Emerging Technologies

Earlier this year, Forbes published an article titled, “Today's Companies Have a Technology Adoption Problem, Not an Innovation Problem.” By most accounts they are correct.  As for emerging technology, some organizations don’t understand it, some believe they can’t afford it, others believe it is just not necessary. Whatever the reason, failure to monitor and adapt to emerging technology driven change is a big risk.

Leveraging these emerging technologies is necessary for any business to grow and prosper as well as for an increasing number to even survive!  The following are the five most likely highly disrupted industries based on my analysis of the current state of emerging technologies. (In alphabetical order)

• Construction
• Finance & Insurance
• Government
• Healthcare
• Real-Estate

The way we live and work is changing. Emerging technologies have begun to have an intense effect on organizations large and small.  There is a delicate balance that must be achieved between likely benefit(s) and the risk(s) of dealing with the new/unknown.  Subject-matter Experts (SME) believe organizations need to take the first step.  They commonly recommend ‘Pilot Projects’ as the best approach.  Some suggest organizations seek and independent opinion from an objective third-party about the emerging technologies and or project(s).  That is great advice before any organization jumps into the deep end of the emerging technology application pool. We all know what that means, more pilot programs and projects coming into our offices and being laid on our desks. Given the current workloads, resource shortages and increased expectations with regard to accelerating the delivery pace, the existing demand and overload sure looks like it will continue to increase with little regard to PM workload.

Insight:  Douglas Rushkoff, American Journalist said, “When things begin accelerating wildly out of control, sometimes patience is the only answer. Press pause.”

Today, innovation is a demanding strategic imperative for nearly every organization. Value integration and vision alignment are essential for innovative success given the current highly-competitive global environment. Creating an innovative solution is often the most challenging task, followed closely by actually implementing it. Let’s face it, innovation is not that easy.  Often it ends up meeting substantial resistance within an organization.  When asked, over 27% of professionals who were surveyed believe that fueling innovation is the main building block within their business. It is also interesting that slightly over 25% of the same individuals believed that thought leaders were the most significant part of the innovation process. Innovators are often seen as trouble-makers, those that are a bit off.  However, many of them are the ones that lay the foundation for the future. Are you a trouble-maker, considered a bit off?

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Steve Jobs

We are all familiar with the old tradition of counting down the last few seconds remaining until the dawning of the new year.  Far less familiar is the uniqueness of the 2019 countdown!  This year there were two noteworthy countdowns that took place.  The first was the traditional to welcome in the new year and the second was the countdown until a close encounter unlike anything we have seen before.  Scientists, astrophysicists, engineers and astronomers were among those that counted down the last few hours, minutes, and seconds until NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft conducted a flyby of the most distant object ever explored.  The oddly shaped object named Ultima Thule is a mere 30 km in diameter and is about 1 billion miles from Pluto and 4 billion miles from the sun.  Traveling at a speed of over 31,000 mph New Horizons will pass just 2,200 miles from the surface of Ultima Thule and collect sensory data and imagery as it passes and beam all that data/imagery back to ground control.  The birth of the Ultima Thule mission came when New Horizons completed it exploration of Pluto, and mission control wanted to make use of the small amount of fuel remaining.  While serving on the Science and Technology Advisory Panel (STAP) at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (JHU/APL) I got to see the New Horizons space craft under construction and got briefed on the mission.  Think about all the science and engineering that had to go into the New Horizons missions, the calculations and then think about the multi-year program and project management that had to be in place since the mission’s conception.  The Innovation that went into this was incredible.The scope, complexity and level of detail boggled my mind and still does!   

I have an idea for and interesting project.  It would be very interesting to see what New Horizons would be like if it was created now given all the advances in technology that has taken place that would influence the design.  I wonder if that could get funding from NASA?

GREAT JOB - NASA and JHU/APL

Reference: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Ultima/Ultima-Thule.php#page-top

Innovation is the art and science of transformation, breakthrough, change and so much more.  Currently, the most innovative countries in the world are: South Korea, Sweden, Singapore, Germany and Switzerland. The road to innovation is full of dead-ends, wrong turns and following wrong directions.  There is plenty of advice and opinions as to the secrets to innovation.  Perhaps the best advice I ever heard about fostering innovation is to give those working on creating the future the right to be wrong.  Think about all the early light-bulb designs that Thomas Edison must have tried that did not work!

Analysis by a management consulting firm of small businesses within the United States and their movement to become digital has some surprising results.  The analysis indicated that small businesses that embraced digital technology recognized some great benefits including.

• They had about 2 times the revenue per employee.
• They had revenue growth of nearly 4 times that of the previous year.
• They were nearly 3 times more likely to create jobs over the previous year.

Those are some impressive stats.  However, that same report stated that nearly 80 percent of small businesses in the United States still fail to take full advantage of moving to digital.  One has to question the logic of most small businesses in the U.S. not being digitally engaged.  One has to wonder, why is that??????