Thank You For Your Support!

It's been seven full years since I left Gartner to pursue helping others progress with various forms of digital technologies. My commitment has been to help push digital technology forward in supporting real business goals, competencies, and progress. I am delighted to still be adding value to our collective efforts. I really want to thank my readers for continuing to be interested in my writings.

There were those who:

Learned something new
Were encouraged to think differently
Corrected my grammar, spelling, etc.
Corrected my thinking
Encouraged and extended my points
Pointed me to parallel efforts
Pointed to areas of opportunities

I want to thank you all and hope to continue to add value. So far my blog has had nearly 650,000 hits over the seven years spread across 537 posts yielding an average of over 1200 hits per post. My reach is now on Forbes and Data Decisioning where I have a pretty new presence. Some of the details of the activity are posted below. While most of the activity has been in the US (67%), there is a wide interest internationally. If you have ideas for further writings or just want to discuss something, please reach out to me at jim.sinur@gmail.com.

Net; Net:

Thanks for your continued support!!!  Stay in contact :)

Is Automation the Tip of the AI Spear?

AI has a lot of opportunities to flourish, but what will be the major thrust to put AI into action?  Will it be the study of data to find interesting and essential patterns for organizations to act on?  WIll it be to assist organizations to make better decisions? Will it be the demand to make processes smart enough to adapt to customer expectation? My assertion is that automation will be the thrust that many will get behind. It's the one thrust that executives can get behind because they can get benefits early thus obviating risk. Let's look at the two sides of this assertion.

Automation Will Be the Key Driver of AI:

If you look at the traditional use of technology, it has always been about automating manual tasks or making resources more productive. Why would it be any different now? Organizations are always looking for cost advantages. Right now the economies are clicking despite all of the rumors of wars (trade or otherwise). This means that AI can contribute to many channels of benefit without any significant impact on the bottom line. In fact, more attention can be given to things like better customer experiences and more effective decisions. Just watch what happens when the economy cools off.  Automation will take a strong march across the organization. The MBAs and CPAs will unite to drive costs into a corner. Executive management might give a nod to other efforts with a wink, but you can count on automation under all scenarios.

Automation is Just One of Many Drivers for AI:

Sure automation is a no brainer for investment, but narrowly focused executives will be blind-sided by the customer excellence movement. This time the movement will also be active during any economic down coming our way. The notion that business can dictate a clunky experience and expect a positive response is sorely wrong. There will be those organizations that will stand in the breach of balancing customer wants and goals with organizational goals. These organizations will also value adding AI to customer journeys that even span beyond their four walls. The key touchpoints and moments of truth will need AI to stay adaptable in real time. These savvy organizations will be looking for patterns of success, even in down economic times.

Net; Net:

While I believe that a balanced approach is the better approach, cost-saving automation will always go ahead of everything else initially. The key is to make sure automation does not dominate to the point of stealing the future of good customer relationships sowing the seeds of the ultimate destruction of some organizations. Convenience and customer excellence will win the war over time. Let's not inflict pain to our customers, but let's combine smart journeys with the power of process automation.  Let's keep organizational and customer goals in balance folks and remember that smarts are necessary everywhere!

Art for 4Q 2018

I've always wanted to paint a butterfly, so this quarter I decided to go for it. While work has kept me too busy for the last year, I still managed to get this done over the Christmas / New Year period. I had completed a couple fractals while on a  several business trips in the airplane. I hope you like at least one of these :)

                       Please see my other pieces at www.james-sinur.com

                                                                 Fly Away 

                                                               Pink Burst 

                                                              Sea Weed 

Can Designer AI Be Far Away?

We know that AI will be assisting us at work in a more influential way over time and will help us reach organizational goals. What do you think of AI influencing your every day life beyond super charging searches, playing your favorite music and controlling individual devices.  AI will help us look better, act better and participate better in social interactions. As we are successful at work with AI, we will trust it more in our personal lives.

AI will Help Us Look Better:

Well most of us won't leverage robotic plastic surgery or genetic supercharging for better looks, we might ask AI to help us with our looks. AI could know our tastes, looks and body types and suggest a target outfit and even buy the components for us. I think most of us still will want to shop for price and quality. Today you can try on make up with an AI assisted mirror. Imagine a full length mirror displaying your final outfit on you before a Saturday Night outing? I always need help at Halloween, so that will be my test run :)

AI will Help Us Hobby Better:

Have you ever had the aspiration to dive into a hobby, but were timid? Have you ever been knee deep in a hobby and run into a perplexing situation. Wouldn't an AI assist come in handy for those situations. My gear head friends who still tinker with cars are always running into situations that require help. In fact racers are always collecting data and leveraging technology to analyze performance. In my case I like to try new forms of art expression and spend hours looking at videos or going to classes. Imagine AI searching for an answer for your situation and suggesting approaches.

AI will Help US Socialize Better:

Have you ever felt uncomfortable in a social situation?  Wouldn't you like to contribute to a conversation in a meaningful and polite way? Wouldn't you like to have the right thing to say in the right situation without embarrassing yourself or others? Even if we are inviting guests over for a meal, wouldn't some suggestions come in handy? I think we all find ourselves in want of assistance in social situations. If you desire to interact with others, assistance could really be helpful for most of us. This might come in form of a voice in a ear piece or a image in our glasses / eye piece.

Net; Net: 

While it might seem intrusive or silly to some of us, others of us will embrace designer AI. For rugged individuals that don't want help, designer AI is probably not your thing. However, for those of us that are always looking to get better or look better, designer AI will be appealing. For me designer AI would help with confidence in new situations that I tend to want to put myself in from time to time. How about you?