Author: Bal Bansal

Following on from Inkquisitive Inspires Part 1 – this is Part 2! – That’s right, I asked the artist who’s turned his hobby into a career, and now travelling worldwide, attending sell-out tours…. a total of six questions.

In Part 1, Ink… kindly answered 3 of them… and here’s another 3, turning the conversation more towards his hobby, entrepreneurship and most importantly… innovation in art – do we need to innovate?

Some really important things to take away… mainly, you should have your own style, your own brand, your own way of doing things. Stand out from the crowd, don’t blend in…

Then there’s the entrepreneurial spirit that exists… and how many birthdays have you missed, trying to follow your dreams?

Hope you enjoy it…

Last week, I was asked to come along to the Chief Innovation Officers Summit in London, and share my thoughts… on Disruption and Interruption.

I was more than happy to share my thoughts… and shared a few slides on why we should stop interrupting (and if we know, when we are interrupting) and start to disrupt. How can we disrupt? – by using technology and using data…. and most importantly, using Lean!

As followers of my blog… I thought, it’s only fair, I share a little more with you… so below, I created a little video (with my voice! – so it’s actually like, i’m talking to you!!) about my talk.

Hope you enjoy it!… and please feel free to share via social media, and with other folk, who may also enjoy it.

Folks, just to let you know – i’ll be a speaker at the up and coming Chief Innovation Officers Summit in London, this week!

There’s some great folks talking – including Google, BBC, Barclays and many more…

So, what will I be sharing…?

Well, as i’m writing my first book, and going through a few iterations (hoping for an Easter 2018) release, I thought… why not take the title of my second book (I know… I need to get the first one out), and base a conversation on that.

The title is – Are you Interrupting or Disrupting?

Now, wish I could share more – but that’s being saved for those who attend the conference. However, I will share some elements of the presentation with the followers of this blog, very soon…

… but it’s all about, how we, over time… trying to disrupt, become interrupters. We’re not really making it easy for our customer, through the various ‘bolt on’s’ but we’re in fact, making it a little more harder.  A little more complex. And therefore, why is it important to… (in the words of my Sensei) – understand, then to be understood.

Yesterday, Google had a little event… where they announced a few things.

One of the announcements included the introduction of their new phone. The Google Pixel 2.

Now, whilst I could go through the whole event, share what was said and how it was described… go through all the functionality, etc… you should know by now.. this is a LEAN BLOG! – I like to keep things lean. So below is a video of the 2 hour event condensed into 19 minutes.

I’m going to be honest. I’m not that much into Google hardware – But welcome to my good friend Nathan McKay who is. He is very knowledgeable on all things ‘Google’ & Android.

I asked him, Share your Top 3 concerns about Google… (which he did!)

1. They come at a bad time – Honestly, they do! Let’s look at it… Apple just recently had their’s, where they were able to ‘wow’ everyone with the lights, glitz and glamour.. oh, and their iPhone X. Then you’ve got Samsung’s event coming up early next year… and you know they’ll be sharing some really exciting features. So what do you do? – Do you go with Apple, where you know what you’re getting. Do you go with Google (by the way, they had supply issues with the first Pixel phone and were unable to meet demand) or do you wait for Samsung… and then make a choice?
2. Google software on every device – They don’t hold anything back for themselves. They’re happy to release their software and make it available for every device. Samsung have better hardware, and they know they’ll get all the software available on their devices.
3. They’re a Software Developer (following on from point 2) – The Pixel phone is built by HTC. They’re not a hardware manufacturer. They’re a great software developer. Let’s not even look at phones… look at Google Home. Amazon beat them to it, but introducing the Echo… and Google have been playing catch up since.

Well.. there you have it Ladies & Gentlemen. A very frank update from Mr McKay. Whilst saying the above, he also did mention… there are a few positives, one of which was – you’ll get the updates immediately on a Google Device!

In summary, It’s the Software that pushes the Hardware.

Firstly, Thank You to everyone who’s been supporting me on this blog journey. Hope you’ve enjoyed what I’ve been writing and sharing on here.

I thought i’d share a little preview into October, there’s some great things lined up… for example, i’ll be sharing a video from a Fashion Tech Expert who’ll be talking about… Fashion… and Technology.

I was thinking, I could write more here… but wouldn’t it be better if you could watch me talk about it – yes, i’ve finally recorded my first video!

Recently, Sainsbury’s shared that they are testing an app to enable a checkout-free shopping experience.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking… another app I have to download… well… yes, it is another app you have to download, but this time, this app, you can use to scan your shopping as you walking around the store (similar to those handheld devices you can pick up in store) and then at the end of your shop, you simply go to a dedicated check-out and pay.

But hold on – you said checkout-free…

Yes, I sure did – and similar to the Amazon Go store, they’re also trialing in London, at their Euston branch an app where if you walk in and pick up the £3 ‘On the Go’ meal deal, you can scan the items on your phone, pay on your phone and then leave the store.

Hopes are… that they increase the number of items and stores, where you can have the checkout-less experience.

And this will, soon, become the norm… as I shared on BBC Radio Nottingham yesterday morning.

Feel free to listen via the link below – you can listen to Mark’s whole show, or you can fast forward to about 13:30, to listen to me… (it’s via the BBC and you may have to log in and register if you’ve not already signed up – which takes the best part of 2 minutes).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05f6cgt