Paul Wallbank is a speaker and writer charting how technology is changing society and business. Paul has four regular technology advice radio programs on ABC, a weekly column on the smartcompany.com.au website and has published seven books.
Apple’s entry into new markets doesn’t mean doom for the companies already there
Earlier this week Apple announced a range of new services at its annual World Wide Developers Conference ranging from Music to News.
The reports were bad news for companies like Spotify and Flipboard with some reports claiming Apple could destroy $1.8 billion of investors funds.
History though suggests otherwise, industry giants like Microsoft and Google have failed in the past to crush smaller competitors when they’ve entered a market despite the minnows expecting to be crushed.
The reason for this is the smaller company is often more focused on the problem at hand while for the larger organisation the revenue at stake is tiny. For a big organisation to properly execute on a project it has to have the support, if not being actively driven, by senior management.
So it may turn out those startups are not as greatly at risk as first appears. Certainly the reviews of Apple Music haven’t been good.
Published last February, The Most Common Job in Every State used US Census data to examine which were the most common jobs in each state. The change with each census starkly illustrates the changing workforce and, worryingly, a declining diversity.
In 1978 US states boasted a mix of occupations ranging from farm hands and farmers through to machine operators and secretaries. By 1986 secretaries dominated.
Then came the personal computer and the role of the secretary declined to be replaced by truck drivers, although the NPR article notes the definition of a truck driver by the US Census office is very broad.
Interestingly truck drivers themselves seem to have peaked in the 2006 Census with software developers and primary school teachers overtaking them.
For those truck drivers – and forklift operators, couriers and delivery staff who also seem to come under the definition – the future probably doesn’t bode well as automation is increasingly going to take their roles.
The NPR article is an interesting series of snapshots of how an economy is a dynamic beast, assuming industries and the roles in them are static is misguided if not downright dangerous.
Indeed we may well find in twenty years time we’re commenting on the rise and decline of software developers.
What’s an interesting footnote, and worth considering, is what happened to all of the secretaries displaced by personal computers during the 1990s? That’s probably worth considering in another post.
Both the jobs and workplaces of the near future are going to look very different to today.
Last week in Sydney recruitment company Indeed sponsored a Future of Work summit to tease out some ideas about the what jobs will look like in the future.
While I wasn’t able to attend, being in Melbourne to deliver the Managing the Data Age presentation, I did manage to attend a lunch where Paul D’Arcy, the head of Indeed’s Hiring Lab, spoke about some of the trends we’re seeing in the workplace.
“One of the things we see is the change in the role of work over time,” says D’Arcy. “There was a period before the industrial revolution where work was where natural resources were. With the industrial revolution there was a shift to where the companies were organised.”
The interesting thing with that view is that the companies of the early industrial revolution gathered where the natural resources were easily accessed and finish products could be shipped as we saw when visiting England’s Ironbridge, one of the birthplaces of modern industry.
D’Arcy sees technology changing the idea that work goes to the companies, “where people with highly in demand skills congregate then that’s where jobs are created.”
The employment centres of the future will be the cities that attract those highly skilled workers, D’Arcy believes.
Spreading the developer love
One of the changes Indeed has seen in the workplace is how coding has now become a widespread skill with three quarters of all software developers around the world being employed by software companies. In the US it’s only 7% of coders are working for pure tech organisations.
Marketing is one field that has seen a dramatic shift says D’Arcy, “marketing has seen an enormous shift from what was predominately a creative industry to one driven by data.”
One of the constant questions confounding those of us writing and speaking about the future of business is ‘what will be the jobs of the future?’ While D’Arcy didn’t really have that answer one of the points is clear that programming and coding will be among the skills in demand over the near future.
In the longer term it’s still not clear exactly what jobs will be in demand in twenty or thirty years time, then again twenty years ago who would have guessed many of the technology jobs in demand today would have even existed.
While we’re still struggling with what roles will define the workplace it’s clear the location of the workplace is changing as well. The worker of the future will be a much more mobile creature than today and that has ramifications for the future.
How do managers deal with the information age along with the changes bought about by technologies like the Internet of Things, 3D printing, automation and social media?
Management in the Data Age looks at some of the opportunities and risks that face those running businesses. It was originally prepared for a private corporate briefing in June 2015.
Some further background reading on the topic include the following links.
The connected stadium promises a lot but has a long way to deliver on those expectations
Once a year I come out of the closet in Sydney and admit I support Carlton in the Australian Football League. This usually ends in humiliation as Carlton hasn’t beaten Sydney in the last twenty years.
This year’s ritual humiliation coincided with an offer by Telstra to review their smart stadium rollout at the Sydney Cricket Ground’s rebuilt MA Noble stand following a tour of Etihad’s stadium earlier this year.
Late last month I interviewed Mike Caponigro, Cisco’s head of Global Solutions Marketing for Sports and Entertainment, around how smart stadiums are being rolled out around the world, including the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Caponigro sees the smart stadium as complementing the ground experience and Cisco are working with over three hundred venues in thirty countries around the world.
“Live is always going to be best,” states Caponigro. “You can’t replace that tribal passion of the crowd. No matter how excited I get in my living room or with some friends in a pub you’re never going recreate that enthusiasm.”
However the expectations of sports fans are changing Caponigro points out citing how HD television and the internet is changing the experience for spectators outside the stadium, “fans don’t want to be removed from that action.”
So how does the connected stadium experience stack up for a punter who’s used to being in the cheap seats and often wonders if buying that ticket along with putting up with the hassles of getting to the ground, being overcharged for bad food and water down beer is worthwhile compared to staying at home and enjoying it on TV?
A limited App
Like all the smart stadium rollouts, the SCG’s revolves around the onscreen displays and the spectators’ smartphones. Once downloaded the 35Mb app isn’t spectacular. The sports news focuses on cricket – somewhat irrelevant in a Sydney winter – while the transport map front ends into Google Maps.
Probably the biggest disappointment with the app is the venue map which is a detailed PDF lacking any interactive capabilities which successfully manages to pack a lot of information, like the location of light towers, without actually telling you anything useful.
In seat ordering is one of the attractions of the app. Unfortunately we were unable to test it as the collection points are within the members section of the Noble stand which we didn’t have access to.
The lack of real time information about seating, transport and ground information makes the app at best ornamental, indeed there are opportunities missed in upselling such as offering spectators seat upgrades or merchandising offers.
In stadium connectivity
Where the SCG smart stadium shines is in the Wi-Fi connectivity. Mobile connections over 3 and 4G services have always been problematic during match breaks. During the game, the connection was flawless, the only gripe being that the login screen reappeared for a moment everytime the phone was bought out of sleep.
Again though it’s hard not to think the ground management are missing opportunities with the Wi-Fi as the login screen asked for an email address but didn’t give the option of providing an SCG or Swans membership number rather than just an email address.
Not so smart screens
The biggest boast of smart stadiums are the connected screens, the previous tour of Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium showed what could be done but the SCG game was an opportunity to see the videos in action.
Unfortunately the screens actually detracted from the experience. While the main scoreboards were showing game details and replays the smaller screens were showing the SCG members in ground advertising which added nothing for spectators.
Even during the match play, the screens carried the Channel Seven television feed with food outlet advertising wrapped around it. Disappointingly the screens didn’t give any updates on the match play, the goal kicked by Swans’ debutante Dan Robinson (who played for my local junior club) didn’t receive a mention at all.
Overall the spectator experience from the SCG’s smart stadium rollout is underwhelming. This isn’t a result of Telstra and Cisco’s technology but of its implementation with a focus on low value advertising rather than adding value for spectators.
Leaving money on the table
The smart screens need to be delivering more relevant information to fans in the stadium while the smartphone app has to be giving dynamic and useful data to help spectators before during and after the game.
At the moment, it seems there’s a lot of money being left on the table as opportunities beyond pushing advertising onto spectators aren’t being explored.
It’s hard not to think that right now the smart stadium is a solution in search of a problem. Certainly for fans to take anything except the improved Wi-Fi service seriously there ground managements have to offer more than continuous ads for chicken outlets and expensive private schools.
Then again, maybe I’m just bitter as once again us Carlton fans were humiliated by another hundred point loss. For Blues supporters it was another dismal night at the footy ground.
Deceased tycoon and embezzler Alan Bond’s life story provides a good parallel for Australia’s economic development
Last week convicted fraudster and one time Australian national hero Alan Bond passed away. In many respects Bond’s rise, fall and comfortable dotage tells us much about Australia today.
Originally born in England, Bond was a ‘ten pound pom’ – like this writer and two of Australia’s last three Prime Ministers – whose family took advantage of subsidised immigration programs to leave the cold climate and dismal British economy for sunnier, more prosperous parts.
Building the Australian dream
In Australia Bond prospered. On leaving school he became a sign writer and set up a business where he quickly gained a reputation for sharp practices and cutting corners. However as with much of his generation real wealth was to be made in property speculation.
As Australian cities expanded through the 1960s, developers and speculators were at the forefront of the nation’s economic growth. Perth, Bond’s home town, doubled in size between 1961 and 71 and the once dodgy sign maker made his mark as a wheeler and dealer as he traded properties and build his fortune.
As the 1980s began a cashed up Bond was ready to take advantage of the economic orthodoxy of the time that to compete internationally, Australian businesses had to consolidate domestically to gain the scale required to be global players.
Bond added to his claims in 1983 when he wrested the America’s Cup out of the cold dead hands of Long Island’s Newport Yacht Club. Suddenly businessmen were the national heroes and Australians, particularly politicians, fell over themselves to bask in the glow of the nation’s entrepreneurial summer.
Dancing on the world stage
Around the time of the America’s Cup win the newly elected Hawke Labor government deregulated the Australian banking industry providing a ready supply of hungry financiers prepared to fund the global ambitions of Bond and his contemporaries.
The rest of the decade saw Bond leading a wave of Australian entrepreneurs using easy money to build international empires. Bond himself ended up building one of Australia’s brewery duopoly, holding prime Hong Kong property, buying the nation’s most popular TV station and owning a Chilean telephone company.
Naturally much of his money ended up in Switzerland and Lichtenstein, something that would work in his favour early in the 1990s.
The larrikin streak
Bond’s disregard for the law, investors and anyone unfortunate to get between his cronies and a bag of money – politely described as a ‘larrikin streak’ by many – continued as regulators and governments indulged his behaviour.
One good example of the free pass he received from Australian regulators in the 1980s were his insider dealings with his then mistress Diana Bliss, the latter of whom exquisitely timed a purchase of a small energy exploration company stocks in 1988 a week before Bond Corporation announced a take over offer.
Regulators at the time dismissed any claim of insider trading after being assured that neither Bond nor Bliss would ever countenance such behaviour, the Sydney Morning Herald later reported.
When the luck runs out
Eventually the 1980s Australian economic miracle and the entrepreneurs leading it proved to be chimeras based upon property valuations. When the 1990 downturn hit, the rampaging Aussie business heroes all quickly fell as their overindebted empires collapsed.
Bond’s personal fortune however survived thanks to his judiciously salting away assets controlled by loyal advisors. His 1994 bankruptcy hearing ended in farce when he successfully convinced the court he was suffering dementia and couldn’t remember anything of his business dealings.
He couldn’t stay too far ahead of the courts however and ultimately Bond served two prison terms totalling four years for dishonestly pillaging companies to keep his operation afloat.
At the same time Bond was being chased through the courts, Australia’s banks were licking the financial wounds incurred from their irresponsible exposure to the nation’s entrepreneurs. The lessons they learned define modern Australia.
Bearing the brunt
The country’s small business community eventually bore the brunt of the Australian banks’ losses as lenders’ balance sheets were rebuilt through high interest rates, massively increased fees and charges and tightened lending criteria. Many of those high fees and rates continue to cripple Australian business twenty-five years later.
Adding to the Aussie small business sector’s woes, the 1998 Basel I Accords were coming into force favoring property lending over business finance. Increasingly it became harder for any Australian businessperson to raise money from local banks while property speculators were welcome.
Over the next twenty years the result was stark. One chart from the Macrobusiness website illustrates the huge growth in Australian residential property lending and the stagnation of business finance since 1991. Only at one stage, in 2008, has business lending matched the levels of the late 1990s.
That shift to an economy based upon property prices, particularly speculation on residential accommodation, has served Australia well with the nation not experiencing a recession since the 1990s downturn.
The Australian economic miracle
Australia’s success allowed Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens to sneer in 2010 that Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ warnings about the Australian economy lack of diversity were misguided and foolish – the mining boom coupled with never ending property price growth guaranteed the nation’s prosperity.
In this respect, all Australians have become Alan Bond. Just as the bold riders of the 1980s boom based their future on property valuations so too have Australian households and the entire economy thirty years later.
Hopefully for Australians in general it will end better than it did for Alan Bond in 1996.
One though should not weep too much for Alan Bond, after being released in 2000 he quietly rebuilt his empire and in 2008 BRW magazine estimated his wealth at $265 million and named him among the 200 wealthiest people in Australia.
Time will tell if Australians share the deceased tycoon’s luck but in a way we’ve all become little Alan Bonds now in our dependence upon the valuations of our real estate holdings and the indulgence of those financing our lifestyles.
It may well be having a few bob hidden away in Switzerland might the best way for Australia’s indebted homeowners to protect their future.
Comparing Venice to Barcelona is problematic given the Spanish city has a population of 1.6 million compared to the Italian tourist centre’s 60,000. The tourist industry has long overwhelmed Venice.
A more relevant discussion is how does a city like Barcelona avoid a decline like Venice, in my interview with the deputy mayor Antoni Vives in 2013 he described his aim to see the city develop new industries and build on its existing strengths.
The new mayor’s concerns about soaring property costs displacing residents are valid –and shared with every major city in the world.
For Barcelona though the real challenge is to stay relevant in a changing global economy. For the moment the Spanish city has a long way to go, and five hundred years, before its leaders can worry about becoming the new Venice.
Chinese companies withdrawing from US stock markets is bad for both countries
The emergence of Chinese companies and their listing on US stock exchanges has been one of the features of the country’s rise over the last decade.
Now Reuters reports the tide may be turning as disaffected Chinese companies shift back to local stock market listings to counter what they believe are under valuations from US investors.
Two of the notable things about the Chinese stock markets have been the lack of transparency and their volatility.
It may be the current attractive valuations are part of that volatility with the Shanghai Composite stock index having more than doubled this year as opposed to the S&P 500 being up a comparatively disappointing five percent.
For Chinese companies, the relative transparency and discipline of US market listing rules also promised to raise their internal management standards.
The US markets also gained from the Chinese listings as these cemented the nation’s position as the world’s tech centre, with the attraction of American markets fading an opportunity opens for European and Asian exchanges.
Overall, the withdrawal of Chinese companies from US stock exchanges would be a shame for both countries as it makes each of them stronger.
The pivot of online publishing site Medium shows why you can’t trust other services for your web presence
Five years ago I did a presentation describing how a website was essential for every business’ online strategy.
The Business Cornerstone was delivered at the time where many advisers proclaiming Google Places and Facebook as adequate for building an internet presence.
Over time, the importance of having your own domain and website has been proved as different platforms have messed users around with changing terms, arbitrary rulings and often simply closing down services.
For those who’ve published pieces on Medium that the service is not a publishing platform would have come as a surprise given the company has spent the last 18 months encouraging people to contribute to their site.
That Medium is pivoting into something else – a Facebook, an Instagram or a Google Plus – shouldn’t be surprising but once again it illustrates the interests of this services are not necessarily the same as yours and when they conflict it’s your interests that will come off second best.
While platforms like Medium, Facebook and LinkedIn are useful for distributing your message, the best long term online presence you can have is your own website. It’s a lesson those who rely on free third party services keep having to learn.
Rodrigues’ point was tech startups have a very different set of needs to the local small business. “Bob down at the corner shops has been there for 10 years, and he’ll be there for another, he might sell milk, or office chairs, or even fix your watch,” he writes.
Technology startups on the other hand “have ambitions to become big companies, global empires. They are high-growth technology businesses and they are working on goods and services that you might not yet know you need.”
Silicon Valley’s greater fool model
Rodrigues’ comments come from the Silicon Valley Greater Fool mindset where the end game for investors is to flip the business to a bigger company or make out like bandits in a stock market listing. Under that model profitability doesn’t matter, “too early is considered a deterrent for investors looking at a business.”
Not making a profit is fine for a company promising unlimited future growth to the market or a flipper based on finding a greater fool but for most startups those lack of returns see all but a few spectacularly successful ones shrivel away as the company’s funds exhaust before the founders achieve their objective. For Bob the locksmith who doesn’t have a fall back option of returning to a management consulting job, he needs the income.
What’s more fallacious in Rodrigues’ piece is the idea today’s tech startups themselves will be great employers themselves. Even the successful ones haven’t proved to be job generators in the way traditional business have been.
For the traditional small business sector the risks aren’t insubstantial either as the majority of proprietors will barely make a living while risking their assets, time and often health – something understated by the motivational writers urging people to quit their jobs and prove themselves.
A lack of capital
For both the startup community and the small business sector the real challenges lie in being undercapitalised. Most startups will fail because of insufficient capital while the majority of small businesses never quite reach their potential because they lack the funds required to invest in the proper tools.
Much of this comes down to banks retreating from small business lending thanks to the ill thought out Basel rules that treat home mortgages as almost risk free which has discouraged any form of finance not backed by residential property.
In fact many of the challenges facing traditional small businesses such as high rents, unnecessary regulation and high labour costs are as much a problem for the thirty something renting a desk in a tech incubator as they are for 55 year old Bob who’s been running the local locksmiths for the last twenty years.
Misdirected government
Silly schemes like the Australian government’s depreciation scheme aren’t addressing this problem, indeed the Abbott administration’s intention is to provide a brief sugar hit to the nation’s GDP as small business owners buy new laptop computers and toolboxes. It does nothing to address the uncompetitiveness of Australian business or its attractiveness to local investors.
That Rodrigues wants to create a schism between the tech startup community and the small business sector is regrettable, it only confirms in many people’s minds that technology is for geeks and not ‘ordinary people’.
In truth a nation’s business community needs a level playing field, one that doesn’t give preferential treatment to one form of activity over others – be it property speculation, tech startups or dog walking franchises.
While there are genuine differences between the startup sector and the small businesses community – in the same way there are differences between Bob’s locksmiths, Jane’s cafe or Sarah’s dog walking franchise – there is need for businesses divided in asking for equal and fair treatment from government, banks and large corporations.
Having a united voice for all entrepreneurs, however modest their ambitions, is far more important than single groups pleading for special treatment.
The hospitality industry is tough and complex, something that’s not getting easier as keen young startups from unexpected places are entering the market.
The product, which will be a free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8.1 users, has an OEM price tag of $109 for the home edition and $149 for the professional version according the Newegg website.
For Microsoft, the race will be on to get Windows 10 onto as many devices as possible to meet its ambitious targets. How it goes with phones and Internet of Things devices remains to be see.
