Like most industries, the manufacturing sector is transforming rapidly. Because of recent technological advances and globalization, U.S. manufacturing is facing intense international competition, increasing market volatility and complexity, a declining workforce, and a host of other challenges. Yet we know that in order to have a strong economy, we need a strong manufacturing base. So what’s the answer?
Today’s manufacturers must transform along with the rest of the world by adopting six advanced Next Generation Manufacturing principles. They are:
Anticipate customer needs: Look at your customers’ future and focus on what you DO know rather than what you don’t know. Ask, “What are the hard trends, the things that will happen, versus the things that might happen? What are the industries that are converging around our customers that our customers currently don’t see?” Then you can start seeing both needs and opportunities before they happen.
Innovate around the core: What are your core competencies? Are you still using your core competencies? In the past, manufacturers could go decades between innovations. That strategy doesn’t work anymore. Today you cannot just innovate now and then: to survive and thrive in a time of vertical change, you have to be innovating around your core competencies continuously. So what is your core, and are you using it?
Polaroid—the company that has been teetering on the brink of extinction for a while now—recently came out with a new digital camera powered by Android. I think that’s a good move, but they’re a little late to the game in doing it.
If you remember those old Polaroid cameras, they were all about instant photography and photo sharing. You’d take the picture and it would print out from the camera, right on the spot, and you could share it with a friend.
But somehow, Polaroid missed the shift to digital and stayed with their analog model way too long. That’s why most people don’t own anything by Polaroid anymore.
In reality, Polaroid should have owned digital photography, because the digital revolution was easy to see. In fact, it was here long before the first cell phones. I know this for a fact because I was writing about digital photography as early as 1983. Unfortunately, Polaroid didn’t see digital photography as a hard trend; they saw it as a soft trend. Remember, hard trends will happen; soft trends might happen.
Because Polaroid failed to see digital photography for what it really was, today they’re playing a big catch-up game. And even with their latest release, they still have a lot of catching up to do. Their newest release, The Polaroid SC1630 Smart Camera, features a high definition 16 megapixel camera with built in 3X optical zoom, touch screen display, and Wi-Fi, making uploads to social networks as easy as the touch of a button. But let’s face it…every Android phone has a camera. Every iPhone has a camera. So what they’re really giving us here is a little better lens and a zoom, which the smart phones can do now in a digital way as well.
Do we have a lot of innovation taking place here from Polaroid? No. It sounds good and it looks good. But in reality, they aren’t offering anything most people haven’t already owned for quite a while. It just didn’t have the Polaroid name on it.
So from a technology futurist’s point of view, Polaroid has to stop playing catch up and start innovating if they want to reclaim their spot as the leader in photography sharing.
When President Obama became president, it was widely reported that he used social media and technology to help gain the momentum and the votes he needed.
Today, if we look at the republican candidates and their use of social media, we see that each has a lopsided social media strategy at best. In other words, someone might have a lot of Facebook activity, but not much on Twitter. One might have a lot of “likes” and another one may not have any “likes” because they don’t understand what “likes” do. Some of them have Facebook and Twitter, but they aren’t on YouTube.
For example, let’s look at frontrunner Mitt Romney. He has over 1.3 million Facebook “likes.” That’s powerful. But his Twitter followers are only around 200,000, and his You Tube subscribers are a measly 3,300 (as of this writing). So he’s doing great in one area, but where’s the rest?
The other candidates have a similar track record. They’re really good at one or two things, but there’s no overall, consistent social media strategy. I see the same challenge in the business community every day.
Here’s an important point for everyone to consider: Many people think social media is all about Facebook and/or maybe it’s all about Twitter, but it’s so much more than that. Facebook is the current leader under a certain category of social media. But realize that leaders come and go. Any leader is good for a certain period of time, but then someone else takes over. Why? Because technology shifts.
For example, when it came to search, Yahoo was the leader of search…until Google came along.
Anyone who has kids—or who has been around them for any length of time—knows they are attracted to video games like moths to light. You might be tempted to think these young-uns are using their time idly.
In reality, they’re pioneering the future of business training and education.
This is part of a trend I call gameification, which I first identified in the early eighties and is today reaching its tipping point.
Gameification represents part of a predictable sequence. Many of the greatest technological advances in business have come originally from the world of kids and their games. Here’s how the sequence flows:
• First, an innovative concept or new technology often starts out in the world of games for children. Sometimes it’s the military (or in times past, the space program) that serves as the launch point. But it’s amazing how often it’s kids’ games.
• From there it sooner or later gains the attention of the adults in the business community as they learn how to adapt and apply it to their needs.
There are lots of great business books out there but, as a small-business owner, you may not have time to read them all. Luckily, we were able to get some of the country’s best business writers to distill their business theories into one short and sweet New Year’s resolution for you. Even if you only pick one or two, you’ll be on the road to building your business in 2012.
Stay current on transformative trends. Based on 28 years of research and analysis of current hard trends, it’s evident that the next five years will usher in the biggest technological transformation in human history, transforming how we sell, market, communicate, collaborate, innovate, train, educate and research. We are entering the era of “big data, meaning anyone can access data streams and analyze them using a smart phone or tablet. For example, Wall Street is now mining Tweets to determine mood and sentiment among the public. As technology progresses, it will be more common for people and companies to have moment-by-moment data for a variety of uses that will give us intelligence and help us learn about, react to and anticipate changes that are happening globally. – Daniel Burrus, “Flash Foresight”(HarperBusiness, 2011)
If you’re one to make resolutions at the start of the New Year, the number one resolution you need to make is to take control of your destiny and stop waiting for outside help to come in. This advice is especially true for business owners and leaders.
Realize that we all have amazing opportunity in front of us right now. Thanks to today’s technological transformations taking place, we’re transforming how we sell, market, communicate, collaborate, innovate, train, and educate—and all this is leveling the playing field globally. Why? Because no one has an advantage when there’s a major game change taking place, and right now we have multiple game changes taking place on a global level. That means the big, established players no longer have the competitive advantage they’ve had in the past. So not only are the technological tools for success changing, but the rules that govern how you apply those tools are changing as well.
But the key question is, “Are you noticing it?” And if you are, are you making your move, or are you waiting for the economy to pick up or some law to be passed before taking action?
Unfortunately, too many people fail to take control of their future and instead let others dictate their next move. They create a list of can’t do’s rather than a list of can do’s. They create a list of things they disagree on rather than a list of thing they do agree on that will allow them to move forward with their team.
Taking control of your future is vital, because too often change comes to us from the outside-in, which forces us to crisis manage and put out fires. But this is a time to be an opportunity manager and create some change from the inside-out.
On a business level, deciding to take control of your company’s destiny and shape the future means seizing the opportunities at hand. For example, the revolution of mobility and cloud technologies are two things that offer tremendous opportunities to create new products, services, and markets…and to do that from the inside-out of your organization rather than expecting external changes and government regulations to affect you from the outside-in.
Two important things to ask yourself at this time of year are, “Are you changing as fast as your customers are changing?” (Hint: You’re not.) And, “Are you learning as fast as your customers are learning?” (Again, you’re not.) You need to be in front of the consumers you’d like to convert into customers, but most organizations tend to be behind them—again, forcing reaction rather than action.
So let’s not just be crisis managers in 2012, waiting for the next shoe to drop and hoping that something positive happens. Hope is not a strategy. Instead, let’s all make a resolution to create a strategy—a personal one, a professional one, and an organizational one—that allows us to direct our future, create positive changes, and drive them from the inside-out.
Over the past week, many people have expressed concern over the passing of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il. In reality, it’s not his death that should raise concern; rather, it’s who is taking his place as the country’s ruler.
Kim Jong-il’s successor is his youngest son, Kim Jong-un—someone North Korea’s official KCNA news agency called the “Great Successor,” and “the outstanding leader of our party, army, and people.” Is that an accurate statement? I’m not too sure.
We don’t know much about Kim Jong-un, other than the fact that he’s in his late 20s, studied for a short time at a school in Switzerland, and was appointed to senior political and military posts only last year.
Now here’s where the real concern comes in: North Korea is a nuclear power. And anyone in their late 20s—no matter how well schooled—is fairly inexperienced when it comes to leading a country. Granted, I’m sure he accompanied his father on a number of different government meetings and perhaps even international meetings, but he’s still very young to be in control of a nuclear power. That’s where the real concern and worry should be.
Realize that I’m not knocking young people. I’ve asserted for years that young people have a great advantage over older people because the young have new knowledge—they understand technology in a way that their elders do not. That alone often gives them a great advantage. We’ve also had many successful start-ups by young people, including Facebook and Twitter. These young entrepreneurs saw a future that older people could not.
However, there’s one thing that older people have that young people simply can’t get—it’s called wisdom gleamed from years of experience. And when it comes to running a country that has nuclear weapons, it helps to have wisdom and experience.
At least with Kim Jong-il, the world knew who they were dealing with, although they may not have always liked it. Now we have a “wildcard” leader, and wildcards create a lot of uncertainty. As the next few months unfold, the full picture of North Korea’s new leader will become clearer. Let’s hope that he uses his youth wisely and sees a future his elder did not.
By Kim S. Nash Originally Published December 16, 2011
What’s wrong with how most companies create a business strategy?
C-suites spend a lot of time focusing on execution. The problem is they may not be executing on a full strategy. Too often, a strategic plan is a static document. We have a meeting and write it up, including objectives, goals, time lines and accountability. But then it’s fixed in time until the next time we have a strategic planning session and come up with a new one. We need to make the strategic plan alive in the minds of our people.
If you ask somebody, “What’s your strategic plan?” we don’t want them to say, “Just a minute. I’ll find it on my computer.” That means they’re not living it.
Traditional strategy focuses on scenario planning. “If this happens, we’ll do that.” But people fail to realize there are two types of trends: hard and soft. Hard trends will happen. Soft trends might happen.
What’s a hard trend?
A hard trend is going to happen whether you like it or not. There are three prime drivers of hard trends: technology, demographics and government regulation. When there’s a law passed, pay attention. It’s loaded with hard trends that give you amazing opportunities if you pay attention. Will we be able to use cell phones and tablets to tap into a Watson-like supercomputer? Yes. Will we be able to use mobile devices to tap into logistics and supply chain systems? Yes. So why are you waiting?
As bleak as the prospect of a long winter might be, at least you can be sure that it’s going to give way to spring.
It’s a shame you can’t be as certain about an economic rebound, a resurgence in hiring or even whether your job or employer will be secure in the coming year.
Yet there are changes and trends you can be confident will happen in the near future, and they can be used to design career strategies to weather even the most prolonged economic chill, according to technology trends consultant Daniel Burrus, author of Flash Foresight.(To read an excerpt from the book,click here.)
“A career strategy based on uncertainty has high risk. When the level of uncertainty is high, if you put off making decisions … it can keep you from moving forward both personally and organizationally,” he said in an interview.
“It has been never more important to ask what we can know for certain, and plan from there,” said Mr. Burrus, who is chief executiveofficer of Burrus Research Associates Inc. in Hartland, Wis.
We’re all aware that there are timeless leadership principles that have been true since the dawn of time and that will continue to be valid in tomorrow’s business environment. Things like integrity, honesty, and personal responsibility immediately come to mind. While those are all vital traits, they’re not the leadership traits I’m addressing right now.
In today’s world of technology-driven transformation, leaders need to embrace a new leadership principle if they want their organization to be relevant today and in the future.
In the recent past, leaders have focused on agility—being able to change quickly based on external circumstances because change from the outside-in has been coming at an ever-increasing speed, and it’s only getting faster. Many of these types of changes are driven by technology, but they’re also from our customers, because technology is influencing our customers and changing the way they interact with us.
We also have increasing transparency, meaning your customers and prospects have access to complaints, as well as accolades, through social media and other new forms of communication. All of these changes, which are coming from the outside-in and force agility, cause leaders to react, crisis manage, and put out fires on a daily basis.
Knowing this, it’s evident that simply being agile no longer works. Instead, today’s leaders need to be anticipatory.
When you’re anticipatory, you’re creating changes and driving disruption from the inside-out rather than being disrupted from the outside-in. Disruption is the disruptive technology that changes our world on us and keeps many leaders up at night. Chances are you’ve often asked, “What new technology will disrupt my path to market?” or “What new technology will change how my customers behave?” For many leaders, disruption is a familiar foe.
But realize that disruptive technology is only disruptive if you didn’t know about it ahead of time. And when you’re anticipatory, you can not only see and accurately anticipate those disruptive technologies, but you can use them to create new revenue streams, new products, new services, and new markets. That’s when you drive growth and change from the inside-out so that others have to react to you instead of you reacting to what others are doing. In this scenario, disruption is your friend.
So the question is, how do become more anticipatory?
In terms of TV, Xbox is doing something that Apple TV has been doing for years, but Xbox is taking it to a new level. With Apple TV you have Hulu, Netflix, and Access. You can play games, watch TV, and read your emails. But the thing that the Xbox is bringing to users is their Kinect system, which includes a 3D video camera combined with voice recognition to allow users to control the screen with their hand and body movements. No mouse and no remote control—just hand and body movements.
This is taking the Xbox on a predictable path. In the late 1980s I predicted that IPTV (internet protocol television) was where we were going. Now here we are. And in the future, IPTV will continue to grow.
Looking at the hard trends around us, it’s clear to me that the real future of television is apps. Have you ever wondered why you can have 500+ cable channels and nothing to watch? It’s because you don’t have AppTV.
To understand how AppTV would work, let’s look at the iPhone. Two people can have an iPhone and have the same service provider. But those two phones would be completely different from each other. Why? Because when you have an iPhone, you customize it for your needs by picking the apps that are significant to you. You turn an iPhone into a MyPhone.
In that same way, with AppTV your TV will be customized for you. Think of it as an iPad big enough to be in your living room. Here’s how it will work: We will be using apps on the TV so that when you sit down to watch, you’ll have a customized viewing experience rather than hundreds of stations you don’t want to watch.
Not only that, but there will be a camera on those TVs, just like the tablets and smart phones have today, and it will use facial recognition. So when you walk in the living room, it will know you are there and will self-configure the right apps for you. If the entire family is in the room, you’ll use your voice to let it know which apps you want to have available.
For example, if your family consists of five people—two adults and three kids—and the dad and one child are in the room, the system will have the apps for those two individuals available for them. The two people can then decide which of those shows they want to watch.
So IPTV and apps is the future of television. And what the XBox is doing today is part of that progression. As the technology progresses, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, as well as other manufacturers, will continually fine tune it, making the future of TV happen today.
As evidenced by the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and European debt debacles, the pervasive sense of economic malaise that began more than three years ago isn’t fading anytime soon. The apparent ineffectiveness of stimulus packages and a zero interest rate policy have left Americans understandably skeptical of their government’s ability to return their living standards to pre-recession levels. Stagnant economic conditions have generated at least one positive development, however: spurring a long-overdue interest in financial education.
After my layoff from a money management firm in early 2009, I decided that I needed an extended hiatus from financial services. Two years spent apologizing to banks, pension funds, and insurance companies for imploding mortgage securities that my firm had purchased for them had drained my zeal for the profession. As my growing sense of guilt for my small role in the financial crisis deterred me from pursuing unemployment benefits, I decided to instead work at McDonald’s. There was just one problem: despite repeated application efforts, they wouldn’t hire me. Eventually, I was hired as a Waffle House server and assigned to work on the weekend graveyard shift.
No sooner did I land at the diner than I found myself under the tutelage of Edward, one of the restaurant’s only two “master grill operators.” The mustachioed veteran barely showed thirty-five of his nearly fifty years of age. An otherwise average build was accentuated by broad shoulders and sinewy forearms. In addition to cooking, Edward provided trenchant (and usually ribald) commentary on all customer and employee activity. Beyond entertaining the wait staff with colorful innuendos and euphemisms, he imparted a few career lessons I’ll never forget.
Like most industries, the manufacturing sector is transforming rapidly. Because of recent technological advances and globalization, U.S. manufacturing is facing intense international competition, increasing market volatility and complexity, a declining workforce, and a host of other challenges. Yet we know that in order to have a strong economy, we need a strong manufacturing base. So what’s the answer?
When President Obama became president, it was widely reported that he used social media and technology to help gain the momentum and the votes he needed.
Over the past week, many people have expressed concern over the passing of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il. In reality, it’s not his death that should raise concern; rather, it’s who is taking his place as the country’s ruler.
In terms of TV, Xbox is doing something that Apple TV has been doing for years, but Xbox is taking it to a new level. With Apple TV you have Hulu, Netflix, and Access. You can play games, watch TV, and read your emails. But the thing that the Xbox is bringing to users is their Kinect system, which includes a 3D video camera combined with voice recognition to allow users to control the screen with their hand and body movements. No mouse and no remote control—just hand and body movements.
