Don’t bet against the Smartphone

You may have noticed that a couple of things have changed since I started this newsletter in early February. I’m very happy with the way it is progressing. I have kept my promise to provide some news, opinion and help on the subject of digitalisation. 

Firstly, I’ve increased the cadence and I am now writing around two times a week rather than once, with a slightly changed format. I’ve removed the Reading List as it didn’t really bring any value-add to the content, and the newsletter is slightly shorter, with more words per week.

Additionally, I’d inexplicably set myself a publishing deadline for each Friday morning at 10am based on a hunch. I’ve decided to change this and publish as soon as I’m finished, and the statistics show that the schedule change has had no effect on reader percentages.

I’ll continue to work on the format but one guiding principle is to provide thorough, interesting and informative articles on this ever-changing digital world we live in. Thanks for reading.

On to the update.

Last week's Apple event provided much to discuss on the topic of digitalisation in the world. This week I look at Photography, and the impact of digitisation and disruption are having on that industry. Read on.

Photography, one of the original industries transformed digitally

Ever since the Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham invented the first known pinhole camera sometime around the year 1000, Photography has gone through numerous transitions and transformations.

The act of accurately transferring light on to photo-sensitive film is an incredibly difficult task, with much behind the scenes technology responsible for the result and has been disrupted and transformed over generations. Today's cameras and camera manufacturers have all but finished their transitions to digital mediums, a process that got kick-started when Kodak developed the first digital camera in 1975. Kodak was an American company incorporated 131 years ago and is no longer in business, only the brand lives on.

Kodak serves as a lesson in disruption theory, having reacted reluctantly to further develop and push digital sales through fear of eating into very profitable photographic film and paper sales. Regardless, we can all thank Kodak for their vision to digitise a manual and ofttimes, frustrating experience creating a multi-billion dollar industry for the incumbents and new entrants alike.

As an interesting side note, Apple unveiled its latest iteration of the iPhone, the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro, with a functionality called QuickTake. QuickTake allows the user to long press on the shutter button to quickly record video in lieu of starting the continuous or burst shooting mode as was previously the case. QuickTake was also a digital camera sold and branded by Apple, but Kodak produced.

Kodak, as recently as 2001, resisted the digitisation of camera technology that it had invented and that decision is almost certainly a factor in the companies demise. The brand lives on and is still synonymous with excellent tools in the analogue photographic world.

The second wave of Digital Transformation in Photography

I've previously written about Digital Transformation as a journey, and it not being a project, Photography illustrates this perfectly. Its origins rooted firmly in analogue, the industry was abruptly disrupted digitally, with all the consequences that that entailed following — closures of old business, openings of new digital ones. But that transformation has not ended, and further disruptions and transitions are in progress, with a third wave already started. Before we get to the third wave, let’s take a quick look at the second wave, mirrorless camera technology.

The rapid development of mirrorless cameras is powering a second wave of disruption. Two branches dominated digital Photography up to this point; DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras and traditional Point and Shoot cameras that naturally got digitised as sensor technology were improved.

DSLRs gradually replaced SLR cameras and became the choice for professional and semi-professional users alike. So popular they became, that companies like Canon and Nikon, developed newer models of DSLRs that targeted enthusiasts initially, then general consumers. The last 5 years or so have seen the domination by first-time users purchasing and learning how to use DSLRs, something that was unthinkable less than 20 years ago due to the skill required but also the costs and the reality of failure rates. Taking 1000 photos and deleting 999 to keep that one good shot, costs no more than taking one good shot alone.

Point and Shoot cameras transitioned quickly as well. They offer better and better image quality as the technology evolved and today's Point and Shoot's can range from professional-grade cameras like the X100F from Fujifilm, to more basic models offered by Sony, Canon and other popular brands at accessible prices for anyone interested in photography.

Mirrorless cameras transform the DLSR experience by offering the same professional output, in a smaller and lighter package. Aside from dimensions and weight, Mirrorless cameras are using digital technologies to aid every photographer to take better photos. For example, in-body stabilisation moves the stabilisation motors from the lens, making them lighter, to the camera, where the optical properties mean they are smaller and lighter in the body of the camera than in the lens and are available to any lens now. A gyroscope, some software and two or more piezo motors provide pin-sharp images at long zoom ranges that only experienced professionals could achieve previously.

The Third Wave, Computational Photography

The next wave of Digital Transformation in the industry is the current revolution I alluded to above. The advances made by Smartphone manufacturers, notably Apple and Google are currently re-writing what is possible in Photography all while traditional manufacturers have gotten wrapped up in a race for more megapixels, wifi, more autofocus points and other non-essential specifications and have pursued the development of Computational Photography.

Computational Photography, not only resolves or attempts to resolve the shortcomings inherent in the compromised optics — ‘real’ lenses are big and heavy, sometimes over 1Kg — by using massively parallel processing and sophisticated algorithms to reproduce the same effects. The latest generation photos are indistinguishable from professional photography to the general public.

Apple, Google and others are more concerned with the job to be done, which is to enable anyone to take what are essentially professional-grade photos with the least of effort, using the best camera they with them at all times (1), the Smartphone.

I joked to a friend that Apple announced an advanced camera that just happens to have a phone integrated in it. I was only half-joking because, in reality, smartphones cannot do a phone better than is already the case; they can only develop and improve upon other markets, like Photography, film amongst others.

The Smartphone starts with a powerful processor and an integrated application and operating system ecosystem, that provides lightning-quick autofocus, bokeh, night lighting and, I imagine, plenty more functions in the coming years, all whilst keeping the size of the device small with miniaturised optical elements designed for thin enclosures. Samsung is currently experimenting using the length of the case to provide real focal depth, a few centimetres instead of a few millimetres.

These functionalities are mostly absent from the incumbent camera-first camera manufacturers' devices because they start from the traditional optics point of view. The business then exhibits classic Disruption Theory tendencies that incentivise management to move prices and specifications upscale, in the quest to preserve their margins.

Camera manufacturers are going to need either a miracle or to radically step up their game in digital innovation or risk disruption that puts them out of business. Some might say it is already too late, and I wouldn’t disagree with this. When looking at the data produced by Flickr, one of the world’s most popular photography sharing platforms for both amateurs and professionals alike, over half of the photographers are using an iPhone. 50% of all photos uploaded are from smartphones (see first chart for reference).

To be clear, I’m not saying that DSLRs or Mirrorless Cameras are going to go away completely, I don’t believe that for a moment, but their use will be restricted to a needs base only, that is professional photography by professionals and other specialised applications, for example sports photography, astro photography.

As you have noted, Digital Transformation is not a one-off project, it is an ongoing journey and an ongoing feedback and adjustment loop you need to work on regularly.

Have a great day.

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interesting in learning about Digital Transformation and how it affects their business. I strongly encourage you to forward it to people you feel may be interested. If you were forwarded this email, I'd love to see you onboard. You can sign up here:

Sign up now

Visit the website to read all my articles and continue the discussion in the Slack group.

Thanks for being a supporter, have a great day.

Footnotes:

(1) A quote attributed to Chase Jarvis, a well-respected professional photographer.

A wonderful short film worth watching on a big screen.

U SHOOT VIDEOS?

A Film by Morgan Cooper

I can’t quite put my finger on when exactly I decided to do it, but after more than a month I feel a lot better. Better physically, but better physiologically.

I’ve been manipulating my life to fit in a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise a day, logging it using my (don’t laugh) 2nd Gen Apple Watch. I’ve had the watch for a few years now and I still wear it every day. I have a quick vacation at a hotel that was sports oriented — not in the Sports Bar way — and I’ve continued the regime up daily since.

I’m about to get my bag together, so I can run/walk tonight for 45 mins or so. It sounds cliché and it is in away, but the motivation tools in the Apple Watch do help. I’m not an overly competitive person and motivating me is a lesson patience, but once I get going I tend not to stop easily.

Real-world results are being noticed. I walk faster and longer for the same time, I ride my bike harder and for longer, my HRV is increasing and I just feel, like I said — better.

New Series 5 Apple Watch for me as soon as I can get one (it’s not easy where I live).

12 September 2019 — French West Indies

Part 10 - Customers 2.0, continued

A busy week for me this week. I have some thoughts about the Apple Keynote and particularly about Digital Transformation and Photography. I’m hoping to write it up soon.

On to the issue:

Following on from part 9, I attempt to look at how you can harness the information learned in that article and how you can start to address some of the questions raised. This is still a piece of Stage 3 of the five stage Digital Transformation Methodology, Using the 5 Levers of Digital Transformation and more specifically Customers.

Market Research

At its most basic level, it is crucial to conduct a detailed market research analysis. This report should include some of the findings revealed in the early stages of this methodology. The Audit phase is used to identify your strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities extracted from the JTBD (Jobs To Be Done) model. We need to look through the lens of the customer and how the customer behaves in the market for it to have any meaning. Don’t spend too much time and money on doing this, as it is only a simple starting point to enable the starting process once up and running.

Photo by Ousa Chea on Unsplash

To help, a couple of simple tools exist we can leverage to conduct that research, let’s look at a couple of examples.

Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSat)

A customer satisfaction survey is a way to identify if your products and services meet or surpass your customer’s expectations. The reason to conduct a CSat is to gauge purchase intentions and estimate customer loyalty. This Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is often used in developed businesses as part of an overall scorecard of the health of the business. Small businesses tend to focus on sales figures, profits and cash-flow — which are all essential to operations — but other less-definitive KPIs are also necessary for businesses to assess their potential growth.

Being that the CSat is a reasonable indicator of intention to purchase and loyalty, it follows that good Csat scores indicate potential future revenue. CSat surveys may be conducted in several ways, both simply and cheaply. There is a whole discipline centred around proper CSat construction and administration, something I have neither the time nor the expertise to go into detail here. I will, however, touch on a few tools and resources further down.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is used either in conjunction with or as an alternative to a classic CSat survey. Today, more than two-thirds of the Fortune 1000 companies have adopted NPS as their primary tool to measure satisfaction for its simplicity and its non-invasive administration.

Some of the criticism of CSat surveys is the amount of friction created for the user; often, the respondent has to sit through multiple pages of questions and use up many minutes of valuable time. I’ve sat through some of Microsoft’s more detailed surveys and spent over 20 minutes to answer the full survey. Not everyone you ask is willing to do that. NPS, however, can be as simple as a one-question survey.

The primary aim of NPS, as the name suggests, is to assess the likelihood that your customers recommend (promote) your products and services to their entourage. It’s an indicator of the power of your word of mouth network if you will. Being that that type of network is still in use and very important to Caribbeans, in my opinion, the NPS is the most useful of the options to judge your business.

An NPS score can range from +100 to -100, the former indicating that 100% of your customers are highly likely to promote you to their peers. Later, conversely, 100% will not in any way promote you. The NPS is calculated using basic statistics, and a positive score (i.e. > 0) is considered a good score. Anything north of 50-70 is considered excellent to exceptional and is rare. If you do your own NPS and get 3, for example, that’s good and shows you’re on the right track!

You’ve all taken part in NPS surveys and possibly haven’t realised it. If you have a survey question graded from 0 to 10, where 9 and 10 are the best possible feedback options for the company surveying you, then it is no doubt an NPS exercise. Answering 9 or 10, tells the business that you are Promoter. Interestingly, you are noted as a Detractor if you answer between 0 and 6, leaving 7 and 8 Neutral, or Passive.

I have a simple Excel sheet that automatically calculates your NPS based on the responses to your surveys if you’d like a copy reply to this email stating as such.

Tools and resources to build out surveys

As promised, here are a couple of tools and resources to help you build and administer your studies:

Qualtrics is one of the leaders in this field. Qualtrics was founded in 2002 and offers subscriptions to measure customer satisfaction, amongst other KPIs (Customer Experience, Employee Experience, Product Experience, Brand Experience and Online Samples) on an ongoing basis. Qualtrics was a profitable start-up and had started a systematic growth plan, recently purchasing Delighted in 2018. However, at the end of 2018, SAP purchased Qualtrics and operates the company as a subsidiary. It is widely used in both the business and academic worlds, and you find its statistical analysis cited in many journals.

For a more DIY solution, SurveyMonkey is an excellent choice. Not only do they have lots of ready-to-use templates available, but their documentation and explanations of the tools are excellent. For a novice, this is one of the best places to start. It was founded in 1999 and boasts over 25 million users currently.

For an even more basic solution, users of either Office365 or Google Apps can employ the built-in tools — Microsoft Formsand Google Forms- that let you build out forms for your customers to answer questions. They are great starting points for a small project or to prototype a more significant study in the future.

Lastly, don’t forget this aspect when evaluating new software, you wish to integrate into your operations in the future. Many of today’s SaaS applications include the ability to run and analyse simple NPS studies directly from the application. These are generally customer-facing or customer-concerned tools like CRM and Help Desk applications, but many more are seeing the value in understanding the relationship customers have with you and your business.

I hope this helps you in your own Digital Transformation process. If you have any questions or want to discuss your projects, please let me know, I’d be only too happy to see how I can help out, email me at info@dgtlfutures.com.

If you haven’t read the earlier articles in the series, I encourage you to do so to get a better overall picture of the methodology. I’ve included an index here for your convenience:

Part 1 - Auditing your current state

Part 2 - The Value Chain

Part 3 - Porter’s Five Forces

Part 4 - Data, and its value

Part 5 - Turning data into business value

Part 6 - The 5 step Digital Transformation methodology

Part 7 - Segmentation and targeting

Part 8 - The Value Proposition

Part 9 - Customers 2.0

Admittedly, Part 6 should have been Part 1 in hindsight!

Reading List

 Can AI make shopping stress-free? - news.microsoft.com

This article hints at one of the problems of this new digital paradigm, choice. I talked about it in Customers 2.0, Networked, Connected and Interactive. What Microsoft is alluding to, is a strategy to aid your customers with that abundant choice.

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interesting in learning about Digital Transformation and how it affects their business. I strongly encourage you to forward it to people you feel may be interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you onboard. You can sign up here:

Sign up now

Visit the website to read all my articles and continue the discussion in the Slack group.

Thanks for being a supporter, have a great day.

Thanks for being a supporter, have a great day.

Why Dropbox, Teams and Slack are all coming to the same conclusion

I’ve been wanting to write about the changing work tools and collaborative landscape for a while now. My original notes were from over two years ago, but recent events prompted me to put my thoughts down. I’d love your take on this, discuss on the Slack, we accept English and French 😀

On to the update.

Computer Systems, Operating Systems and the Digitisation of Tasks

Recently Dropbox revealed the technologies and products that would further spur growth using its platform. Dropbox is trying to create a higher-level operating system predicated on users that need to get things done, rather than to “use a computer”

If we look at computer usage and how it has evolved, we see a clear and straight path traced from the beginnings of computing — where mainframes and shared access were de rigour — in which users had one or two specific tasks in mind and set out to accomplish them. Often these were scientifically or mathematically based problems that had clear goals and outcomes; solve this incredibly complex algorithm, calculate this difficult sum, resolve for X the average…, etc.

Computer usage evolved largely because the computers themselves evolved, being driven by the demands of the users that wanted to do more and more complex things, faster and faster. Technological advances aided this and in the early 1960s Moore’s Law was born. A law that has only started to become less and less relevant.

Soon, people started using computers to do what would have been heretical things back in those early times; playing games, writing letters, listing items all became not just easily accomplishable tasks, but the very reason people would purchase computers.

Further developments enabled software houses like Microsoft to provide better tools to allow the computer to get out of the way and for the user to concentrate more on the tasks for completion. The modern operating system was born. Windows, Mac OS (which transformed to OS X then MacOS, note the distinction) all provided users with a simple, safe and often fun environment to work and play.

Placed on top of these systems were the applications that enabled specialised job functions to be digitalised. Photoshop digitalised manual and often frustrating photo development, Quark Express upended magazine and newspaper layout by treating objects digitally and writing itself became a digital process only for most people.

Then something changed, something that so fundamentally shifted the paradigm of computer systems that it not only upended the way we used computers, but has totally changed their design and build. It is all attributable to what we now term “The Cloud”.

Cloud Computing

Although a recent phenomenon as far as the general public is concerned, Cloud Computing owes its origins to the very first implementations of interconnected networks, the ARPANET. ARPANET was a US Government-funded network design that had its initial design goals set to provide a failsafe communications network in the event of attack or dysfunction. ARPANET solved the problem by routing and re-routing the communications around different routes, then reassembling the pieces to make a coherent transmission. Even back then, in 1977, the cloud symbol was depicted to simplify the structural understanding of the (very complex) design.

In a working paper at Compaq (subsequently purchased by Hewlett Packard), the phrase “Cloud Computing” appeared, however, it was subsequently popularised by Amazon when they marketed their nascent cloud computing product ECC (Elastic Compute Cloud).

Once given mass appeal and implemented in business, suddenly the enterprise, pro and consumer markets were ripe for the introduction of applications that targeted specific needs, or solved particular jobs to be done.

Today, a large majority of applications in use at home and in business, are either 100% cloud or have cloud elements attached. The Cloud has allowed developers and designers freedom to try new things and the flexibility to modify quickly if something doesn’t fit. Completely new applications use cases have been developed as a direct result of the cloud computing revolution and signs indicate that it is not likely to stop anytime soon.

The changing landscape enabled because of the cloud

One spin-off from this revolution is the profound effect it is having on the incumbents and how those specific legacy systems are getting disrupted out of business.

With the release of Windows 95, Microsoft expertly leveraged it and its cash cow sibling, the Office applications bundle, to gain a hold on the entire computing operating systems business. If it didn’t work with Windows it was essentially irrelevant1.

Built for individual computing, Windows and the computers it was mostly paired with, were ill-suited to the shift towards cloud computing taking place over the last 5 to 10 years. And this is where today’s once-relegated-to application-status programs show the way forward for computing in the hyper-connected universe in which we find ourselves.

Applications that touch virtually every aspect of modern lives —cab calling, pizza delivery, doctor reservations, even toothbrush applications that analyse brushing style and offer tips for better dental health— are being built because of three main factors; the 24hours online nature of the tools, the abstraction of the ties to a specific operating system and the form-factor that creates and encourages ultra-portability.

Modern computing platforms are all connected to the Internet by default. Your phone, your tablet and the new generation of laptop PCs all have cellular radios in them, with access-anywhere, anytime, Internet.

Legacy operating systems are becoming less and less relevant. Ask yourself, do you talk about Uber as an application on the iPhoneOS or, most likely, as a service that you access from your phone?

Speaking of phones, this the third factor, exists because of miniaturisation techniques developed by companies like Apple and Samsung, that have provided always-on super-computing power in the palm of your hand.

Which gets us to the subject of the new Cloud OSes on the horizon and how, despite different starting points, the paths are converging towards the same thing for corporate and con

The Cloud OS

I’ve been particularly interested in the developments of three companies’ products and how they change the nature of computing moving it from a legacy individual task-based needs response, to a more collaborative jobs-to-be-done enabler. Dropbox, Microsoft Teams and Slack, all show enormous potential to change the way we use computing systems, …if it hasn’t happened already.

Dropbox started life out as a small add-on that allowed the transfer, storage and synchronisation of files on your local computer to their cloud infrastructure. With obvious benefits such as availability, backup and omni-availability, the reasons not to use it were difficult to find. Other developments enabled the inclusion of a more granular security model that enabled the selective sharing of files and documents between consenting participants. Dropbox stayed like this for some time and became a well respected and trusted partner for handling your data.

Recent announcements by Dropbox have shown their understanding of this coming change and their willingness to work with other providers to develop and enhance their offering, developing it to something more akin to a workplace operating system than a data synchronisation utility. Dropbox has partnered with Microsoft, Google and others addressing the need for people to get things done and not become preoccupied by the underlying systems that enable it. Directly from their software, team collaborative features are being rolled out. You can make a Zoom call, message directly through Slack and many more.

Microsoft Teams is coming to the same conclusion with their Teams platform. Built on the legacy base of Sharepoint, Teams is designed to be a more collaborative start and endpoint of doing a task rather than a step in a complex workflow. Sharepoint was never able to get past this problem. Microsoft has finally developed a platform that is able to integrate outside tools in a way that looks and works like native extensions and be easy and enjoyable to use. There are, additionally, plenty of app integrations with tools that are sometimes in direct competition to Microsoft’s own productivity tools being promoted. How times have changed!

Just looking at Project Management (PM) software, Microsoft has its own well-respected Microsoft Project tool, Teams features a slim PM tool called Planner that fits the bill for probably something like 90+% of general PM. Not only that, but they actively promote a rival, Trello.

Slack is on a similar path, with te aforementioned integrations with Dropbox, but also Microsoft’s own collaborative suite Office 365. I’ll not labour the point, but you can see where this all leading, the fight for the start point in any working environment.

The original controller of the computing experience was the manufacturer (IBM, DEC, etc.), disrupted by the operating system developer (Microsoft, Apple) and this is now itself being disrupted by the intrinsically agnostic application developer. The difference today is that the operating systems developers are not letting disruption happen to them without their own self-disruption. That fact alone (that Microsoft is willing to collaborate on such an important tool for Microsoft) should tell you that they understand that time is up for Windows. Apple itself, is also in the midst of its own transition and is pivoting more of its revenue to services, which explains the departure of Jony Ive and also last weeks’ web beta for its Apple Music service.

I want to write more about the reason why I think Jony Ive is leaving Apple at the end of this year, but I’ll be focusing on today’s event from Cupertino and seeing how that may affect my thoughts.

Collaborative tools like these mentioned are the future of modern computing, acting as the entrance, the glue and the final resting place of work, which itself is becoming ever more collaborative in nature.

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interesting in learning about Digital Transformation and how it affects their business. I strongly encourage you to forward it to people you feel may be interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you onboard. You can sign up here:

Sign up now

Visit the website to read all my articles and continue the discussion in the Slack group.

Thanks for being a supporter, have a great day.

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(1) I know this is not strictly true as Apple and a few others had market share in their proprietary systems optimised for specialised computing and not general computing like Windows allowed.