I’ve shared in many keynote talks I’ve done previously, the importance of ‘Collaborating & listening’.
I also did some filming once, for an internal Innovation-related topic, where I spoke about it again. And the team filming, who are good friends of mine, decided to edit part of it, and send it back to me.
Had it for a while, and thought i’d share it with you all.
Hope you enjoy it 🙂
This week, I was able to head over to the Packaging Innovation show.
It’s always great to see the latest innovations in the world of packaging and listen to some great people speak on how packaging is going to change.
Some things I noted,
I was able to see some packaging award winners, like this drinks provider in Japan…
Then, there were example of nutrional foods being made available in different pack shapes…
There were a few exhibitors showing their skills with cardboard to make everyday items easier to handle…
As mentioned, great to see Innocent talking about Sustainability
And, one my favourites? Was this…
Cardboard that lets you hold your cold can of beer without your hands freezing, and with further development, areas in the cardboard to store your crisps and nuts.
So it looks like, Google is finally sharing some information on their equivalent of the Amazon Echo.
Google Home will be releasing in the UK, around June time of this year.
There’ll be more and more of these devices, and by that I mean, Microsoft are bringing out one using their intelligent system named Cortana (for some reason, every time i think of this, I think of Cortina.. the old Ford car which was replaced by the Sierra, then replaced by the Mondeo… that just shows my love of cars!).
With all these coming onto the market, which one should you get?
That’s a great question.
I’m not going to go into that just yet. But what I will share, that you will be looking at products and items that go in your home, and ensuring any new purchases you make, are smart.
Your home will need to have various appliances and products that can connect and work with one of the ‘virtual assistants’.
It could be the heating system, or it could be your washing machine. In my opinion, to take full advantage, you’ll slowly start to need investing in your home items so controlling them, adjusting them and making them work for you will get easier.
For example, your heating system. By installing a ‘smart’ heating system, you can make it learn your behaviors and habits. This means, it’ll perform at an optimum efficiency level. Which means it’ll save you money.
Yes, that’s what it comes down to. Saving money & Being efficient.
Or you could say, Being Smart.
Yesterday evening, I had the opportunity to go on BBC Radio Nottingham…
I was there to talk about my British Indian Award I won last year and also, all things Digital & Tech.
It was a great interview, Kaval (the presenter) is a good friend. Asking me some great questions – for example, what i’ve being doing with organisations & companies, what I want to do with the local community and where do I see the future of tech going.
We spoke about the cloud… mobile and a number of other great subjects.
One interesting item we touched on was Artifical Intelligence. It’s a very interesting subject because that’s one area that is really expanding… especially, as the Government has recently announced that they’ll be invested some serious money into it. And damn right. It’s been too long. We need some serious investment into our technology sector, in this country.
Where do I see AI going?
Well, we’re seeing examples of it now, in bots that answer questions for us. We’ll see more of that, but also these bots picking up on emotions and being sensitive to how words are used and sentences are constructed. On top of that, i see AI learning more and more about us. Using data from various sources, to work with us and provide us with what we want and, i suppose, in general, make life easier.
One concern is… what happens when robots and machines become more clever than us? Let’s think about this… they’re continuously learning. When something is continuously learning, they become clever. When something becomes clever, they then have the ability to outsmart others….
Recently at the ISE in Amsterdam, I came across this…
It’s a Table Football. With a TV screen. And some electrics attached to the handles.
Being the amazing Table Footballer that I am, I decided to have a go.
Oh boy.. it was slow, i turned the handle, and it had no feeling.. there was a slight delay… not impressed.
But this got me thinking… okay, this could be the first one made. It could be a prototype. It could be that they sat down and thought, how can we make Table Football more interactive… Imagine playing Table Football with a friend on the other side of the world!
The question remains, will it be as good as the real thing? – the original? – where you can feel the players… the ball being hit against one of your players… tactically passing the ball around… for the moment, i’m not sure. A bit more development, and you never know….
It’s a bit like the early electric cars. They needed charging every 20 mins and Jeremy Clarkson made a big joke out of them on a Top Gear episode once upon a time. But he did say, hybrid would be more sensible – which they are, and we now have more hybrid options available to us, not just the Toyota Prius.
Then again.. you could argue, and mention Tesla. Everything gets better, with a bit of investment and development.
So, I was recently asked to write an article around how FMCG organisations are handling the latest advancements in technology, and what could the future hold.
My thoughts were broken into 2 categories, first one was Connectivity – everything around IoT (Internet of Things), and second one was Health and Wellbeing.
I thought i’d share the Connectivity one with you…
Connectivity – The Internet of Things is rapidly becoming more ingrained into our day to day lives. Technology enabling appliances to talk to each other, from washing machines to cookers, they’ll all have the ability to communicate to reduce time spent waiting and/or optimise processing time.
We’ll see more of this in the next few years, not only with appliances talking to each other, and our calendars and diaries letting the local supermarket know we’re having a party on the weekend and to add 2 extra bottles of Coca-Cola to the shopping basket and have it all delivered on Saturday at 5.30pm as I’ll be home from the football match at the City Ground, oh for which Coca-Cola sent me a coupon to get a Coke Zero at the stadium.
Business to Businesses are already talking to each other. Using something similar to the Amazon Dash, press a button and the signal is sent – I need more. This reduces and eliminates a number of process steps. Imagine, you’re the owner of a store, you notice an increase in sales and need more Coke Zero. What do you do? You press the button – then (depending who’s it connected to) they are alerted and you receive more Coke Zero. It’s all about staying connected. Staying alert. Staying ahead of the game. Even if at the game you are losing 21-3 at half time, there’s always an opportunity to win.
