July 2015

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 jul 2015

In recent years marketing has been consistently evolving due to the changes driven by technological advances. These digital transformations are creating a resource crunch in marketing departments of organizations. They are facing more challenges and to effectively manage the digital require new skillsets. Initially digital was considered as a medium of communication like TV, Print etc. But according to Jean-Luc Ambrosi, a marketing expert and author of the book 'Branding to Differ', 'Blending traditional marketing skills with the new age of digital is not an easy affair...What has changed, however, is that digital is not simply a medium, it is many mediums with different media consumption patterns. Both a push and a pull mechanism, it is above-the-line, direct marketing, social media as well as point-of-sales, all under one big label.' Marketers now need multiple skills and to clarify roles and resource accordingly is becoming a difficult task for marketing departments. Mr. Ambrosi further explains, 'With the shift in emphasis around treating digital as a multi-medium platform, the solution may lie in building teams focused on the customer rather than the digital channel. With customer centricity at the core, marketing teams can treat digital for what it is: A multifaceted mechanism to interact with customers, and a means rather than an end.' The best sourcing solution would be to seek marketing specialists with the specific skillsets adapted to the digital environment. The basics of marketing should not be ignored while focusing on digital. Mr. Ambrosi advises, 'The under resourcing of digital activities is a function of the expansion of marketing activities in the digital ecosystem, rather than the disappearance of traditional marketing. Therefore, it should be answered via the adaptation of marketing specialist resources to digital rather than a shift towards technical digital specialists.' Read on...

CMO: Marketing skills in a virtual world
Author: Jean-Luc Ambrosi

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 jul 2015

Effective collaboration between private and public entities, by pooling their strengths and resources, can bring better and efficient outcomes of public and civic services for the citizens. An example of such a collaborative approach is the Small Business Portal that was launched in 2014 in San Francisco. For the project, Mayor's Office, Department of Technology, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Office of Small Business and Tomorrow Parter's (a design firm), came together to create a one-stop portal for people that provides information for starting, managing and expanding a company. The design firm utilized human-centered design principles to shape the innovation strategy and build a website that simplified and streamlined the process of starting a business. They took an 'inside out' and 'outside in' approach to understanding the challenges. Extensive research and focus groups were used and this finally led to establishing six main attributes for building a successful interface. According to Gaby Brink, founder and chief designer of Tomorrow Partners, 'They were filters for us to evaluate our design and establish clear guidelines for the various people developing content to ensure that we had a consistent voice.' The six key principles of digital design that represent their approach are - (1) Do the Right Thing: Sets the overall tone of the project. Sets clear expectations and make the process transparent. Assures the caring attitude. (2) Curate Content: Maintains the quality and availability of the right information to the diverse set of audience. (3) Make It Accessible: Responsive design and customization utilized to provide access to website on multiple devices and platforms. (4) Treat Constituents as Consumers: Users are to be treated as consumers, instead of taxpayers or voters, that civic authorities serve. (5) Dole Out Delight: Make the experience of the users pain-free, simple and as enjoyable as possible with a human approach. Shouldn't be a typical government portal. (6) Increase Trust: Make sure that the users feel that the government is working for them. Assuring that interacting with government is not a difficult and doubtful process. Jane Gong, Program Director of the Department of Technology, says 'From a user perspective, most of the time government thinks about putting together a website, it's copying from municipal code and pasting in some clip art. For the first time we did UX/UI research. This needs to be the approach of all government websites. It's time for government to take a step back and say we're here to serve people and make sure that we're accessible and responsive.' Read on...

Fast Company: 6 Principles Of Digital Design For Civic Innovation
Author: Diana Budds

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 jul 2015

Wikipedia article on 'Emotional Intelligence' explains it as, 'The ability to recognize one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior'. The article further categorizes EI into three models - (1) Ability Model (by Peter Salovey and John Mayer): Focuses on the individual's ability to process emotional information and use it to navigate the social environment. (2) Trait Model (by Konstantin Vasily Petrides): Encompasses behavioral dispositions and self perceived abilities and is measured through self report. (3) Mixed Model (by Daniel Goleman): A combination of both ability and trait EI. It defines EI as an array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance. While most people may believe that innovation and creativity are born traits and might not have any connection with EI, but Harvey Deutschendorf, author and EI expert, explains that EI plays an important role in innovative and creative thinking. He outlines 7 common EI-related traits that innovators have - (1) Innovators have their ego in check. (2) Emotionally intelligent people are confident, not arrogant. (3) They are continually curious. (4) They are good listeners. (5) They don't let their emotions affect their innovation efforts. (6) They can take direction. (7) They empathize with co-workers and customers. Read on...

Fast Company: 7 HABITS OF INNOVATIVE THINKERS
Author: Harvey Deutschendorf

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 16 jul 2015

Design is an important aspect of web and mobile strategy of businesses. It is necessary that users of the website and apps have ease of access to information regarding products and services, and can effectively interact and engage with it. Usability and other aspects of design become all the more critical when the website is a social platform like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. Continuous improvement and transformation of design on these platforms is driven both by internal and external necessities. The redesigns are generally due to the evolving and dynamic nature of technologies and the changing behavior of users and needs of the customers. According to Amy Parnell, Director of User Experience at LinkedIn, 'Our design principles focus on creating experiences that are approachable, streamlined, personalized and guided. We want to ensure the experience feels efficient and productive, helping our members to achieve their goals.' According to her, redesign at LinkedIn is based on data collected from multiple sources - market research, user research, site metrics and analytics and help center feedback. Internal feedback from employees is critical before the public launch. External feedback from customers is obtained to further refine or modify the design based on user requirements. Valuable content is needed to engage and retain customers. Read on...

Adweek: How Important is Design? Q&A with LinkedIn's Amy Parnell
Author: Justin Lafferty

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 16 jul 2015

Companies spend substantial time and money to create their brands. It is a continuous process to keep the brand value intact. Jarad Hull, CEO of Blueroof360, elaborates on the mistakes that companies should avoid while pursuing their branding journey - (1) A lack of passion: Be passionate about your branding and create an emotional connect with customers. Passion leads to genuine enthusiasm. (2) Inconsistencies: Create a consistent brand identity and showcase it to both employees and customers. As representatives, employees should maintain this branding consistency. (3) No focus: Keep focus and have a detailed marketing plan before embarking on a branding process. Concentrate on the target audience. (4) Trying too hard: Don't use excessive humor or get too trendy as it may repel customers. Engage them with meaningful and relevant messages. (5) No branding communication: Ensure that employees understand the branding strategy. Train them as brand representatives. Read on...

Inman: 5 branding mistakes you might be making
Author: Jarad Hull

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 14 jul 2015

According to Gartner forecast for global education sector, including higher education as well as primary and secondary schools, technology spending to grow 2.3% to reach US$ 67.8 billion in 2015. A report by Global Industry Analysts (GIA) predicts that the global e-learning market will reach US$ 107 billion in 2015. The increasing cost of education alongwith the need to enhance its value and impact is encouraging education providers to experiment with new business models and utilize innovative technologies. The education technology industry is growing with enormous speed and startups are sprouting in a number of areas that includes content management platforms, online course delivery platforms, adaptive learning, digital assessments, mobile apps etc. This mushrooming of startups creates challenges and extraordinary competition for survival and success. Zach Cutler, founder of The Cutler Group, provides 5 challenges that ed-tech startups face and solutions to overcome them - (1) The edtech industry has exploded: Innovators have to search for unmet needs and provide niche solutions instead of using copycat models. (2) Funding for edtech startups is not extraordinarily high: Although EdSurge estimates that ed-tech investment reached US 1.36 billion in 2014, but it is not sufficient to fulfil the need of crowded startup situation. Startups have to create strong revenue models from even the early stage and survive through revenue generation initially. (3) The education industry is slow to move: Resistance to change is a common aspect of traditional education systems and administrations. Entrepreneurs need to have data-backed approach to demonstrate the real value of ed-tech to educators. (4) Most schools don't have excess money in their budgets: Resource crunch is a reality and innovators need to provide low-cost high-value models to get accepted. (5) Academia is more about theory and less about action: Entrepreneurs can add a co-founder with an academic background to communicate effectively with academic decision-makers. Read on...

Entrepreneur: 5 Challenges Facing Education-Tech Startups
Author: Zach Cutler

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 10 jul 2015

Over the years economists have used different terms to represent economic downturn or slow down in economic activity like 'Stagnation', 'Contraction', 'Recession', 'Depression' etc. Often these words have different perceptions and may have different impact on public's sentiments. Alfred Kahn, one of President Jimmy Carter's economic advisors and professor at Cornell University, even called 'recession' a 'banana'. In 1930s, Keynesian economist and professor at Harvard University, Alvin Hansen, outlined the term 'Secular Stagnation' in his book 'Full Recovery or Stagnation?'. According to him, 'American economy would never grow rapidly again because all the growth ingredients had played out, including technological innovation and population growth. The only solution, he argued, was constant, large-scale deficit spending by the federal government.' Although the term lost its prevalence during the economic boom of 1940s and 1950s, but recently Professor Lawrence Summers of Harvard University used the term to represent slow pace of the current economic expansion. He himself is an advocate of deficit-financed government spending. Ed Yardeni, President and Chief Investment Strategist of Yardeni Research, explains how the current economic situation is leading to 'Secular Stagnation' and what are the main reasons behind it. He says, 'I think it is mostly attributable to too much fiscal and monetary intervention by our governments. More of these policies will make things worse, not better.' He explains that global economic growth slowed down in June with contraction in emerging market economies. While Japan and Eurozone posted growth and US above global average, BRIC economies were the weakest. Only positive sign is the rise in employment m/m for the overall index. Read on...

Investing.com: Global Economy - More Secular Stagnation Ahead
Author: Ed Yardeni

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 09 jul 2015

Technology-enabled innovative models in healthcare hold promise to bring digital doctors, diagnostics, health monitoring etc in the hands of patients. According to Bob Wachter, author of 'The Digital Doctor' and professor at University of California at San Francisco, 'There are many things that patients can do to help themselves...if armed with good algorithms and good backup plans.' But he cautions that there is a limit to such interactions and patients need to know when to visit a doctor. Digital healthcare space is in the boom phase with US$ 2 billion invested in 2014, says Ahmed Albaiti, founder and CEO of Medullan. Moreover well entrenched healthcare organizations have also inclined their strategies towards a digital health future. To pursue their goals they are opening labs, practices and divisions exclusively focused on digital technologies and innovations. They are also partnering with entrepreneurs and innovators. All these transformations are contributing towards a new digital healthcare ecosystem. Brian Tilzer, Chief Digital Officer of CVS Health, says 'The recently opened Digital Innovation Lab at CVS is a warehouse-size space where innovators and entrepreneurs can come together, test new products and hash out ideas with each other.' The lab's current work includes - Connected otoscope; Connected blood pressure monitor; Apple Watch integration. According to StartUp Health's 2015 mid-year report, 'More than 7,500 startups around the world are developing solutions in digital health.' Read on...

USA TODAY: The digital doctor is in - Next wave in health care
Author: Trisha Thadani

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 07 jul 2015

Higher education is undergoing shifts due to involvement of technology, pressures of rising costs, newer methods of teaching and learning, and changing perceptions of its quality and value with customers demanding better offerings. In this transformative scenario traditional higher education ecosystem seems unprepared to manage the challenges. European Commission's 'Study of Innovation in Higher Education' observed, 'The blockages for innovation can be found both at the institutional level, such as the lack of institutional support for innovative practices, and at national/regional, for example influenced by different degrees of autonomy of higher education institutions. Regulatory frameworks are also a crucial potential blockage to some innovative practices'. Patrick Harker, President of the University of Delaware, notes that 'One of the biggest limitations of the design of education services is that we assume teaching is the same as learning, and the resistance to change reflects the belief that too much variety in learning approaches would disrupt our highly optimized, highly engineered teaching system.' Rahul Choudaha of World Education Services (WES) explains that the time is ripe for the development of higher education innovation ecosystem with expanded stakeholders. There is pressure on traditional institutions regarding the approaches to learning due to some of the recent innovations like adaptive learning, competency-based learning and MOOCs. According to Mr. Choudaha, 'Innovation is taking place at a much faster rate at the fringes of the education system than at its core. It is getting accelerated by the energy of entrepreneurs, employers, investors and most importantly, new types of learners who are open to experiment. The opportunity for higher education institutions and systems is to embrace outsiders as an important part of the innovation ecosystem.' He suggests that they should work towards building new partnerships and collaborations and include new stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem to adopt and accelerate innovations. Read on...

Huffington Post: Building an Ecosystem of Higher Education Innovation
Author: Rahul Choudaha

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 04 jul 2015

Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard University on his website claytonchristensen.com, defines 'Disruptive Innovation' as 'A process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors.' Eli Schwartz, Director of Marketing (APAC) at SurveyMonkey, explains that continuous customer feedback through surveys is an effective approach to be disruptive by staying in the customer's value perception. In a disruptive scenario, satisfying customer needs and obtaining their loyalty are two most important considerations. He cites an example of Uber's constant feedback process that successfully keeps the company closer to the customers and provides them ability to tweak the service offerings based on customer suggestions. He offers following tips on how to utilize Uber like feedback to disrupt the markets - (1) Gather feedback after every customer interaction. (2) Ask actionable questions and act on the feedback. (3) Make feedback an integral part of business metrics. (4) Use Net Promoter Score (NPS) i.e. a question where a customer is asked to rate their likelihood of referring a product or business to their friends. Read on...

Tech in Asia: A successful disruption requires customer feedback
Author: Eli Schwartz

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 02 jul 2015

Technology impacts and improves various aspects of healthcare delivery. Companies and organizations are embracing technological innovations to provide better healthcare services. According to Valter Adão of Deloitte Digital Africa, 'One of the most damaging myths surrounding digitisation is that it is an "all or nothing" process...Healthcare providers do not need to massively overhaul their practices to meet the oncoming wave of new technologies when they can integrate certain technologies within traditional healthcare structures, or adopt technological solutions in a gradual and modularised process.' While mentioning pace of technology adoption, he says that it is going to be sooner. Data management and analytics are two areas that will bring most transformations in healthcare. Patient records on cloud, wearables and monitoring devices and analytics to customize treatment to patients are some of the changes that will happen soon. Concerns of data security and privacy have to be resolved. Technology will also bring efficiencies in medical care processes through mobile devices and apps. Moreover improvements in printing technologies and 3D printing will also make a significant impact in healthcare. Heinrich Pretorius, OKI printing products specialist at DCC, says 'Printing technology is advancing to allow medical practitioners and facilities to use one printer for all their printing needs, as opposed to maintaining several different printers for different types of scans and imaging processes. Printing technology is also evolving to allow users to print directly from medical equipment without the need for time-consuming conversion software or external hardware.' Read on...

ITWeb: Healthcare tech adoption 'not far off'
Author: Michelle Avenant