{"id":7606,"date":"2015-01-30T09:44:50","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T01:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=7606"},"modified":"2015-01-30T09:44:50","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T01:44:50","slug":"real-deal-wearables-millennials-consumers-caught-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2015\/01\/30\/real-deal-wearables-millennials-consumers-caught-act\/","title":{"rendered":"The real deal with wearables, millennials & consumers \u2018caught in the act\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jeremy<\/a>

Jeremy Burton, President, Products & Marketing, EMC<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

By Jeremy Burton, President, Products & Marketing, EMC<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Many years ago when being quizzed as to whether \u2018Web Services\u2019 were the next big thing, Larry Ellison commented \u201cI\u2019ve spent too much time in Italy to know that you shouldn\u2019t ignore fashion.\u201d\u00a0 In tech, we like nothing better than a new trend \u2013 and we all know that fashion matters, so we get onboard with it. As an industry we\u2019ve proven to be masters at hyping new trends, setting unrealistically high expectations for them and then, when dust settles, sometimes making money.<\/p>\n

So what are the big tech trends for 2015?\u00a0 Here\u2019s my take\u2026<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wearable-Schmearable.<\/strong>
\nApple fanatics worldwide expect wearables will go mainstream following the emergence of iWatch, but I\u2019m not so sure. Let\u2019s face it, nobody under 35 wears a watch anymore \u2013 they rely on their smartphones for everything.\u00a0 A lot of wearables will fail \u2026 with the guys wearing their Bluetooth ear piece all day propping up the market.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, that said, not all wearable technology will end in abject failure. Standalone, niche wearables that shake up industries for the better \u2013 such as FitBits or Jawbones that monitor vitals or health activity \u2013 will continue to flourish and be incorporated into sports clothing, shoes and equipment.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Consumers \u201cCaught In The \u2018Act\u2019<\/strong>
\nMobile devices are a driving force of disruption in almost every industry.\u00a0\u00a0 Businesses that adapt and take their services onto the mobile device can create a direct relationship with the consumer.\u00a0\u00a0 This creates a nirvana moment for marketers \u2013 they have the potential to intercept consumers \u201cin the act\u201d and direct their attention to relevant products and services.\u00a0\u00a0 Think about the retailer who is savvy about the consumer location in the store, or the sports clothing company who understand exercise routines and state of health of their customers \u2013 it’s a gold mine!\u00a0 But consumers are fickle and impatient.\u00a0 Many companies have been working on this for years, but I expect it will become more widely adopted.\u00a0 That means vast streams of data will need to be processed in real time \u2026 driving a massive increase in the adoption of technologies such as in-memory databases and flash storage.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s About The Software, Stupid.<\/strong>
\nIn the last decade or so, most companies have quit the business of writing software.\u00a0 IT departments have become experts at managing data center infrastructure and implementing ERP systems.\u00a0\u00a0 In the next decade, almost every industry will be re-defined by software \u2013 and much of that software being surfaced on mobile devices \u2013 on smartphones and tablets for sure, but also in cars, aircraft engines, running shoes and human beings!\u00a0 Think about Tesla \u2013 an electric car, right? Yes, but more than that, it’s a software-defined car.\u00a0 Tesla has done to the driving experience what Apple did to the cellular phone experience \u2013 your car is now a software platform to innovate on top of.\u00a0\u00a0 Companies that don\u2019t innovate in this way won\u2019t last long. This trend also hits close to home \u2013 I\u2019m not excusing the data center infrastructure (that EMC plays in) from this.\u00a0 Storage arrays, servers, networks and entire data centers will be run and managed by smart software in the future.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Agile Software Development + Millennials = New IT<\/strong>
\nIn the next decade business transformation will be driven by new, differentiated, software running on mobile devices.\u00a0 But it won\u2019t be written the way it was 20 years ago.\u00a0 At school most of us forty-something\u2019s learned that making changes late in the software development lifecycle was expensive.\u00a0 So we had to lock in requirements early, up front and fight change.\u00a0 Change was bad.\u00a0 So many of us have spent our careers working on projects that lasted years and ultimately delivered the wrong thing \u2013 the magic of \u2018waterfall\u2019 development.<\/p>\n

If business transformation is to happen it will be driven by the business \u2013 often with \u201cIT\u201d (the guys writing the software) embedded in the business.\u00a0\u00a0 Development will be iterative, employing agile techniques \u2013 prioritizing work and then re-prioritizing every couple of weeks based on a tight feedback loop with the business. We\u2019re talking here about a new model for IT, and one that provides almost instant gratification \u2013 a perfect fit for the millennial generation coming into the workplace.\u00a0 2015 could represent the beginning of the decentralization of IT \u2013 IT operations staying centralized, but software development heading off into the respective business units.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lecture This.<\/strong>
\n2015 will be the dawn of a new era in education.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ll see the beginning of the end of lectures.\u00a0 Yes, as a form of learning, the professorial lecture is dead.\u00a0 Trials at leading universities have shown that the average student pays attention for about 7 minutes in a 40 minute lecture.\u00a0 If the lecture is 60 minutes the attention span actually drops!\u00a0 At colleges where lectures have moved online exam re-take rates have tumbled from almost 50% to single digits.\u00a0 And, that\u2019s not the only good news, moving content online gives educational content global reach.\u00a0 Imagine a world where everyone has access to the same materials our Ivy League schools teach!\u00a0 Next time your kids are on Kahn Academy, pay attention \u2013 you are seeing the future of education at work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeremy Burton, President, Products & Marketing, EMC Many years ago when being quizzed as to whether \u2018Web Services\u2019 were the next big thing, Larry Ellison commented \u201cI\u2019ve spent too much time in Italy to know that you shouldn\u2019t ignore fashion.\u201d\u00a0 In tech, we like nothing better than a new trend \u2013 and we all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,22],"tags":[2473,98,2475,2474,1071,2472],"class_list":["post-7606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","category-spotlight","tag-agile-software-development","tag-emc","tag-jeremy-burton","tag-opinion","tag-predictions","tag-wearables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}