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The increase in package delivery is sending a flood of vehicles into cities, causing problems with traffic gridlock, pollution and safety. Data about curb space usage
obtained from streetlight cameras can be part of the solution.

Using this data, cities can optimize parking policy by ensuring a proper alignment between curb space availability and the way vehicles are actually using it. This means a more efficient turnover of parked cars, less time searching for a parking spot and reduced traffic delays. And that means more liveable cities.

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Read the full article here.

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Did you focus on productivity and continuity during the Covid crisis? You may have burned out your team.

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Read the full article here .

Team culture is essential to innovation and productivity. But to create a team culture that really works, managers have to be actively involved.

Read the full article here.

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Having robots on the shop floor? That isn't working out so well. Maybe we should give human workers access to better technology?

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Read the full article here

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Robots in the workplace are helping companies grow and create jobs. Yes, you read that right. Not taking, but creating. Middle management is in trouble, though...

Read the full article here.

Accessible technology means that business users can also add a lot of value by getting to work with data and analytics. But most companies still make too little use of these 'citizen data scientists'. Especially lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities leads to tension between the 'professional' and 'citizen' data scientists.

Are you responsible for data and analytics? Then focus on building communication and collaboration:

1. Build an ecosystem in which your citizen data scientists can work. This prevents them from doing 'their own thing' in isolation and ensures they have the right tools and data, have points of contact at other business functions and follow the right processes.

2. Gradually add new tooling to match the skills of your citizen data scientists so they can continue to develop.

3. Involve citizen data scientists in projects, for example by outsourcing less complex tasks to them.

4. Initiate collaboration between the citizens and the experts. This is how you break through silos and ensure that knowledge and data are used effectively.

Read the full article here.

For many organizations, automating business processes will both enable employees to do more and make it more critical that they upskill their workforces.

Instead of reducing their workforce, the sharpest, most strategic companies are making a simultaneous investment in people who can power progress.

Read the full article here.

Most companies are working hard to “digitize”. Digital efforts have become more prevalent for years in order to catch up with technological innovation. This has been massively accelerated by covid-19.

However, those digital initiatives are mostly about maintaining business as usual, while digital transformation is about building real, long-term competitive advantage.

The three recommended actions to secure your companies’ future are:

1. Reimagine your place in the world, instead of focusing on
   digitizing what you already do. By creating value for your
   customers by taking advantage of new technologies.

2. Create value through ecosystems, rather than trying to do it     all alone. Remain relevant by working together with players to    deliver ambitious value propositions together.

3. Re-imagine your organization to enable a new model of value     creation, rather than asking people to work in new ways     confined by the old organizational model.

Read the full article here.

While digital giants are thriving because of the shift towards online sales, midsize companies are struggling to keep up. However, many of these companies can utilize their data and agility for the purpose of repositioning their business in the wide-open playing field left by the narrowly focused strategies of bigger companies.

Internal data can help midsize companies in identifying profit peaks and profit drains, enabling them to strategically align their organization around their profit core to build dominance in their targeted market segments.

In particular, we can identify a three-step data driven approach for midsize company success:

1. Choose your customer, thereby targeting defensible,    profitable market segments while avoiding those that are    vulnerable.
2. Align you resources to capture and grow these target markets
3. Manage your organization to meet customer needs within     your markets.

Read the full article here.

With all the growing applications leveraging the value of AI, the question rises more and more about what is ethical and what is not.

So, how to build Ethical AI? You can start by following the seven steps in this guide by Harvard Business Review.

Most companies see digital transformation as their number one concern. However, digital transformation efforts seem to fail more often than not, to make into a success the right mindset to change is necessary.

To keep the right mindset, it is important to design the customer experience from the outside in, by keeping an eye on where and how the customer can benefit through your digital transformation.

A fear often encountered from within in the company, is employees’ fear of being replaced. This can cause resist to change, therefore it is critical to emphasize that the digital transformation process is an opportunity for employees to excel even more in their expertise.

As the process of digital transformation is inherently uncertain, it is best to bring the start-up mentality inside. Changes need to be made iteratively, which fits best with a flat organizational structure to accelerate the decision making process.

Read the full article here.

When focussing only on further automation via AI, you miss the hidden opportunities for greater personalization and differentiation.

Look for critical business points where human interaction or human expertise adds value. Especially where the value is manifested in large amounts of data.

Read the full guide on how to implement AI from a CIO’s perspective in the e-book: “The CIO’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence” by Gartner.

A Human Enterprise ensures that technology and innovation meet genuine business needs, by putting humans at the center of business transformation efforts.

Realizing one is based on four pillars:

First, put the needs of people at the center of strategy and decision-making.

Second, allow technology to remove friction so that people may do their jobs more speedily and agile.

Third, make sure that business recognizes the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Fourth, value agility over hierarchy. Do not let established processes get in the way of affecting change.

A Human Enterprise recognizes that transformation is constant and not a fixed destination.

Its structure allows it to keep adapting without being held back by legacy technology, systems or processes.

Read the full article here.

We believe their picks offer a sense of inspiration on relevant topics in the dynamic environment we are in today.

Read the full article here.

Additionally, we would like to add a recommendation of our own. The Dutch book Lean Robotics by John Maes offers great insights in the journey of intelligent automation.

Do you have any other reads to share?

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ASAPP uses AI to optimize call center’s productivity by helping call center employees.

Rather than having people train AI systems to replace them, ASAPP makes AI that trains people to be more productive.

By successfully converting speech to text, ASAPP is able to suggest responses or show relevant resources to assist employees.

This results in increased productivity, customer satisfaction and overall a less stressful place to work.

Read the full article here.

In the discussions we pick up with our clients and partners, the influence of the digital gaming world is often overlooked.

Being it new opportunities for scalable live-streaming or for changing the interaction with your customers, there are many opportunities to leverage these online platforms.

Would you be able to spot opportunities for your business to utilise these platforms?

Read the full article here.

What is the 'Serverless Doctrine'?

Providing a simple way to look at an application/organisation and determine its serverlessness.

The main takeawaysof this article can be summed up to be:

1. Strive for zero ownership of servers and instances. Configure,    consume services, change the specs to make it fit. Only own    systems when the workload is a business critical process.

2. Prioritize minimization of application management over     short-term development budgets.

3. Scaling from nothing-to-all (and vice-versa) should always be     possible in applications. Develop with recoverability in mind,     not debugged software.

Read the full article here.

A common mistake when implementing a digital transformation is plainly hiring a digital expert to lead the way.

A better choice could be to appoint a company insider with a proven track record.

The insider has understanding of the business, checks the needs of the company and keeps customer's demand in check.

Insiders are willing to learn and they understand what they don’t know. This results in a solution where digital serves the business instead of vice versa.

Read the full article here.

What is the difference between branding and marketing?

That’s a question which often needs to be clarified by Benjamin, our designer.

The Futur, a great source for design-related inspiration explains that branding is a partof marketing, but not in its entirety.

Branding translates your message to the customer.

Marketing deals with the complete funnel.

Watch the video here.

To build a culture of innovation, one of the fundamental and driving forces of change is asking questions.

To uncover the root problem, the 'why' question is often asked.

By asking 'what if' the solution space loses its constraints and allows us to discover new paradigms.

A 'how' question pushes us to collaborate and creates a roadmap for the desired goal.

Read the full article here.

Nora Ghaoui, Node1 associate, wrote a great article on her findings related to working with business leaders and utilizing data science for achieving business results.

Data science projects need to have the right management to utilize the value it can bring to your company.

For business leaders it is a worthy investment to learn to understand the different types of practicing data science, ways to manage technical teams and applying the right questions to data models to get quality results.

Read the full article here.

Why has data become more valuable than oil? To answer this question, we have to look at successful technology companies and the API strategy they use to transform their data into their most valuable resources.

These companies understand that transforming data into information using APIs exposes value to their customers.

By using the right strategy and understanding what your customers want, the resources generated by the use of API’s no longer only functions as a tool for business.

They will become the business.

Read the full article here.

A digital culture is becoming essential in transformational projects.

It is stated that by neglecting the people part, a transformation is less likely to succeed.

As well we find that within this culture, people are empowered to deliver better results.

With better results coming in, talent will find its way to your organisation more easily.

Read the full article here.

When multiple scrum teams work on the same product, the product owner role is better not scaled by multiplying product owners.

Multiple product owners working on one product results in micro management of teams, need for more coordination and alignment, as well as unclear responsibility and ownership.

The concept of only one product owner managing multiple teams will be challenging if you stick to the idea that the product owner has to manage every detail. So try shifting the product owner's focus from clarification to prioritization.

Read the full article here.

How will the top technology trends impact the way people live?

All trends are based around people or the ‘smart spaces’ people live in.

Technology always revolves around the user. If not, a technology has no business value.

This human centred approach implies robots will augment humans rather than replace them. More people will be able to use and implement technology. It will be built and traced in a more transparent way to generate trust in the general public.

This implies technology will be deployed broader and with more speed following years.

Read the full article here.

How do you prepare your company for disruptive technological innovations in the market?

You need to ensure competitiveness of your current business while simultaneously preparing for the future.

By improving the health of the current business, you gain resources to invest in your competitive position.

You have to be prepared to adjust your plans for the future, to constantly improve your position and take advantage of upcoming changes.

Innovating should include small day to day improvements that make your customer lives easier.

Read the full article here.

Is it possible to pivot from failure to success without changing the concept at all? No, you have to kill your darlings to become successful.

It can appear in the pivot that only one specific part of the concept is successful, so focus on that part and let the rest go.

It’s not useful to put energy in multiple ideas if you don’t have the resources for it. You have to focus on one and change your product into that direction.

As for Slack, the product was created out of a need that arose when working on something else. A first sign that there is a market for your product.

Read the full article here.

Big companies like eBay, Netflix and Amazon spend millions on online advertising. In reality, these online ads often don’t perform as well as we think. Smart algorithms display ads on people’s screens, but might not always be effective.

People might buy your product through the so called advertising effect (people who weren’t planning to buy your product click on your ad) but the selection effect (people who were already planning to buy your product click on your ad) is not always taken into account.

Another phenomenon is the confidence interval. By looking at how much cents a dollar a big firm was losing on online ad’s there was a big difference in outcome due to the sample rate used per experiment. This showed that putting final conclusions of the effectiveness of online ads is hard to do.

Lastly, companies want certainty and the advertisement industry gladly reassures itself to give it.

Read the full article here.

As the definition of digital is spread more within our current environment, it often remains unclear what the meaning of this word is.

One of the ways of approaching is to look at the concept through three different lenses.

Creating new opportunities, optimising processes and building the infrastructure.

All of these improvements have the intention to create a better experience for the company's most important asset, the customer.

Read the full article here.

Why do agile organizations struggle to determine the value of business analysis?

This is because organizations often use different methodologies or slight variations on known principles. In short, the answer is that business analyses value is generated through the facilitation of informed decision making.

This is based on three additional rules:

1. Decisions enabled, not activities completed, identifies the    role of business analysis.

2. Business analysis value is only noticed indirectly.

3. A business analyst is nothing without their team.

Even though these rules are clear, keep in mind that rules are a good start, but break them when needed. The agile principles are more important than practices.

Read the full article here.

How do you build and elevate an organisation’s data and analytics competency within the organisation?

First of all, collect examples of the internal and external economic benefits from data and analytics that your organisation has generated.

Offer being involved in corporate strategic planning to ensure that data and analytics competencies are incorporated.

Measure and communicate the value of the organisation's information assets to help shift the culture into believing and behaving as if information is an actual asset.

And lastly, build, buy and borrow advanced analytics competencies beyond traditional business intelligence and embed them throughout the business.

Read the full article here.

In the face of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) we need a new radical humanism of our organizations.

Automation brings change and with this change comes a challenge. How do we avoid our businesses from becoming so automated that it no longer feels like a place where we can be comfortable and productive?

By (1) doing the unnecessary, (2) creating intimacy, (3) speaking the ugly truth and (4) by always looking for ways to improve (being incomplete) we allow our organizations to remain human and not become a place where we do not feel “at home” anymore.

Watch Tim Leberecht's TED Talk in which he proposes four (admittedly subjective) principles for building beautiful organizations.

What drives the new generation and how can organizational leaders increase quality and productivity of work produced by their younger co-workers?

Generation Y, millennials, are usually driven by other values then the ones who are in charge of conventional large corporations. Instead of focusing on money, status and power, the new generation of professionals thrive through the values based on people, planet and profit.

The new generation wants to excel, but on her own terms, following their personal values. After creating meaning and excitement, quality and productivity of work will follow.

Based on Het Rijnland praktijkboekje (Dutch) written by Jaap Peters en Mathieu Weggeman and the (Dutch spoken) video of Mathieu Weggeman.

A great workplace experience (WX) will become a significant driver of an organization’s competitive advantage by adopting abroad approach across technology, operations, culture and employee experience. How can you leverage technology to achieve this?

Data analytics and social listening solutions can help create an intuitive experience. Knowing what your employees want by identifying their wants and needs will help you create personalized experiences.

Creating a fully integrated digital work environment will create 'liquid productivity', where employees are empowered to actively seek collaboration and co-creation. Effectively forming the right team at the right time provides for seamless productivity and agile teams.

By applying Internet of Things (IoT) you can create a better work environment. Employees are highly aware of their work environment, and 70 percent would trade a longer commute for a better workspace.

Read the full article here.

How can AI create sustainable hybrid services that meet customer demands, and fit in the modern landscape? By providing a combination of digital en personal services, and making the process transparent and controllable.

Obtain the customers trust and loyalty by combining digital with traditional (personal) services. People don’t mind sharing data with AI as long as it gives them a personalized advice.

The advice needs to be transparent in order to monitor the ethical compliance of the algorithms. There are multiple opinions on how to do this.

One thought stream states that explainability is focused on input data instead of algorithms and decision trees.

The other stream states that transparency and explainability of both algorithms and data used should be the basis for an advice.

Co-creation between regulators and financial services providers on AI-proof regulatory frameworks is essential in today’s ecosystem, to be able to move towards a sustainable future.

Read the full article here.

Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, states the importance of conflict and failure in coming up with creative ideas.

He therefore encourages the idea of having a company culture that fosters experimentation and feedback and doesn’t punish failure. In doing so people dare to be vulnerable and will open up about the things they don’t know. This will lead to discussions - sometimes involving a high degree of disagreement between team members - and thereby to uncovering and solving problems.

Read the full article here or read his book: 'Creativity Inc'.

COVID-19 is once again emphasizing the importance of digital transformation for organizations. However, most organizations have little knowledge of the skills they need for transformation and the supply, demand, availability and location of those skills.

Gartner identifies four actions to realign internal resourcesto cope with this challenge.

First, embed agile work design assessments into your broader talent management activities.

Second, break roles and projects into skills so you can begin to see what skills you lack (and can then compensate for).

Third, keep evaluating these role breakdowns in order to adapt to changing organizational needs.

Fourth, consider applying technological solutions to roles that may become less crucial, eg. by rightsizing, eliminating a role entirely or applying RPA.

Read the full article here.

Forrester claims that in order to respond towards these complications, RPA Strike Teams are emerging. These teams replace the idea of a traditional Center of Excellence by offering a decentralised solution to maintain best practices and velocity.

Strike teams handle the complexity of 'islands' of automation within larger organisations, supporting bottum-up projects while implementing the right measures for governance.

This set-up provides independent teams with the knowledge and design to fully deploy and leverage the potential of automation within scattered departments, addressing the federation of business and technology management expertise.

Read the full article here.

Creating a great digital product starts with determining what your approach and perspective is.

Firstly, make sure you have explored multiple perspectives before starting to create your product.

Secondly, everything is a remix, so start by understanding what previous existing product your product is based on. And lastly understand the pitfalls of the product your product is modelled after and make sure you improve them.

Read the full article here.

Modern businesses try to add more value by using data in their processes and offerings, but yet, does data always enable a competitive edge?

Due to the increasing speed and agility technology has brought companies,it has become more accessible and easy to leverage data capabilities. This trend allows organisations to translate their own resources into insights, but what's often forgotten is that plainly adding a data component doesn't generate winner-take-all dynamics.

Therefore it is important to start with a proposition fueled by regular network effects and use data-enabled learning as an addition to create more value. This means that organisations need to be aware of the added value of their improved offerings in order to truly stay ahead.

Read the full article here.

It is observed that the contribution of digital workers will grow by fifty percent in two years, by which means software robots will take over repetitive jobs from workers.

Next to taking over repetitive jobs, robots will augment workers in intelligent decision making. This shift provides a challenge in the shift towards human-machine collaboration.

One of these challenges is confirmed by a majority of respondents who state that is difficult to recruit people with the right digital skills.

Secondly, worker skills and/or training are cited to be inadequate to execute the actual job. This brings us towards an interesting period in the upcoming years where we will grow and learn into this new way of working.

Read the full article here.

During environmental and social crises there occurs a degrowth of our economies. Most CEO's are alarmed by this, although it can also bring some opportunities.

Firms can pursue degrowth-adapted product design, engage in value-chain repositioning or lead by setting new degrowth inspired standards.

In conclusion, firms should think of degrowth as an opportunity, instead of resisting the demands of the consumer.

Read the full article here.

Three of the leading trends are identified by McKinsey while they reflect on this crisis period.

Firstly, businesses had to apply a form of digital transformation for internal communication overnight.

Secondly, companies make more use of data. As data is a source of information which is not affected by the crisis, companies tend to be more creative in using data for business development.

Lastly, companies try to increase virtual customer engagement. Because, if you can’t see your customers in person, how can you inform and engage potential users while applying social distancing?

Coming period will show if the innovations driven by the current circumstances will stick and perhaps increase productivity in long term.

The original article is part of the interesting series by McKinsey Digital: “Innovating from necessity: The business-building imperative in the current crisis”

Read the full article here.

Even though start-ups have the advantage of being able to make multiple pivots, traditional companies don’t have to pivot in order to create value in the digital landscape. Just because digital competitors pose a threat, this doesn’t mean a response has to be huge.

According to the discovery-driven approach to digital transformation you can start small and gradually lean into a digital strategy. During this process traditional companies can take advantage of two significant benefits.

Firstly, big firms have the resources to explore a variety of ideas and can experiment with different processes and operations.

Secondly, these companies know their customers and can retrieve insights from existing databases. Hence traditional companies may even be more likely than start-ups to discover a dominant model.

Read the full article here.

CEOs play a critical role in creating the data-driven culture that is required to benefit from the successful application of analytics and AI. He or she does this by empowering an internal change agent - such as a chief data officer - who can then lead three types of change initiatives.

The first initiative is introducing an educational program. This not only includes attitude and knowledge about analytics and AI, but also skills for finding and manipulating data at every level.

The second is leading by example. Leaders’ exemplary behavior in using a data-driven approach will encourage others to do so as well.

The third initiative is introducing promotions and rewards. Those who use data and analytics are given extra carreer opportunities, thus stimulating the adoption of a data-driven mindset.

Read the full article here.

Finding an innovation strategy that fits your company in the best way possible can be difficult due to the large variety of innovation tools available. However, this process can be simplified by applying four key steps.

Firstly, it is important to identify the type of innovation you are striving to accomplish as different types require different approaches.

Secondly, you have to determine what sources of ideas you will use. An important note here is that ideas don’t have to be your own. Chances are good the ideas you need were already discovered by other people within or outside of your organization.

A third consideration is to assess whether you should take ownership of the innovation. Ownership can be a large burden, instead you can let other people innovate for you.

The fourth and last step is creating a process for innovation. This may be the most important one as it facilitates the actual implementation of your ideas.

Read the full article here.

‘Fixes’ for this increasingly complex work only compound the problem by introducing overly complex reporting and compliance frameworks.

Agile Leadership allows managers to maneuver the complicated organizational landscape without sacrificing team effectiveness. There are two types of Agile Leader.

The ‘What’ leader helps their Agile team decide what to work on and makes sure this stays in line with the vision of the company.

The ‘How’ leader manages professional development and careers of employees with similar skills.

This approach works in part because Agile releases the latent potential of managers to foster cooperation. Agile Leaders will find a sustainable payoff in business performance because of a successful Agile transformation.

Read the full article here.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in various industries. Although the effects have been immediate, they also shine a light on the future of AI. CEOs of the most promising AI firms all agree on one thing: COVID-19 has accelerated or altered the adoption of AI permanently.

The key driver of the increase in AI adoption across all industries seems to be its association with safety. Many critical processes have proven to be vulnerable under these extreme circumstances. AI can make these more robust in at least two ways.

First of all, AI has the potential of improving healthcare by accelerating the process of clinical testing or by automating their scheduling of appointments that have been postponed.

Secondly, AI can facilitate a contactless society by allowing people to make use of autonomous transportation or by improving the experience of working remotely.

Read the full article here.