Tag Archives: innovation

Smart IoT 2016 Day One

Business, Reviews, Technology, Trends, , , , ,

Smart IoT 2016 exhibition panoramicI went to the Smart IoT (Internet of Things) event today in London’s Excel centre. The programme of presentations over the two days looked great, so I signed up a while ago. This post is to share with my colleagues and for anyone else who couldn’t make it today.

I’ll start with a summary and then go into detail, because I made lots of notes during the presentations.

Summary of Smart IoT 2016 Day One

On the content:

  • There were some thought provoking content (which I’ve covered below) mixed in with some below-par presentations.
  • I didn’t see any presentations where payments were discussed. I.e how IoT devices will transact with one another/ a service/ a person.

Continue reading Smart IoT 2016 Day One →

Robot Assistants: Google Inbox v. Microsoft Office 2016

Application Review, Technology, Trends, , , , , , , ,
The infamous paper clip - the first robot assistant (we just didn't know it at the time)
The infamous paper clip – the first robot assistant (we just didn’t know it at the time)

Last October, one of Gartner’s predictions for the digital future was that we will have robot assistants helping us perform work – not mechanical work, but office-based work such as content creation:

By 2018, 20 percent of business content will be authored by machines.

This is a bold claim – two years isn’t a long time, and 20% of office productivity is a lot of… documents and spreadsheets and presentations.

I’ve long been a fan of Google Inbox, the alternative interface to Gmail. Inbox recently announced that 10% of email replies using Google Inbox are now written by the built-in SmartReply feature – probably the biggest current implementation of a robot assistant. Continue reading Robot Assistants: Google Inbox v. Microsoft Office 2016 →

The future of mobile

Business, Technology, Trends, , , , , , , , , ,
The Future of Mobile at MobOS. It probably won't be like an iPhone 4
The Future of Mobile at MobOS. It probably won’t be like an iPhone 4

I’m in Romania this week presenting a variety of speeches, including the keynote of MobOS entitled The future of mobile. It’s been a challenging speech to prepare for – and was considerably harder than I originally thought. Not least because in technology terms, “the future” means different things to different organisations. One organisation might think some future of mobile concept is way-out-there while another may have already been using it for a year.

I promised the audience to post the script of the keynote here…

I’m going to talk about four areas on the future of mobile – context, the number of devices we use, mobile user interfaces and the central hub concept. That will set some foundation for some ‘left field’ concepts that we have for the longer term future of mobile. Continue reading The future of mobile →

TechUK and the Connected Home (IoT)

Business, Technology, Trends, , , ,
It was a large audience for today's TechUK IoT #connectedhome event. Credit: João Marques Lima on Twitter
It was a large audience for today’s TechUK IoT #connectedhome event.
Credit: João Marques Lima

This morning I went to an event at Tech UK called “The Connected Home: Empowering the consumer through the Internet of Things”. Here are my notes which I managed to quickly scribble down.

Jeremy Green from Machina Research was the chairman for the morning.

Energy Retail

  • In the energy retail market, smart meters increased conversion rate from 12 to 48% through more intelligent offers and improved proposition
  • Internet of Things (IoT) is about getting data to a user’s smartphone to view analytics and make a choice of what to do 20% of energy bills are ‘background use’ – which is background energy being used while sleeping, or not even knowing a device is on.
  • The topic was highly focussed on Smart Meters, mainly because of the panel at the event (smart meter suppliers). Unfortunately there was nothing about changing business models and it led to some government bashing.

Continue reading TechUK and the Connected Home (IoT) →

Reviewing the new Google Play Movies Second Screen Experience

Application Review, Technology, , , , , , ,

Last night I sat down with Mrs H last night to watch Kingsman (an except film, highly recommended) on Google Chromecast. The film was pay per view, which was selected on my smartphone and then ‘transferred’ to Chromecast.

Kingsman - a great film, and the real life gadgets are almost as good as the fictional ones
Kingsman – a great film, and the real life gadgets are almost as good as the fictional ones

I noticed a new feature last night – while the film was playing I looked at my phone and the screen showed the characters and actors currently on the TV screen, as well as the music soundtrack. It was like Shazam on steroids!

How many times have you been watching TV and wondered who a specific actor was? If this happens to you regularly, you’ll love the experience.

Continue reading Reviewing the new Google Play Movies Second Screen Experience →

Favor: This is going to be the next big mobile app

Application Review, Reviews, , , ,
Favor app. Someone in my office thought this guy looks like me. I'm not so sure.
The excellent Favor app. Someone in my office thought this guy looks like me. I’m not so sure.

Whilst I was in the US last week I heard about Favor, a new app which provides a concierge/ delivery service. Although Favor is only available in half a dozen US cities, it seems to be growing very quickly and it’s only a matter of time before it’s available internationally.

Favor enables a customer to order an item from a nearby shop and have it delivered straight away. The average delivery time is 35 minutes. It costs $5 plus 5% of the product(s). The product can be food, dry cleaning, clothing, groceries, etc., although this being America, they won’t deliver alcohol.

Continue reading Favor: This is going to be the next big mobile app →

What is Digital Transformation in Financial Services?

Business, Trends, ,

This morning I was on the keynote panel at the FST (Financial Services Technology) Conference in Dallas, USA with the snazzy title of Digital Transformation. I was joined by three other panelists from Thomson Reuters, Wells Fargo and Discover. It was a lively debate, with some differing views and experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

In preparation for the conference, I put together my thoughts on what is Digital Transformation? There are many industry commentators who are putting every project into their Digital Transformation bucket (well, budget). And Transformation either starts with or leads on to Innovation – so what is Innovation? Continue reading What is Digital Transformation in Financial Services? →

Reading list for June

Business, Reading links, Site review, Technology, Trends, , , , , , , ,
The latest Marketplace Innovation report
The latest Marketplace Innovation report is available on Slideshare

During the last couple of weeks I’ve been working with clients across different industries – a key advantage for these clients, and something I love about my job.

It’s also been London Technology Week – a series of events showcasing you guessed it, Technology in London’s firms, including a great event at Goldman Sachs.

As well as these links I’m midway through reading Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo which is easy to read and proven quite useful so far, although it would score high on the American cheesiness scale.

Here’s what I’ve been reading:

Continue reading Reading list for June →

A Review of Google Inbox

Application Review, Site review, , ,
New Google Inbox - the names and subjects have been blurred to protect the guilty
The new Google Inbox. The names and subjects have been blurred to protect the guilty

Last week one of my Endava colleagues came over to my desk in the office and caught a glimpse of my Outlook Inbox. The way I organise my email is really simple – unread emails in my Inbox constitute my Items To Do. Once I’ve acted upon the email, or strictly speaking, the item-to-do, I then delete the email. I could just rename the Deleted Items folder as Done – to me it’s the same thing because I keep all the emails in my Deleted Items anyway.

To my Endava colleague, my extra simple organisation of Inbox and Deleted Items was alien – they preferred multiple folders, and Follow Up flags, and categories (which I do use in the Calendar, but not email). In fact, she was most upset that most of her emails appeared in my Deleted Items folder – because I’d acted upon them, and not filed away in a project folder .

Continue reading A Review of Google Inbox →

Payments International 2015 – Endava & Worldpay Fireside Chat

Business, Technology, Trends, , , ,

As the Principal Sponsors of Payments International 2015 event, we had a slot to speak on the closing afternoon (I’m never sure if the last afternoon – especially a Friday afternoon – is a blessing or a curse).

One of our biggest clients in the payments industry, Worldpay, offered to join us at the event, so Nick Telford-Reed, their Director of Technology Innovation, and I both spoke on stage.

Continue reading Payments International 2015 – Endava & Worldpay Fireside Chat →