Monday, January 30, 2023

2023 Top 5 Technical Trends

Organizations will focus on assured success in 2023. Organizations will focus less on "moon shots" and more on accurately hitting targets on earth. While the allure of new digital solutions and the temptation of true transformation will still seem to call, organizations will stick with the attainable. It does not mean that organizations will not innovate; the innovation will be undertaken with wisdom while staying congruent with the Top 5 Business Trends in 2023. (Click here for more information). Part of that wisdom will also be keeping an eye for emergent business opportunities and technologies that could be of advantage or threats that derail focused efforts that are highly synched to the stakeholders and executive directions. Organizations will double down on successful technologies that enhance the bottom line while keeping a watchful eye for technical innovation that makes sense within risk tolerances.


Real-Time Observability

All aspects of business are speeding up and have to deal with emerging conditions, patterns, opportunities, and threats. It will put a premium on real-time observation, decisions, and actions. Some of these real-time decisions and activities will be made on the edge more autonomously within management and governance guard rails, sometimes called constraints. Managers will make more integrative decisions requiring more detailed data, often sifted and enhanced by AI, and need a lateral view that looks for the implications in multiple contexts. It will drive two significant activities over and above the resurgent analytic sectors. One is integrated emerging visibility that looks across and outside the organization. Often there will be integrated monitoring or a management cockpit that will visualize results, notify managers of significant detections, and allow them to try different alternatives leveraging prediction, simulation, and various analytical modeling to take appropriate and quick action. The simple decisions will get automated, and autopilot actions will be suggested or enacted even at the edge. The other is establishing, growing, and managing a data mesh. All of this depends entirely on having an intelligent data mesh that knows where the data is and the quality of said data regardless of data type (operational databases, behavioral data, voice, or video), no matter where it resides. This huge vacuum is being filled as we speak with emergent and new data management software that catalog and reach into various sources (cloud or not), notifying the manager of the data quality scores.

Intelligent Automation

All the focus on hyper-automation is starting to pay off. Organizations are getting substantial benefits from newer automation approaches. Consequently, there will be additional bets on combinations of technologies that deliver the best returns. These returns will contribute to the bottom line for current earnings and help fund any new tech efforts that management deems essential to compete. The silo technologies coming together to deliver great automation include process/workflow, RPA, Process/Data mining, Business Lead, Low Code, Monitoring, Simulation, Mapping, and Analytics. There are a variety of combinations that have compelling case studies, and many organizations have had significant successes. A portfolio of initiatives that deliver savings and opportunities to support business directives is a must for 2023. A platform of integrated technologies is a big help in providing the benefits of technical combinations. Click here to see example combinations and vendors that have proven successful as a Digital Business Platform (DBP)

AI Expanding and Adapting Its Role

Ai has proven its value in learning from data, which will continue to gather steam focused on and around desired business outcomes. When combined with analytic and statistical models, AI can move into more thinking situations on top of the already important detection and pattern recognition duties AI is known for today. The data sources for detection mining will expand beyond traditional data to include images, videos, voice, and communications. The kind of thinking situations AI can move into in the short term would consist of knowledge acquisition/leverage, modeling, projections, and autonomous actions in emergent situations. Conversational and explainable AI will make substantial headway in 2023, building on existing success. A new movement in AI will revolve around intelligent chatbots, smart automation bots, new forms of deep learning and pattern recognition, plus intelligent applications. AI will also assist the creatives in 2023 and beyond with writing, art and music. It will start as a collaborative approach and get more independent over time. As AI ethics mature, interactions with our employees and customer will become routine for AI.

Platform Consolidation

Organizations will be looking to consolidate costs and integrate isolated technology streams. It will drive a trend for integrated platforms that tend to be technology supermarkets that promotes more one-stop shopping for the technology leaders as business ramps up the demand for speed to results. Companies will look at their current platforms and look to consolidate their numbers if possible and drive additional uses of the strategic platforms. This trend will hit compute infrastructure, networks plus storage, and databases. The current surround and leverage multiple platforms trend will continue, but there will be increased pressure to eliminate some. It also means that automation and digital business platforms (DBP) will experience the same pressure. It will put a premium on general-purpose DBPS linked to pure specialty platforms.

More Secure Digital Commerce

We see increased activity from bad actors in security incursions and ransomware. It is getting more serious, and the threat of cybersecurity wars is looming. Organizations will take extra precautions to prepare for ransomware and security incursions. As cybercrime escalates, the dangers and costs increase dramatically. It may not be apparent, but adversaries are stockpiling your vulnerabilities. Once made public, there can be a feeding frenzy. A growing number of threats from various sources and attacks should concern businesses. There is now a sophisticated and growing ecosystem of harmful sources. As the world heads for stable digital commerce, there will be increased efforts to engage government and financial industry leaders to create secure models that guarantee free trade. All efforts will be aimed at rigorous testing of all safeguards.

Net; Net:

Increased productivity from intelligent automation and human assistance will enable organizations to expand their experiences for constituents while saving money. Get ready for higher levels of technical and human collaborations. Consolidation and automation savings will be allocated to investing in the platform's safety and leverage. Still, managers will keep their eyes open for technologies not to miss out on in 2023. It will require a more disciplined approach to staying linked to goals in a near real-time fashion while dealing with various and dynamic people and automation resources.



Nobody Knows Me

 Here is another popular song from my recent Amazing Journey Album, co-produced by Ethan Foxx and engineered by Jimmy "Cat" Caterine. This song is about someone in a very dark place that gets rescued by love. Love can reach into the darkest corners and change lives. It describes someone painfully alone, probably hanging out on social media and watching the world move on without them. Thankfully love lifts this person to a hopeful plane again after they realize they need to change.

Click here for the lyric video.

What Others Have Said About Nobody Knows Me 

Wonderful opening shooting into a tight Prog Rock style delivery with wicked Rush-like guitar work/drums throughout. 

David McCoy, Former DJ, and Retired Digital Consultant, Atlanta Georgia

“The blistering guitar solo really captures you and is quite memorable,” Bryon Robke, Biochemist, Loveland CO  

This had some excellent lead guitar, and other background instrumentation, combining to create a mysterious, ominous, foreboding sound. Bill Martin, Retired Color Master, and Artist



Click Here For an Album Sampler

Click Here For the Album on YouTube


Tuesday, January 24, 2023

The Next Time I see You

 In late November 2022, I released my first album, "Amazing Journey" which I coproduced with Ethan Foxx and masterfully engineered by Jimmy "CAT" Caterine. There are a couple of songs that have leaped out as popular. To that end, we created a lyric video for "The Next Time I See You." This song is about reuniting with loved ones once we leave this blue marble. Click here for the Video

What Others Have Said About "The Next Time I See You"

Strings! Love it.  David McCoy, Former DJ, and Retired Digital Consultant, Atlanta Georgia

I enjoyed the vocal on this on this most “melodious” song on the disc, in my opinion.

Bill Martin, Retired Color Master, and Artist


Click Here For an Album Sampler

Click Here For the Album on YouTube


Monday, January 23, 2023

2023 Top 5 Business Trends

It’s a new world for 2023, with managers facing new challenges and managing traditional business issues. While the recent large wave of the ever-evolving disease seems to have passed, there are threats of resurgence and new strains. There are implications of war and regional conflicts on the horizon that could also impact businesses. The era of "free money" is now behind us all, while currencies seem to be adjusting to a tight capital plus uncertainty in most traditional and untraditional currencies. Investors, businesses, and customers will be much more careful in the future, implying an economic pull-back and more conservative investment. Even so, innovation will still be necessary to navigate through rather than being primarily aimed at "moonshots." What does this mean for business trends?


Managing Uncertainty

You can't manage what you can't see or measure. So organizations will double down on managing uncertainty. It means that on the reactionary front, businesses will focus on speed to respond with innovation, change, and faster digital technologies to assist management in observing, orienting, deciding, and acting. Proactively, businesses will bolster their corporate planning exercises to consider scenarios and use new applications of digital sentinels to sense emergent threats, opportunities, and unanticipated "black swan" events or event clusters. AI will likely play a more vital role beyond just operational machine learning.

Wrestling with the Cost of Doing Business

Businesses will try to lower costs on core operations without putting the burden on the backs of their employees, partners, and customers. It implies more intelligent automation and not just outsourcing costs to partners, making customers the data entry clerks, or putting more stress on employees. Capital expenditures will typically be observed as they progress to profitable results and in all tight money times. However, care must be taken not to use cost containment to choke off important innovation. The most intelligent organizations invest during down cycles to get momentum on the other side of a downturn.

Increasing Loyalty for Real

Clearly, businesses have taken customers and employees for granted in the past, and it is coming home to roost. Companies must be flexible with work models to stay competitive and offer upskilling opportunities, tailored benefits, and intelligent automation assistance for the higher-skilled workers who know the game is about skills. In addition, brand reputation will get technical assistance in measuring real-time customer satisfaction through voice, more intelligent natural language chatbots, and better interactions that are not only driven by rehearsed scripts.

Wrestling Change Through Focused Adaptability

Businesses have a hard time with change. Sometimes it’s the inflexibility of core processes and systems. Still, more than that, it keeps people engaged with the change so that they can contribute towards goals and have the change feedback on the progress of the resulting changes as they roll out. Technology systems need to be fitted and surrounded by flexible and fast digital technologies, and people need to be engaged frequently.

Focusing on Core Business Needs

Businesses should focus on core businesses and shed those activities that do not contribute to the core business unless it is an innovation that would distance your organization from future economic up cycles. Concentrating on the core will be essential to weather any storms that emerge. As a result, staff evaluations, technology redundancies, and vendor consolidation should be on the table in 2023. In addition, new methods for managing non-core activities will be aggressively pursued.

Net; Net:

While rapid growth is not expected in the economy, organizations will take bold steps to intercept and manage changing conditions. Organizations that leverage emergent management disciplines and technologies will be far ahead of those organizations that just play speed to reaction well. Any efforts to be on top of real-time observations, pattern interception, and critical actions will be paid back handsomely when conditions are emergent, as I expect going forward.



Monday, January 9, 2023

Art for the 4th Quarter 2022

 Inspiration continues on the traditional art front with a new piece entitled "Ready or Not". It is a painting in acrylic using some metallic effects. The other two are interesting fractals. If you want to purchase these or others on my art site, please contact me at jim.sinur@gmail.com. Enjoy!


                                                     SWIRLS


                                                   BRILLIANT SQUID

  

                                                     READY OR NOT