Being the Business

By Terry Bradwell
Chief Information Officer
AARP






As CIO of AARP, I have a responsibility not only to put in place the most efficient technology systems for our organization, but also to support AARP’s mission in a broader sense as well.  That is why when we initiated a transformation of our IT department to build a stronger support function, we made a deliberate decision that our IT investments would not only support the business but would also be geared toward “being the business”.

Today, even though technology is an imperative, the empowerment made possible by instant access to seemingly limitless information and the improved quality of life made possible by tech connections to family, friends, and community remain beyond the reach of millions of older Americans.  They are held back by barriers such as cost or feeling intimidated by technology. 

At AARP, which represents nearly 38 million Americans who are 50-plus, we fight for and equip people to live their best lives.  We help them achieve and sustain health security, financial resilience, and personal fulfillment.  With our IT Department playing a key role, AARP is working to close the technology gap that leaves so many older adults at a disadvantage.  Over the past year-and-half, AARP has come forward with two initiatives that help older Americans reap the benefits of technology.

One is AARP TEK, which stands for Technology Education Knowledge.  AARP TEK is a comprehensive in-community national education program specifically geared to the 50-plus audience.  We are adding a robust online learning program this year.

The men and women participating in AARP TEK want plain language, not incomprehensible jargon.  They want one-on-one instruction that is patient and not condescending.  They want user-friendly devices that are welcoming, not intimidating.  With AARP TEK, that is exactly what they get through hands-on workshops and a customized curriculum. 

We’re making the experience accommodating, not overwhelming.  You might call it assisted adoption.  We are giving older adults the skills and confidence they need to use technology and stay connected to their families, friends, and communities.

In 2014, we reached more than 13,000 people through more than 300 technology training workshops.  The response has been tremendously positive, with consistently high ratings and heartfelt testimonials such as:

“More, more, more, please, please, please.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun learning something.”

“My daughter is going to be very impressed with me.”

The last comment reminds us of the intergenerational footprint of this program, a component very important to AARP.  The training is often carried out by high school and college students, providing an opportunity for millennials and older adults to learn from each other and discover new ways to connect. 

With AARP TEK, we have tapped into a great unmet need.  We have seen up close that a sizable segment of the technology is not being served by the technology industry.  To tackle that issue, we had to go beyond technology training.

That is why we have introduced a user-friendly tablet called RealPad, tailored to the needs and wants of older adults who have found personal technology anything but personal.

RealPad is the first-ever direct-to-consumer retail product from AARP.  It offers a warm and welcoming experience for the technology-shy.  It comes with pre-loaded apps, large graphics and icons, and it is Wi-Fi enabled.  RealPad steers clear of impenetrable terminology and it offers a halo of support in the form of basic videos in clear language and 24-7 live customer service.

RealPad and AARP TEK are prime examples of how we can—as our CEO, Jo Ann Jenkins says, “disrupt aging.” 

With these initiatives, we have helped to make a lasting difference in the lives of the people we serve. 

Within IT, we are encouraging and rewarding an entrepreneurial spirit.  We are combining the hunger and excitement of a start-up with the well-honed execution of an experienced brand. 

I see AARP TEK and RealPad as compelling examples of what IT departments can accomplish by not only serving the business, but being the business.  Labeling IT as a cost center and limiting our role in that fashion is increasingly out-of-date.  It is time for IT to become a value center for the enterprise.

ConNEXTions 2015: Defining Today’s CIO

By Jeanine Sterling
Industry Principal
Frost & Sullivan







If there was ever a leadership position that needed upgrading and updating in today’s fast-changing business environment, it is that of the CIO.  This year’s Frost & Sullivan ConNEXTions event, held in early February in San Francisco, focused on defining the key traits of a successful 21st Century IT executive.
 
Throughout two days of presentations, panels, roundtable discussions, and interactive Q&A, the following themes emerged:

CIO Leaders Establish Proactive, Positive Relationships with Their LOBs

Each line of business is a customer looking for support.  Creating a positive relationship with LOBs should be at the top of every CIO’s to-do list.  Recommendations that emerged around this topic during discussions included:

• Create a new “business relationship management” role in the IT department, and have one of these managers for each of the company’s LOBs. They then become the interface and expert into each line of business.
• Become a partner and problem-solver, getting to really know and understand each LOB’s business processes.
• In fact, identify the individuals within each LOB who have an analytical bent and can clearly describe and define their business’s work processes.  These are valuable resources.
• Understand that IT is more effective working with – not dictating to – its internal clients.  Ongoing communications and flexibility help greatly in this regard.
• Recruit a marketing-oriented individual onto staff and have them explain and promote IT’s achievements to the rest of the company.

CIO Leaders Are Always Developing Next-Generation IT Personnel
 
With the Baby Boomer generation reaching retirement age, it is imperative that CIOs be actively searching for successors.  A number of presentations and discussions focused on how to recruit and, very importantly, retain a new IT employee:

• Realize that technical skills are table stakes.  Just as important are the abilities to set goals, collaborate, be creative, and work with people.
• Consider internships, college fairs and hackathons as fertile recruiting territories.
• Once hired, head poachers off at the pass by providing employees with real challenges, regular training, honest feedback, and the opportunity to take on new responsibilities.  Don’t let them stagnate.

CIO Leaders Are Digital Disruptors

Scott Caudill, VP of Solution Delivery and Business Transformation for Zimmer Holdings, Inc., presented a keynote presentation on how to embrace new business models and opportunities.  His IT organization helped transform a 90 year old manufacturing enterprise into a modern powerhouse by hewing to the following framework:

• Co-source what makes sense.  The IT department must recognize what it’s good at and what it’s not.  Commodity activities can be handled by an external partner.
• Revitalize the infrastructure.  23-year-old ERP systems and applications aren’t going to get the job done these days.
• Hire world class talent.
  
• Manage IT like a business.  Align ongoing IT costs with business benefits to establish a rationale for necessary spending increases.
• Deliver quick wins.  Re-branding the company website, mobilizing the field sales force, and/or instituting clearer KPI tracking and analysis are good examples of quick, high-value achievements.

CIO Leaders Make Their Organization Indispensable to the Company
 
How does the CIO and IT organization remain relevant as SaaS (software as a service) vendors continue to proliferate?

• Make the CIO position a Board position.
• Be viewed by other executives as a trusted advisor.
• Think like a CEO – make KPIs a priority and be forward-looking regarding LOB needs.
• Do not be viewed as a cost center.  Be viewed as providing value-add.

ConNEXTions 2015 gave each of its attendees the opportunity to explore these leadership themes with each other, making the two-day getaway a valuable opportunity to network, share and learn.
 

Digital Transformation: The Advantage for Legacy Companies

By Adriaan Bouten
Former Senior Vice President & CIO
Commodities and Commercial Markets
McGraw Hill Financial








Most consider startup companies to be the innovators in digital transformation. Legacy companies have a great advantage to these startups that, when used correctly, can be used to great success.

Startup companies are nimble, and focused on a particular innovation, and these are typically the hurdles for a legacy company. So the solution is to remove the hurdles and to deploy the core assets of a company in a different way.

For more, read Adriaan Bouten's post on LinkedIn.

Issues Driving the CIO's Future

The CIO stands at the intersection of a perfect storm of events as technology becomes an increasing force of change within the business. Connecting the dots between the business value of disruptive technology and the CEO’s most pressing challenges means the CIO is in a unique position to help drive organizational innovation.

In this presentation at the 2nd Annual ConNEXTions 2014: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, Frost & Sullivan’s Richard Sear explored areas of change based on three specific challenges for a CEO: What is going to disrupt our business over the next five to 10 years, what could cause part or all of my business to collapse, and what could create transformation for our business or market?


SESSION
Issues Driving the CIO's Future

PRESENTER
Richard Sear, Global Vice President, Visionary Innovation, Frost & Sullivan

TAKE-AWAY

The key word these days is “change.” Companies need to adapt to ever more rapid changes so they can continue to survive and thrive. A lot of that change is related to technology, so CIOs have a unique position to offer their expertise to the CEO. For the future, Sear said, CIOs must think of themselves not as Chief Information Officers, but Chief Innovation Officers.

Sear made the prediction that Facebook, as we know it, will go out of business. Why? The interface does not foster human interaction in a 3D simulated environment, he said. It uses direct ads instead of indirect ads and does not appeal to our “humanistic” side.

According to Sear, Facebook and other portals like it have things backwards. Humans won’t adapt to technology – to be successful, technology must adapt to human habits. Humans have interacted with each other in similar ways for centuries, and Facebook and other technology built around human interaction will have to evolve to accommodate those habits.

Sear asked attendees to envision having coffee with other humans in a 3D simulated environment. Just as humans will continue to gather in groups, individuals will want technology that enables that.

Or how about trying on clothing with holograms? Online shopping could use innovative technology to simulate the tactile texture of a clothing item for the consumer to feel on a pad or other device.

BEST PRACTICES

Those are the types of directions technology will be moving. Over the next 15 years, Sear said, rapid prototyping and hyper-personalization will be the direction of technology innovation.

Technology leaders must help their organization’s chief executive understand those movements and how the company can thrive in that environment. From now until 2025, the CIO or CTO will be most valuable to the CEO if he or she speaks about mega-trends and business models, rather than individual products.

ACTION ITEM(S) TO IMPLEMENT

Sear said companies should make IT growth decisions based on an immersive 3D experience for customers. This mindset should be present during Research & Development – developers should consider all five senses. They need to see, feel, and think from the viewpoint of the end user.

Rapid prototyping and a focus on the individual are critical. Micro factory agility is required in the new environment, Sear said. The goal should be to personalize a product in three hours, rather than three days.

TAKE-AWAY

Companies need to spend time interacting with customers to understand how products are used and how they can be further personalized to better meet their needs.

Sear offered the example of a respirator mask developed by a leading brand. Senior executives conducted on-site testing in mine shafts in Chile where the product was being used. The goal was to understand the point of view of not just the decision makers purchasing the product, but also that of the ultimate end user.

The executives found that the workers had personalized the masks themselves by cutting slits into the mouthpiece and covering the opening with fabric so that they would be able to audibly communicate with each other. As a result, the company realized that for these customers, the product must include breathable fabric that allows for audible shouting. That insight was not anticipated by Research & Development.

Sear also discussed a Japanese Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) that he said challenged the pre-conceived notion of a car and used a hyper-personalization approach instead.

To achieve that change, IT innovators employed simulator metrics to discover the braking habits of drivers and other relevant inputs. For instance, some drivers may prefer a thicker steering wheel because of the measurements of their hands, which can be a tailored input. Other customers may have different preferences about the firmness of the upholstered seats, for example.

BEST PRACTICES

CIOs and CTOs are successful when they understand the CEO’s growth map. It’s important to envision and anticipate the needs, wants, and worries of the CEO for IT innovations. Tech leaders win the trust of the CEO if they are compassionate about what keeps the CEO awake and worried about the business.

To get executive buy-in, it’s critical to present technology concerns not as a compartmentalized worry, but as an issue that will affect the growth of the entire business.

TAKE-AWAY

In addition to hyper-personalization, technology is also moving more and more toward smart products, and CIOs and CTOs must help chief executives understand the difference between dumb vs. truly smart IT innovations.

BEST PRACTICES

Google Nest, Cisco, and Huawei are all competing in the “smart home” space. Increasingly, customers will expect their smart house to communicate with their smart car to coordinate, for example, the opening of the garage door.

The smart house will also measure biometrics of each member of the household as she or he enters. When the wife and kids arrive, the house will be able to adjust to a temperature previously agreed upon by the group.

Smart also has potential for all kinds of other products, Sear said, For example, a smart bandage could change color depending on information gathered about the wound. Smart water pipes could automatically shut off if a contaminant is detected. These devices won’t just monitor information, but will also take action according to protocols pre-set by humans.

FINAL THOUGHT

The business environment, technology capabilities, and customer needs are changing fast. CEOs need help from partners that can help anticipate and adapt to those changes. Offering that insight will help CIOs and CTOs not only showcase the value of IT within the organization, but also help the company succeed in the future.

For more valuable information from ConNEXTions 2014, order your copy of Frost & Sullivan's Executive MindXchange Chronicles, a unique collection of all the key take-aways and best practices discussed at the event.

The Future of Work Starts Now

An interview with
Matt Carter
President
Sprint Business









As the President of Sprint Business, Matt Carter is responsible for looking ahead to the future of work and helping businesses navigate this new environment. Frost & Sullivan recently spoke with Matt about these changes and the challenges ahead.

As the nature of work evolves, what do you think are some of the challenges companies are facing?

Over the last year or two we’ve been talking to a lot of people: CEOs looking for more agility in their businesses to deal effectively with disruptive market change; line of business managers wanting to shift gear to beat the competition; and IT managers who need to respond to the changing needs of the workforce – in mobile, in social and in technology terms – but who find their legacy IT systems make it just too difficult.

One critical thread has run through these discussions: our customers and prospects are desperate to liberate their people from their existing systems so they can do their jobs better and enjoy them more.

According to a recent Gallup survey, only 10% of employees feel engaged at work – meaning they feel emotionally invested and focused on creating value for their organizations every day. Scarily, actively disengaged workers outnumber engaged ones by more than two-to-one.

This means that the big question that every leader has to answer is: how can we change work to deliver more of the things people come to work for? Things like fulfillment, autonomy, recognition, affirmation and, yes, fun.

What should companies be looking at in order to do that?

The answer to this question lies not just in technology, because company culture and values will play a vital role. Younger workers in particular are looking for jobs they can believe in, that they can commit to with their heart and their head. We have slideshare on The Future of Work that I think shows what I mean.

Company culture and management styles are critical, but technology is critical too.

Where does IT fit into all of this?

IT used to be a scarce resource, one that depended on platoons, even armies, of specialists to build it and keep it running. The systems were built from the inside out, with a focus on that business and that business alone. In this world, people were generally forced to adapt to the way IT systems worked.

Now that’s all changing. Cloud and mobile are creating a new IT eco-system, one where companies are leveraging outside resources to run some core processes.

In response, leaders are looking to turbo-charge productivity by encouraging their people to work together as flexible teams wherever they are so they can exploit great ideas more quickly. Teamwork is the central process of every business and it’s undergoing a revolution as new tools and deployment models proliferate. Analytics tools are delivering new insight at the point of every decision.

Together these profound changes are driving the way companies confront the triple threat of change, complexity and competition their companies face every day. Senior managers know that if they can win the commitment of their employees, the business will flourish however tough the outside environment.

To learn more, visit sprint.com/officefuel.

You Say You Want a Revolution?

By Mike Smith
Director of Strategy
Sprint Business









Most people alive today have lived through, and benefited from, three technology revolutions. And we’re just getting started on a fourth one.

The way I see it, the first one was the Digital Revolution, which essentially started with the proliferation of personal computing in the 1980s. You could argue that it started earlier than that, with some of the first computers in the 1960s, but let’s be realistic; it really didn’t crank up until the 80s. This revolution essentially began the process of digitizing the “real world” as data that could be captured, processed, manipulated, and reproduced –  increasingly efficiently.

Which was followed by the Internet Revolution, starting in the 1990s, which began the massive shift in which content could be easily accessed, shared, and moved across traditional physical and organizational boundaries.

And then there was the Mobility Revolution, which also started in the 1990s and skyrocketed soon after that. It has enabled virtually all people, things, and content to be connected all the time and everywhere.

The impact of these three revolutions on our lives, both at home and at the office, has been fantastic. We are now vastly more productive, both personally and professionally. We could no more turn back the technology clock 35 years than we could stop the universe from expanding; the resulting jolt would probably be similar in each case.

We are now embarking on the fourth phase, the Intelligence Revolution. This shift will enhance knowledge, well-being, and happiness thanks to the correlation and analysis of data from the intersection of people, things, and content.

How? Well, it will inter-relate data from individuals, from machines and sensors, and content across the three key segments that the Internet has evolved into: the Content Web, the Internet of Things, and the Personal Web. With everything digitized, it can move freely across all three of these sub-Internets.

Each individual today, whether at work or off the clock, has become a data factory. Our device creates data to move and store from traditional voice calls, from texts, website visits, searches, apps, social networking, photos, music, scanned items, and location and presence information.

Strap on a fitness watch or a medical monitor of some kind, and then that individual generates data reflecting his or her heart rate, skin temperature, perspiration levels, sleep or activity times, and walking pace.

Add a Google Glass, and you’ve just added image, sound, video, and facial recognition data.

That’s one person. Then you’ve got all those Things connected through the Internet of Things, generating massive amounts of data. As a point of reference, a single engine on a single Boeing jet generates 10 terabytes of information every 30 minutes of flight, according to Stephen Brobst, CTO of Teradata. Big data analytics has clearly arrived just at the right moment.


There is no better time than right now to start asking the tough questions about your business. Like the existential question of why is your company here? What is its purpose, how do you create customer value, and how can data enable that? And once you have answers to those questions, you can move on to how to invest in technology, and in the skilled people – most likely data scientists, who are already in short supply – who can leverage the data you generate and obtain to benefit your company and your customers.

To learn more, visit sprint.com/officefuel.

Looking to Drive Collaboration in Your Organization? Look Beyond the Tech

By Melanie Turek
Vice President, Research
Frost & Sullivan




While a lot of enterprise communication and collaboration technology is available, there's a key question that many analysts, consultants and vendors are struggling to answer: How do we get people to actually use these applications and services to better work together and improve business outcomes?

Several observers have wondered why the market for unified communications and collaboration (UCC) products appears to be flat. Frost & Sullivan research shows the same trends, so it’s not that the data is wrong—it’s that companies (driven by their end users) just aren’t seeing the value. Indeed, our most recent survey of more than 1,000 IT decisions makers in the US and Europe shows that 42 percent of them don’t even understand what UCC is.

In fact, the technology itself isn’t complicated. What’s complicated is actual collaboration. The need for UCC is there, of course; the changing nature of the workplace demands it. No one expects to be able to find their colleagues in person any more, regardless of where they work—we are too busy being “mobile” and “virtual” for that. Technology had to be developed to take the place of the in-person interactions that, until a decade ago, were the foundation of the workplace. UCC tools satisfy that. (We can argue the details about which does so best, but they all share a common vision.)

The problem is that technology can’t change human nature. Or, generally speaking, corporate culture. And both of those are impeding the move toward truly innovative, game-changing collaboration. The social anthropologist in me sees several reasons for this, but let me outline just a few here:

Knowledge hoarding is more natural than knowledge sharing. 

A recent article in the Times notes a new study that shows that many employees intentionally hide information from their colleagues—even when they are asked directly to share it, for the good of the organization. The authors’ hypothesis for why is that the old adage, “knowledge is power,” still holds true. In fact, it has held true throughout human history, so it’s kind of hard to see why today, all of a sudden, that calculation would change without a strong change in the culture to go with it. Which brings us to…

Companies still reward individual performance. 

The authors of the above study suggest that the way to change this trend—which they and others insist is not actually good for the organization or the individual employee, since other employees refrain from sharing information with known hoarders, leading to a vicious cycle—is to change reward structures to focus more on group effort than personal performance. In theory, this makes sense. In practice, not so much. Most employees want to be compensated based on their own work, not on whether their colleagues are performing well. So while most people are happy to accept bonus compensation based on company performance, I’ve never met anyone whose salary is tied to the output of an entire group. My guess is few employees would be willing to place their entire livelihood in the hands of their co-workers, lest one or more of them shirk their duties and hold everyone back.

One way to address this is to reward individuals for their willingness and ability to collaborate effectively with their colleagues. Companies can look at activity as it happens on their own internal networks and social sites, measure results, and then reward good actors as appropriate. New technologies could make this possible, but for most organizations, that will require an enormous culture shift. And it may not even deliver results because…

Collaboration isn’t easy. 

One of the challenges UCC tries to address is the need to get the right information to the right people at the right time. The idea is to provide a single place to go to find people, data and communications, and then use these tools in context based on the task(s) at hand. But the reality is, most of us can’t process more than a certain amount of information at any given time. Research shows that we are terrible at multi-tasking, even if we think we aren’t. And get more than three people into a meeting and it all goes south. Indeed, when we look at how people work well together, the most critical element is to keep it small: involve just two or three people; keep the project focused on discrete tasks; and limit the number of inputs—people, data, tech—that need to be involved in the engagement.

Advanced UCC products do a great job of bringing lots of stuff together, which is really important in a global, virtual workplace, in which thousands of employees are working around the world on multiple disparate projects, leveraging petabytes of data. Employees working on their own still need ready access to information—which may reside in structured or unstructured systems, or in peoples’ heads—and they need to be able to connect to their co-workers as needed, from anywhere and on any device.

But will this increase collaboration? History would suggest not.