Friday, December 14, 2018

Companies Must Take More Responsibility for Education

It's well known that there is a serious shortage of IT talent both of the type that is capable of developing new systems as well as the type that is capable of managing a digital organization. Companies that go through a digital transformation process, and a few have, find themselves in a world of new issues. Business models inevitably change, with cost of entry dropping in some cases and profitability of new ventures becoming more unpredictable, or at least reactive to different pressures.

Many companies still rely on the traditional education system to produce the needed people. But that system is incapable of responding to new challenges quickly enough. While companies seek more agility, the educational system, by its nature, is limited in its capacity to be agile.

So companies have responded by providing training programs, which can be good, but usually are limited in their scope and depth because of the constraints of taking people out of production in order to train them.

What's really needed is a radical transformation in the overall educational and corporate training systems. They need to communicate and work together more effectively. Institutions need to respond to the needs of business. Corporate training needs to be an extension of the education provided by the institutions. It already often is informally but not so often formally.

Deloitte and others have said that “Companies should invest more in educating and training workforces for the digital era.” There is probably no alternative if companies are to remain competitive.

They're right. Companies need to put more resources into education.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Impact of AI on humanity

AI is moving ahead quickly - so quickly that our traditional social institutions may not be able to keep up. Yet, AI promises to be pervasive within just a few years. When you look at how quickly Google has moved into our fact finding space, and how much we rely on it, we can get some sense as to how quickly AI can move.

This will raise some important questions. As humans work more closely with AI constructs, ranging from programs to intelligent robots, eventually those robots will become almost indistinguishable from humans, raising questions as to the rights of the robots, and the rights of humans vis-a-vis the robots. As humans work more closely with AI designed to augment their own capabilities, those capabilities will be vastly overcome by the technological. This will raise questions as to the responsibility for decisions and actions. Reliance on code - which is basically what AI is -  will increase the feasibility of amoral corporations and governments slanting that code to suit their own purposes in pursuing profit and power.

Pew Corp did a study asking some "979 technology pioneers, innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers and activists" to answer these and related questions in a canvassing of experts conducted in the summer of 2018."

They found a variety of concerns, and opportunities for humans, but all agreed that massive change is in the works - with some saying that such change is likely to extend over the next fifty years or more. The change will not come as once, meaning that humans will need to be very responsive in dealing with the change as it comes. But it will come fast, which means that some people will be displaced and left behind. Which in turn means social unrest, more populist uprisings, perhaps dictatorships.

It's a massive challenge calling for restructuring of our social, educational and government institutions. The survival of our society - of humanity as we know it, is at stake. To gain a greater insight into these issues, check out this article on the Pew website.







Wednesday, December 05, 2018

AI for Better Customer Service

Companies, particularly retail businesses, have been making greater use of Artificial Intelligence to enhance their customer service. They can't always go totally online, so it is in their interests to enhance the customer experience by improving convenience and helping to build customer loyalty. This has been approached by providing customer service personnel with technology like tablets loaded with useful data and related AI apps, as well as apps designed to effectively close a sale and facilitate immediate delivery. With many companies that have not gone totally online, this has expanded to include a variety of new AI technologies and the means to deliver them. The latest trend includes the use of wireless technologies that can track customer movements, including when the enter the store, so they can be approached with knowledge of their interests and preferences.

One lesson that has been learned is that in many cases, direct human interaction is necessary before the deal is closed. Which means the technology must remain in the role of supporting the human activity rather than replacing it. The strategic issue has been to define the best mix of human and technological involvement in the process.

This is a process requiring continuous improvement which in turn requires that the actions of competitors must be closely watched in order to maintain or build on product differentiation.