Thriving in the
Age of Industry Disruption
and Technology Changes
@KurtUhlir
If you’re not asking
questions to connect to
reality and real needs,
you’re on a path to
obsolescence
@KurtUhlir
The Future is Already Here
How do you survive what’s coming?
08
Tsunami Innovation
Increasing waves of innovation will cause the
death of the average and create the era of
authentic demand
09
@KurtUhlir
Kurt Uhlir
CEO
Futurist
Chief Servant
06
Trends vs Reality
@KurtUhlir
What’s now?
@KurtUhlir
What’s next?
@KurtUhlir
Globalization
& Automation
04
Disruption
Inside Out &
Outside In
How Chinese Innovation compares to some
of the biggest tech companies on the market
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Billions@KurtUhlir
Mobility
48% of all emails
sent are now
opened and read
on a mobile device
@KurtUhlir
63% of US
consumers say they
delete emails
immediately if they
are not optimized
for mobile
@KurtUhlir
80% of
316,000,000active users access Twitter
through mobile
(Twitter, 2015)
@KurtUhlir
Americans now spend
151 minutesper day on smartphones, more than
on TV or laptops
(Millward Brown, 2014)
@KurtUhlir
By 2017 there will be over
20 billionconnected devices
@KurtUhlir
Mobility is about
helping, not selling!
@KurtUhlir
Mobility is about
a seamless
experience
@KurtUhlir
Authentic
Audience
If you own the audience, you own the
experience
@KurtUhlir
More than 88% of consumers are
influenced by other consumers’
online comments
More than 64% of business buyers
are influenced by feedback from
peers
@KurtUhlir
04
Technology or
Experience?
How Apple has grown as their influencers
and community have grown
@KurtUhlir
Most people think our
main competitors are
Yahoo! and Bing. It’s
actually Amazon.
Eric Schmidt, Google
@KurtUhlir
04
The real reason
Staples and
Office Depot
are merging
Amazon
Big Data
+
Machine
Learning
We must move from
numbers keeping
score to numbers that
drive better actionsDavid Walmsley, Marks & Spencer
@KurtUhlir
Technology that
automatically finds
patterns in your data
and uses them to
predict new data
points
@KurtUhlir
Tsunami Innovation
08
Speed of Tsunami Innovation
TSUNAMI INNOVATION
MARKET SEGMENTS
TRIAL
USERS
MASS
MARKET
INNOVATORS EARLY
ADOPTERS
EARLY MAJORITY LATE MAJORITY LAGGARDS
ROGER’S
MARKET SEGMENTS @KurtUhlir
04
Features of
Tsunami
Innovation
Unrestrained development
Unlimited growth
Undisciplined strategy
@KurtUhlir
PORTFOLIORules of Innovation
Innovate in low-cost, feature poor
tech that an underserved customer
segment needs
Innovate where there is authentic
demand through rapid-fire, low-
cost experiments and fail fast
19
Innovation
Process
New-Product
Sales
Strategy
Reach out to early adopters and
later enter mainstream market
Reach out to multiple segments and
types of customers initially. Scale
business after finding traction
Focus on low cost, closest
customers or innovative products
Focus on real data from field work
with customers regardless of
history
Historic Innovation Tsunami Innovation
@KurtUhlir
Tsunami Innovation
may or may not
happen overnight but
it will change
everything!
@KurtUhlir
How to Innovate
08
Innovation Teams Are NOT
Smaller Versions of Mature Companies
07
Mature companies
EXECUTE known
business models
Innovation teams
search for authentic
demands and unknown
business models
@KurtUhlir
How we
expect
innovation
to go…
16
@KurtUhlir
Real path
to
innovation
@KurtUhlir
Innovation Myths
Find out what
your customers
want and make
that
Anecdotes can
validate
hypothesis
Your decisions
are not
influenced by
self interest
18
@KurtUhlir
Process of connecting to
reality
Pioneered at Georgia Tech
by Merrick Furst
There is a better way!
Startup
Engineering
03
@KurtUhlir
Cognitive Illusions
Immunity to Change
@KurtUhlir
Find your real
customers, identify
what they’re required
to be and help them
bridge the gap
@KurtUhlir
Cognitive
Analytical
Repeatable
Learnable
Data beats
opinions
@KurtUhlir
You are not
technology experts
@KurtUhlir
You are not
“management”
@KurtUhlir
You are not
entrepreneurs
@KurtUhlir
You ARE experience
makers and problem
solvers
@KurtUhlir
Kurt Uhlir
kurt@sideqik.com
KurtUhlir.com
TsunamiInnovation.com
Twitter: @KurtUhlir

Tsunami Innovation: Thriving in the Age of Industry Disruption and Technology Changes