Innovation and the Next Big Thing

What's the next big thing? When it comes to technology, more and more companies are asking this question.  We all saw how social media had a dramatic impact on the way we do business.

Loosely defined as introducing something new or different, innovation is fundamental to many IT projects, especially those that involve developing new technologies, new methods, or new business processes.

The world of information technology is undergoing tremendous change on a global scale and it is affecting all aspects of business and society in unanticipated ways. Innovation is a core driver of growth and performance over time, and the most successful companies develop strategies and tactics that enable them to keep pace with, anticipate, and even benefit from these changes.


However, many IT groups spend more time keeping existing systems working than they do deploying something new.  If you can embrace change and you understand the strategy of the business, you are in a good position to discover the next big thing.

Mobile Malware

Careful what you install on your smartphone. The number of mobile malware threats is on the rise and cybercriminals are finding more ways to infect your mobile device.

The number of malware programs posing as legitimate mobile apps grew by more than 600 percent in 2012.  The most popular target is Google’s Android. Criminals have tended to favor Android as their target, because there is less oversight on the process of releasing applications into the wild.

When the victims of malware attacks take their smartphones into work, their devices could infect the corporate network or collect corporate information through the infected device, and then send that information back to a command server operated by cybercriminals.

Free apps in the games and personalization categories were the most likely to carry malware.  What can we do about this?  The best thing to do is stay informed and to find an information resource for your mobile device.

Make Work a Game

Are you competitive? Do you enjoy a challenge? Do you like getting rewards?  Then gamification is for you. Gamification is the use of game mechanics and game design techniques in non-game contexts.

Typically gamification applies to non-game applications and processes, in order to encourage people to adopt them, or to influence how they are used. Gamification works by making technology more engaging, by encouraging users to engage in desired behaviors, by showing a path to mastery and autonomy, by helping to solve problems and not being a distraction, and by taking advantage of humans' psychological predisposition to engage in gaming. The technique can encourage people to perform chores that they ordinarily consider boring, such as completing surveys, shopping, filling out tax forms, or reading web sites.

Available data from gamified websites, applications, and processes indicate potential improvements in areas like user engagement, ROI, data quality, timeliness, or learning.

You are probably engaged in some form of gamification in your lives, earning bonus points and special discounts for playing a game.  This trend is growing, and shows no sign of slowing down.

The Emerging Role of the CDO

The role of the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) in the enterprise has gotten a great deal of attention in recent months. For example, Gartner predicted that by 2015, 25% of organizations will have a CDO and further estimated that 20% of chief information officers (CIOs) have already taken on the responsibilities of the CDO.

Adapting to the digital era requires a new skill set that existing leadership teams, including CIOs, don’t necessarily possess. A successful digital strategy requires a holistic approach, involving Web, mobile, social and traditional platforms.

While it is true that all things digital are powered by technology, CIOs typically focus on back-office technology. They are not generally the internal champions of front-office innovations. The CDO has the responsibility to use technology to connect with the modern customer and craft the experience they get.

In the digital era, business models cannot be limited to what legacy IT is able to support. Instead, all business systems, including monetization platforms, must adapt to deliver the experiences customers want. Making sure that happens is the true role of the CDO.

LinkedIn Fast Becoming a Media Company

LinkedIn is slowly becoming a giant media company with a huge and very active audience of 200 million people.

As traditional media companies are struggling to maintain ad revenues in a very competitive market, LinkedIn is starting to deliver relevant news and features based on their interests and what people in their network and industries were reading and sharing

In October of 2012, LinkedIn began distributing "original content" though the influencers program.  The program launched with 150 thought leaders and has since grown to 300.  These thought leaders can write about anything they want to, and LinkedIn users can subscribe to their articles, and comment on them or share them with their own professional networks.

Hundreds of business leaders, writing for 200 million readers with a well-designed mobile application….. sounds like a pretty good media company to me.

The Evolution of Social Media

In case you have not noticed, all of the big social media sites are competing for your time.  They are stealing the best features from each other and adding them to their sites.  LinkedIn added the ability to “like” certain posts and now provides news updates or trending posts. Facebook is adding a job searching feature, and Twitter is now posting videos to your profile.

In the past I have described social media sites this way…LinkedIn is for professionals, Facebook is for family and friends, and Twitter is for everyone else.  That was fine for a while, but now these sites are morphing into a one size fits all mentality.  Google+ may be partially to blame as they came in to compete with all the social media sites, and they have succeeded.

With advertising dollars being the big driver, these sites will continue to battle for your time.  Pick your favorite horse(s) and ride the social media evolution.

Is Google ready to take on the enterprise market?

Is Google ready to take on the enterprise market?

Google recently announced that it would start charging small companies for using its business applications.  This signals a move that Google is starting to look beyond the consumer and is now ready to tackle the enterprise market.

Over the last five years, Google has added a lot of features to its cloud-based productivity suite Google Apps, and has rolled out new services like Drive (storage) and the Compute Engine (cloud-based compute power). Gmail has also become a viable alternative to Outlook.

Still, enterprise makes up less than 4% of Google's revenue, and the company readily admits it builds products for consumers first, then takes features over to the enterprise later on. Meanwhile, while Google has gotten some big wins, Microsoft Exchange and Office remain steadfast corporate standards.

In 2013, we'll see if Google starts thinking enterprise first, with rapid product development and acquisitions of key enterprise startups, or if it remains a nice but relatively small side business for the company.