Monday, July 30, 2012

Mainstream Mobility

Since tablets and smartphones came into existence only a relatively few years ago, they have grown quickly to become part of the formal information systems of organizations. But there have been gaps, one of which has been the difficulty of integrating those mobile devices with the core parts of the information system - the ERP, CRM and BI elements of the system.

But that lack of integration is changing quickly. Now the major large scale vendors, like SAP, offer some integration with mobile units. Generally the difficulty has centered around security issues and differing and incompatible operating systems of the mobile units. These issues are being addressed.

One way to approach the issues is to build apps in the cloud where security can be more closely controlled. Rogers has announced plans along these lines with its new SAP Mobile Apps. Developed in partnership with SAP AG, the new apps act as interfaces with cloud based SAP systems, enabling the users to make use of the power of the SAP functionality while having the freedom of mobility.

Here is an article announcing the new apps and also providing some background.

 

Friday, July 27, 2012

Inplementing Social CRM

Social media. Big data. data analytics. All terms that we keep hearing and that are becoming more and more important to all businesses. Social media makes available all kinds of data in large volumes. These data can be very useful to corporate CRM and often BI systems as well. Most companies have come to realize that, and in fact, the use of big data from social media has run the traditional gamut, from bestowing competitive advantage in the beginning to just remaining competitive. Everyone is now into it.

So the question becomes how to maximise the benefits of mining social media derived data.

One thing is clear, it requires new and probably different tools. Tools that have the capability to handle large amounts of data, that have complex and sophisticated functionality and that can be used to generate customized analytical routines. Now the only way to generate competitive advantage is to be innovative in the way in which your company uses social media data. and, of course, the tools need to be able to interface with your social media connections as well as your CRM system, and possibly your BI system. This is a big challenge.

The article referenced here outlines this challenge and also points to a few tools worth looking at. We will feature other similar articles as they come available.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Digg and Reddit

Over the past few years, Digg has fallen from one of the top rated online success stories to the status of a relative loser. It's estimated value dropping from over 150 million to a "mere" half million. At the same time, Reddit has continued apace, and is passing Digg as a competitor. Of course, both are competing with Facebook, which also allows posting of articles and news items by users.

It was probably Facebook that did in Digg. But in a recent article, there are some other points that all online business should note. One of them is particularly interesting. The observation is that Digg attempted to improve the experience of its users, adding new functionality and eventually departing from its original simple vision. As a result, the site got more and more complicated and also opened up a greater exposure to bugs, which did occur. So the users got turned off. By contrast, Reddit stayed simple and true to its original concept.

One of the essential elements of any online business is that the website be clean, navigable, simple and useful. Users can get turned off very quickly if it is not all of these things. So when improving your site, be careful of the unintended consequences.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Analyzing Big Data

Big data is a more common occurrence, largely triggered by the growing usefulness of social media for business purposes. There is a vast amount of information on Social media sites about customers, competitors and others that a company can make use of in policy formulation. But they need to analyze the data carefully and rigorously. This requires a lot of computing power.

Normally such computing has been done on large computers in the cloud. PCs would be nice, but they don't have enough RAM capacity to hold the data being analyzed, especially if it is in graphical form.

A logical answer is to create virtual RAM using a PC’s hard drive, which are being made in very large sizes. New software is beginning to use this technique, as evidenced by this article about GraphChi, which is designed for this very purpose. Software like this will give companies an advantage of being able to do their own analysis on their own computers on a secure basis, which should appeal to a number of companies.

Monday, July 16, 2012

The Evolution of PCs and Tablets

With tablets continuing to grow in the marketplace, there is much prognostication about the future of computing and in particular the future of PCs. Laptops or notebooks seem to dominate at present, when it comes to serious computing, but for really heavy duty computing, you still nee a desktop or higher.We often forget that many of the apps we see on tablets and smartphones depend on banks of very powerful servers and networks. Many of Google's offerings are examples of this. So predictions of the demise of PCs and their replacement by Tablets, such as this article, are somewhat premature and likely off base. It may be that for personal use computing,, smartphones and tablet-like devices will gradually replace the laptops we carry around, but that's only a part of the computer technology scene.

It is interesting to speculate on the future of computing, particularly on the business implications of computer technology trends. Clearly we have already reached a world where mobility is a major factor. There is also a good deal of evidence that people are not completely happy with the size of the tablet, which is why Apple is coming out with a smaller one. Also, a lot of people still carry around three devices - a smartphone, a tablet and a laptop. This is not an optimum situation.

For personal use computing, a logical evolution is one where the smartphones and tablets are combined into a single device of current smartphone size, so it can be slipped into a shirt pocket. That does not resolve the problems of screen size, but that can be handled through virtual technology, in which screens are created virtually when needed at any size that might be needed at the time. So people doing presentations shouldn't have to worry about having a projector. They just go to the podium with their smartphone type device, create a large virtual screen that anyone can see, create a large keyboard or other input device for ease of use, and start their presentation. This is the logical direction of our technology development. The famous Corning video A Day Made of Glass, captures the spirit of all this, if not the exact technology.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Mobile Marketing on the Rise

The idea that mobile phones can reveal the location of potential customers as well as something about what they are doing has long been a dream of marketers. But we are edging closer and closer to such techniques as location based marketing and context aware marketing. The former identifies the location of an individual who perhaps may be walking by a boutique having a sale on certain items. A text message is sent to that person;s phone about the sale. In context aware marketing, the phone may pick up some sounds indicating that the person is at a trade show on technology. They could then get a message about a special offering at that show. Check out Facebook's initiative here.

The question, is whether this is a positive development in marketing or whether it is an intrusion on privacy. What do you think?

Friday, July 06, 2012

Automation  The Economic Game Changer

At first glance, the title of this article seems old hat. Companies have been automating for years. However, business is now going through a wave of automation that is making a major change in the way many businesses operate and is radically changing the nature of the work force.

Amazon,(of course) is one of the leaders. Several years ago, when the company started, it wanted to automate book sales and started by not even having warehouses. However, it found that warehouses were essential in order to fill orders on a timely basis. So it began to build and maintain warehouses for its books. The was somewhat of an unhappy development, since it raised the operating costs of Amazon and helped to trigger the need for a new business model to cover those costs. After several years of floundering, it did find a business model that worked - one that involved a lot more than selling books.

Now, however, Amazon is employing robots in their warehouses -  robots that move shelves of books around as needed, essentially taking the product to the humans rather than having the humans lug it around. This is more efficient and marks part of the nature of the change taking place. Workers walking the warehouse being replaced by workers at electronic workstations.

There is nothing new about workers being replaced by machines. It's been happening since the early days of the industrial revolution, such as, for example, the introduction of tractors into farming. Generally its been a good thing, with new jobs (such as building and repairing tractors) coming along to replace the old ones (plowing fields by horse drawn plows).

What is new is the growth in the number of cases where hitherto human controlled functions are totally automated, requiring little or no human intervention, through the use of automated processes to take over human paper shuffling and robots to take over physical tasks..

The use of robots is growing radically with even general purpose robots being developed that will be able to do a variety of tasks. Move over R2D2!

Check out this article.

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Shifting Ground for Spam

The good news is that spam through email is on the decline. Apparently all the work that has been put into spam detection and destruction has had some effect. The bad news is that there may be an increased emphasis by spammers on doing their work through social media.

Of course, anyone using tools like Facebook has to be aware of the phony apps that drift through and the occasional suspicious messages. But that may be just the tip of the iceberg and increasingly so. The popularity of social media and its growing use for business certainly makes it an attractive target, so be aware. Check out this article on the subject.