Harnden62

Reading ' A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence' . Kartik Hosanger speaks of the tangled vine of transparency and trust and how we anthropomorphize machines and AI...

The term "digital twin" has been popping up a lot lately.  Serious deja vu .   I recall it being used years ago in engineering, manufacturing and academic circles, but not the popular press.  Not back then.   Curious .   Is there a DT rebirth going on? Apparently so... Source:  Google Trends According to NetworkWorld... A digital twin is a digital representation of a physical object or system. The technology behind digital twins has expanded to include large items such as buildings, factories and even cities, and some have said people and processes can have digital twins, expanding the concept even further. The idea first arose at NASA: full-scale mockups of early space capsules, used on the ground to mirror and diagnose problems in orbit, eventually gave way to fully digital simulations. But the term really took off after Gartner named digital twins as one of its top 10 strategic technology trends for 2017 saying that within three t...

We Canadians are a complex lot.   A rich mix of ethnicities connected through shared ideals and core values.   Values such as politeness.   “You Canadians!   You are so nice!”   Being honest with ourselves, we know that our values are laced with an underlying passive aggressiveness.   Our ‘PA nature’ if you will.   Kept in check, a little PA is all good; merely a counter-point to our politeness and friendliness, giving it a bit of spice.   Left unchecked, it is a caustic soda that eats away at the very fabric of who we are. In my recent travels through Pearson Airport, I stepped into puddle after puddle of caustic soda, eating at the very ‘souls’ of my shoes.   Little things.   It wasn’t the lineup through security.   It was security’s complete disinterest in simply grabbing the backlog of empty X-ray trays to help travellers from tripping over each other in the pile up. It wasn’t the brutally slow Tim Horton’s Express Line...

As U.S.  citizens approach election day, let's hope a voting majority sees the merits of risk over uncertainty. Citing Frank H. Knight (1921) and "his classic distinction between risk and uncertainty"... ...risk applies to random outcomes that investors can model with known probabilities, while uncertainty applies to random outcomes with unknown probabilities.  An investor is typically willing to confront risk but may be paralyzed in the face of extreme uncertainty. Source:  James Rickards, The Death of Money

This June, the B.C. Brain Injury Association (BCBIA) will be holding its AGM. As a BCBIA board member, I'm excited to say 2016 has been a very productive year. We'll be sharing the highlights and offering a taste of what we have planned for 2017. Here are some details: June 22, 2016 4:30PM  to  5:30PM  Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre 181 Roundhouse Mews Vancouver Join us for the BCBIA's Annual General Meeting!  By attending the meeting you will have a chance to learn more about what goes on behind the efforts of the BCBIA, share in last year's milestones, meet other BCBIA members and connect with others in the brain injury community.

Is the cycle of life for a company universal? Recent research from the Russian retail service sector suggests some strong commonalities. Four fundamentals of expansion "In this book we tried to find and explain characteristics, features and reasons of expansion of the service sector in Russia over the last decade. And our research was based on four fundamental points." 1. New management approaches "Firstly, over the last hundred years the world economy has gone through a revolution in the service industry. Greater significance of human factor and automation demands of companies to change management approaches since traditional management theories based on manufacturing experience which dominated in the 20th century are least appropriate for service companies. " 2. Defined stages demand different management systems "Secondly, any service company as well as any company in the world passes through defined stages of growth, progress and regression d...

Are we happier at work these days? Recent research by Professor Rob Goffee, emeritus professor of organisational behaviour at London Business School, and Professor Gareth Jones, visiting professor at IE Business School tells us... Nope, we're as disengaged as ever . Not an encouraging thought given how much of our adult life we spend working. So, what does that dream job look like? When Goffee and Jones asked, we told them we want DREAMS.      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  \\  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  \\  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~      Are DREAMS too much to ask for?   I find the proposed DREAMS framework heavily focused on the individual and his or her relationship with the corporation.  While these desired concepts certainly resonate - why wouldn't they? - seemingly overlooked is our desire to collaborate with each other, to work better together, to engage w...

When it comes to creating a strong vision statement, the range of opinions out there is mind boggling.  On top of that, the emotions people express on this topic are right across the board: from love, to hate, to complete indifference.  And when you look at all the advice on what should go into a strong vision statement, no wonder the task scares people off. What's the big deal?  Why are there so many failed attempts at articulating a vision.  Here are some more common reasons. Why do vision statements fail? Vision by Committee  Too often leaders confuse the act of crafting a vision with word-smithing a statement.  They shuttle their leadership team off to a retreat and start messing around with words that are supposed to end up on a poster.  The problem is, they have missed the point.  It's not about crafting copy.  It's about inspirational leadership.  Vision by committee doesn't work. No Vision?  No Statement At th...

Recently, a retail exec reminded me that not every retailer views their eCommerce channel as a store.   For many brick-and-mortar retailers, selling online started as an experiment that was shunted to the side of the mainstream business.  Granted, that may have been years ago for some.  But it's only recently that many retailers are seeing their digital store as a top performer. Here's a great article from Deepak Gupta of LoginRadius that gives a strong argument for minding your digital store. Why You Need to Treat Your Website Like a Real Store If you sell anything on your website, you need to treat it like a real store. After all, it is a real store. It generates real money, and real people buy things from it. It’s just online. However, while many marketers may paint online stores and traditional brick and mortar stores with a different brush, they are a lot more similar than you might think when you take a closer look at them. The challenges...

Recently, I attended IRCE 2015 in Chicago with some colleagues from DIG360 .   The trends and key takeaways from other attendees have started to roll in.   Here’s what some experts saw as trending at the show.   Our observations (at end of this post) honed in on some very different observations. Some offered their predictions Coming into the show, Write2Market – a tech PR firm – suggested these are some trends to watch for at IRCE 2015: Trend #1: Going Mobile – 41% of retailers say they are not successful at mobile marketing Trend #2: EMV (Europay, MasterCelerantTech2card and Visa) – “smart chip” technology will, for many, require costly new POS hardware.   But the risk of being at fault by not following regulations means ‘git-er-done’ is the only option.   Note:   the US is playing catch up on this compared to other countries such as Canada. Trend #3: Customer Experience (CX) – expect a plethora of CX providers offering new and better way...

Rethinking the role of content in your organization? Exploring how unified content helps delivery a richer and more relevant experience? This article will be useful for thinking through what's required to not only reshape your content marketing strategy, but also the people, processes and tools required. Touted by Altimeter as " the next big thing in content marketing technology: the content marketing stack " illustrates content marketing tools as part of a hierarchical framework. In reading the article, the show how cloud service providers such as Adobe are well on their way to making this stack a reality.  Even so, it's left to us to navigate the waters of adoption and change. The full article can be found here:  Say Hello To The Content Marketing Stack

A beautify (and ambitious) visualization of the digital self in the context of conversation. Note 'Enterprise' is just a tiny piece of the conversation pie (@bottom right).  Source:  ConversationPrism.com https://conversationprism.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/JESS3_BrianSolis_ConversationPrism4_WEB_1280x1024.jpg

A fascinating roadmap created back in 2010 illustrating how network technologies will potentially evolve to make us more digitally connected.  The Internet of Things driven by smallness, ubiquity, and the desire for smart appliances. Source:  Nokia Research Centre, Finland. http://www.slideshare.net/chupachappy/mobile-games-2010-by-nokia-1 Another view of this path created by SRI consulting.  Note how it suggests our current focus is on locating people and everyday objects, and how this will shift to monitoring and control of distant objects.  Some would argue the future is already here.  We are already adjusting our thermostats, programming our PVRs, etc. remotely. And finally, this timeline just for fun because it is insanely detailed and dares us to dream: You can pan, scroll and download a full size version of this fantastic diagram  by Andreas_MB on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreasmb/2925528770/sizes/l/

It's about Feeling at Home when Away from Home. It's about being present in the moment and lost in the moment at the same time. Reflecting on experiences while down at Granville Island Market.  May 2013.

James Burke is a master storyteller.  His documentary series, Connections, as the name would suggest, is fabulous in its use of threaded narrative to transport us back into time and then propel us forward again to the present. When you take a Connections journey with Burke, you risk being lured into the love of history through the seduction of science. To many, the shows may now seem old.  They aired originally on BBC back in 1978, with two sequels 1995 and 1997.  But great story is timeless .  PBS celebrated the 25th anniversary in 2004 by interviewing Burke and airing highlights of the original series.  And even now, you can find episodes online.  A full list of Connections episodes can easily be found on Wikipedia and many full length episodes are now available to watch for free online including on YouTube . It wasn't until recently that I began to appreciate how profoundly James Burke had influenced my love for storytelling. Vivid memories of ...

Recently, our creative folks at Work at Play took a 24-hour hiatus from client work to innovate and ideate. We call the event MoFiDy - Make it or Fake it Day. A MofiDy is our take on doing a hackathon; it's an opportunity for staff to take on an innovative challenge and show their creative chops. Our latest challenge?  Alice in Wonderland  meets Kinect: take your favorite chapter from this classic story by Lewis Carroll and bring it to life using  Microsoft Kinect .  The experience was a great success, surprising us all on the depth and variety of innovation possible in 24 hours.  Here is what we learned: 1.   Building anticipation gets everyone fired up 2.   Constraints give focus to creativity 3.   Competition fuels the fire 4.   Collaborative storytelling takes practice 5.   Embracing the afterglow requires some forethought See the full article here:   How to Run a Great Hackathon