When media first started going digital, journalists feared that they would be judged by the numbers, rather than on the mastery of their craft. To a large extent, that actually happened, but it wasn’t so bad after all. Most were able to adjust.
So there was no small amount of irony surrounding the recent high profile negotiations between ESPN and The New York Times over the services of Nate Silver. The stakes were enormous, as Mr. Silver accounted for as much as 20% of the Grey Lady’s web traffic.
Math, it seems, has become more than a means to evaluate, but journalism itself. Whereas before, a reporter’s main tools were sources and shoe leather, now algorithms are on the job too. Most of all, Nate Silver is a sign of the zeitgeist. In this new age of big data, math is no longer an ancillary activity, but plays a central role in helping organizations compete.
One of the most interesting aspects of digital technology is its ability to disrupt. These days, scale is no match for innovation and speed.
Nevertheless, the new technologies that we usually hear about are from giants like Apple and Amazon, Facebook and Google, Microsoft, IBM and the like. On any given day, it always seems that one of those companies steals the headlines.
That’s a shame, because some of the most interesting companies are ones that rarely get much attention. They are often located in out of the way places or develop technologies behind the scenes, where their logo isn’t paraded in front of us on a daily basis. Nevertheless, they are important and and do exciting work. Here are five.
It often seems like we live in a cursed age. All of the major economies have hit hard economic times, atmospheric carbon is the highest in recorded history and the spectre of terrorism looms over everything. Still, even as our problems appear to be unprecedentedly large, we are able to muster the power to solve them.
So what gives? In each generation we seem to face almost insurmountable hurdles, but we emerge living longer, richer, healthier lives. The answer, obviously, is that we are able to create solutions faster, through technology and innovation, than problems emerge. The story of how we do that is probably not what you’d think, but it’s inspiring nonetheless.
In the 20th century, marketing was a relatively sleepy endeavor. You came up with a “big idea,” sold it through the organization, shot some TV ads and put them on the air. It worked for the most part and brands became valuable assets, just like physical capital and technology.
Things started to change in the 80’s and ‘90’s. Cable TV created an explosion of channels and a massive fragmentation of audiences. Marketing was still about ideas, but became more numbers driven as issues like targeting efficiency and ROI rose to the fore.
Today, marketing has been altered beyond recognition, becoming more mobile, social and connected. The result is that marketers, rather than being a relatively monolithic group of professionals, have metastasized into a hodgepodge of specialists including designers, mathematicians and technologists. That’s creating altogether new problems to solve.
When the Thomas Edison was asked about his success amidst failure, he said that “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”
With that kind of dedication, it’s no wonder that Edison was awarded over 1000 patents, including the light bulb, the phonograph and the motion picture camera, making him one of the most prolific inventors in history.
It also becomes clear why he regarded success as “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Failing 10,000 times is a physical and mental undertaking that far exceeds most people’s endurance. Today, however, a new breed of innovators are outsourcing failure to computer simulations and it’s changing what we thought we knew about business strategy.
Newer tech phenoms, such as Amazon and Google, operate along similar lines. They are product driven companies and their strategy flows from that. They see a problem they can fix, attack it with fervor and then figure out what the business opportunity is.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has always been a strategy driven company. Much like a chess grandmaster, it tries to see two or three moves ahead and then builds out the product portfolio to attack the market. While it doesn’t always excel in product leadership, it has remained a top player for more than a generation. Can it continue?
In a recent interview, tech guru Marc Andreessen noted that, although Beijing has great potential to be the next Silicon Valley, it probably never will be. Despite the great engineering talent and enormous market, its lack of openness is a serious liability.
While many might argue with Andreessen’s conclusions (it’s always hard to tell when he is offering genuine insight and when he is merely trying to be provocative), the questions he raises are important ones.
Why is it so hard to create another Silicon Valley? How should a society encourage innovation? Why are some places with great technical talent (like the former Soviet Union) seemingly unable to produce innovative firms? While there is no strict formula,there are some conditions that must be met for innovation to thrive.
Steve Jobs was the ultimate entrepreneur. As Walter Isaacson pointed out in his acclaimed biography, Jobs revolutionized seven industries and created the most valuable company in the world. We revere people like him, because they help create the future.
Yet, they do not do it alone. One fact that often gets lost is that the basic technologies that Apple products are built on (and those of all tech firms), from the chips, to the Internet, to GPS to the software protocols, were all supported or wholly developed by government programs.
As Bruce Upbin noted in a recent article in Forbes, while we like to think of daring venture capitalists and entrepreneurs taking all the risk, they are more akin to the “last mile,” building on top of technological infrastructure built by the government. In truth, public sector programs are often crucial to innovation in the private economy. Here are four:
Technology tends to run in cycles. Microsoft ruled the 90’s by building essential software for enterprises. Then Apple created a new device driven marketplace in which the consumer was king. What will drive the next decade?
While these things are always hard to predict with any specificity, much of the writing is already on the wall. Humanlike, no-touch interfaces will combine with a pervasive array of sensors and intelligent back-end systems to form a new Web of Things. Computing will become truly ubiquitous.
This new era of computing will be different than anything we’ve seen before. Technology will cease to be something we turn on and off, but will become an inextricable part of not only our environment, but ourselves. It is a future that is both utopian and dystopian (depending on your perspective), in that the human experience will change dramatically.
In 1995, nobody had even heard of Amazon, Google or Facebook, but they now dominate the business of technology. When you think about it, it’s pretty astounding how many startups have grown into massive global powerhouses since the Web went mainstream.
But if you thought that is where all of the action has been, you’d be wrong. There were also an untold number of organizations who completely transformed their enterprises to succeed in the digital world. E-commerce alone has become a trillion dollar business.
A lot of them were powered by IBM’s e-business initiative, led by Irving Wladawsky-Berger who explains that much of the IBM’s success came from recognizing that the Internet wasn’t just for startups, but that great value could be unlocked by transforming existing firms. Now IBM plans to do it again with its MobileFirst initiative. Here are 5 key points.
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, noted that the Apple founder 
, Jobs revolutionized seven industries and created the most valuable company in the world. We revere people like him, because they help create the future.
