amount of buzz in the company and to this day, Anna
gets requests to come and speak at team meetings and other internal events
to explain it. People are genuinely wowed when they see it loaded up on her
phone or tablet. It has truly created a conversation round the data provided to
the organisation by the Insights team and given them real momentum and
presence at senior levels of the organisation.
The key benefit to most people has been to have instant access to key data
across a number of sources all in one place. Previously, to find out the latest
news and information from the customer experience tracker, one would have
to go and search and for and call up the last debrief or find the latest monthly
report. This exercise would have to be repeated for the brand tracker and the
other sources that the Insights teams provide.
Now, it is all in one place, easy to use and understand, and simple and visual in
design and interpretation.
For end users, they have this to say:
• “I really like the Insights App because it gives you access to lots of
different data sources all in one place”
• “Whenever I go into meetings, if someone asks me a question about a
certain number. I have it right here in my hand. I don’t need to say I can’t
remember or I need to get back to them anymore”
• “It’s really easy to use, really simple. It’s honed down to the information
you’re looking for right away”
What advice do we have for others?
The journey has been a success, but not without its twists and turns. There’s
always the benefit of hindsight and if we had to conclude with lessons for
others who want to embark on a similar exercise, then we’d have six things to
think about:
16. 1. Don’t overwhelm your audience – don’t try to cram everything into the
first build and be prepared to pare down ambitious visions. Getting out
there when it’s “good enough” is, well, good enough. This helps to not
overwhelm the end user in a way that launches something so complex it
puts them off engaging with it.
2. Engage with your audience consistently – the EE app wasn’t designed to
force people to interact with it every day, but to act as a tool for calling on
as and when required. The downside of this is that people aren’t always
using it and it’s not always top of mind when new data is released. Using
push notifications through native apps can help with this use, but try to
find regular ways to have a conversation with your audience about it so it
is being interacted with as often as possible and they are constantly
aware of its existence and usefulness.
3. Have a big vision then scale back – a big and ambitious vision is good, but
practicalities and pragmatism must rule the roost. Keeping things light
and simple not only provides for a better user experience, but it also
means that when things come along that you didn’t expect, and they will,
(such as the small matter of an entire organisational rebrand!) it is far
easier to deal with.
4. Play to your strengths – remember that you are an insight professional
(or a professional in whatever your craft is) and that technology
developers are experts in their field and will understand technology better.
It helps to accept that there will always be tension in the relationship
between what you want and what is achievable, so use that creatively to
work together, deferring to the relative strengths of each partner.
5. Put the end user first – if you are that insight professional that’s great; if
you are that technology developer, that’s awesome. Both parties need to
remember that the end user is likely neither, so make your applications
intuitive, easy, and designed so anybody can just pick them up and play
with them immediately.
6. The journey is better than the destination – knowing where you are
going is vital, but always know the journey is an evolutionary one where
you should learn and grow with user feedback. Only when you have
launched will you truly know what is the most useful information, what you
should do in further releases. Ultimately, be agile and don’t go chasing
waterfalls (or rainbows, or unicorns).
Thank you for reading.
Appy Days.