| Constellation Research

Tuesday's Tip: Understand The Five Generations Of Digital Customers And Workers

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

Age Is Not The Deciding Factor In Five Generations Of Workers

When discussing the future of work, most folks immediately jump to the discussion of millennials, generation Y, generation X, baby boomers, post war, etc. However, the shift to digital business finds a different type of five generations. This segmentation describes how digitally proficient people are with digital technologies and culture. Constellation sees five generations (see Figure 1):

Digital natives – people who grew up with the internet, comfortable in engaging in all digital channels.
Digital immigrants - people who have crossed the chasm to the digital world, forced into engagement in digital channels.
Digital voyeurs – people who recognize the shift to digital, observing from an arms length distance.
Digital holdouts – people who resist the shift to digital, ignoring the impact.
Digital disengaged – people who give up on digital, obsessed with erasing digital exhaust.

Figure 1. Five Generations Of Workers With Different Expectations And Values

The Bottom Line: Build Journey Maps For The Five Generations Of Digital Workers

Where you work, when you work, how you work, what you work on, and why you work have been disrupted in this digital world. These five generations of workers have different people centric values that must be addressed. Organizations can start by building journey maps and deftly applying the 9C’s of engagement (see Figure 2)

Figure 2. The 9 C’s of Engagement, A Foundation For Journey Maps

Your POV.

Are you ready to incorporate digital business transformation in your organization’s strategy? Are you embarking on a digital business transformation? Let us know how it’s going! Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Please let us know if you need help with your Augmented Reality, Customer Centricity, and Digital Business transformation efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing customer centricty readiness
Developing your digital business strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 – 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

Future of Work Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Tech Optimization Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Revenue & Growth Effectiveness intel SoftwareInsider Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Automation Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Growth eCommerce Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Robotics HR HCM business Metaverse developer SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Quantum Computing Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Leadership finance Healthcare VR CCaaS UCaaS M&A Enterprise Service Chief People Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Experience Officer

Read more about Tuesday's Tip: Understand The Five Generations Of Digital Customers And Workers

Using a Session Border Controller to Make Video "Just Work"

Alumni: Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Dr. Brent Kelly is a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research and President of KelCor, Inc. He focuses on the unique intersection of unified communications, social business, cloud services, video and mobility.  Dr. Kelly provides strategy and counsel to key clients including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, technology policy executives, sell-side firms and technology buyers. Prior to joining Constellation, Dr. Kelly served for 10 years as a partner at Wainhouse Research where he was the primary author of most of the firm’s unified communications reports and forecasts. Dr. Kelly is a regular presenter at Enterprise Connect (formerly VoiceCon), the communications industry trade show where his well…...

I’ve spent the past few weeks thinking about video interoperability, and not just interoperability at the signaling level or the codec level, but at the security level as well. I presently have four video solutions in my office that I run regularly: a Cisco/Tandberg MXP 1700 executive unit, a Vidyo desktop client, Microsoft Lync hosted through Office 365, and Skype. In addition to these, I often use Apple’s FaceTime video product when using my iOS devices. It seems like video is all around me, and it is likely pervasive for others as well.

One of the challenges I often face is that I can’t use video between any of these systems. My MXP 1700 has a four port MCU in it, and it will work with both SIP and H.323 units, but most people have Skype or Lync or FaceTime or the free Jabber client. While Skype and Lync both support multiparty video, they presently don’t support video interoperability with each other. And FaceTime is a point-to-point solution only.

There are some third-party solutions that can help. For example, Blue Jeans Networks and VidTel both provide video interoperability as a service with most of the video endpoints I use every day (not FaceTime or Vidyo, however). But what can be done for enterprise users in a heterogeneous environment that may include Cisco, Avaya, Microsoft, and possibly other desktop UC clients, as well as group and telepresence video endpoints?

I’ve actually written a white paper on this subject titled, "Creating the 'It Just Works' Video Network". It is based around the idea that a lot of video interoperability, QoS, and security issues can be resolved by using a session border controller. The white paper was sponsored by Sonus Networks and corresponds to the company’s announcement on 6 November, 2013 that it has added full multimedia support for video to its SBC 5000 series of session border controllers. Although Sonus sponsored the white paper, the company is not mentioned in the document; rather, this document describes many of the issues that arise around video that an SBC can easily fix, and it is intended to generate thoughtful discussion of these issues.

For example, the signaling used to set up, control, and tear down a video call is slightly different for different UC manufacturers, even though all of their solutions are "SIP-compliant". The Sonus 5000 SBC can normalize the signaling so that video endpoints from different PBX, UC, and video equipment manufacturers can often interoperate. This can be a huge advantage for companies that have investments in both UC and video infrastructure as it may avoid expensive upgrades or relying on pricey multiprotocol MCUs that can bridge point-to-point calls together that would otherwise be incompatible.

As video becomes more and more pervasive, it is also important to provide some type of call admission control and quality of service mechanism so that the network does not become saturated with video packets and so that video calls maintain high quality. Again, the SBC is a good place to have these mechanisms, particularly in heterogeneous video environments.

Given how often video calls traverse the network boundary with the pervasive availability of mobile video devices, SBCs also provide a great control point for authentication, detection of malformed hacker packets, encryption enforcement, secure NAT and firewall traversal, and so forth.

I wrote a detailed report titled “Pervasive Video in the Enterprise” last year in which I mentioned that the software-based MCU will ultimately win the day in the video infrastructure market, simply because hardware-based MCU’s are so expensive. In like manner, software-based SBCs will also win the day in the enterprise as video becomes pervasive. Sonus has released a version of its SBC as a software solution that can run on off-the-shelf servers. Coupled together as instances in a virtual environment, the software-based MCU and the software-based SBC will enable tremendous increases in video usage while protecting the enterprise network from threats and saturation, while enabling video interoperability of high quality video endpoints.

The SBC doesn't solve all video interoperability and compatibility issues, but is solves a lot of them for enterprise video users.

New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience cisco systems Chief Customer Officer Chief People Officer

Read more about Using a Session Border Controller to Make Video "Just Work"

CoIT? No, it’s CoUX!

Brian Katz

fill

Brian Katz is a director at pharmaceutical company Sanofi, where he manages mobile initiatives, including mobilizing the salesforce, building best practices for developing apps, handling BYOD initiatives, enabling new devices and form factors for success, and looking at ways to innovate in the mobile space for Sanofi. He started his career working with a multi-national New York financial company as an email architect, designing and maintaining their email and communications systems, which also involved supporting their mobile computing platforms. ...

It’s funny. Whenever I give a talk from stage, or talk to a few colleagues or even get asked for advice on strategy, it all revolves around the same cause. For some, it’s “we’re in this mess” while for others it’s “we have this great opportunity” and they always point to the same thing. It’s the Consumerization of IT (CoIT) that has been the reason we’re moving forward with mobile. What I find so funny about all this is that none of them get it. It’s not CoIT that has led so many businesses to start adopting mobile as a way to enhance access to their ecosystem. This misunderstanding is the whole reason why so many companies are having so much trouble getting to the point where mobile is no longer just a thought but a way of doing business.

My mother has an iPhone. She’s had a Blackberry for work for years but couldn’t get her personal email on it and certainly couldn’t figure out how to get apps on her device either. My brother and I went down the path of least resistance and got her an iPhone, and then, of course we let the grandchildren show her how to use it. It’s nice not being the one who has to fix every problem, although I am not sure my daughters agree. She doesn’t know how to use everything on her phone but she has figured out the app store and has downloaded the apps she needs. Invariably, this leads to, why can’t my work blackberry be this easy? How come I can’t add apps to it? Why does work make it so complicated for me.?

Here’s the thing, my mother’s work values security. It cares about the email and other documents people can access because it has to follow regulations. Yet, it is still in the midst of an iOS pilot that I know about and yet my mother has no clue where to go to ask to be part of it. Her question is quite simple though, how do I get this document on my computer so I can work on it tonight. It’s a struggle many of have had and some of us have discovered things like USB keys or if we are a little smarter, we have found Dropbox, or Box to sync our files with. Others go the low-tech route and email the documents they need to themselves. They aren’t trying to break security they’re just trying to get their work done and they want it to be easy.

At home, everything is simple. It takes a few clicks to set up an email account on a phone, another couple of clicks to set up a file sharing service on a tablet. People don’t spend time thinking about where their documents are. The companies that make the apps that they use and love have focused on the user experience. The most my mother ever thinks about is whether the photo of her grandchildren is on her phone or not. It’s a binary decision, yes or no. She pulls out her phone and presses an app and 5 seconds later she is showing photos of her grand kids to whomever wants to see them, or can’t get away fast enough.

What most companies fail to realize is that’s it’s not about the consumerization of IT but rather about the consumerization of the user experience (UX). What most companies see as people understanding IT better is really just things getting so easy that anyone can do them. The user experience no longer means that you have to place a call to IT to connect to the Internet. You don’t need to install some app with a 25-digit key just to look at word document on your tablet. They can watch the latest premier league game on the phone or tablet at the touch of a finger but it still takes 10 clicks, a password, a dial-in code plus the phone code just to join a web conference at work.

We are past the age of the monolithic app that slices, dices, and chops and can still saw through a soda can like butter when it is done. People just want to do one thing at a time. They don’t need something that looks like a submarine console designed to solve every possible scenario when all they want to do is read a document and make a change in the third paragraph without coming into the office. They don’t want to have to worry about zooming in 200% or wearing a magnifier to make sure they hit the right part of the screen to make a change. They just want it to be simple. Their goal is to get the work done they need to when and where they need to do it.

It’s not the consumerization of IT that is leading people to be more flexible and agile, but rather the consumerization of the UX that makes it possible for them to do their expenses while paying the check at the restaurant. The focus of your people on the user experience is what makes or breaks a company’s decision to go mobile. The whole reason that the bring your own device (BYOD) movement was born wasn’t because people wanted to spend money on their own devices, rather it was due to the fact that companies were more focused on the bottom line than giving people the tools they needed to get the job done.

You see, users figured out a long time ago that the UX was key, and they will pay a premium for that user experience. If a company doesn’t spend time following the FUN principle, focusing on the user needs, of which UX is one of the highest, users will find another way to do things. They no longer have to be tied to the app that the company wants them to use, there are too many other choices out there. Whether it is BYOD or BYOA (bring your own app) they will do whatever makes their lives simpler and easier. It’s time businesses stop worrying about the Consumerization of IT and start worrying about the consumerization of the user experience. When you build a crapplication, users will run. When you build a kick ass user experience that is simple, easy to use, and disappears and allows them to get their work done, the sky is the limit.

Innovation & Product-led Growth

Read more about CoIT? No, it’s CoUX!

Tweeting and feeling good about it - or effectiveness of marketing spend

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

I will be attending Kronos' user conference next week in Orlando - and when I got the customary what to do email from the vendor - I stumbled over a section mentioning some interesting marketing approach combining twitter buzz with charity.

In the email Kronos basically stated, that it would donate one US$ to a charity for every tweet containing the hashtag #KW2013 - up to a limit of 10k US$. That seemed to be a pretty innovative way to combine what every vendor wants - publicity on social media, in this case twitter, and attention by supporting a charity.

I asked the Twittersphere this morning if anyone has seen something similar - and till now no one has come back - so kudos goes to Kronos for championing an innovative way to get attention on Twitter and equally making people feel good about tweeting as every tweet containing the hashtag will increase the amount of the donation.

Some more thoughts on the topic

There is always a trade-off between paying for social media attention and not over commercializing. The charity aspect takes away that conflict.
I am not a social media marketing expert - but I am guessing the never old chase of attractive return on marketing $s spent - is pretty good on these 10k US$. Advertise the hashtag and promote Kronos on Twitter may work, too - but my gut feel is, that it may have a worse return of marketing dollar spent.
Kronos could increase the attention of this (or maybe should) - by updating regularly on how much was already donated at point x of the conference. And then - assuming success - increase the total donation limit.
Lastly a vendor could get the twittersphere even more involved by asking to help find out which of e.g. three charities should receive the donation. So move from tweet to donate to tweet to where to donate - more involvement - more attention more social media buzz - that's what you want for a conference.

MyPOV

Smart marketing spend by Kronos, kudos - and the first time I run this across - so well done and kudos for supporting a charitable course... and at least it got me to tweet about it - and even do a short blog post...

Future of Work Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Automation Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Growth eCommerce Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Customer Officer Chief Human Resources Officer

Read more about Tweeting and feeling good about it - or effectiveness of marketing spend

Measuring anonymity

Steve Wilson

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Steve Wilson is former VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, leading the business theme Digital Safety and Privacy. His coverage includes digital identity, data protection, data privacy, cryptography, and trust. His advisory services to CIOs, CISOs, CPOs and IT architects include identity product strategy, security practice benchmarking, Privacy by Design (PbD), privacy engineering and Privacy [or Data Protection] Impact Assessments (PIA, DPIA). Coverage Areas: -  Identity management, frameworks & governance-  Digital identity technologies-  Privacy by Design -  Big Data; “Big Privacy”-  Identity & privacy innovation Previous experience: Wilson has worked in ICT innovation, research, development and analysis for over 25 years. With double…...

As we head towards 2014, de-identification of personal data sets is going to be a hot issue. I saw several things at last week's Constellation Connected Enterprise conference (CCE) that will make sure of this!

First, recall that in Australia a new definition of Personal Information (PI or "PII") means that anonymous data that can potentially be re-identified in future may have to be classified as PII today. I recently discussed how security and risk practitioners can deal with the uncertainty in re-identifiability.

And there's a barrage of new tracking, profiling and interior geo-location technologies (Apple's like iBeacon) which typically come with a promise of anonymity. See for example Tesco's announcement of face scanning for targeting adverts at their UK petrol stations.

The promise of anonymity is crucial, but it is increasingly hard to keep. Big Data techniques that join de-identified information to other data sets are able to ind correlations and reverse the anonymisation process. The science of re-identification started with the work of Dr Latanya Sweeny who famously identified a former governor and his medical records using zip codes and electoral roll data; more recently we've seen DNA "hackers" who can unmask anonymous DNA donors by joining genomic databases to public family tree information.

At CCE we saw many exciting Big Data developments, which I'll explore in more detail in coming weeks. Business Intelligence as-a-service is expanding rapidly, and is being flipped my innovative vendors to align (whether consciously or not) with customer centric Vendor Relationship Management models of doing business. And there are amazing new tools for enriching unstructured data, like newly launched Paxata's Adaptive Data Preparation Platform. More to come.

With the ability to re-identify data comes Big Responsibilities. I believe that to help businesses meet their privacy promises, we're going to need new tools to measure de-identification and hence gauge the risk of re-identification. It seems that some new generation data analytics products will allow us to run what-if scenarios to help understand the risks.

Just before CCE I also came across some excellent awareness raising materials from Voltage Security in Cupertino. Voltage CTO Terence Spies shared with me his "Deidentification Taxonomy" reproduced here with his kind permission. Voltage are leaders in Format Preserving Encryption and Tokenization -- typically used to hide credit card numbers from thieves in payment systems -- and they're showing how the tools may be used more broadly for de-identifying databases. I like the way Terence has characterised the reversibility (or not) of de-identification approaches, and further broken out various tokenization technologies.

Deidentification core Terence Spies Voltage Oct2013

Reference: Voltage Security. Reproduced with permission.

These are the foundations of the important new science of de-identification. Privacy engineers need to work hard at re-identification, so that consumers do not lose faith in the important promises made that so much data collected from their daily movements through cyber space are indeed anonymous.

New C-Suite Future of Work Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Security Zero Trust Chief Customer Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Privacy Officer

Read more about Measuring anonymity

Runaway Capitalism

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

"We have an opportunity to change the future"
Chris Meyer

At Constellation Research's Connected Enterprise 2013 author, businessman, and futurist Christopher Meyer compared modern U.S. capitalism to a peacock. To signal their superior genetic quality peacocks erect long trains of eye-spotted feathers to form shimmering fans of plumage. Such a extravagant displays limit the survival of the birds making them easier for predators to find. One species of peacocks already ornaments the IUCN list of endangered species.

Photo Credit: Jean Mottershead

How could an animal evolve in such way? One explaination is that peacocks are following an evolutionary path called Fisherian runaway which is a theory of sexual selection that helps to explain traits that do not obviously increase survival. Meyer thinks, like the peacock, our particular model of capitalism in the United States is following a similar path towards decline and eventual extinction.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union the United States has sat at the center of an international trade, labor, and currency system which has dominated the world economy. Yet this is changing. Low income economies in countries like China, India, and Brazil are growing much faster than the US and other countries at the center of this system. They are also beginning to are take the overall lead in other repects.

Meyers believes that the excessive emphasis on growth of corporate profits to the exclusion of all other measures is creating the runaway economic effect in the United States. Signs of this he identified as:

Pseudocompetition

Companies look like they are competing when really they are not. Between the two of them AT&T and Verizon spend billions of dollars on advertising. But they do this not to attract customers from one another, but to raise the barrier to entry to new potential competitor.

Seeing in Black and White

Indexing executive compensation to share price and putting pensions into the stock and bond market is blinding the well off to the true state of the society. They forget that bonds and equities are simply a promise that someone will have to be make good on someday to have any value.

Wealth Inequality in America

Its no surprise the gap between rich and poor is widening in the US. What is surprising is how Americans think income is actually distributed (much less how they think it should be distributed) is actually much better than the reality.

It is hard to argue that the US not would be a more successful society than these things were not true. Competition from companies in other parts of the world not sheltered by oligopoly is now threatening US business. Inequity is getting worse and even contains the potential of a social revolution and proves yet again it is not for nothing that economics has traditionally been called the "dismal science".

Yet Meyer is not discouraged. We solve most problems based on many constraints and if money doesn't buy happiness then why to we optimize our economy for profit anyway? He points to the Legatum Institute's prosperity index as another statistically significant way way to view our economy and cites examples of companies like Microsoft and General Electric using metics other than profit to benchmark their success.

Meyer's talk was based on a book he co-authored with Julia Kirby called Standing on the Sun. Their work was short listed last year by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2012, and can be read by anyone who want to learn more about his thinking.

At the end of his talk Meyer predicted that new types of businesses – networked enterprises, hybrids, not-for-profit, and emerging market newcomers – will usher in a new and very possibly better form of capitalism that replaces the runaway capitalism of today by becoming less obsessed with return on equity and using broad-based measurements of success. He described how Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market could be replaced by the "invisible handshake" of collaborative networks where businesses take responsibility of what they now call "externalities" such as pollution.

He also predicts the economy will be divided into two interdependent but distinct segments. A chaotic artistic generative sector that feeds a utility distributive sector (that owns the sales/marketing/distribution channels). The question is, when this happens where do you want to be?

Data to Decisions Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth cce Connected Enterprise Leadership Chief Customer Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Procurement Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer Chief Experience Officer

Read more about Runaway Capitalism

Webcast: Virtual Hives for Collaboration and Innovation

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

Yesterday I participated in the SAP Game-Changers broadcast, Virtual Hives for Collaboration and Innovation, where I provided my thoughts on the pros and cons of teams using collaboration tools to work together.

Today'??s buzz: The hive. Your search for the best talent no longer has to be limited to candidates within driving distance of your site. Now the world can be your proverbial workforce oyster. But before you salivate over the benefits of talent globalization and diversity, first be sure your HR knows what to do when traditional face-to-face team environments are augmented or replaced by virtual ways of working. The experts speak.

Alan Lepofsky, Constellation Research: "??X percent reduction in emailâ?? is not an effective measurement of social business success."
John Hagel III, Deloitte: "??Virtual hives will never achieve their true potential until we move beyond process and protocol to passion and performance."
Jason Lauritsen, Talent Anarchy: "Technology is a tool, not a strategy."

Join them and SAP's Sameer Patel for insights on Working Models: Virtual Hives for Collaboration and Innovation.

New C-Suite Future of Work Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth Tech Optimization Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity SAP Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

Read more about Webcast: Virtual Hives for Collaboration and Innovation

Paxata Revealed

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Test

Joseph is Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  Covering all things related to Data Management and Analytics, he focuses on making better decisions through using new sources of data, innovative ways of interweaving the volumetric flow of data of increasing compexity, and disruptive techniques for drawing inferences and making predictions from that data. Sensor networks Mobile devices Machine-to-machine interchanges Machine-to-human interactiions Sensor Analytics Internet of Things Sustainability Self-quantification Since 1978, Joseph has been involved with renewable energy research, developing advanced statistical methods for complex system analysis, and creating analytical techniques and management methodologies for solving business,…...

The week of 2013 October 28 was a big one for Paxata, Inc. Founded in January of 2012, followed by advisories, beta customers also known as "Pax Pros", and 12 sprints, Paxata quietly released their first GA product in May of 2013. With panels and debuts at the Strata + Hadoop conference in New York and other events, leading up to announcements and demonstrations at the Constellation Connected Enterprise at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, California, Paxata officially left stealth mode, publicly discussing:

Five Blue Chip Customers: UBS, Dannon, Box, Pabst and $49 B High Tech Networking Manufacturer
Partnerships with Tableau, QlikTech and Cloudera
Adaptive Data Preparation Platform
Eight Million US Dollars in the latest round of funding led by Accel
Filling out the Management Team with Enterprise Software executives having backgrounds from SAP, Tableau and Hyperion

The most wondrous feature of the Paxata Adaptive Data Preparation Platform is how it adds semantic richness to one's data sets by automatically recommending and linking to third-party and freely available data. This allows one to bring in firmographic, demographic, social and machine data within the context of the user's goals. This is what truly allows the Paxata Adaptive Data Preparation Platform to go beyond data exploration and discovery.

Paxata has received a fair amount of press as well, some of which I've referenced below. However, all this press misses what is one of the most important additions Paxata makes to the toolboxes of Data Management & Analytics [DMA] professionals… the ability to present questions to the user that they may not have thought of on their own. Paxata was one of the companies that inspired my DataGrok blog post. Paxata was in stealth at the time, and couldn't be named then. Now, I'm happy to be able to write that Paxata is one of the few companies or projects building tools that allow the creator and user of data to go beyond data discovery, beyond data exploration, to being able to fully, deeply understand their data. Data discovery and data exploration tools allow one to determine if various data sets can answer the questions posed by business, engineering or scientific challenges. These tools go further by exposing data integrity issues among data sets or data quality problems within a data set. Some such tools might help the user find new data sets or how various data sources within an organization might fit together in a data warehouse. Some hark back to grep, sed and awk to parse textual data. Others provide probabilistic and statistical tools to determine the appropriate shape, distribution or density functions of a data set. But Paxata is one tool that does all these and more, and does it through your web browser in a collaborative fashion, maintaining the history of each collaborator's operations on the data sets.

When my partner, Clarise, and I were first briefed by Paxata in November of 2012, we were so excited that we stayed over three hours. The demonstration, of what was then a much rougher product than what you see today, incited both of us to exclaim how much we wished that we had this tool back in our DMA practitioner days. We were treated to a demonstration using the data from another Constellation Research customer with which we were familiar. Over a year later, we were treated to a pre-launch briefing using current data sets from that same customer. The ease of use, the pleasantness of the user experience, the simplicity with which one could complete complex tasks, from histograms to column-splitting, showed the maturity that Paxata had gained since our first exposure. What was most important to us, was that Paxata could show a solution for every need that we would like to see in the Adaptive Data Preparation Platform, drawing from our experiences in implementing data warehousing and business intelligence programs since 1996, as well as our decades of experience in computational statistics and operations research.

Collect and parse data of disparate types and sources including XML, JSON, Excel, Flat Files and relational databases
Pre-analyze and visualize the data sets
Combine different data sets
Separate data into patterns
Verify individual datum for integrity, quality, mastering and governance
Allow multiple IT and end-users to prepare and operate upon the data
Maintain the history of what each user [a.k.a. Pax Pro] does, and show that history to all other users

It allows data warehousing and BI extract, transform and load professionals, business analysts, data scientists, chemists, physicists, engineers, researchers, and professionals of all skills who work with data to completely understand and resonate with their data sets. The Paxata Adaptive Data Preparation Platform does what few other tools can do, it provides clues to what you didn't know to ask. It poses questions that the data can answer, but that you didn't think to ask. And it does all of this in a familiar looking interface, in HTML 5, in your favorite web browser, wherever you are, whenever you need it. In Paxata's words:

Connect
Explore
Transform
Combine
Publish

Paxata pricing is published and open. There are three subscriptions available:

Pax Personal
Pax Share
Pax Enterprise

Each of the Paxata subscriptions build upon the first, from an individual subscription to the ability for those with individual subscriptions to share in a single environment, to a full organization-wide subscription. Of course, what makes this possible, is that the Paxata Adaptive Data Preparation platform is available as a Cloud service, accessible through any modern HTML 5 web browser whether that's from a sophisticated, high-end workstation, a tablet or smart phone.

The main value comes not from a nice-looking, fairly intuitive interface, but from the underlying technologies that makes Paxata so useful: powerful Mathematics, Semantics and Graph Theory algorithms. The results of which are easily accessible through this Cloud-based, web experience, while the complexities are under the covers, not getting in the way. This fact is what makes the Adaptive Data Preparation Platform so accessible to business analysts, and other creators and users of data who are not PhD statisticians. Paxata uses proprietary algorithms that detect relationships among data sets, using probabilistic techniques to select the best joins, semantically typing the data so that it can intelligently enrich the data, clean the data and merge the data based upon context not just metadata. All of this is done in an ad hoc fashion, with no predefined models or schæmas needed. These proprietary algorithms make use of

Latent Semantic Indexing
Statistical Cluster Graphing
Pattern Recognition
Text Analytics
Machine Learning

Distributed computing and in-memory technologies allow these computational statistics algorithms to be,cost effectively executed in parallel, across massive data sets. Coupled with the advancements in visualization technologies, Paxata is able to address a 13.5-16 Billion dollar market over next three years, with extremely attractive pricing. The true return on investment from Paxata comes from flipping the DMA equation around. Currently, a common truism is that 80% of the time on a DMA, Data Science, DW or BI project is spent in preparing data; 20% in analyzing the data. Paxata reduces that data preparation percentage, such that 70% is analytics, 30% is preparation. This reduces not only the labor directly involved in preparing the data, but also allows an Agile framework to address significant business needs at the right time, in a sustainable fashion.

Paxata's strategy is to attach to the QlikView and Tableau markets that are being hampered from enterprise adoption because of these very data preparation challenges. Along with these partnerships, is the partnership with Cloudera, providing enterprise class access to modern, distributed data storage systems. Add connectors to common enterprise and external data sources and the third-party Paxata Enrichment Libraries, and it is obvious to the most casual observer that the Paxata Adaptive Data Preparation Platform addresses the most frustrating complaint of Data Scientists and Business Analysts alike: that too much of their time is spent on plumbing, whether directly or waiting for IT. We have long spoken about the need for IT to give up control of data, and realize that their most effective role is to provide a framework of success for end-users to fully, deeply understand and use their data to solve real problems. Paxata creates this framework for success.

Other Sources to learn about the Paxata launch:

The Paxata Web Site
Diginomica: Can Business Users control their data destiny? Paxata says yes
GigaOM: With $10M from Accel, Paxata wants to make data prep a breeze
VentureBeat: Paxata grabs $8M to help data scientists skip the dirty work
YouTube: Paxata Customers and Partners Help Launch the Company
YouTube: The Cube: Prakash Nanduri - Big Data NYC

Except where otherwise noted, this content is
licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Original post blogged on The TeleInterActive Press using b2evolution.

Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work Tech Optimization New C-Suite cce Connected Enterprise Leadership Chief Information Officer Chief Experience Officer

Read more about Paxata Revealed

Monday's Musings: The Chief Digital Officer In The Age Of Digital Business

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

Market Leaders and Fast Followers Prepare for Digital Business In 2014

Conversations at Constellation’s Connected Enterprise last week validate a larger trend in the market place. The audience of 220+ early adopters with 75% representing line of business and 25% in IT highlighted the convergence of the five forces of consumerization described in 2009 and 2010. This convergence of these five pillars of digital business now form the foundation of all future digital business strategy and drive customer experience, matrix commerce, future of work, data to decisions, consumerization of technology, and digital marketing (see Figure 1.). In fact, market leaders and fast followers have embraced this strategic direction in their 2014 planning.

Figure 1. Convergence Of The Five Pillars Drive Digital Business Strategy

Emerging Trends In 2014 Digital Business Strategy Reflect The Shift To Digital Business

As Constellation works with leaders to define their 2014 business strategies, digital transformation plays a key role. Many organizations will:

Recognize that they no longer sell products and services, as buyers seek experiences and outcomes.
Democratize the data to decisions pathway to enable innovation.
Realize that B2B and B2C are dead. It’s a P2P and M2M world.
Focus on context as right time relevancy beats real time information overload.
Shift from engagement to personalization at scale.

(A full update will be posted in Harvard Business Review soon)

The Bottom Line: Organizations Can Expect The Rise Of Chief Digital Officers

The emergence of the chief digital officer is an essential role for the age of digital business. Though the current debate often centers around CIO vs CMO, a pathway forward will involve a multidisciplinary approach. Chief digital officers must understand:

how to transform analog businesses into the five pillars of digital convergence.
how to manage a world of trust and radical transparency
how to develop an authentic business brand
how to disrupt business models with digital technologies

While Constellation sees many media, entertainment, and technology organizations rapidly moving to a CDO role, other industries will eventually embrace a centralized champion that ensures the digital business principles and policies are in concert with an organization’s overall strategy. The rise of the chief digital officer is here. Constellation expects those organizations that embrace this approach will differentiate themselves with higher margins, greater market share, and increased scale.

Your POV.

Please let us know if you need help with your Augmented Reality, Customer Centricity, and Digital Business transformation efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing customer centricty readiness
Developing your digital business strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

New C-Suite Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Innovation & Product-led Growth Tech Optimization Future of Work Data to Decisions Revenue & Growth Effectiveness SoftwareInsider Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Automation Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Growth eCommerce Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Robotics HR HCM business Metaverse developer SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Quantum Computing Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Leadership finance Healthcare VR CCaaS UCaaS M&A Enterprise Service Chief Customer Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer Chief Experience Officer

Read more about Monday's Musings: The Chief Digital Officer In The Age Of Digital Business

How to Build a Pop Up Screen in Siebel

Constellation Research

In his Siebel Essentials blog, Alexander Hansal explains how to create a popup screen using the new UI and uses Google Maps as an example. He writes:

"I thought it is worthwhile to shift gears and do a customer info popup in Siebel CRM. Here is what my prototype looks like:

As you can see from the screenshot above, the popup dialog displays a Google map, the account address, location and a link to the company website. Behind the top left corner of the dialog you can spot the Opportunity Account control and the label in orange color (which I choose to make it stand out from the other labels which don't offer the functionality).

As usual, I am going to explain my approach to implement it. "

New C-Suite Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

Read more about How to Build a Pop Up Screen in Siebel

Subscribe to

Tuesday's Tip: Understand The Five Generations Of Digital Customers And Workers

Tuesday's Tip: Understand The Five Generations Of Digital Customers And Workers

Using a Session Border Controller to Make Video "Just Work"

Using a Session Border Controller to Make Video "Just Work"

CoIT? No, it’s CoUX!

CoIT? No, it’s CoUX!

Tweeting and feeling good about it - or effectiveness of marketing spend

Tweeting and feeling good about it - or effectiveness of marketing spend

MyPOV

Measuring anonymity

Measuring anonymity

Runaway Capitalism

Runaway Capitalism

Webcast: Virtual Hives for Collaboration and Innovation

Webcast: Virtual Hives for Collaboration and Innovation

Paxata Revealed

Paxata Revealed

Monday's Musings: The Chief Digital Officer In The Age Of Digital Business

Monday's Musings: The Chief Digital Officer In The Age Of Digital Business

How to Build a Pop Up Screen in Siebel

How to Build a Pop Up Screen in Siebel

Research

Analyst Services

Videos

Communities

Events

Insights Live

Results

Tuesday's Tip: Understand The Five Generations Of Digital Customers And Workers

Using a Session Border Controller to Make Video "Just Work"

CoIT? No, it’s CoUX!

Tweeting and feeling good about it - or effectiveness of marketing spend

MyPOV

Measuring anonymity

Runaway Capitalism

Webcast: Virtual Hives for Collaboration and Innovation

Paxata Revealed

Monday's Musings: The Chief Digital Officer In The Age Of Digital Business

How to Build a Pop Up Screen in Siebel