Month: November 2013

Becoming an all mobile executive

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says he’s gone completely mobile, will other executives follow?

“I don’t want to use a laptop again,” Marc Benioff told the closing Dreamforce 2013 customer Q&A. “The desktop remains the biggest security threat to corporations — it’s a nightmare. The PC and laptop we never designed to be connected to a network.”

Benioff was walking his talk in promoting his company’s Salesforce One mobile platform, claiming at the Dreamforce conference opening that he hadn’t used a PC or laptop or nine months as he’s moved over to tablet and smartphone apps.

That push to move the company and its customers onto mobile services was emphasised by Peter Coffee, Salesforce’s Vice President for Strategic Research.

“Your mobile device is no longer an accessory,” says Coffee. “It’s the first thing you reach for in the morning and it’s the last thing you touch at night.”

Salesforce’s push into into the post-PC market follows Google and Apple’s lead, much to the distress of Microsoft and its partners.

“We saw the phenomenal engineering work of Scott Forstall at Apple and the visionary work of the late, great Steve Jobs,”  Benioff told his cutomers at the final Dreamforce Q&A. “When we saw the iPhone we sat up and thought ‘wow, what are we going to do about this?'”

“This is a paradigm shift, we’re moving from the desktop world to the mobile phone world and then of course we saw the iPad world emerge and that amplified it.”

Salesforce’s impressions were shared by much of the business community as senior executives, board members and company founders quickly embraced the first version of the iPad, which on its own triggered the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend in enterprise computing.

In a mobile age, Benioff now sees three key priorities for Salesforce; “we want to be feed first, we want to be mobile first and we want to be social first.”

Regardless of Benioff’s vision, not everyone will go mobile which is something that Peter Coffee acknowledges.

“The laptop will occasionally be used to author creative work like a presentation or to deal with something that needs a large screen like pipeline analysis,” says Coffee.

Marc Benioff though is adamant. “Honestly I don’t ever want to use a laptop again,” he told his audience.

It will be interesting to see how many business leaders follow him in abandoning their desktops and portable computers as the post-PC era of computing develops.

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Book publishers and the cost cutting quandary

Traditional book publishers face a challenging future as authors find they get more value from self-publishing.

Traditional book publishers face a challenging future as authors find they get more value from self-publishing.

It was good to head across to Oakland’s East Bay Social Media Breakfast for Shel Israel’s and Robert Scoble’s discussion about their latest book, The Age Of Context.

While the book itself is an interesting overview of how the internet of things is changing the world, Scoble’s and Israel’s self publishing journey though combination of corporate sponsors, crowdfunding and alternative distribution models is an interesting tale in itself.

“Self publishing gives writers much more power than they’ve ever had before,” says Israel. “In many aspects, the traditional publisher just isn’t there any more.”

“By using the tech community and social media to market the book, I’ve sold more copies of The Age of Context in seven weeks than my previous four books combined,” Israel states.

Israel’s point illustrates the challenge facing traditional publishers, like many other industries the publishing houses have reacted to a changing market by cutting costs such as replacing experienced staff with fewer, less experienced workers.

Failing to add value

That cost cutting has the effect of making the businesses irrelevant; if a publicist has to rely on HARO or Source Bottle to contact journalists rather than a contact book built up over years of experience, then they are doing little the writer can’t do themselves.

One of the biggest advantages book publishers offered authors was rigorous editing — good editors are worth their weight in gold to both a writer and their book and in the past self-published books were notable for their lousy editing.

Today, that function has been almost eliminated by publishers have eliminated most in house editors. If a harassed, time poor contractor only has a few days to spend editing the manuscript, as what happened with my last book, then the publishers hasn’t added much to the product at all.

Similarly with design and layout, historically publishers have been strong on this front with experienced editors knowing what covers will work for certain genres in the bookshops. The cheapest graduate worker in the world can’t replicate that understanding of the marketplace.

Most damaging of all though to publishers was losing the distribution channels; when bookstores were the way most readers bought their books the publishing house’s sales team were essential for getting books on shelves. In an age of Amazon and online shopping, they are no longer the gatekeepers they once were.

Self publishing risks

That’s not say there aren’t risks with self publishing, particularly with having corporate sponsors pay for development costs.

Scoble and Israel overcame the increasingly stingy author advances by raising $105,000 from corporate sponsors to cover the initial researching and writing costs.

“We were scared to death that this was a credibility issue,” said Israel. “However our sponsors were incredibly good with not messing around with editorial credibility. They, like others in the book, got to see what was written to check for technical accuracy but not change the content.”

“An example is that Google was not a sponsor and Bing was, yet we said an awful lot more good things about Google than we did about Bing.”

Adopting the financial risk

The biggest risk of all for self-publishing though is being stuck with a stack of unsold books with a pile of bills for editors, designers and printing. In the past the publisher carried all the financial risk which was probably the greatest service they provided to authors.

Even that risk isn’t as great as it was a few years ago as print runs are cheaper and shorter while outsourcing sites make it cheaper and easier to find professional help.

As Israel and Scoble illustrate, book publishers have made themselves irrelevant to most authors. It’s probably the best case study of an industry reacting to change with cost cuts that ultimately destroy their own competitive advantage.

That’s something that other businesses and industries should consider when looking at how to deal with their own disruption.

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Tuxedos and cocktail dresses — the real cost of being an entrepreneur

Correcting the myths about startups is the mission of venture capital investor Mark Suster

venture capital investor and blogger Mark Suster said at the Dreamforce 2013 conference yesterday.

Suster’s mission is based upon having seen the process of building business up close having been involved in two successful startups and trade sales before joining Salesforce as head of product development then branching out to the investor side of the business.

There’s also a personal reason for Suster wanting to tell the truth about starting your own venture, “the reason I’m on a personal mission to explain this is because a friend committed suicide.”

“His company had raised four million dollars but, by his standards, it wasn’t succeeding.”

Suster’s story resonates with anyone who has founded a business — it’s not something everyone is suited to and it’s a tough, demanding lifestyle.

Tuxedos and cocktail dresses

Part of the problem is public perceptions, Suster describes a conflict between “public persona and cognitive dissonance”; while an individual startup is struggling with their own flaws and failings, it appears that everyone else is doing well from their carefully crafted and placed publicity stories.

“Everyone else’s PR is their tuxedos and cocktail dresses,” Suster points out. “You on the other hand are seeing yourself naked in the mirror every morning.”

On being a marriage councilor

It’s often said that a business partnership is like a marriage and Suster finds much of his work as a venture capital investor involves counseling founders over their relationship.

“Sometimes one has to go,” Suster says. “It doesn’t matter what your preference is — and we all have our favourites — but the business cannot survive with the two of them.”

When two founders split, there is also the problem of equity, should both have equal shares then it becomes difficult to split the business; “should one partner leaves, it’s often easier to shut down the company and start again.”

Buy in your skills

A similar problem happens when there’s more than one partner and Suster cautions it’s better to employ people with the skills you need rather than offer equity in a new business.

“Having too many founders is the greatest dilution you’ll ever face,” Suster warns and his advice is to hire the skills required by the business rather than give away equity in your business.

Another benefit of hiring people is having a good team on the payroll is the validation good investors are looking for. “Having a good team proves you’re able to hire good people which is the most important skill an entrepreneur needs,” Suster explains.

Ultimately, Mark Suster sees the journey of building a business as a decade long process, the billion dollar startups are the exception rather than the rule.

The biggest advice Suster has is to understand your goals, “if you don’t define what success is, you’ll never achieve it.”

Building a business is tough, and not everybody is suited to doing it. Mark Suster’s advice isn’t just appropriate for technology startups, it’s also valid for anyone starting any type of business.

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The end of HTML 5?

Does Salesforce’s move to native smartphone apps mean the end of mobile application standards?

One of the big debates in web design since the rise of smartphone apps has been the question of ‘going native’ or following web standards.

In an ideal world, all apps would follow the HTML web standards so designers would only have to create one app that would run on any device — a smartphone, tablet or PC — regardless of what type of software it was running.

However the HTML 5 standard has proved problematic as developers have found applications written in the language are slow with limited features, so the attraction of writing ‘native’ apps that are designed for each system remains strong as users get a faster, better experience.

The problem with that approach is that it results in having to design for different operating systems and various devices which is costly and adds complexity.

For the last two years at Dreamforce, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has trumpeted the advantages of the company’s HTML5 Touch product.

This year Benioff unveiled the company’s Salesforce One product — a suite of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) that simplifies building smartphone and web apps. At the media conference after the launch, Benioff even went as far to describe the once lauded Touch product as a “mistake”.

So Salesforce has abandoned HTML5, which is a blow for standard applications.

If others follow Salesforce, and it appears that is the trend, then we’ll increasingly see the smartphone industry dominated by iOS and Android as most companies lack the resources or commitment to develop for more than two platforms and their form factors.

Open standards have been one of the driving factors of the web’s success, it would be a shame if we saw the mobile market split into two warring camps reminiscent of the VHS and Beta video tape days.

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Have we over-consumerised IT?

One of the phenomenons of the modern technology industry is the ‘consumerisation of IT’, but have we taken that trend too far?

One of the phenomenons of the modern technology industry is the ‘consumerisation of IT’, but have we taken that trend too far?

I’ve spent today at the opening of the 2013 Dreamforce conference in San Francisco talking to various people about where the IT industry is going.

The dominant thing at this year’s conference is the “internet of things” or, as Salesforce are marketing it, “the internet of customers.”

What’s notable in this view is the marketing and consumer centric view of the IT world, something not surprising given Salesforce’s roots as a sales and marketing service, despite last year showing off the social media connected jet engine at last year’s conference.

Salesforce aren’t alone in this view, most conversations about the tech industry revolve around marketing and advertising. Last week’s Telstra’s Digital Summit was notable for focusing almost exclusively on brands and social media while missing the point that digital business is far more than just adopting online marketing channels.

For most industries, the marketing and direct consumer connection is only a small part of how technology, not least the internet of machines, is transforming business with manufacturing and supply chain management two areas that are being totally changed with high stakes and big money involved.

Cracking the enterprise market is hard, which is why most startup tech businesses focus on the customer market and the relatively easy, albeit cash poor, advertising and premium revenue streams.

While the focus is often on the consumer and mass-market side of the web and internet of machines, the real money, and change is in the business sector. This is exactly how most of today’s tech giants — Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and Salesforce to name a few — came to be where they are today.

There’s no doubt the consumerisation of IT was a real phenomenon, but it may be that it’s currently being overplayed. We need to think beyond marketing when considering how technology is changing our businesses.

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The ghost in the internet of machines

What happens when your internet connected egg tray gets a virus?

A funny thing happened two hours out of Auckland, the cabin crew on the Air New Zealand flight to San Francisco announced the inflight entertainment system had to be rebooted.

In the thirty minutes it took for the system to reset and reload, various in-seat functions such as the cabin call button and light switch froze, it was a basic example of how complex systems interact with each other.

The benefits of a connected egg tray involve the device telling us when more eggs are needed, but what happens when the thing tries to tell your online shopping service that you need 200 dozen?

As the internet of things develops and business systems become more automated, complexity is going to become greater and more subtle. Understanding and managing the risks that extend from that is going to be essential for both public safety and the economy.

“The Internet of Things creates a whole new range of attack surfaces” Cisco Systems’ Enterprise Group Vice President Rod Soderbery told the Internet of Things conference in Barcelona last month.

One of those many ‘attack surfaces’ identified by Fraser Howard, Principle Researcher of Sophos Labs are the dozens of household devices from smart TVs to internet connected egg holders that are beginning to appear in homes.

Almost all these devices will have flaws in their firmware and yet almost no vendor has an interest in maintaining or patching the firmware of this equipment.

“Consumers have no way of managing this problem” says Fraser as it’s almost impossible for householders to upgrade their systems and consumer electronics manufacturers have a poor track security track record.

“There’s a long history of companies with mass market items which deal with things like important items like credentials where they have not had a single thought about security,” says Fraser.

Security is one the many challenges facing the internet of things along with to manage rogue devices in grid networks. There’s a lot of work to be done in ensuring systems aren’t disrupted by an outlier sensor or critical information disclosed by a poorly secured or out of date smart device.

As connected egg trays start talking to the supermarket, we have to be confident that we aren’t going to come home to find our connected device hasn’t delivered a pallet load of fresh eggs or that it hasn’t given away our banking details to an organised crime ring.

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A soonologist’s view of the future

BT Futurologist Nicola Millard on being a futurologist and the future of the workplace, the open plan office and customer service.

“I think my job title is a little bit misleading,” says Nicola Millard of her role as BT’s Customer Service Futurologist. “Most people would imagine futurologists have a crystal ball that works and maybe talking about twenty to twenty five years out about a future where intelligent robots have taken over the world.”

“My horizon tends to be a bit shorter,” Nicola explains. “My time tends to start in about three weeks time and tends to extend to five years, so I’m more of an industrial futurologist and CEOs tend not think beyond the next three weeks.” “I guess more of a ‘soonologist’ than a futurologist.”

Nicola was talking to the Decoding The New Economy YouTube channel at BT’s London Demonstration centre where the time frame is somewhat more than the next three weeks as the company shows off the technology and product lines it believes are going to change the communication industry.

For BT and Nicola, much of the near future is focused in how consumer and workplace behaviour is being changed by IT and communications technology.

Nicola sees an interesting relationship between technology and people – technology can radically change peoples’ behaviour but it also can amplify existing behaviours. “It can certainly influence the way we work, rest and play, in the ways we approach the office and how we consume,” says Nicola.

“Behaviour changes are really fascinating when we give people people access to technologies that give them more choice and more information than ever before. It untethers us. All of these thing present opportunities to change that way we do stuff.”

The untethered office

Technology has also untethered the office, says Nicola. “In the old days we had to go to the office at nine o’clock in the morning and leave at five in the afternoon. We didn’t have any other options – we had a desk, we had big technology and we had masses of paper.”

“That’s all changed.” Workplaces have always struggled with collaboration and Nicola sees the open plan office as being a 1970s attempt to get workers to talk and work with each other rather than hiding behind closed doors. “By forcing people into open plan we hoped that by breathing the same air they would start to collaborate.”

“Now we collaborate with people that aren’t necessarily in the same place as us. The office itself has become a collaboration tool,” Nicola says. “We’re seeing the evolution of the office.”

Today’s technology tools and remote working have changed the role of the workplace with the office becoming a place for workers to collaborate and work together, however that nature of work has changed.

Working beyond the office

With improved connectivity the home office and mobile workers have come into their own with BT having around ten percent of their workforce operating from their residences and the company finds they achieve around a twenty percent improvement in productivity from those staff.

However home working isn’t for everyone. “I’m a terrible home worker,” Nicola says. “I tend to go mad so if I want to collaborate I go to the office but I want to work quietly I go to the coffice’, which is generally a third place outside the office or home.”

“There’s only four things I need to work; good coffee, good cake – these first two are non-negotiable –  good connectivity and then I need company. Not necessary office type company but just a buzz.“

The change to retailing

Today’s buzz extends to shopping, the shops are fuller on a Saturday afternoon than they have ever been before. The showrooming phenomenon – where customers use their smartphones to check prices and proudcts while in the shop – allows retailers to enhance their sales strategy as the same available to shoppers can also be used by sales assistants.

“Shopping is sometimes a contact sport,” Nicola observes. “the fact we are comparing and contrasting, the fact we are challenging the physical shop. Waving our mobile phone on the shopfloor.” “Retailers for a long time resisted showrooming, they split their online and physical spaces. We’re now seeing those physical lines blurring.”

Emerging trends

Nicola sees the biggest challenge facing business in the near future being agility – as cloud services expand, it’s easier for companies to scale which places pressure on many incumbent businesses.

Big Data also presents opportunities, “there’s always been big data, we’ve always had too much data, the analytics tools have changed.” For great challenge though for business is change and this is what will focus executive attention in the near future. “Businesses tend to be built to last rather than for change.”

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