Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Google's Cars Last Laughing

Don’t laugh; the new Google prototype car has implications for your business

It may look amusing and easily dismissed as a novelty prototype many years from production, but take a good look at a technology that in a few short years is going to transform your life and have major implications on your business.

Today Google officially announced at the inaugural Code conference that they have built their very own prototype self-driving car. It is designed to be used in urban settings at up to 25mph. It has foam bumpers and an electric motor and, for now at least, the Google signature spinning LiDAR on top. But what really sets it apart is what it doesn’t have; no steering wheel, accelerator nor brake pedal.

A video of the car was also posted on the official Google blog, that included some sample riders from the key demographics that will benefit the most from this technology: disabled (Steve Mahan, star of a previous video and 95% blind), some seniors and a mom and her son.

Change How and Where We Live and Work

The reason that this is such a big deal for your business is because the simple fact that a car can drive itself is going to change how and where we all live and work. The vehicle can dynamically position itself to the point of need and then do work by moving people or goods to where we instruct. We will have a limitless supply of on-demand chauffeurs, or fully automated taxis if you prefer.

We therefore don’t really need to own a vehicle anymore if we don’t want to; or even own several as the automaker’s business model would prefer. Rather than have our multi-purpose vehicle sit idle some 90% of the day, we can hire a vehicle suitable for our need; a shared self-driving electric 2-seater for our commute (and work on the way); an SUV for the group trip at the weekend.

Some will prefer to live further from the city as the commute can now become part of their working day. Some will find it even easier to live in the urban center as they need never own a car again. Sprawl and urban densification at the same time; that will create enormous money flows from many existing business models to new business models. The impacts on land values alone could be transformative.

A few offices will go mobile as rents and overhead costs in the city mean that some prefer the efficiencies and benefits of travelling between job-sites or appointments in their self-driving office.

Have you considered a pimped-out self-driving RV as part of your retirement plan? Travel North America like a snow-bird moving from region to region with the weather and enjoying the company of your like-minded itinerant community.

Some will find their jobs start to change or even disappear such as professional drivers (taxi, truck, bus etc), auto-body repair, auto-insurance, road safety professionals, transportation planners etc.

For some new jobs will appear as new business models spring up overnight. This novel technology will be the catalyst for so many new societal interactions and services. Retail outlets will discover just how useful and cheap self-driving vehicle logistics are. When the vehicles are re-positioning for the morning peak hour they will be able to carry shopping to our homes in journeys that the empty vehicles would have done anyway. You will be able to use social media to profile the characteristics of your ride-share partner for your planned journey, as it’s a great way to cut costs and make new friends. You could even use the new self-driving ‘match’ service, and if the morning drive goes well you can go out on a date later that evening.

The hospitality industry will forever be in debt to this technology if it means more people are willing to get out for the evening and have a good time because they are less concerned about how they will get home.

If you are having problems finding workers then you will be pleased to know that self-driving vehicles will greatly improve access to your business premises. Some that are disabled, too poor, without a driving license, unable to drive etc. will now find it that much easier to hold down a job.

Planning is Prudent

If you are making medium and long term plans for your business then please consider how self-driving vehicles might impact on them. For instance, if you are going to commit billions of dollars to some major transportation infrastructure then you might want to do some due diligence, as the optimal project design could look very different in ten years time when self-driving cars are in the midst of transforming society. At a more mundane level, if you are expanding your business and wondering how you are going to accommodate all that extra parking in the future, then perhaps you may not need to.

Morgan Stanley are certainly encouraging us to take this technology seriously. They estimate that the US could save $1.3 trillion/year when self-driving vehicles are fully deployed; that is nearly 8% of the US GDP in 2012.

To misquote the British military 7P's adage: Your proper prior planning for the implications of self-driving vehicles will help prevent poor performance; and is very prudent.

Is this for real?

From collating all of the recent statements from the automakers and developers there is a very high level of confidence that fully self-driving cars will be on our roads by 2025 at the very latest. Mercedes, Nissan and Volvo are all indicating a high level of autonomy by 2020, and Google have indicated their aspiration to have their technology in public hands in various possible forms sometime between 2015 and 2019.

Finally, if you are still skeptical about this whole subject and really aren’t concerned for your business, then please consider what Warren Buffet has to say given his significant Geico investment:

“That is a real threat to the auto insurance industry,” Buffett said at his company’s annual meeting here Saturday. “If [self-driving cars] prove successful and reduce accidents dramatically, it will be very good for society and very bad for auto insurers.”

Warren’s not laughing, and neither should you be.

Source:https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140528072025-142059068-don-t-laugh-the-new-google-prototype-car-has-implications-for-your-business

Apple's Handoff & Multi/Omni-Channel Marketer

Apple’s Message for Marketers: 'Handoff' Makes Omni-Channel a Reality

The Apple WWDC happened today, and a lot of the quick responses I’ve heard on the Web have been, essentially “if there is no new hardware, there’s nothing interesting.” And while it’s true that Apple didn’t introduce us to a new screen that marketing will take place on, this was a huge step forward in the area that vexes marketers most. Namely, how can we tell a cohesive story across digital platforms without knowing when and who is accessing the content?

Apple unveiled "Handoff," part of the new “Continuity” suite designed to bring phones, tablets, and Macs together, seamlessly. Continuity has some amazing consumer benefits, but it is Handoff that marketers should be excited about. Handoff will be used across all apps, but we see a particular opportunity with the Web browser. For the first time, someone using the Web on one device will move that content directly to another - and the implications are big.

Responsive Design
If you haven’t been paying attention to it, Responsive Design has been a pervasive trend in digital media. It means, essentially, creating the best experience for the same content on each platform but designing it for different screen sizes and capabilities. At POSSIBLE, everything we’ve worked on over the last 3 years has been responsively designed. Now, all that work is going to be put to the test. When a consumer uses Handoff and moves your Web site from their laptop to their iPhone, what’s going to happen? Will it break? Get an error message? Be so tiny that it is unusable (like, ahem, Apple’s own site)? Or will it elegantly display the content in a satisfying, usable way? This is going to be the test for whether your digital properties hold up or fall apart.

Omni-Channel Opportunity
But Responsive Design is just table stakes - you need to have it, but it doesn’t get you ahead. The real magic happens because suddenly, we’ll know when you move between devices, and that means we can tell a narrative marketing story. The best way to do Omni-channel work currently is by using native platforms, since Facebook, Twitter, and (when you are signed in) Google have the data about which device you are on and can be fairly sure you'll see messages across them.

Handoff should let us go beyond native platforms and be far more time-aware. We'll know that the consumer just moved the experience from tablet to desktop and we can provide targeted contextual messaging, not just for the person, but for the platform -- and we will know the sequence in which they move from device to device.

We can even suggest a device switch. Search for a business on your Mac and we can show a "take it with you" option, suggesting you use Handoff to send it to your smartphone. Branded content on the smartphone can offer "see it on the big screen - send it to your iPad." The proximity sensor in Continuity also means, for instance, if someone is looking at a property on their smartphone we can suggest "try it on your Mac for additional features," knowing that the device is nearby. The options are exciting.

All of the data points to a massive amount of switching between devices, but the pace of improvement in integrating across screens has been slow. A March 2014 report from eMarketer framed the challenges: "Significant progress has been made in developing reliable and privacy-compliant identifiers (IDs) to track mobile user behavior in apps and on mobile websites. Although many marketers hold out hope for a standard cookie-like identifier to emerge, the prospect seems less likely each time a new web-enabled device is announced (e.g. Google Glass and smart watches).”

At the same time, they underscored how important this integration is to marketers through this chart:

Now, Cupertino will be flooded with amazing data that pinpoints much more about usage, switching, and what works on what devices than is currently available. This is going to significantly move the needle for Apple. We've already interviewed iPad/Mac/Android phone users who feel that Continuity might make them go with a fully-Apple product line. And on the subject of availability, remember - OSX "Yosemite" and iOS 8 can be downloaded for developers today, so there is no time to waste in talking to your agency or internal team about how to put these new capabilities to work for you in the coming months.

This article was written with my POSSIBLE colleague Sav Khetan.

Source:https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140603035858-4306216-apple-s-message-for-marketers-handoff-makes-omni-channel-a-reality

12 Myths for a Busy Unfulfilled Life

12 Myths that Lead to a Busy, Unfulfilling Life

15 years ago, I quit law school to pursue one overarching question: “Why do capable people fail to break through to the next level?” The answer to the question, to my great surprise, is success.

I first noticed the phenomenon while working with executive teams in some of Silicon Valley’s most innovative companies. When they were focused on the right few things, it led to success. But the success bred options and opportunities which undermined the very focus that led to success in the first place. In other words, I found that success can be a catalyst for failure. If we are not careful, it leads to what Jim Collins described as “the undisciplined pursuit of more.” It is true for companies; it is true for people.

I recently met with a capable and driven executive and asked him, “How are you?” He gave me a rapid-fire answer of all of the things he was doing: traveling, business updates, career changes and his children’s innumerable activities. It sounded like an intense but satisfying life.

Then I asked him again, “How are you really?” And the moment I did, he became emotional, and the reality of his life flooded out of him: his stress, his frustration of trying to juggle it all, his sense that he had no time to really think, or play with his children, or enjoy any of it.

The (cute) summary is this: his schedule was always filled but his life wasn’t fulfilled. What’s less cute is that, for most of us, living in this way is one of the surest paths to a life of regrets.

An Australian nurse, Bronnie Ware, has written about the regrets of the dying, drawn from conversations with people in palliative care. At the top of that list is “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” Second on the list was “I wish I didn’t work so hard.”

What fascinates me about this list is that no one tells themselves, “My goal is to live a life that others expect of me that isn’t true to myself.” The question that should grab us by the lapels, is, “Why do otherwise intelligent, driven, successful, capable people end up where they didn’t intend to be?”

What about you? Have you ever felt motion sickness rather than momentum? Have you ever sensed there was a more meaningful life available to you, but your to-do list was keeping you from it? Do you ever feel tricked by the trivial?

Why do otherwise capable, driven people get tricked by the trivial?

One explanation is that, if we’re not careful, our lives often become dictated by ideas which sound convincing at some level but are really myths. We buy into them not realizing how taxing they really are, and once we absorb them, they take over our lives and quietly rob us of the meaning we truly desire. I’ve compiled some of these ideas into a list that I call the Manifesto for a Stressful, Unsatisfying Life. There are 12 myths (and 12 truths you can use to combat them).

Myth #1 “I’m Too Busy Living to Think About Life.”

A friend of mine once said in passing, “Oh, I am too busy living to think about life.”
These days you need to be always on, always plugged in, and always on the go. If you want

to be stressed and unfulfilled, make sure you have no time to think, read deeply, reflect, or get perspective.

TRUTH: In order to have focus we need space to focus.

Myth #2 “If You Can Fit It In You Should Fit It In.”

Do you want more pay or more time with your family? For a stressed and unsatisfied person, the correct answer is “Yes.” Do you want to do to the event at work or go watch a movie
with your family? “Yes.” When faced with a tradeoff, go for a bit of both. Assume you can have the best of both worlds.

TRUTH: We can try to avoid tradeoffs, but we can’t escape them. We have to make a choice.

Myth #3 “If everyone is doing it then I need to do it.”

Do everything that’s popular—now. Let the fear of missing out consume you. Buy into
the cultural bubble that glorifies being busy and checking social media and email constantly. Don’t pay attention to the quiet voice telling you a different life is possible. Just go with
the crowd.

TRUTH: There is a joy in missing out. Discover it.

Myth #4 “Everything is important.”

One sign you are a going down the wrong road is if everything feels important. If this is true for you, your only option will be to emphasize everything. Don’t make the hard choices just call them all priorities and work flat out to do them all.

TRUTH: You can’t emphasize everything—it’s arithmetic.

Myth #5 “Being a team player means always saying yes with a smile.”

Be helpful to everyone, all of the time. Don’t worry about whether you can actually execute the tasks you’re taking on—be a good team player. It’s the kind of corporate citizenship you should embrace fully without thinking about it.

TRUTH: Saying yes to everything is a form of madness.

Myth #6 “It’s not enough to help people, I need to save them.”

You need to get good at making other people’s problems your problems. It’s not enough
to listen to a challenge someone is facing; you need to take it upon yourself to solve it.
It’s not enough to support someone—you need to save them. Don’t worry about boundaries. Make it personal. Own it fully.

TRUTH: You need not, and should not, rob people of their problems.

Myth #7 “If I have said I would do it then I have to do it.”

As Edgar A. Guest writes in his famous poem, ‘It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.’ And if it’s in a poem, it must be true right? If you have said you will do it, then you have to do it. If you have started then you have to finish. You are committed, and you cannot walk away. After all, nobody likes a quitter.

TRUTH: If you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing then doing it isn’t the thing to do.

Myth #8 “I’ll stay up late and get it done.”

If you ever mention sleep to someone remember to talk about how little you’ve had lately. Boast about getting five hours last night, or about how you pulled an all nighter earlier
this week. It’s okay to be tired and to admit it. But don’t show weakness—or worse, laziness— by suggesting you need a full eight hours.

TRUTH: Sleep is for high performers.

Myth #9 “When things don’t fit, force them.”

When people say, “I don’t think we can fit that in,” take it as a personal challenge to prove it can be done. Don’t worry about the stress you cause yourself or others.
In fact, get so used to the pressure that you don’t notice it anymore. Ignore the strain in your neck and shoulders. Keep telling yourself you aren’t stressed.

TRUTH: You should never force anything.

Myth #10 “I have to do this.”

It’s okay to admit that, theoretically speaking, you have a choice. Just act in practice as
if you didn’t. This will allow you to say, “I have to” a lot, which is a handy phrase when dealing with conflict. If something you’re doing inconveniences a customer or a friend, it’s okay because it “has to” be done. It’s not that you want to create a hassle but that there is no other choice. Eventually you can think this so often, you will believe, deep in your heart, that you truly have no choice. Bravo!

TRUTH: The ability to choose cannot be taken away or given away— it can only be forgotten.

Myth #11 “More is better than less.”

Remember that the key to is having more of a thing than someone else, whether it’s money, prestige, or personal satisfaction. Facebook is a good place to start. The goal is to have more friends than anyone else. Choose shallow interactions over real relationships.

TRUTH: Choosing quality over quantity makes us more truly fulfilled—always.

Myth #12 “I have plenty of time left to get to that.”

Of course you aren’t doing exactly what you feel like should be doing, but there will be time
to do what you want to do after you’re finished doing what you have to do. You’ll get to it later. It’s a long life.

TRUTH: Life is pathetically short.

A Life that Really Matters

There is a story in the Hebrew Bible about Nehemiah, who is tasked with rebuilding the walls
of Jerusalem, which had been torn down by invaders. Nehemiah sets off with his menand begins the work, but his enemies are plotting to distract him from his essential purpose. Among other efforts, they wrote to him no fewer than four times trying to persuade him to
stop and at least talk to them about the project. Every time he responded with the same message,

“I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.” He was so clear about what he wanted to say yes to that he had the confidence to say no to other distractions. The result? Nehemiah and his men rebuilt the walls in just 52 days.

We are unlikely to find ourselves rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, but there are two essential lessons we can apply from this story.

“If we’re not careful, our lives often become dictated by ideas which sound convincing at some level but are really myths. We buy into them ... and once we absorb them, they take over our lives and quietly rob us of the meaning we truly desire.

The first lesson is that our thinking about priorities is all wrong. The word “priority” came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular, meaning the prior or very first thing,
and the word stayed singular for the next 500 years. Then in the 1900s we pluralized the term and started speaking of “priorities.” Instead, we need to take a page from Nehemiah’s book. Ask yourself, “If I could only do one thing, what would it be?”

Second, the word “decide” comes from the Latin “cid” or “cis,” the root for words like “scissors”, “fracticide” and “homicide.” Originally the word meant “to cut” or “to kill.” So make a habit of asking yourself this question: In the last week or so, have I said no to a good opportunity to make way for a great one?

When organizing your life, there are only two options: The disciplined pursuit of the essential or the undisciplined pursuit of the nonessential. And that matters because if you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.

Greg McKeown is the author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. His "why" is inspiring people to design their lives and careers in order discover their highest point of contribution.

Download the PDF version of this piece here.

Source:https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140602170633-8353952-12-myths-that-lead-to-a-busy-unfulfilling-life