Road testing the Sony SmartWatch 2

Wearables is one of the key hypes of the moment. Most attention has been for smart watches, but other devices that can be worn are included in this category as well: smart shoes, smart glasses, cameras (GoPro) and fitness bands (FitBit, Garmin Vivo, JawBone, etc.). This is closely related to the Internet of Things (IoT) and sees the development of other smart devices such as blood pressure devices, weighing scales and so on. Initially, applications for these devices have targeted health & fitness as well as location based functionality.

I have road tested the Sony SmartWatch 2 for the last 2 months and will share some of my experiences. First and foremost, I believe that these devices will only reach the right level of maturity and adoption once they can operate independently from a smart phone. This will require the smart watch to have its own SIM card and will avoid the need to take your (bulky) smart phone on a run or ride. The next release of Samsung Gear is rumoured to have this standalone functionality and I would strongly expect Apple to aspire the same when they ultimately release the first version of an iWatch. Regretfully, these are not yet available and we have to do with paired devices.

There has been a lot of attention for Samsung Gear, LG smart watch and some of the fitness brands: Garmin, Nike and Polar. The Sony smart watch (http://www.sony.com.au/product/sw2) is in its second release and has been reviewed much less to date. The watch works with any Android smart phone and has a reasonably large number of applications available on Google Play. Applications are installed using Google Play and your smart phone. The devices pair via NFC (near field communication) and cover a range of about 20 meters. The set up and pairing is pretty straightforward as the integration with my Sony Xperia works seamlessly with the device pairing whenever they are within range.

The good thing about the Sony SM2 is that its appearance is like a normal watch and actually looks quite 'smart'. It is not bulky and wears like a normal watch as well. The watch face is changeable and can actually display information about the weather, upcoming calendar items and battery level. The SM2 needs to be charged every 4 days which, as we are used to charging our phones daily, is quite acceptable.

So, what do you actually do with the watch? I found it handy to answer calls remotely, read texts, twitter and emails (at least the header and first lines), use some basic apps like torchlight, calculator, counter as well as check the weather forecast. Other applications allow you to initiate a search on Google, check your location or track your own movements (using your phone's pedometer). I find these applications rather clumsy and mostly went to the phone to execute the actual tasks.

This renders the SM2 a useful and stylish watch which does not fully live up to my expectation of a smart device. As said earlier, the smart watch really needs to be standalone with its own SIM card and have a variety of sensors including GPS to make this a true mobile device.

Frits de Vroet

Show this to your kids!

Great video by code.org targeting schools to teach coding. 

Social Business Network @ Damco

Damco People Network

At Damco, we launched our internal social business network called, Damco People Network, last week. This platform enables our people to Connect, Communicate and Collaborate across our global, networked business. 

Platform

The Damco People Network was developed in around 4 months leveraging Jive SBS platform and is hosted as a Software as a Service (Saas) by Jive. We have skinned the environment with Damco branding and enabled some of the more enhanced functionality to provide a dynamic 'home' page and for example allow staff to install Jive plug-ins for MS Office and Outlook. These plug-ins enable users to share documents on the platform and promote email conversations to the network. The platform is available through a normal browser and can be accessed with iOS, Android and BlackBerry mobile devices as well. This is under full security and these devices need to be authenticated prior to granting access. The platform will integrate with our SharePoint document repository and ultimately our Active Directory for user authentication. 

Purpose

Gartner and other experts in the social business networking space recommend to define the purpose of one's social network initiative very clearly upfront so that clear direction can be given to the development of the platform and its subsequent usage. We defined our purpose as to enable our staff across the globe to easily and effectively connect, communicate and collaborate with each other and within existing and newly established communities. This purpose was facilitated from the start by ensuring that the platform would not become a full reflection of our standing organization structure, but rather would be driven by areas of collaboration. In our industry, collaboration areas are customer teams, trade lanes, functions, projects, locations, and so on. Prior to the launch of the platform, we established a number of communities for existing projects, customers and locations to showcase how the platform should be used. 

Launch

The platform was launched during our Leadership Conference where our Top 150 leaders gather. As part of the launch, these leaders were requested to sign up, establish their profile and invite their teams to do the same during the next week. This has resulted in around 2000 users signing up to the new platform during the first week. An interesting observation is that already a broad representation of our people has joined the network, so not only the leaders that were specifically addressed during the leadership conference. It is also very encouraging to see the value added discussions and collaboration already taking place after the first week. 

Benefits

We expect that the use of this platform will enhance the sharing of information and collaboration within our organization. The network has the functionality to provide users with relevant information and suggest connections based on their activities and content on the platform. This makes it relevant for the users and drives further activity. 

The platform will also enable us to leverage tacit knowledge, expertise and experience within our organization. As any organization, there is a great knowledge base in our organization which will now be easier accessible by Search, 'Find an Expert', Community Management and Trending Topics / People. 

We expect to drive some traffic away from email as collaboration on shared documents, meetings and general initiatives is much easier and inclusive when done on the social business network. 

So, we are very excited to have embarked on our journey with the social business network and are confident that this will enable closer and more effective collaboration. 

Frits de Vroet 

Silicon Valley: Old World v New World Technology Firms

During my most recent trip to the US West Coast, I visited a number of technology companies in Silicon Valley and Seattle. The objective of the trip was to get an in-depth update on the latest developments in the IT world ranging from Cloud Computing, Social Networking (for business) and End User Computing.

One of the things that struck during that trip was the obvious divide between 'old' and 'new' technology companies. The difference in approach and objectives were stunningly clear. The old behemoths of the industry are clearly challenged with embracing new technologies quickly while still aiming to make money from the current installed base and their past investments.

A good example of this is the whole concept of cloud computing where newcomers like Amazon AWS have invented new business models to provide maximum flexibility in capacility, utilization and price. Their public cloud is on one side of the spectrum. Older companies like Microsoft, EMC, IBM, HP, CSC and others talk about cloud computing more in terms of private clouds for existing customers (often without offering full flexibility in utlization and thus investment) or 'hybrid cloud'. Their customers' existing services may be able to be move to a cloud environment, but this should come with the flexibility and agility that is required in this area. Current leadtimes of months to set up any kind of environment will be increasingly challenged by customers who think that they can get it quicker elsewhere. Some of the old technology companies offering server virtualization will need to rethink their positioning of the products as well. Their focus should be on how to optimize the offering in the new world rather than trying to sell more of their older services and products.

I'm not arguing here that the new models are without challenges either. Moving your computing to an extreme public cloud environment means that IT departments in companies either will need to acquire technical architecture skills that they have outsourced during the last 10 years, continue to use existing System Integrators to do this for them or use so-called cloud-brokers to take care of both the commercial aspects and the technical architecture and set up. The issue with existing SI's is that they are not set up for this as they are used to operate their own environment and have difficulty moving away from their rather bureaucratic service models. Cloud brokers are found some different areas. AWS cooperates with a number of partners, like Wipro, Tata Consulting Services (TCS) and PWC, who assist customers to establish private cloud based services. An interesting newcomer in the area is Appirio a San Francisco based company focused on providing cloud brokage services. I believe that this is an attractive new area where in other markets, that are slightly behind in the emergence of cloud computing model, entrepreneurs should focus on both the Service Management required to manage IaaS, PaaS or SaaS as well as offering the technical expertise that many manufacturing and service companies have outsourced in the past.  

Another interesting area where the old versus new world technology firm battle plays is in Social Networking for business organizations. Microsoft has recently acknowledged that this is a boat they cannot miss and is now focusing on their SharePoint / Lync environment to provide this functionality to existing customers. As this will only be truly available with Windows 8, they might be too late as many organizations are formally or informally embarking on the adoption of Social Networking platforms for business. There is a range of offerings in this space from new companies (Yammer, Jive, Netgator) and older companies (Chatter by Salesforce.com - which interestingly has characteristics of an older technology company in this space - a new to be launced product from Oracle and internal tools from IBM). Based on Service Oriented Architecture, these new platforms are reasonably easy to interface with existing Active Directories or Sharepoint / Documentum type document management tools. Again it will be about the extend to which the old technology companies can adopt the agility and flexibility required to turn this into an attractive value proposition in a very short period of time.

Overall an intriguing battle in a new and quickly developing market. Time will tell who the few winners will be... Enjoy!


Frits de Vroet

Critical Success Factors for the Transition to a Chief Process Officer Function

In one of my earlier series of blogs, I have talked about the future of IT and indicated that we are getting to a point where the CIO function would either diminish to a provider of utility-like IT services or would assume broader responsibilities including shared services of both IT and non-IT nature, business process optimization and data/information management. Some authors have referred to the broader responsibilities as the arena of the Chief Process (and Innovation) Officer. In this edition, I will look at the key success factors in the journey from Chief Information Officer to Chief Process Officer.

Let's first talk titles. Unlike the well-established and recognized title of CIO, the CPO title is new and infrequently used. There are a few (dated) articles in which reference is made to the Chief Process Officer. Particularly, an interview with Michael Hammer (author of "Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (Harper Collins, 1993)" published on CIO Insight (http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Expert-Voices/CIO-as-Chief-Process-Officer-Not-Strategic-Leader) is quite insightful. 

The CPO title itself only covers a part of the accountability, but the process element of the title is critical in positioning the function as a business function. In enterprise architecture terms, it adds process design and optimization to the IT infrastructure (network, servers, user devices, etc.), application, IT security, integration and data stack. Joining the accountability for process optimization, information management (through the use of applications) and data structure (master data) will enable the CPO to add business value by ensuring that these elements are aligned and operate in harmony. This will reduce waste and rework, increase the speed of operation and implementation of new operations through process standardization. Today, in many organizations the disconnect between process and IT leads to failed IT projects and business optimization projects resulting in low credibility for either function.

So, when an organization makes the bold decision to establish a CPO function, what are the key success factors? I have found the following:

1. CPO needs to be founded on a strong enterprise architecture including data architecture, process architecture, application architecture and IT infrastructure. Without this foundation in place, building the house will be impossible.
2. Obtain buy-in across the business with strong support from the Board. Without this, the journey will be long and painful. The buy-in needs to be obtained prior and during the implementation of the function.
3. Ensure that the transformation is not only in name and that the process and information management elements work closely together. Make sure that the CPO function is not just a renamed IT organization with a few process optimization staff added in.
4. Don't loose the CIO. The management of IT remains critical both to provide end-users with services and to establish and manage the required application and IT infrastructure. The IT organization can either be stand alone or included in the CPO domain. 
5. Bring the best staff from the organization and industry to the CPO function. In particular, staff with a strong business background and in-depth understanding of the company's business activities.
6. There should be a business case and/or agreed performance objectives for the CPO function with an agreed end game. The latter is very much about a vision of how the business will operate in the future (which processes and IT platform) with lead performance indicators for key processes. Implementing a CPO function may require rethinking of the management approach.

The CPO function is quite new and arguably at the start of its development. I would be very interested in receiving feedback and other thought-provoking input on this topic.

Frits de Vroet

Beware: Hard Sell

My son received a call yesterday from an gentleman with an Indian accent asking whether he was speaking with Mr. X. Upon confirmation, the caller proceeded to identify himself as Peter Gabriel (by coincidence the same name as the rock star) from Microsoft or Windows and asked whether any of our computers was on and if we were aware that our computers had been attacked by hackers during the last few months. He asked my son to go to the computer and assisted him in looking up the Event Viewer within Windows 7. Obviously, this viewer showed a number of error and warning messages which are created by normal systems activities. The caller then tried to lead my son, who knew better and was playing along, to a website (something like www.fubbort.me). As expected, this website did not load and the caller wanted to use that as proof that our system had been infiltrated. The bad telephone connection with a lot of call centre background noise then gave way and disconnected.

After some 20 minutes, the same person called again and this time I answered the call myself. I asked him which company he worked for and he replied "PC Support and Care". I also asked his telephone number so that I 'could call him back' and to confirm the IP address of my computer (which they should know to be alerted to any infiltrations). He obviously could not provide this information and wanted to continue his hard sell. I asked him to advise whether he was trying to sell me something and then he got really upset and after a rant hung up the phone.

The call was made via a local West Australian number. When I obtained the number from the callback function in my home phone, it rang out as expected. There actually is a company called PC Support and Care and there are blogs/sites where victims discuss their experiences with their hard sell and overpriced support. Some people actually signed up for support at $129 per annum and others bought overpriced anti-spy software from them. They seemed to have been operating mainly in the US, but are now making their way to Australia. So, I thought it was about time for a warning.

When receiving these kind of calls, one should ask for the caller's contact details and for confirmation of details about your own computer such as IP address, operating system and ISP provider without volunteering this information (never provide personal information to strangers...). It sounds obvious, but never provide credit card or bank details to these kind of callers and verify from whom you would buy something in the first place - just like in the real world of brick and mortar. Also, rest assured, good PC protection software from reputable providers or ISPs will catch these kind of infiltrations when they happen.

I trust that Microsoft is aware that their name is used in vain by these kind of sleazy operators and understand it will be hard for them to do anything about it.

Be safe!

Frits

Findings from recent IT studies

This week IBM and Harvey Nash published their respective regular CIO Studies.

The IBM Global CIO Study is conducted by IBM through in-depth interviews with some 3000 CIOs. Key findings from this study are that there is improved alignment between business and IT, and that IT is moving up in the business food chain. CIOs are increasingly part of the most senior business forums and wear more and more the business hat in stead of the technology hat. CEOs and CIOs are remarkably aligned on key priorities such as insight, business intelligence, client relationships and people skills.

In the study, 83 per cent cited business intelligence (BI) and analytics as the key tool to enhance their organisation’s competitiveness. Mobility solutions also ranked highly; some 74 per cent of CIOs identified mobility as the next best way to boost competitiveness. This must be satisfying for IBM as these are key strategic areas for the global systems integrator.

The IBM study outlines four CIO groups, which the IBM has termed ‘CIO mandates’. The categories include:

• Leverage: Streamlining operations and increasing organisational effectiveness (doing more with less)
• Expand: Refine business processes and enhance collaboration
• Transform: Change the industry value chain through improved relationships with customers
• Pioneer: Innovate products, markets and business models.

Read more on the IBM Study at: http://www.ibm.com/ciostudy

The Harvey Nash Global CIO Survey 2011 was conducted online among about 2600 CIOs and IT leaders. The study finds that CIO job satisfaction, salaries and standing within the organization have increased compared to last year. The study shows an expansion of their roles and improved standing inside their companies. The number of CIOs with global responsibilities increased to 37 per cent in 2011, from 32 per cent in 2010. Nearly 70 per cent of IT leaders believe they're perceived more strategically inside their organizations this year (69 per cent), compared to last year (64 per cent). Their role on their companies' executive management teams backs up their perceptions: Half of respondents are members of the executive management team, up eight per cent from 2010.

Despite the growing number of CIOs who think their peers view them as strategic business partners, the majority still don't report to the CEO: Only 32 per cent call the CEO their boss, though that number is up three per cent over last year. Approximately one in five CIOs (18 per cent) reports to the CFO. CIOs are according to the study still primarily focused on operational activities and cost savings with only 37 per cent of the IT organizations having a key focus on innovation.

A third, perhaps less authoritative, Internet based survey showed however that IT and the Internet are still becoming increasingly important in (men's) daily life. In a survey of some 200 men aged between 18 and 45, 64 per cent revealed they would give up sex for a week before giving up their ability to get online. The survey also revealed that some 92.6 per cent of respondents would give up alcoholic beverages before giving up online access, and that 88.5 per cent would choose the internet over vanities including a toothbrush and footwear. When asked what their reaction was when their internet went down, 63.5 per cent said they calmly searched for a solution while 22 per cent they would steal someone else’s Wi-Fi signal. Other key findings were that men predominately spent their time reading and sending emails at 87.5 per cent, and that YouTube came in a close second with 72.5 per cent.

Frits de Vroet