Embracing technological change
It’s being roughly two weeks since the WebSummit 2017 took Lisbon by storm. Nevertheless there are some thoughts that still lingers on my mind after this time. Here are some conclusions after three days of a pure people&tech experience.
Humanity is in a crossroads. We must decide and take action on whether to use current and near future advancements on technology as an ally to our day-to-day chores, or defer important decisions on regulations, let it run and grow freely and eventually, let it rule us – a vision similar to the apocalyptic world of Terminator. When put in this terms, it appears to be too much of an exaggeration – but it was actually brought up by some speakers during the conferences.
We are still far away from either of those scenarios. There is still a lot of work to do, a lot of gaps to fill and a lot of changes that still need to happen before we arrive to that promised future. Yet, we have never been so close. And though our concept of technology has changed as it evolved, never before have we had so many technological advancements in so many fields happening at the same time. As Al Gore referenced, change is happening in front of us, and it has the magnitude of the industrial revolution, but at much higher speed; with developers as enablers and catalysts – similar to workers of the industrial revolution. Experts say this trend will continue to grow at the same rate, or faster.
Looking roughly 35, maybe 40 years in the future, we will see all manual work be done by machines. This means that a lot of jobs will be gone, but it also means that there will be more time available for people to dedicate to undertakings machines are not able to do. It will also mean new necessities will arise and thus, the way we approach our daily routines will change as a consequence. As Guy Standing said: In the future, people won’t have just a stream of work, but will be having different jobs focusing on what they want, using technology as an enabler.
Some topics of innovation displayed on the summit included transportation tending to autonomous driving, centralized vehicle routing for traffic optimization and of course, Uber’s flying cars; retail enhanced through machine learning and virtual and augmented reality; health treatments improved using mini-robots and new research technologies; and sustainability through the development of better batteries and other gadgets using IoT, aiming to control and reduce our impact on Earth and climate change. These are all basic needs that we have on our daily lives, but the way we approach them is just evolving to have more connected, collaborative and sustainable societies.
Technology is an enabler for us to close the gaps between problems and solutions, and also help us find new solutions for our old problems. We must embrace change and welcome the opportunities that comes with digital transformation. As Heraclitus said long ago: Change is the only constant.
By Victoria Bello
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CRM vs. CMR – What is CMR and what are the differences against CRM? Should (or can) they co-exist?
The customers are the center of attentions in all companies. Without them any business can’t grow. And the current economic climate they, the customers, are the master key in the company’s growth.
Customer Relationship Management is a great tool to predict what the customer needs, but this paradigm is changing because the new concept of Customer- managed relationship. This new concept takes us to social network world where customers can perform comments about services and products offer by companies. Businesses can take advantage with these two approaches because they can perform several tests about new services and products and register the opinion.
1. Introduction
Nowadays, consumers are no longer passive receivers of masscommunication messages. With product and service options exploding on different multichannel purchase opportunities, the balance of power has shift to the consumer, and thereby it requires important steps for successful relationships between sellers and buyers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools and strategies became…
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Big Data for Business
The decision-making driven by big data is now being widely recognized, and there is growing enthusiasm for this notion, which has taken companies to develop the skills required for data scientists.
Digital Era improved analytics and increased connectivity through new technology, which results in an explosion of the amount of data. Through better analysis of large data volumes that are becoming available, there is the potential to make advances in many scientific disciplines and improve the profitability and success of many companies. Big data is considered the next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity. However, due to this explosion of data, many challenges have raised and should be addressed in order to fully realize this potential.
What is big data?
Big Data is a paradigm for enabling the collection, storage, management, analysis and visualization of large data sets with heterogeneous characteristics. It allows the combination of two or more sources to generate an insight unavailable from just a single stream of information, which provide valuable information for the most different areas.
The characteristics of big data are known by 3 v’s:
1 – Volume – The huge amount of data that organizations receive daily;
2 – Velocity – The large….
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Tech Habits that Everyone Should Have
Have you ever wonder about the importance of having good habits when using your computer? This article is about good habits that you should have to stay healthy, to let your computer stay healthy and especially safe.
As dentists recommend ongoing dental care that includes daily preventive hygiene and regular office visits for all of their patients, with your computer you should do the same, to avoid problems from occurring that might disrupt the use of your computer.
To start with this subject, the main advice I want to give you, is about the way you look at your computer problems. Quite often, computer problems are looked at as catastrophic and non-solvable issues. However the truth is that most computer problems aren’t catastrophic, and you can fix them yourself by upgrading to a better software, cleaning/changing/upgrading your hardware or using recovery/cleaning tools.
Buying a computer, piece of hardware or a software tool
Know how much everything costs. The first tip I can give you, is that you should know when you’re paying too much for a product. Quite often in tech world, people take advantage on other’s lack of knowledge, to sell products over their real price or that do not work as intended.
Second hand products are also good. The second tip, is…
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6 Smart Techniques to Connect With Influential People
If you like sports, you tend to like hanging out with other people that like your favorite teams. The same goes with success. If you possess the qualities and characteristics of what it takes to be successful, it’s likely you’ll be attracted to and want to hang out with other people who share your values.
So what if you’re starting to earn some success in life, but want to make the connection to influential people outside your immediate social circles? Connect to those more successful or influential than you the right way with these six smart techniques.
- Find Connectors
We are no longer bound to geographic areas. If there’s an influencer you’d like to meet, odds are good that you know someone who knows someone who could introduce you. Personal introductions come with…
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6 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance
These days, work-life balance can seem like an impossible feat. Technology makes workers accessible around the clock. Fears of job loss incentivize longer hours. In fact, a whopping 94% of working professionals reported working more than 50 hours per week and nearly half said they worked more than 65 hours per week in a Harvard Business School survey.
Experts agree: the compounding stress from the never-ending workday is damaging. It can hurt relationships, health and overall happiness.
Work-life balance means something different to every individual, but here health and career experts share tips to help you find the balance that’s right for you.
- Attitude is everything
No matter how much you love your job, no matter how big a part of your life it is, ultimately you need to be able to “turn it off” and spend some time not working. This is hard for a lot of people, because their work is…
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6 KEY QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK OURSELVES
“We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: with ambition, drive, and talent, we can rise to the top of our chosen profession regardless of where we started out. But with opportunity comes responsibility. (…) That means it’s up to us to carve out our place in the world and know when to change. And it’s up to us to keep ourselves engaged and productive during a career that may span some 50 years”
How many times have you asked yourself what are your strengths? Probably a few times.
For each professional, knowing what are their strengths is the starting point to be a better professional. To find out what are your strengths, it is important analyse your actions day by day and found out in which things you are
good at, and what characteristics make you achieve the results that you have claimed to.
Then becomes critical also to know what abilities do you need to enhance in order to get the results you want, and what unproductive habits are preventing you from creating the outcomes you desire.
The secret for success is…
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Do you have what it takes? This 6 steps will make a diference
During our professional life we had the opportunity to work in diversified business environments that allowed us to observe and learn from colleagues with different personalities and working styles. We learned that certain attitudes and behaviors are excellent tools to overcome issues while others are a complete disaster.
In the current business environment, where the “rules of the game” are constantly changing, and where competitiveness for employment is increasingly demanding, there are certain attitudes and skills that can promote all the potential that people could achieved.
These attitudes and skills will be presented in this paper in six ways that are correlated and when in action are a valuable professional tool. Based on our experience, these are the topics that we recommend you to follow in order to achieve professional success and excellence. However, we are aware that is not always easy to combine and applicate them and…
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Requirements without users
Conventional wisdom and best practices tell us that end users and other stakeholders must be involved in IT application and other product requirements definition. In traditional mode, the involvement is before design and development. With an Agile approach the users must be an integral part of the project team.
“What to do when users are not available?”
Can you wait for them to get on board the development train? That might take a long while and delay a project that can provide significant benefits to the organization.
Can you force them to get on? That might get you started, but, as soon as they can or must they’ll jump off and your project will be delayed. Sometimes they will even derail the train.
What if you just start without them? Radical and risky you might say, though it might be the best way to get moving and deliver a useful product in the shortest amount of time. Think of a requirements-without-users approach that is like prototyping. A prototype can be developed based on minimal requirements and then refined until the product is ready for production use.
This approach requires that the following conditions are met,
1) you have a window of opportunity to make use of development staff that might not be available later,
2) your users and sponsors are open to getting engaged later in the process (ultimately they must get involved)
3)your sponsors and senior user management are…
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Value Base Selling
When an aggressively price war breaks out reducing margins all over the market, it may be perceived as marketing strategy, however this could lead to costly and unexpected repercussions.
To stand above the competition, without recurring a competition based in price, worldwide organizations are searching for distinct way of providing value not only to their customers but also without compromising its own sustainability.
Nowadays, the concept of value-based selling has become a major concern of analysis.
In his book, Tom Reilly (2003) address a theme regarding the challenges that managers face nowadays – compete aggressively and profitability, not just competing in price but selling superior value.
Moorman, Ruddell, & Sims (2013) defended that the pursuing of value-based selling (VBS) approach will differentiate winners from losers in business-to-business markets.
Despite this, there is a need to investigate and conceptualize the implementation of a solid VBS approach in an organization and its sales force, in order to improve the customer orientation behavior and the search for, always, creating and offering…
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