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Digital Business insights: Australia has voted. And we can all be winners.

Digital Business insights by John Sheridan >>

WE LIVE in digital revolutionary times. The world is changing. The evidence is everywhere. And it impacts everything we do. So why do we act surprised when the digital revolution impacts politics?

The revolution has shifted power from 'vendors' to 'customers'. Permanently.

Simply replace 'vendors' with politicians and 'customers' with voters.

The politicians use digital tools to leverage what they have always done - for research, for marketing and communication, to push political messages through a range of digital media but they haven’t really understood what digital has done to change their customers. 

The customers have changed. They are better informed. They are more collaborative. They are more knowledgeable. They are less engaged. They share their views with others. They complain. They make their own decisions.

Meanwhile, the pundits still view the 21st century with the eyes of the 20th century. The digital revolution is over here and politics is over here … quite separate.

Wrong. 

You can’t have a digital revolution that doesn’t affect EVERYTHING. It all joins up.

And more and more people are waking up to this shift of power. Our traditional political leaders aren’t leading. They aren’t listening. And most are professional politicians, only interested in their reflection, reelection and superannuation.

Collaboration and shared decision making is the bread and butter of the 21st century. The digital revolution has delivered connection, information and collaboration to everybody.

Propaganda doesn’t work so well any more. The messages cannot be controlled in the way they could last century. A third of the people just voted for somebody other than the two main political parties.

The new world is not meeting expectations.

Is this a bad thing?

Not really. Because it opens the door for fresh ideas, opinions and independents, just when we need them to address the most disruptive issues that we have ever faced as a country.

This is what happens in every enlightened management team in the world. The more informed voices in the conversation the better.

Worldwide we have created a phalanx of professional politicians with little or no real world experience. And this has happened at the worse possible time. Brexit. US election. Australian election.

All slap bang in the middle of the biggest revolution that we will see in our lifetimes. The digital revolution.

Not to mention the chronic problems of a broken financial system, pollution, inequity, terrorism, underemployment and unemployment and lack of insightful leadership worldwide.

This is not the time for professional, political party leadership. This is the time for open door collaboration bringing the best minds into every discussion.

There is no real choice anyway. The major currents of digital change push relentlessly towards more connection, more collaboration and more integration. Not towards conflict, separation and domination of one extreme.

Good ideas can come from anywhere. And they do. From garages and dark rooms, and farms and forums and forests.

The old world way of running countries is broken.

Luckily for us, the digital revolution connects minds and bodies like an enormous electronic 'band aid' offering a new mechanism for collaboration and engagement, discussion and decision.

So the real issues and problems we face can be creatively discussed online, because they don’t get discussed in parliament.

Never underestimate human beings. We are here only because we have adapted to change effectively over tens of thousands of years. We have evolved and we have learned to evolve and grow.

And the networks and connections of the digital revolution now spark and catalyse that change.

The three major communication channels of the 20th century have split into thousands of communication streams, rivulets, capillaries and networks of connections between individuals, bypassing the control of the media barons.

The power of information distribution has shifted from the few to the many. Commentary has become a creative commons.

We have learned to avoid advertising messages on television, radio and online. We have learned to avoid propaganda in much the same way. There are now many more sources of information than Rupert Murdoch.

And the digital revolution has made them accessible. And shared.

We must learn to trust the collective wisdom of human beings.

Messages will resonate or they will fail.

Election slogans have become meaningless.

What does “jobs and growth” mean at a time when we know 47 percent of jobs will disappear over the next 15 years due to increasing automation, robotisation and computerisation.

“Jobs and growth” How?

Tax cuts for large businesses will not solve this conundrum. Big business employs in the good times and fires in the bad times.

Jobs and growth has to come from a different, more diversified direction. And any strategy has to take big picture causes (globalisation, tax havens, digital revolution, climate change, education) properly into account or be judged meaningless.

It is not about this election, next election or any election…it is about the need for long-term thinking about our collective future.

Where is the plan that addresses the hollowing out of the well-paid, administrative jobs that provide the dollars for most Australians to buy goods and pay for services?

There is a big picture here that both parties seem to have ignored.

Unemployment is high but underemployment and part time employment is much, much higher. Trumpeting ABS figures on the employed while ignoring the underemployed misses the point.

Lipstick on the pig.

Real unemployment and underemployment is draining the lifeblood from Australia. Unemployed and underemployed people have fewer dollars to buy goods and pay for services, which impacts everyone.

And so it goes.

It all joins up.

And people know that the two party system isn’t working. So let’s try something else.

Greens. Independents. People with fresh points of view. People who will speak their own minds and not just parrot a media minder's crib sheet.

The hung parliament and the increased number of fresh minds in the Senate is a good result not a bad result. Fertility not sterility. It will provide more ideas, more points of view, more thoughts and strategies and demand more discussion and negotiation for the best ideas to see the light of day.

When the world is as disrupted as it is today, we need a more flexible management system to deal with issues as they arise. By good fortune, now we have got it.

This isn’t a problem just facing government. It faces all organisations big and small. Every organisation has to become more responsive, more agile, more innovative or decline and fall.

Observation. Insight. Discussion. Negotiation. Collaboration. Action.

That is your digital strategy. That is your political strategy. That is your business strategy in a digital revolution that is changing the world.

Fixed ideology might have worked in the relative stability of the late 20th century world. It doesn't work so well in a world that shifts, pivots and changes from day to day. 

We need the very best ideas from both sides of politics. And the best ideas don’t belong to one party alone. We need the best ideas from the members in the senate. We need the best ideas from the independents.

And we now have the mechanism to get good ideas discussed, debated and deliberated. That is a good thing not a bad thing.

Respect. Trust. And negotiation.

The world won’t return to the way it used to be. Dream on. The Labor Party needs to think again. The LNP has to do the same thing. Review, modify and reinvent.

The 21st century is a world where collaboration and shared value are the only way to deliver success. And there are some pretty big implications in that statement.

Back to Professor Porter…

Businesses are perceived to prosper at the expense of society – “the 1%”. Governments are perceived to be doing nothing about this.

Businesses are seen as the major cause of social, environmental and economic problems. Governments are seen as doing nothing about this either. So what is government for?

That is a question being asked in every democracy on the planet.

There is an opportunity to transform thinking about the role of business and government in society.

Shared value offers broader and more inclusive approaches to economic value creation. Shared value will drive innovation, productivity and growth.

Business has a big role to play in creating shared value.

Government has a big role to play in setting an agenda, creating a vision, and establishing goals.

And we all have a big role to play in making this happen through our own initiatives, networks, connections and projects.

And we actually have more chance of doing this now with a hung parliament, expanded senate and a collaborative approach to government than we did before.

 The digital revolution has changed the conditions. The power (information and knowledge) has shifted from vendors to customers.

What that means to a political party in this new condition of diminished power is something they have to work out.

Collaboratively.

The new operational environment has few reference points.

Is it threatening? You bet.

But we are not without tools. We have dealt with the unknown before in a previous time and in a different space, but many of the factors are familiar.

We now need to regenerate and find courage and become merchant venturers and explorers again - willing to take intelligent risks - using the skills we have gained.

Australia has voted. And we can all be winners.

 

John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping businesses and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 15 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs. Now DBi is turnign that research into action through a series of digital business development platforms, the first of which is about to launch: the Manufacturing Toolbox.

http://www.db-insights.com/

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The digital business revolution and adapting to change - Traffika

ADAPTING to the disruption technology causes is never without some challenges. But with any challenge comes opportunity and Traffika Australia CEO Andrew Lane sees great opportunity for nimble business leaders to make well-informed headway simply by taking notice of one of the great benefits of digital disruption: their own data.

He said, in particular, the exponential increase in data collection and analysis was forming a new wave of the digital revolution, one that is transforming businesses, industries and economies of all sizes. 

“Change on this scale is often accompanied by fear, uncertainty, doubt, confusion and a daunting demand for new skills, resources and capital expenditure,” Mr Lane said.

“The world's largest companies are equipped to deal with this change as they have huge resources at their fingertips. But things look entirely different for many private and more modestly sized public companies.

“It is harder for them to find the money, time, people, skills and confidence needed to comprehensively explore, test and adopt new techniques and technologies.”

Mr Lane said the clear problem business leaders faced was the fact that the ‘Digital Business Revolution’ had already arrived, but not everyone is equipped to deal with it or even to participate.

“The question becomes, how do we close the gap between businesses who are able to participate and succeed in the digital revolution and those we aren’t?” Mr Lane said.

“Fundamentally there are only two things preventing the adoption of digitisation; barriers that stand in the way and the timeliness in which they are addressed.”

Mr Lane said the scale of Traffika’s extensive, global research had identified seven distinct barriers to digital success that, when overcome, would help build the thriving businesses and economies of the future.

“Our free Digital Success Profile is designed to help you identify which ones are preventing your business from participating in the Digital Business Revolution by assessing your online performance,” Mr Lane said.

A free report is available from Traffika through its website at  traffika.com.au/dsp.  

* Traffika is an industry expert member of Victorian Leaders, the organisation helping to mentor and connect the next generation of leading companies based in Victoria.

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Creativa’s video ‘personalisation’ leads lost Bulldogs back to the ‘kennel’

EXTRA >>

MELBOURNE-BASED creative agency, Creativa, has shown how clever personalisation of marketing – including personalised video – can deliver extraordinary results.

Creativa has won accolades for its campaign that used video capability – allowing the individual personalisation of content – to successfully help the Western Bulldogs AFL club drive lapsed members to sign up again. 

The Western Bulldogs asked creative agency MMR to develop a campaign that would encourage lapsed members to re-sign. The campaign, titled Lost Bulldogs, used personalised digital content to re-engage these former members.

MMR partnered with Creativa to develop a unique video, the hero of the campaign, and 10,000 individualised videos were sent to lapsed members.

“These dynamic videos used data from multiple sources to automatically create a highly personal experience for users,” Creativa director Damian Blumenkranc said.

The club’s member marketing campaign aimed to leverage content personalisation – targeting content to individuals based on who they are or where they are – and Creativa delivered a unique video platform to drive the campaign.

Mr Blumenkranc said the campaign sent members to a microsite, which allowed supporters to create a ‘Lost Bulldogs’ poster and personalised video for their friends, then share this content on social media and via email.

“The play button is one of the most compelling calls to action on the web and becomes even more powerful when combined with the fact that we as individuals crave personalised experiences,” Mr Blumenkranc said. 

“Personalised videos are being used to great effect for superannuation statements, bills, quotes and client onboarding.

“During this campaign, over 700 custom videos were generated in real time.”

The Western Bulldogs recently announced they had reached 30,000 members, 5,300 members ahead of the same time last year, including the welcome return of ‘some old dogs to the kennel’.

“These numbers are exciting and prove that truly engaging content delivers results and helps achieve business objectives,” Mr Blumenkranc said. “It demonstrates that viewers don’t just want a story; they want their story and it suggests content personalisation has arrived in terms of usage, acceptance and effectiveness.”

Mr Blumenkranc believed 2016 would usher in a new era of personalised marketing, calling it ‘the year of personalisation’.

“And it certainly might be the year of the dog, given the goals the Western Bulldogs are kicking both on and off the field,” he said.

* Creativa is an executive member of Victorian Leaders, the organisation helping to mentor and connect the next generation of leading companies based in Victoria.

www.creativa.com.au/dynamic-videos

 

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Employee fitness app takes out 2016 Tanda Hackathon

WORKPLACE health and happiness took centre stage at the annual Tanda Hackathon over the ANZAC Day weekend, with 150 of Brisbane’s best programmers creating software that could revolutionise the way we work and live.

The Hackathon was the largest of its kind in Queensland, bringing together information technology (IT) students with industry professionals. 

Teams tirelessly worked overnight to create products built from the Tanda application program interfacing (API), with the hope of pitching them to judges Brett Hooker, Adrian Karzon and John Puttick, then prospective customers.

“The event was a huge success. It really goes to show that you only need 24 hours to change the world,” Tanda co-founder Alex Ghiculescu said.

The winning team designed ‘Project 4’, a web app that encouraged employee fitness by linking Fitbit data to Tanda’s rostering platform. Employees are rewarded by how active they are during the shift.

Co-creator of Project 4, Roy Portas said, “We wanted to create something that could combine Tanda’s new API with the Fitbit API to motivate employees at work, but also provide managers with data about their business such as which hours are actually the busiest, based on the movement on employees.

“This was my first Hackathon,” he said. “I’d heard about it through the UQ Computing Society and thought it would a great chance to get in and learn something new. 

“Being a Uni student, I don’t have a lot of time during the week, so being able to come in for the weekend and learn all about APIs in a hands-on environment was fantastic.”

Project 4 wasn’t the only idea focusing on workplace wellbeing, with another team developing an app that used to facial recognition technology to determine employee happiness based on their clock in photos.

Event organiser Nicholas Burge from Tanda said, “It was exciting to see so many people build something really cool. There were so many ideas where you could see that the concept had been really developed and our customers would love to be involved.

“Some other ideas were a little more outrageous, with someone wanting to build a big red ‘I Quit’ button, and another tried to start a Tinder for professionals,” Mr Burge said.

The Tanda Hackathon provides a unique opportunity for programmers to get together and show off their skills while also mingling with fellow developers and IT market leaders, Tanda’s Mr Ghiculescu said.

“Students have limited exposure at university, they were all really appreciative of the opportunity,” Mr Ghiculescu said.

“We’re definitely going to look into doing more networking nights with students.” 

The competition was judged by be judged by Technology One group director of research and development Brett Hooker, Skydive Australia Group technology manager Adrian Karzon, and IT legend John Puttick, the founder of GBST and a QUT Council member. 

Mr Ghiculescu said providing a platform for the “up-and-coming tech legends” has become a core reason for the event, with the lion’s share of every ticket going straight back into university clubs and societies.

Tanda, initially started by four QUT students, is a time and attendance software designed to assist business in increasing their productivity and profitability, by minimising unnecessary wage costs.

Tanda 2016 Hackathon results were:

First place: ‘\lessapprox’ with ‘Project 4’; Roy Portas, Sophia Hooton, Megan Hunter and Jesse Stanger.

Second place: ‘Vansandt’  with ‘Take the Shift’; Scott Barber and Trudi Saul.

Third place: ‘SISO’ with Jeff Lynne, David Buchan-Swanson, Martin Wheeler and Saadit Khan.

http://hack.tanda.co/

www.tanda.co

 

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Tanda calls all ‘hackers, hipsters and IT heroes' for the Hackathon

BRISBANE’s leading programmers, designers and developers will compete at Tanda’s Annual Hackathon next weekend (April 22-23) for the opportunity to market their creations to the world.

The Tanda Hackathon started as a programming competition designed to bring Brisbane’s best programmers and developers together to “create and build something incredible” according to Tanda co-founder Alex Ghiculescu. 

He said the event was all about encouraging innovation and design opportunities for Brisbane’s next generation of tech legends and has quickly grown to be Brisbane’s largest Hackathon. 

“The hackathon is so important, because it provides a chance for students in the programming community to get together and bounce ideas off each other,” Mr Ghiculescu said.

“When I was at uni, there were no opportunities for programmers to get together and practice their ‘art’. The Hackathon offers programmers a chance to get excited about what they do, and to meet others who love it just as much.

“It’s a really fun atmosphere to be part of – you can literally see the sparks flying as people get excited about their ideas.”

Mr Ghiculescu said the Hackathon was a natural extension of the progressive ethos of the Tanda team.

“We started Tanda because the four of us got together and built something cool, but we couldn’t have gotten far without the platform that MYOB and Xero provided for us to build on – that’s what we want to do for others,” he said.

Last year’s winning team, Two Weeks Notice, took out the hotly contested prize after writing an algorithm that could predict with 80 percent accuracy, whether an employee would take a ‘sickie’ in the next fortnight.

Elliott Smith from Two Weeks Notice said, “The Tanda Hackathon was a fun, friendly competition over an interesting dataset. It was great to see all the different solutions that came out of the same set of data. I’m looking forward to defending my title at this year’s event.”

To celebrate the launch of Tanda’s public API, this year’s Hackathon theme is APIs (application program interfaces), which will allow users to build their own apps and businesses around companies like Tanda.

Mr Ghiculescu said the Hackathon was not just “uniting programmers everywhere, but also proving that coding isn’t a boys only club anymore”. The percentage of women attending increased from 5 percent in 2015 to 17 percent in 2016.

Mr Ghiculescu admitted that the event was not just a networking event, but also an opportunity to give back to the university clubs and societies he loved so much at university.

“Forty percent of every ticket sold is going directly back into the University IT and programming clubs and societies – it’s a bit sentimental for me actually,” he said.

“The clubs encourage students to work on their skills but also to be proud and passionate about their area of study- it’s a mission I strongly agree with and I think it’s important to encourage this culture of ideas.”

The competition will be judged by Technology One group director of research and development Brett Hooker, Skydive Australia Group technology manager Adrian Karzon, and IT legend John Puttick, the founder of GBST and a QUT Council member.

Tanda, initially started by four QUT students, is a time and attendance software designed to assist business in increasing their productivity and profitability, by minimising unnecessary wage costs.

http://hack.tanda.co/

www.tanda.co

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UniSA brings in global experts for digital learning symposium with experts

EXPERTS in digital learning from across the world are visiting the University of South Australia (UniSA) this week to help outline the evolving role digital learning is playing, from the lecture hall to the modern economy.

Through UniSA’s Digital Learning Week (March 8-18), the visiting scholars will stage keynote addresses, learning cafés, workshops and other opportunities for staff to experiment with emerging learning technologies and to gain a better understanding of the research and innovations that are informing the future of learning in universities such as UniSA. 

UniSA’s Professor Shane Dawson, Professor George Siemens from the University of Texas at Arlington and Professor Dragan Gasevic from the University of Edinburgh have worked to bring the international team of researchers together this week.

With presentations on subjects including technologies to support self-directed learning through social interaction, Big Data, learning analytics and algorithmic accountability, to panel discussions on effective blended/ online teaching, the 10-day long symposium will see multiple events scheduled across all university campuses, with some available via virtual classroom.

A presentation on March 9, Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: The Role of Mindfulness in a Digital Age, will review the theory and research on mindfulness and its relationship with self-regulation and psychological well-being, in the context of teaching and learning and the ways in which technology can both enhance and interfere with these practices.

“The world is digitising and higher education is not immune to this transition, as we are moving from a knowledge revolution to a learning revolution,” Prof. Siemens said.

“The trend is underway and seems to be accelerating, and it is clear that academic organisations are required to facilitate the advancement and adoption of digital learning research.

“Higher education leaders around the world are facing the difficult challenge of re-architecting the university to reflect the modern economy and the digital age. This learning week will enable time to evaluate the scope of changes facing higher education and to explore ways that universities can respond to ensure continued research and education excellence.”

The group of 16 national and international researchers who will be visiting UniSA have extensive expertise in the fields of learning analytics, computer supported collaborative learning, networked learning, artificial intelligence, learning sciences, e-learning, natural language processing and complex systems.

Prof. Dawson said it was the first time the multi-disciplinary group would come together to initiate a roadmap of collective research and innovation as well as aid the promotion and effective adoption of digital learning strategies.

“The digital learning week is one of many new initiatives at UniSA that reflect the University’s commitment to support its staff and students in experimenting and transitioning to new modes of learning and teaching practice,” Prof. Dawson said.

 “The digital learning week provides a unique opportunity for university staff across Adelaide to connect and engage with renowned international and national experts.”

www.unisa.edu.au

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