ABCtech #68 05JUL16 Resistance is Futile – Customizing the Future and Monitoring Emerging Technologies

ABCtech #68 05JUL16 Resistance is Futile – Customizing the Future and Monitoring Emerging Technologies

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE – CUSTOMIZING THE FUTURE by Shawn Sato,  Streetcast

The Borg¹ is coming and they know our weakness is convenience.

We live in the age of convenience and it is pervasive. Convenience is king! But the transition from serving populations to serving persons comes at a heavy price. Namely, the displacement of local small businesses that offer high quality goods and personalized service. My question is: “Must we sacrifice quality for the sake of convenience? Can the new economy offer both convenience and quality?”

In this new “last second economy”², from the comfort of my couch and with a click of a button or a swipe to the right, I can find a date, a place to eat, book a time and table, order a ride. I can be out the door and on my way in under 10 minutes. If I change my mind, I can cancel my date, reservation and my Uber, then quickly order a pizza and have it delivered by Dominos and settle in for a night of Netflix, all in the same breath.

Large, vertically integrated merchants³ saw this coming and have adapted by investing heavily in information technology in order to meet the demands of the connected consumer.

Big business, has the time, capital and human resources to leverage complicated software to control every consumer interaction on the path from research to purchase to consumption. This chain of events is incredibly convenient and meets the new expectations of the connected consumer. As a result, these brands have exploded across continents, creating the “omni-channel”⁴ reality of global shopping and are now just a couple clicks away from every single user interaction in the connected consumer’s smartphone.

So where does that leave your local small business owners, who are already very busy running the business, and do not have the time or resources to learn complicated software? It has left them on the sidelines and the effects of this are very scary, not only for the small business and your neighbourhood, but also for us, as consumers, as we edge ever closer to Borg assimilation. A world in which we all consume the same things, have similar experiences, taste the same tastes, but can do so with incredible speed and convenience.

“Resistance is futile. We are the Borg.”

This is already occurring across many industries, but the most glaring indication of how this technology gap is affecting small businesses and the low quality goods we consume for the sake of convenience, is the pizza industry.⁵

In a recent study by Aaron D. Allen on how information technology is killing off independent pizzerias, Allen reported that in the U.S., roughly 2,549 pizzerias are closing each year. In the last decade, independent pizzerias have lost 21 percent market share in terms of sales and 19 percent market share in terms of units to chains. Meanwhile, Domino’s price per share has grown more than 3,000 percent since 2008, from $3.86 to $132 and its market capitalization has grown from 300 million to over 7.42 billion.

Investing heavily in technology is at the heart of Domino’s success and they view this investment as necessary for the survival of their business. Their CEO confirms as much when he states that, “We don’t see ourselves as a pizza company. We’re a technology company that sells pizza.” Domino’s investment in technology and their growth is centered around ensuring that ordering and receiving a pizza is as simple and convenient as possible.

So what about your local small business? How are they adapting to the expectations of the connected consumer? Allen reports that 95% of independent U.S. restaurants do not even have a mobile optimized website.  These findings fall in line with similar research in a recent global merchant scope study performed by MasterCard on the attitudes of small-to-mid sized merchants towards new technology solutions and how they adopt them into their businesses in this ever increasing omni-channel world.

Globally, the gap in resources (time, money and technological know-how) impedes the small business community from adopting the technology that can enable growth, restore competitive advantage and optimize customer experience.

Currently, for the small business, the most cited challenges are: identifying and targeting new customers (41%), internet marketing (32%), loyalty benefits for customers (28%) and accepting electronic payments (23%).

The major barriers to entry for the small business adopting new technology to help with these challenges are: cost (46%), lack of know-how (31%) and concerns over data security and privacy (27%).⁶

See also “Changing the conversation about trust” by Donna Kennedy-Glans HERE

It is important for technology providers and government to understand these needs and the subsequent barriers to entry in small business’ adoption of technology that can help close the technology gap between them and the multi-national, bigger brands. There is no such thing as a one size fits all when it comes to creating software for the entire business community. The small business is unique in the sense that they have limited time, limited resources and limited tech know-how. Technology providers need to create simple and cost effective solutions that fit the unique needs of the small business while still having maximum effect in creating one click convenience for the connected consumer in our last second economy. These tailored solutions will be of zero use for big businesses who already have the time, resources and capital to manage their existing software systems.

Government, industry, associations should be stepping up and supporting projects that connect small businesses and their communities together to create their own powerful “omni-channel” that can give the connected consumer the same type of integrated shopping experience that they currently receive from the big business but at that same level of speed and convenience. One connected, real-time, global downtown network.

Now instead of having to choose between Domino’s, Papa John’s and Little Caesars for the sake of convenience, the connected consumer with a click of the button can choose from the other twenty nearby pizza places, book a table or place an order, track the order and have it delivered to their doorstep without having to leave the comfort of their couch. This pizza will have homemade pizza sauce, fresh dough and local ingredients and this connected consumer will choose this pizzeria not because they support small businesses or like to shop local. They will choose this pizzeria because it is convenient and it is quality pizza.⁷

Small business can grow and prosper in the “last second” digital economy by collaborating with technology providers, industry and government. The connected collective small business community omni-channel will level the playing field and empower the small business and the consumer.⁸

1 For those unfamiliar with the Star Trek universe, the Borg are an alien race that assimilate every species it comes into contact with and communicate via a “hive mind.” As this article (somewhat) facetiously points out, we’re beginning to see this process take hold in our own world: go to a restaurant or take a subway and all of the humans will be taking directives from small hand-held communication machines. This is the hive. The hive is not necessarily a bad thing. But if the plurality of voices available on the hive are reduced to the richest and most powerful, that’s a danger we must address (n.b. the author of this article is a tech entrepreneur and smartphone owner. He does not advocate resisting hive contact. Resistance is futile, after all).

2 Last second economy, meaning humans have become, in less than a generation, impulsive infants, who, when they want something, be it a pizza, flowers for a spurned lover, porn, or anything, really, they instantly access the desired object within a few clicks on the hive. This genetic speciation towards instant gratification has managed to shift the world economy in just a few short years, a few of the implications of which we’ll be discussing here today.

3 Walmart, Domino’s Pizza, Amazon, IKEA, Krusty Burger, etc…

4 Researching your purchase before you buy it. In the old days, people never knew what they wanted to buy before they walked into a brick-and-mortar shop (or saw an advertisement on TV or in a magazine, etc.) and saw something they liked, either went home and fantasized about it, or bought it outright. These days, entire blogs are devoted to brand worship (Barbour jackets, Persol sunglasses, etc.). This has given the consumer infinitely more point-of-purchase power, but if the point-of-purchase is through big box wholesalers or major online retailers (ahem, Amazon), it threatens the unique retail experience your local small business retailer provides.

5 Pizza’s just one example. The same could be said for all of the following (by no means an exhaustive list): bookstores, butchers, suit shops, eyewear, music distribution, video entertainment, shoe stores. Once upon a time, your local small business retailer in the aforementioned categories was your local “guy.” What they sold reflected their personality and their weirdness, and that was a good thing. Go to a good small bookstore, and they had books you couldn’t buy anywhere else. Go to your local music shop and the music on hand was a window into the proprietor’s soul. Now? You need a credit card and an iTunes account, and that gives you access to the same gated garden variety of music everyone else has access to. As comedian Louis CK has said, with the death of music stores and the rise of iTunes, the only viable form of music consumption for the non-iTunes user is “f*****g… whistling.”a a Louis CK on the Opie and Anthony Show, 02/24/2011. For a deep exploration of the same themes we’re discussing here today, listen to this episode (available on YouTube and elsewhere via the hive). Louis talks about the death of small business, the homogenization of culture, and the episode concludes with an interview with Donald Rumsfeld wherein Louis asks him if he is an “alien lizard.” Lizards… Borgs… there’s something happening here.

6 Whew. A lot of data. Let it be said, it’s all true, and it’s all depressing. To paint a clearer picture of this information, let me cite the previously mentioned Louis CK episode. He correctly points out that the retailers who, once upon a time, serviced their communities and knew all of their customers by name have been, both through changes in customer acquisition models and vertically integrated and aggressive big-box store expansion into smaller communities, as well as price undercutting by same lizard/Borg entities, forced to close the shutters. The same families who serviced these communities for generations are now the staff at Lizard Home Depot or Borg Business Depot. If this all seems like a rant against the inevitable, ask yourself one question: do the staff at any of these stores seem particularly happy? Ultimately, as a human species not yet completely assimilated, we do have the power to fightback against not necessarily the technology, but who controls it. Small businesses can be saved. We do have the power to choose happier lives.

7 Small businesses need to understand resisting the hive is futile but by adapting to it’s service we can re-establish a democracy of consumer options with a multitude of niche consumer channels conveniently delivered last second to the connected consumer via the hive. That is our goal, and that is the heart of preserving our culture from the lizards and Borgs and parasites of big business. Let’s call it “Communitinomics.”

8 Thank you to David Foster Wallace and Jane Jacobs for their spiritual guidance on this project. May their spirits live on.

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Monitoring Emerging Technologies by Esir Pretne

For the last 10 years we have been monitoring emerging technologies and their socio-economic implications.  BUT the rate and scope of change are getting out of hand. So we are appealing for your help as a technology monitor.  OUR ASK:

Send info@ABCtech.ca a snippet, a one-line description and url link to an event, article, editorial identifying an emerging technology posing a significant socio-economic opportunity/threat. Also, consider setting up a monitoring group through

.ca

Here are some of the things we are monitoring:

Communications & Marketing – increased access to information driving eCommerce and more consumer responsive govern-ments, professions, and institutions.

SURVEY/DIRECTORY HERE

Transportation – faster and safer, autonomous and increased sharing of excess capacity.  The impact on vehicle design and manufacturing, municipal design and real estate values. HERE

Manufacturing – Transitioning of jobs and adoption of 3- and 4-D printing and robotics. HERE

Globalization – the development of global relationships/ know-ledge channels for expediting innovation.

Personalized medicine – cell therapies for the treatment of degenerative disease, replacement of body parts and life’s extension. HERE

Healthcare procurement – key to stirring innovation and growth of the health industry.

Creative economies – reintegrating arts and science, the humanities and technology for driving innovation AND ethics. HERE

Forestry & Wood Products – alternative uses for land, fibre and new technologies in production and construction. HERE

Agriculture & Food Processing – localized food production and analytics for increased produ-ctivity and consumer choice. HERE

Environment & CleanTech – the impact of a new-found respect for the environment (climate change) on regulations, new products and services. HERE

Alternative energies – the transition to carbon-free energy options including fusion and micro-grids. HERE

Analytics & Management – the internet of everything, data for decision making, and machine learning/ artificial intelligence. HERE

Logistics – customization and dis-intermeiation of the commercial supply chain.

Access to capital – promoting survival, growth and retention, development of angels, co-operative networks, de-risking funding SMEs. HERE

Commercialization of technology – deinstitutionalization, collaboration and targeting of applied research for keeping pace with global competition.

Community enterprise – thinking global and growing local for sustaining vibrant communities.

Economic diversification – monitoring the sentiment of our followers including the semi-annual assessment of the effectiveness of Alberta’s innovation ecosystem. HERE