T H E L E A D I N G V O I C E I N B I G D ATA I N N O VAT I O N
BIG DATA INNOVATION OCT 2016 | #24
50 Shades Of Blockchain Blockchain is going to have a huge impact on the way that companies run, blockchain expert Nick Ayton talks to us about the importance of planning for the future /12
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Data Will Help To Track Illegal Employee Activity
Will The IoT Really Take A Century To Roll Out?
New laws are likely to see harsher sentences on bosses who allow their employees to conduct illegal activity, so data is more important than ever in tracking employee actions /11
The IoT Is going to have an unfathomable impact on our world, but some are predicting that it will be 20 years before we see it working effectively /21
Big Data & Analytics for Pharma Summit November 3 & 4, 2016 | Philadelphia Speakers Include
Contact Roy Asterley +1 415 692 5426 rasterley@theiegroup.com theinnovationenterprise.com
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ISSUE 24
EDITOR’S LETTER Welcome to the 24th edition of Big Data Innovation
Aside from health and money, the most important element for people is their data. It is essentially their identity in today’s online world. It shows where we live, our family, our health details, practically everything that makes you who you are is held in data. It is the importance of data that makes it so imperative that data custodians do their utmost to protect it, because if it falls into the wrong hands it can have a huge amount of damage. The week that I am writing this has seen one of the highest profile data leaks ever from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Early reports suggest that the hacking group, Fancy Bears, who are responsible for the attacks, have Russian links and the attacks may be in response to accusations of state funded doping in the country.
However, regardless of who is responsible, the fact is that sensitive medical information has been lost.
are simple to prevent. It is essentially showing the main weakness in all data security in the world is still humans.
Unfortunately, the attack wasn’t even particularly sophisticated, using a Whaling, or Spear Phishing, attack to get access to the database of athlete results and potentially their medical history. It is a massive breach, not only technologically but also in terms of trust. WADA needs to be one of the most trusted and secure organizations in the world because their findings and testing impacts the reputations of people looked up to by billions of people around the world.
It is also something that there is no way around because we have data in order to access it and utilize it. It is the one part of the process that is always necessary and yet it is the same part of the process that is also the most vulnerable.
A phishing attack is basic, it is essentially tricking somebody into giving you their password to something, they can sometimes be complex but with some basic training
GEORGE HILL MANAGING EDITOR
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Chief Data Officer Summit December 7 & 8, 2016 | New York
Speakers Include
Contact Roy Asterley +1 415 692 5426 rasterley@theiegroup.com theinnovationenterprise.com
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CONTENTS 6 | DATA IS DOMINATING EMERGING TECH
18 | DATA-DRIVEN PRODUCT INNOVATION
According the Gartner hype cycle, data related technologies are dominant, We look at it in more detail and try to see why this is the case.
Product innovation is not something that comes easily, but the sea of data available today can help direct the process
8 | DATA WILL HELP TO TRACK ILLEGAL EMPLOYEE ACTIVITY New laws are likely to see harsher sentences on bosses who allow their employees to conduct illegal activity, so data is more important than ever in tracking employee actions. 11 | 50 SHADES OF BLOCKCHAIN Blockchain is going to have a huge impact on the way that companies run, blockchain expert Nick Ayton talks to us about the importance of planning for the future. 14 | GOVERNMENTS ACROSS THE WORLDS ARE TURNING TO BLOCKCHAIN Far from being useful for only digital currencies and niche online transactions, blockchain is going to play a big part in governments in the coming years.
19 | 5 REASONS YOUR DATA STRATEGY IS FAILING Many companies put data strategies into place without fully understanding why they are failing, how do you know if you are doing it wrong? 21 | THE INTERNET OF THINGS AND DATA VISUALIZATION Data visualization is not something that you normally associate with the IoT, but the truth is that the IoT needs it to reach its potential. 23 | WILL THE IOT REALLY TAKE A CENTURY TO ROLL OUT?
The IoT Is going to have an unfathomable impact on our world, but some are predicting that it will be 20 years before we see it working effectively.
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MANAGING EDITOR GEORGE HILL | ASSISTANT EDITOR JAMES OVENDEN | CREATIVE DIRECTOR OLIVER GODWINBROWN | CONTRIBUTORS ANDREW CHRISTOFI, NICK AYTON, ALEX COLLIS, JAKE HISSITT, ELLIOT PANNAMAN
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Data Is Dominating Emerging Tech The Gartner Hype Cycle is 40% filled with data technologies
George Hill, Managing Editor
It is that time of year again when tech geeks pull back the curtain to see how their new favorite technologies are developing and how long they are going to take to get to full blown success: The Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies has been released. For those not familiar with the
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concept, Gartner study emerging technologies to create a graphic that shows the success and development of specific technologies. It indicates how developed the technologies are in addition to predicting roughly how long it will take them to become mass-market ready and contains five stages through which they go before reaching mass market adoption:
There are only a handful of technologies that aren’t at least profoundly influenced by data
- Innovation Trigger, this is the stage at which technologies become known amongst early adopters
HYPE CYCLE FOR EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES, 2016
- Peak of Inflated Expectations, the stage at which the expectations of the technology is hyped up to almost unrealistic expectations - Trough of Disillusionment, here the realities of technologies becomes better known and the speed of their development frustrates people - Slope of Enlightenment, the technology begins to pick up momentum and is more widely adopted - Plateau of productivity, this is when technologies become more wide spread and accepted by a larger number of people/companies Gartner (August 2016)
This year’s updated version does not throw up too many surprises, with technologies like 802.11ax and 4D printing just making their way onto the innovation trigger section, and Blockchain and Autonomous vehicles hitting their peak inflated expectations. However, the element that is truly indicative of the progress that we have seen within data is that 39.4% of everything on the graphic is directly related to data collection and use. It says much of the impact that data has had on our society, given that in
2012 only 12.5% of those on the list were directly data related. Bearing in mind that in 2012 big data was not even at the peak of inflated expectations, its direct derivatives now make up more that one third of current emerging technologies. There has even been controversy that some of the descriptions within these are too broad, with Gil Press asking of the inclusion of machine learning, ’Is [it] an “emerging technology” and is there a better term to describe what most of the hype is about nowadays
39.4% of everything on the graphic is directly related to data collection and use
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In 2012 only 12.5% of those on the list were directly data related
in tech circles?’ Instead, he argues, there should be ‘deep learning’ or ‘artificial neural networks’ used in its stead, given that machine learning is already a well established technology. Gil is certainly correct, with at least a relatively basic form of machine learning appearing in things like suggestion engines and programmatic advertising to some extent. However, if we were to look at almost every element of the current hype cycle, there are only a handful of technologies that aren’t at least profoundly influenced by data. Technologies like brain-computer interface and volumetric displays may not necessarily be directly data related, but they do require a considerable amount of it to function, showing that data is impacting almost every emerging technology in 2016.
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This is not surprising given the rise in the amount of data being collected, Cisco believes that by the end of 2016 we will create a Zettabyte of data in one year, rising to 2.3 yearly by 2020. This growth in data is acting as a catalyst for the development of new data informed technologies and helping to not only inform innovators but also help with the functionality of technologies. 2016 may have been a year to forget in many ways, but it seems to have been a watershed for new data technologies.
Data being used by the HR team can even help to identify people who may be at risk of exploiting the system
Data Will Help To Track Illegal Employee Activity With new rules around corporate responsibility likely, data could help track nefarious activity
Andrew Christofi, Big Data Evangelist
When Enron went Bankrupt in 2001, it was found that the company was defrauding customers at almost every level. Subprime mortgage lenders deliberately manipulated markets in order to sell bad debt, which was one of the leading causes of the financial crash in 2008. We have also seen a number of banks being fined for
everything from tricking to customers to manipulating international markets. Most of these ended with minimal impact for the companies and those in charge of the businesses. It has set a precedent that sees white collar crime being seen as something minor compared to more traditional /9
Through machine learning algorithms it is possible to flag anomalous transactions that can then be investigated further criminals. A bank robber, for instance, will get 2 years for stealing a few thousand dollars, whilst three bankers in Ireland who committed a €7bn fraud received an average jail sentence of 3 years. Many more white collar criminals are let off with only a fine, which is hardly going to dissuade people from acting nefariously when the rewards involved can be so huge. However, this may be at an end, with some governments looking at the way they prosecute white collar crime. The UK Attorney General, Jeremy Wright has recently said that the government are currently consulting on ‘failure to prevent’ offences. David Cameron, the previous UK Prime Minister, announced the work being done in the Guardian, writing ‘In addition to prosecuting companies that fail to prevent bribery and tax evasion, we will consult on extending the criminal offence of ‘failure to prevent’ to other economic crimes such as fraud and money laundering so that firms are properly held to account for criminal activity that takes place within them.’ This essentially means that if an employee does something illegal, the boss will take a proportion of the responsibility and be prosecuted too. This is likely to be a recurring theme throughout countries negatively impacted by large company failure, meaning that company leaders need to be informed of what their subordinates are doing. Luckily, since the financial crash of 2008, we have seen a huge increase in the data available to them. It gives them the opportunity to monitor the actions of anybody in their company. It is unlikely to be popular if they suddenly start reading everybody’s emails though and luckily with modern / 10
data uses it isn’t necessary to take an Orwellian approach in order to monitor behaviour and actions. Through machine learning algorithms it is possible to flag anomalous transactions that can then be investigated further, which would stop a considerable amount of financial fraud. If somebody is suddenly performing considerably above where they have historically performed, this would also be flagged and the reasons for this could be examined. It could uncover something totally innocent, which could then be shared throughout the department to improve overall performance, or it could show illegal action and action could be taken to stop it before it becomes too damaging. Data being used by the HR team can even help to identify people who may be at risk of exploiting the system, helping leaders to make informed decisions about new employees and keep tabs on existing ones. For instance, if somebody is consistently underperforming the chances of them turning to illegal means to gain an advantage may become more likely. Through using HR data these situations can be pre-emptively tackled, stopping potential illegal activities happening in the future. Dishonesty in business is something that Dan Ariely, Senior Fellow at Duke University Kenan Institute for Ethics, studies frequently and he has found that the more ‘distance’ there is from the eventual reward, the higher the likelihood of cheating and dishonesty. According to the experiments undertaken by Dan’s team, it can be around double the rate. As more and more technology is put between two parties in a transaction, there is an increased likelihood that this will happen, but this same technology may well provide the data to eventually prevent it.
Big Data & Marketing Innovation Summit November 1 & 2, 2016 | Miami
Speakers Include
Contact Jordan Charalampous +1 415 614 4191 jc@theiegroup.com theinnovationenterprise.com / 11
50 Shades Of Blockchain Finding out which flavor will work for you
Nick Ayton, Digital Disruptor & BOOMer, Digital BOOM
You need a Blockchain strategy and your company needs one… Here is the thing. You can either embrace Blockchain or ignore it believing it to be hype. You can go through the motions and create great theatre by pretending your organization is doing Blockchain stuff and that you are also buying into the ethos. You may believe having a Lab, starting a Proof of Concept, and appointing a Blockchain Czar is enough to convince those around you that Blockchain things are happening…
Activity
But do they really see it? Many organizations are being led down the garden path by old consultants who all of a sudden claim to help organizations develop, test and get Blockchain concepts going… Where did they get these skills and knowledge? These same firms are buying their way in to becoming members of everything Blockchain, members clubs, closed consortia but do they really know the difference between foreplay, a bit of bondage and torturous restraint, where they are really in search of the dominatrix role over you and your organzation.
Banks are hoovering up Blockchain, Bitcoin, and Solidity resources in a mad panic not to be left out in the cold. Insurers are awaking from a deep hibernation and will probably
Although technically having never done Blockchain or spent any Bitcoin that was until recently was seen a bit off piste for them, they are now encouraging customers to create their
To me, this is nothing more than a bit of foreplay unlikely to get anyone excited. 90% of what is going on in organizations around Blockchain is complete guff and you will see a far better theatre in Soho’s West End!
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go back to sleep as another tech wave passes by, and others in Capital Markets, Asset Management, Custody, Healthcare, Logistics and Supply Chain businesses are having their epiphany moment, realizing doing nothing is not an option.
China has more than enough capacity to innovate, with strong financial resources, a welldeveloped infrastructure, and an influential position economy-wise own plug play and punishment rooms as Labs and Proof of Concepts and offer a full array of toys for testing, development, and writing smart contracts. Along with IBM and Microsoft, they appear to be offering their versions of things that are a far reach from Satoshi’s origins. The motive it seems is to get willing clients locked into their tech and a Blockchain as a Service model, which isn’t the outcome required. There are also pureplay Blockchain businesses (semi startup) run by computer scientist and crypto entrepreneurs working on the next super version of the Blockchain, seeking clients’ income to bring their projects to life. Each claiming to have the best shade of Blockchain that has solved the scaling and throughput challenges and claim to get clients off. Without doing those that are building real stuff a disservice, nor decrying what they have already achieved, with any new emerging technology the level of nonsense and faking it becomes quite excruciating to those of us that are already creating and building a Blockchain future.
How do I get my kicks?
chain or any number of distributed ledger versions, Smart Contracts or what some call transaction logic, are the building blocks to be deployed as part of an overall architecture, or as I call it a Blockchain business model. You get a new set of toys to play with that don’t follow conventional thinking. To find out other Shades of crypto and Blockchain I list the primary projects and consortia in this link paper titled: Blockchain goes Mainstream https:// channels.theinnovationenterprise. com/articles/blockchain-goes-mainstream
Is Blockchain Pain or Pleasure or both…? I have spent a considerable amount of my career working in tech, business process outsourcing and re-engineering, and latterly in digital transformation (which simply isn’t, more guff and nonsense) and follow the reasons people buy new tech. - At the heart of Blockchain is a cost out play enabling organizations and industries to remove 50% to 90% operating costs. Industry Platforms are a case of build it and they WILL come, and for me the most likely winners in the Blockchain race
Simply put, Blockchain is the key to a very different future, an open source software code and distributed ledger technology that supports cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin) that provide the tools to deliver different business operating models and outcomes. The rules of this technology offer new ways of solving tomorrow’s problems that weren’t their yesterday.
- Second Blockchain is an efficiency play by removing underlying friction and non-value added roles/activities to do with checking and re-checking, validating counterparties and who is at each end of a transaction. Interesting given compliance is a huge cost of doing business mostly falls away
Bitcoin or any of the other crypto-currencies (of which there many), Block-
- There is the transparency opportunity from improved security (fault
tolerance) of information and transactions that cannot be changed after the event delivering instant audit and verification. This has enormous impact on the opportunity to forge new propositions to deliver confidence, better experiences and reach customers that have lost faith and trust in what is on offer today
What if I choose Pleasure… Implementing Blockchain is complex, requiring a great deal of thought, planning, and preparation. But most of all, it requires that those who don’t yet know the difference between Pain and Pleasure experience Blockchain to come up with a vision of the future, a template of what success looks like and focus on the outcomes they would like to see. Improving cycle time (removing friction and time cost), better transparency (therefore trust), lower costs (better value) and ease of use (convenience) become attractive options as advantages that can be deployed to eliminate competitor and drive volume towards you. These are things Blockchain offers but can you envision it...
Most people cannot. What are your Hang Ups: understanding the business problem to be solved? Hence the theatre around Proof of Concepts is paper thin, and mostly a waste of everyone’s time. Blockchain requires a fundamental change to corporate thinking, to structures and the nature of organizational governance, management theory and behaviors. It is more operating model redesign than a sticking plaster solution, it challenges how decisions are made and authority lines, and lays bare all costs and exposes customer propositions for what they are. And this happens all at once.
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As Peter Thiel mentions, the game is not to compete at all, it is to dominate and create a monopoly position in a sector. Blockchain is the answer, the toolset, and the platform to get you there, but can you articulate the problem sufficiently well to create the opportunity? Asset Management is a perfect example. There are some bright people I know building an Industry Platform that will day one reduce costs by 70-90%. What will be the effect of pricing that is more than 50% cheaper? Let alone the other intrinsic
Like icebergs, it is all going on under the surface hidden from view benefits Blockchain delivers in terms of transparency, security and smart contracts that execute the rights and decisions of the asset rights holder. This is a Game Over scenario…
Organization versus Industry The battle lines for Blockchain are drawn. I have always looked at new tech in terms of determining very quickly what changes, what are the things I can do that before I could not. What things are unlocked and now possible that weren’t there before? How does this change business models and the relationship with markets and customers? How can I exploit the tech to control the market? Any fool can play with tech for technology’s sake and spend millions on delivering nothing very much. Large organizations fall for this all the time with enterprise software that promise much and deliver less than the previous version. It all gets rather disappointing as the initial emotion, passion or excitement soon withers / 14
and shrivels rather quickly as nothing gets delivered. Blockchain is about structural change. It removes the centre of things. It brings with it a certainty of things that in most businesses need to be checked and confirmed on each side of the deal or transaction. Blockchain records activities (transactions) that exist in a Peer 2 Peer network only once, a protocol that sits on the Internet alongside WWW (WorldWideWeb). It is reliant upon and resides at the Internet layer. It was Http and HTML that unlocked the WWW as a new range of applications encouraged information sharing and eCommerce transactions took off. Entire Industries immediately collapse and all middlemen are crushed and not needed. Within organizations, the admin and corporate centre disappear. The same result. Cost out, efficiency and transparency. For this to happen Blockchain requires new apps (Dapps) to unlock the full potential of the technology as a game changer. It is a blank canvass for innovators and entrepreneurs to reinvent the past and deliver new kicks, excitement and fetishes to customers that increasing want to control their own value and feel that trust in business (banking and government) has been lost.
Blocks and Chain’s hidden depths Blockchain is a modern metaphor for stirring things up a bit (a lot actually). It is neither one thing nor another yet it is a lot more than most people can cope with… At the core a distributed database technology that stores transactions as a ledger (an immutable record), a digital currency offering P2P connectivity as a ‘financial rail’ (without needing to be banked), a development environment and rich context languages to create new apps (new ways of doing stuff), a vast computing power (10,000 times bigger than the
biggest 500 companies) and it is Open Source (free), unless you decided to buy a licensed version. It is deep and multi-layered.
Customer Interface Blockchain already provides new customer experiences through new Interfaces that allow people to trade their own value with new levels of assurance than ever before. Payments using Bitcoin happen without the middleman distort things, taking fees and diluting their value. It is free and money arrives in minutes not days. Imagine Remittance without fees for the non-banked. A simple mobile app (or wallet) is all it takes.
Apps The business processes are tied to the application layer and new Dapps offer lots of new ways to solve business problems. Blockchain also plays nicely with other technologies such as Robotic Process Automation as software BoTs that can improve cycle time of the poorest business processes and enable new ground breaking ways an organization can do things that until now we never thought possible. Entire back office functions that used to have hundreds of staff now have a handful.
Smart Transactions as Smart Contracts The business logic sits at the transaction layer, or what some are calling Smart Contracts, that aren’t contracts in the legal sense at all. A better definition is Smart Transactions where active software code can trigger and then enforce a wide array of actions and events. I have left the concept of autonomous agents for another day.
Data Store The place to store data, information and transaction records is within the
chain of Blocks. A serial set of Blocks that contain information that is Time and Date Stamped and linked to the previous block, as an immutable starting point. A valuable starting point record, a ‘golden source’ that cannot be amended or changed, verified by the network, those appointed as custodians and provide consensus.
Implementation Mindsets Things that determine your particular shade of Blockchain:1 - Blockchain Software – do you go Open Source or Licensed, which version and what is the TPS throughput, the underlying development language e.g. Ethereum’s smart contract language Solidity? - Public or Private or both – who will have access and what kind of access is desirable? - Governance – Permissions and how Consensus will be delivered. Who will be the NODES and who will be the custodians, Open Source community or elsewhere? - Collaborations – who and why and the level of encryption?
Then comes… - Resources and Education – where do these come from and are management understanding and engaged in the design of the new? - What infrastructure exists, and what external infrastructure will
Blockchain requires a fundamental change to corporate thinking
be required, cloud, tools, testing, and development? - Who will build the distributed apps, what are the business processes and the business logic to execute Smart Transactions as Contracts?
Then… - What will the End User see and touch as Staff and Customer experiences? - Access at P2P level e.g. wallet or mobile apps or alternate? - How will the transfer of Value, Token, Digital Money work and who decides a good actor or bad? - Which algorithms as Hashes, and will your Blockchain be Proof of Work or Proof of Stake? - How to use the financial transportation layer using crypto-currency to flip into other currencies and values (commodities)
Then… - Interoperability with the old universe where Blockchain Smart Contracts execute through ERP and other enterprise software, as the new world needs to communicate with the dinosaur world until extinction - Side chains and Oracles (data sources) are essential to the architecture of Blockchain implementation, how are these side chains connected and who decides access (permission) - Ramps and gateways to Payment platforms and other rails (temporary or hard wired API) - Scale – how many Transactions Per Seconds are needed and how the tech scales notwithstanding the cloud plumbing as a Blockchain backbone
how to stay right side or whether to disregard depends on industry sector, geography, and platform
Was it good for you… I like to get my monies worth from new tech. All organizations and C-level executives need a strategy for Blockchain, crypto-currencies, BoTs, AR, IoT and other pervasive technologies or miss out on the was it good for you moment, as this time it is happening quicker. The serious people in the Blockchain community are beavering away building platforms and re-inventing everything. Like icebergs, it is all going on under the surface hidden from view. Much like the Houses of Pain and Pleasure in Acacia Avenue, you know it is there but need local knowledge to confirm where. Blockchain is exactly like this. Blockchain is a serious dangerous technology in the sense of how it delivers Pain and Pleasure. It will turn industries on their heads, and for others, it has the potential to eliminate them completely. For most, they will witness a shift in the balance of power away from the large centre, the big corporates, the national agenda towards new consumption models that will bring more people as prosumers into the trade tent. Blockchain will take the brakes of commerce and include everyone that wants to play whether or not they have a bank account, as long as they have value to trade and can reach the Internet they can be a player in the game. Choose carefully who you ask for help and you may get more pain than pleasure for your money. Welcome to the world of Blocks and Chains, of Bits and Coins of reducing friction and removing the unnecessary non-value add.
Want to play…?
- Regulation and the Law will always be a decade behind new tech, but / 15
Governments Across The World Are Turning To Blockchain The technology is growing and global leaders are taking notice
James Ovenden, Analytics Editor, Innovation Enterprise
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The hype around Blockchain has exploded this year, as its potential begins to be realized. Author Melanie Swan summed up the benefits in ‘Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy’, writing that, ‘The Blockchain allows our smart devices to speak to each other better and faster’, something that is being recognized across the board - including by some of the world’s biggest banks. The applications are limitless, and as we move towards a decentralized future in which the power truly lies with the individual, it is going to be right at the heart of it.
Governments have long seen decentralized networks such as Bitcoin - which is built on Blockchain - as a threat to the status quo, leaving it to the libertarian cyberpunks who initially came up with it. However, they are finally beginning to acknowledge its many virtues as a resource, and its potential to decrease bureaucracy around the delivery of government services and the costs that come with it. Hillary Clinton, for one, has been a major proponent of the technology, including Blockchain in her announce-
In an age of low trust in government, it is vital that information is held in a transparent and accountable fashion ment for policy initiatives for technology and innovation, noting that it could ‘make government smarter and more effective.’ But while Clinton may have brought it into the public eye, there are already a number of government agencies in the US that are exploring adopting the technology. In Delaware, for example, Governor Jack Markell recently announced two Blockchain initiatives. One moves state archival records to an open distributed ledger, while the other allows a private company that incorporates in that state to keep track of all the equity issued and the different shareholder rights on the blockchain. These are typical of how Blockchain can be utilized by government. Estonia has even used Blockchain to develop an e-residency program, whereby anyone in the world can apply to become an e-resident of Estonia. They receive a digital ID card with a cryptographic key they can use to sign digital documents securely, removing the need for ink signatures on official paperwork, they can open bank accounts with Estonia’s
e-banking system, set up company in Estonia using the country’s online system, and using their e-services. These initiatives are just the start. In the UK, every single public sector organization can now use Blockchain technology following the government’s decision to rubber stamp FinTech startup, Credits, as one of its approved suppliers. The UK government has already been testing Blockchain on a small scale to see how it can be utilized, developing a fully functioning app to help pay people’s welfare, and their willingness to roll out the technology across the public sector suggests that the trial was successful. The Chinese government too has created a Blockchain working group made up of government and blockchain firms - including Wanxiang Blockchain Labs, Ant Financial, Webank, Universal Holdings, Ping An Insurance and Micro Focus Bank - to accelerate and propel forward the development and adoption of Blockchain technology in the country.
internet revolution. If the US is going to be equally dominant in Blockchain, internet 2.0, the ‘internet of value’, the next president, whether Hillary or Trump, is going to have to ensure that they do the same. Ultimately though, which nation leads the way is irrelevant, because Blockchain is returning power to the individual.
In an age of low trust in government, it is vital that information is held in a transparent and accountable fashion where anyone can verify both the ledger and any copies of the data stored on non-government computers. Most public registries are maintained in government databases, and with these are far more securely held on Blockchain as it keeps track of and maintains an audit trail of information far superior to the systems currently in place. Public blockchains are a relatively new technology, and significant research and development is still required if they are to achieve their full potential. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton and his Vice President Al Gore invested in the internet and regulated it in such a way that ensured America led the
Estonia has even used Blockchain to develop an e-residency program / 17
channels.theinnovationenterprise.com
Reasons Your Big Data Strategy Is Failing Why aren’t you seeing returns from your data project?
Alex Collis, Big Data Commentator
Despite disruptive innovation being capable of driving greater results, it’s a high-risk practice
Big data is nothing new. The majority of companies now collect a wealth of information about their customers and processes, leveraging the insights to streamline operations, drive marketing, and ultimately increase profits. The opportunities made available by Big Data are truly astounding. However, many companies are still not seeing a return on their investment in data. In a survey of senior business leaders at 1800 large companies in North America and Europe, only 4% were classified as being ‘data elites’ and successfully using data to improve business performance. More than a quarter reported seeing ‘no or little benefit’ from their data initiatives. Similarly, in a survey by business transformation consultancy Moorhouse, of the FTSE250, just 11% of such organizations said they believe they are effectively leveraging big data to inform their strategic decisions. There are a number of reasons for this, all of them easily fixable.
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If the C-suite isn’t truly on board with a data project, it will go nowhere
1. Stuck in ‘gut instinct’ mode It is natural that an executive with more than 20 years experience will believe they know best, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Consequently, they will ignore the wealth of data they have at their disposal. Fortune Knowledge Group found that 62% of business leaders still say they tend to trust their gut, while 61% believe that real-world experience is more important than analytics for decision making. While understandable, from a business sense it is exceptionally reckless. All decisions should be supported by strong evidence, not by opinions and intuition. The first question should always be ‘where is the evidence?’, if not, you are writing cheques your business can’t cash.
2. Lack of C-suite buy-in In a similar vein to problem one, if the C-suite isn’t truly on board with a data project, it will go nowhere. Obviously, it will likely result in a lack of investment, but the real problem is that there will not be the kind of datadriven culture instilled throughout the organization that enables data initiatives to be successful. A data-driven culture will ensure that everyone, from all backgrounds, is drawing insights from the data, not just analysts. Employees must put data at the heart of their thinking and be willing to share data sets with other departments. This attitude starts from the top down, and the C-suite must ensure that they have organized their operations and strategies in place to create a culture of evidence-based decision making.
3. Big data silos Big data silos are a particular problem for incumbents, transferring data from legacy systems and disparate sources. When data is organized into silos, it ends up being separated from other data, isolated from broader processes, staff, and - most
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importantly - from broader decisionmaking. When an organization unifies its data and it all flows together, information becomes a strategic asset, giving a clear advantage over the competition.
4. Focusing on the wrong data In their rush to collect all the data they possibly can, organizations often actually end up with too much data, making it difficult to use efficiently and discover anything. The key is to collect only data that’s really necessary and will actually aid the business. It’s also important to understand that individual data is not the most valuable resource, rather it’s the data that shows what an entire demographic is doing.
5. Not taking action Data is nothing without action. It sounds like a cliche, but it’s very much true. Many companies are successfully collecting data and discovering insights, but they are not translating this into action and are failing to learn from it, essentially rendering the whole ordeal redundant.
The Internet Of Things And Data Visualization Without data viz, connected devices are unlikely to reach their full potential Elliot Pannaman, Head of Big Data, Innovation Enterprise
When most people think about data visualization, they think about graphs or infographics showing something vaguely interesting, a simple marketing exercise. However, this is not the case; the practice has become essential to today’s understanding of data. Without it, communicating the billions of data points available on almost any subject would be impossible, trends in even small data sets would take weeks to find and the understanding of data amongst the general population would be almost non-existent. The use of data visualization has changed the way that people understand the increasing amount of data available to them, moving from simple datasets with a single purpose (number of website visitors for instance) to more nuanced and complex datasets (geography, demographic, time on page, etc). Being able to see the relationships between these different data sets is essential to the ability to fully action any necessary changes. We are going to see that visualizations are increasingly powerful and necessary in this kind of analysis, with the Internet of Things (IoT) becoming more prominent in the coming years. Cisco predicts that there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020, each being able to transmit and collect data. It will give us the most in-depth opportunity to see relationships between different ‘things’ in human history. We will have the ability to see if there is a link between the types of food in the fridge and the amount of rain in a specific area, or the link between the number of lights turned on in a city at any one time and the amount of sleep people / 21
are getting. However, tracking and analyzing these different datasets is only going to be possible with the use of powerful and simple data visualizations. Alongside this huge influx of data is the seemingly unstoppable increase in the speed of analysis available due to accelerations of processing speeds. We have seen through the use of current technologies like in-memory databases and Apache Spark, alongside those for the future like quantum computing, that the ability to collect, process, and analyze huge datasets is increasing. As these technologies become more prevalent and the use of real-time analytics allows more and more companies to react to issues instantly, visualization is going to be the key that gives companies the opportunity to quickly identify and then act upon it. Without this ability, it would be almost impossible to quickly make decisions on data. The human brain has evolved to be adept at noticing differences in patterns and, although the AI and machine learning have huge implications in a number of areas, they still lack some of the most important contextual elements in decision making. Therefore, having the ability to quickly and easily notice, and then act upon, patterns in data still falls within the realm of humans, and data visualization is the most powerful tool that allows us to do this. The IoT will certainly run without the use of data visualization, but without it, many of the possibilities that the connected world offers will be missed.
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Chief Data Officer Summit November 16 & 17, 2016 | London
Speakers Include
Contact Jordan Charalampous +44 203-868-0306 jc@theiegroup.com
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theinnovationenterprise.com
Will IoT Really Take A Century To Roll Out? Is it all just hype? Jake Hissitt, Organiser, IoT Innovation Summit
There are a number of other issues that could hold back IoT
In a recent article in the Economic Times, entrepreneur and academic Kevin Ashton wrote that complete roll out of the Internet of Things (IoT) would take until the end of the century, noting that, ‘The Internet of Things will take a century to roll out completely.
We are just 16 years in, with a long way to go and a long way gone.’ Given estimates by analysts such as Gartner around the number of connected devices by 2020, you could be forgiven for thinking that this timeline / 23
Entrepreneur and academic Kevin Ashton wrote that complete roll out of the Internet of Things (IoT) would take until the end of the century is overly conservative, to say the least. Ericsson’s former CEO Hans Vestburg said in 2010 that there would be 50 billion connected devices by 2020, a prediction oft repeated since, and even dramatically exceeded in 2012 when IBM went so far as to forecast a frankly astounding - and in hindsight, clearly ridiculous - 1 trillion connected devices by 2015.
be sneezed at. Ericsson had almost halved its prediction for the number of connected devices from 50 billion by 2020 to 28 billion by 2021, and other firms have gone for roughly the same number, Gartner being among the lowest at 20.8 billion by 2020.
There are also a number of notable IoT projects that would suggest Ashton’s prediction to be wrong. The Netherlands, for example, has recently beaten its nearest rival South Korea in the race to build a national IoT network. Dutch telecoms company KPN recently switched on its IoT network, covering the entire country and connecting tens of millions of embedded devices. US mobile operators are also now adding IoT connections to their networks at a faster rate than they are cell phones, cars in particular. Even Africa, notoriously behind when it comes to implementing new technologies, is set to see IoT reach mainstream adoption during the next two to five years, according to Gartner.
There are a number of other issues that could hold back IoT. Firstly, the limitations of WiFi, currently needed to provide the ‘connected’ element of connected devices. A connected toaster without WiFi is just something that makes your bread crispy, not something that does it from outside the house. WiFi is an incredible resource, but it’s limited because it relies on radio waves. The radio spectrum is a limited resource, which means that as more devices become connected, everyone is sharing the same amount of bandwidth, which will likely severely limit the speed of IoT. It also uses far too much energy, and supporting the billions of people and devices set to connect to the Internet over the next decade will be hugely damaging to the planet if we’re forced to rely on WiFi.
As much as these projects seem to indicate growth at a pace far in excess of Ashton’s prediction, it’s also true to say that the estimates are wildly high and such projects do not necessarily indicate widespread adoption. Indeed, the whole project itself may well not be feasible as things stand. The current number of connected devices out there varies between Gartner’s estimate of 6.4 billion (excluding smartphones, tablets, and computers) and IHS’s estimate of 17.6 billion (which includes all devices) - some way off the 1 trillion IBM predicted, though still nothing to
Such a slowdown is not necessarily a bad thing. There are many fears around the security of connected devices, with critics arguing that designers, in their rush to ride the wave of IoT hype, have made protecting the wealth of data that the devices will produce a secondary concern. Technology does, however, evolve, and it will evolve to cater for IoT in terms of both connectivity and security. Given the hype around IoT and the number of companies and designers getting on board - Morgan Stanley’s AlphaWise survey in May 2016 found that 90% of designers
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said they are adding connectivity for IoT, while IoT M&A activity increased 28% year—on-year in Q2 - it may currently be difficult to envisage IoT not being fully integrated into society within the next decade. However, given the barriers and the real pace of growth at the moment, Ashton’s prediction may not be as ridiculous as it first appears.
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