“In our latest Futurist Forum live discussion, Glen Hiemstra, founder of Futurist.com, will look at how work will evolve over the next several decades both in America and globally. Work is in the process of becoming more knowledge intensive, but it is easy to exaggerate the importance of this trend. The job as we understood it is disappearing, even as history is likely to repeat itself and produce unprecedented levels of employment. There will be jobs in the future, ranging from the familiar, like dental assistants, to the exotic, like brain augmenters. What will the jobs be and how can one best prepare?”
To gain necessary capabilities and expertise in mobile, social, cloud and analytics, organizations often need to partner for (out)sourcing.
(via IBM - The power of partnership: Has your outsourcing evolved? - United States)
Online retailers harness data and seek a ‘physical’ presence by Jill Puleri, VP and global retail leader, IBM
While many brick-and-mortar retailers expand their online businesses, an increasing number of online commerce sites are taking the reverse route. Piperlime, for example, an online unit of Gap Inc. opened its first retail store in Manhattan.
(via Turning clicks into bricks — and dollars - Outside the Box - WSJ MarketWatch)
The endless aisle. The outdoor gear and apparel retailer Moosejaw Mountaineer has 11 retail stores in the U.S., with 80% of sales (70% of in-store) coming from online and mobile commerce . Store associates use iPod touch and mini-iPads to check competitive prices and extend a price match. If a store does not carry what a shopper is looking for, store associates order the item online if it is in the warehouse and ship it to the customer for free.
” We are a few years away from an economy based on fun,” says consultant @marwschaefer. Games are the newest layer of engagement after augmented reality, mobil and social.
(via The future of business: Six layers of customer engagement)
“Humphreys said one of the early conclusions from her research is the possibility that the mass media of the 20th century was in fact a blip, a historical aberration, and that, through platforms like Twitter, we are gradually returning to a communication network that indulges, without guilt, the individual’s desire to record his existence.”
Using data collected from millions of cell-phone users, Ivory Coast in West Africa optimized its urban transportation system. An IBM model prescribed route changes around Abidjam, the nation’s largest city based on cell phone records analyzing people’s movements. Data was cleansed to prevent identification of phone users.
(via African Bus Routes Redrawn Using Cell-Phone Data | MIT Technology Review)
How Social Intranets Cultivate High Performers
To address obstacles to high performance, including a lack of collaboration and ability to share, you need the power of social business. Keep in mind, social doesn’t mean a stack of software tools. Instead, it is a way of doing business that offers a seamless flow of information, context and activity across different applications and business activities.
Via CMS Wire
“Tumblr isn’t a blog platform like WordPress; it’s a social network that has a blogging platform. The beautiful thing about Tumblr is that it makes it really easy to share your content with millions of Tumblr users… so you can get a big audience without spending a ton of money on marketing.”
Neil Patel, KISSmetrics | 7 Things Marketers Should Know About Tumblr (via Union Metrics)
(via courtenaybird)
“Leadership in networks does not come from above, as there is no top.”
