Tomorrow's World

Taken from the BBC wesbite today,

Labour’s shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey has said she doesn’t use taxi app Uber because it is not “morally acceptable”.

Here is the link to the article – http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40567387

I have a few issues with this… and let me share them with you here…

1. Rebecca is the ‘Shadow Business Secretary’ – which means, she’s in the Shadow Cabinet (for those outside the UK, this means she’s not in the governing party, she’s in the opposing party), and the duty of the office holder is to scrutinize the actions of the government’s Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and develop alternative policies
   1. What’s my issue with this? – Well, Uber has been a massive success story… in the short space of time it’s been up and running, it’s today worth over $50bn!
   2. This is surely the future! – And it must be doing something right…
   3. Rebecca and her team must look at companies such as Uber, understand and work with them… (rather than against them!)
2. “Morally Unacceptable” – Basically saying, the workers are not treated right.
   1. What’s my issue with this? – Well, my father used to be a Taxi Driver. He worked the hours he could, and was paid for those hours. He didn’t receive any holiday pay, or sick leave.
   2. I appreciate Uber takes a percentage of the taxi fare… but then, you wouldn’t be getting those jobs if people weren’t using the App!
   3. Uber even stated that the drivers were making £15/hr after costs… and quote from Uber, “even after costs, the average driver took home well over the national living wage”
3. Don’t we want Flexibility? 
   1. I use Uber all around the World – never have I heard an Uber driver moan.
   2. The first thing they say is the flexibility is great! – A friend of mine even had a ‘mom’ pick him up from the office, because she’d just dropped the children off at school, saw the request come in, and thought why not make a little money before she goes home to do some housework!
   3. I don’t need to carry any currency, just log onto the App, request, and I can even share the journey with friends and family, so they can track that I got home safely, and I don’t need to worry about having the money to pay the driver.

On top of everything – there was a report out recently… that cash jobs such as window cleaning and decorating, were worth upto £6bn a year, which most of was untaxed! – taken from a government review of employment practices by Matthew Taylor. 

You couldn’t make it up, even if you tried.

That’s right – all those ‘cash in hand’ jobs, shouldn’t really be taking place, and all ‘money exchanges’ should be logged or transparent.

How can you do that? – well, if you use a credit/debit card – that’s one way to track all money going in and out. No chance of the odd fiver or tenner going missing.

I feel, we’re not making the progress and we’re not as forward looking, as we could be… we need to focus on being more efficient, more flexible and working with companies… who are doing something right.

Okay, they may need some help, we may need to work with them and say, hey… you guys need to do this.. or take care of your employees by not making them contractors and giving them a different employment status… and this has been highlighted in the report Matthew Taylor has written for the Government.

Let’s work collaboratively… with the companies, that are developing new technology and making things easy for us, like getting a taxi, or finding a room to stay for the night… let’s share with them, what they could do, to make it a better…

Folks, firstly my apologies for not posting on my blog earlier this week.

If you follow me on twitter, you may have noticed, that I was over in Berlin (Germany). I had various meetings to attend, people to see, things to talk about and projects to discuss.

Now, the title of this blog may suggest, I was there for the fashion week…

Those who know me, may take a moment to raise their hand and suggest that I may not be the most fashionable person they know, to which – you may be correct. But my Adidas Pharrell Williams yellow jacket with red dots is something that sure does stand out in my wardrobe!

Back to the Fashion Week… so as I landed at Tegel Airport, there was a sign saying, Berlin Fashion Week… this would also explain why most of the hotels very quickly booked up…

This got me thinking… I wonder how much of the Fashion show must be based around technology – or how many garments have some sort of electronics inside them, built in, or associated with the manufacture of them.

We may have all seen the 3D printed shoe… which, we all laughed at when they were being produced a few years back. But it was revolutionary – never before, were you able to design the shoe you wanted, have it printed and then wear it – all in a matter of a few hours!

3D Printing has advanced – and the shoes being printed now are of much better quality and look really good! – wonder if they do them in yellow?!

Then there’s the mirrors, that are able to super-impose a particular garment you like, onto you – so you can see what you look like wearing it… without wearing it!

I’ve seen t-shirts with built in electronics that are able to determine heart rate and other such measurements which then can communicate it all back to your smart phone.

There is so much happening in the space of Tech and Fashion. All the major fashion design houses around the world must be investigating, and looking to incorporate technology into what they are designing and producing. But I feel, the fundamental, underlining and most important element here is, that it must be comfortable!

That’s a customer requirement, right? – to wear something that is comfortable.

Mind you, it’s only a matter of time, before someone works on a camera being inserted into a bow tie – which you wear with your tuxedo to an event. which then is able to identify people you are talking to and automatically find them on social media (Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, etc..) and share some key highlights with you immediately on your phone or your smart glasses.

Imagine…… Hi, my name is Bal… Hi, my name is… yes – I know who you are… and I know what you did last summer (you went to Majorca with the family, I can see that from the post you tagged yourself in, on Facebook).

Smart Wearable. It’s a term that we are seeing more and more… and here is a video, from Berlin Fashion week, which is explaining a) Why Berlin is ahead of most cities when it comes to Fashion and Tech and b) what is in store for Fashion and Tech…

Yesterday, I tweeted…

I had a few replies, and a few private messages.

What have you done now Bal?… Have you upset someone again?.. You get the picture, the usual ‘banter’ among friends.

So, what was I really doing in a room with some lawyers. Well, the lawyers were from the Legal Team. Whilst, as you may appreciate I can’t go into detail about what we spoke about and discussed – yep, I learnt a thing or two from them… what I can share is a common theme that was being discussed.

I was in the room, not only for my good looks, but for my knowledge and experience in technology.

We talk about many industries and departments becoming more and more ‘digitized’. With that, I mean, more automation, simpler processes through using the latest technology and more importantly.. taking advantage of some of the latest technology that is available to make the department more efficient and effective.

We can clearly, and physically, see it in manufacturing. Robots at the end of a manufacturing line, stacking boxes onto pallets whereas a number of years ago, you had people doing the same job.

Why were these robots introduced? Well, they may have been expensive but they were quicker… easier… and more efficient. The ROI would have been realised within a short period of time.

More and more automation has been introduced into manufacturing.

Along with the robots, and with further advancements in technology, we’ve become smart… we now have wearable technology (i.e. Smart Glasses) to help with tasks…

All this is great. And there’s more coming in the world of manufacturing. But what about other departments and areas?

Marketing… that’s an interesting one. It’s more likely to be called ‘Digital Marketing’ these days.

So, back to, why was I in a room with lawyers from our legal team.. well, it was to discuss, what is some of the latest technology, that we could use, to make some of the processes in Legal more effective and efficient.

You might be thinking, Legal AND Technology? – really? – Yep… it’s happening in all areas. All functions. All departments. Change is coming…

And just to prove the point, here’s a video, from Berlin, of a hackathon focused on Legal, my favourite line from the video is “the marriage of law and technology is interesting”.

It sure is… it’s very interesting.

Last week, was London Tech Week – and on this blog, I shared what it was about, what to look out for and my thoughts on some comments the Mayor of London had said and around Smart Cities.

I was able to go down for a few days… there was a lot going on, and it was great to see how everyone was willing to learn and understand, share and interact with audiences and communities.

First for me, was Tug Life…

A pop-up event, with 12 events, 50 speakers over 4 days… it was great. I was able to listen and learn to some key people. There was some great information being shared, for example, the Four Stages of Creativity…

I was also asked to share a few words, which I gladly did. I spoke about how retail is changing, and how with the advancement of technology is helping us digitally engage with products – and how important it is for customers to experience the journey and story of what they are buying into. Traditional methods made this easy, but now it’s slightly more difficult in the digital space as a) it’s easier to do, and b) how can you stand out from all your competitors.

On Thursday, I was over at the Excel Centre for Tech XLR8…

There was ALOT going on! – and that was only a good thing. Honestly, from the various talks being given around the various rooms in the centre, to the folk exhibiting their latest technology and engaging people to understand and experience…

An example, Daqri had a booth where they had their smart helmets and glasses – folk where coming along, understanding that you don’t need a whole huge infrastructure – you can start small and grow with your needs. This is just one example, there were many more folk showing similar technology…

Then there was the Robotics zone..

I could write 2 or 3 blogs just on what they were showing and demonstrating. Let’s be honest, robotics is becoming more and more popular and the use of robotics in a variety of industries is becoming more and more effective. For example, takeaways, and a certain delivery company using robots for deliveries (rather than humans)…

And then there was my first love… Kodak

who have been using their camera and lens knowledge to develop some amazing 360 cameras, and other new tech… it looks like, they’re beginning to do something effective with their knowledge of cameras.

All in all, a great few days, and more importantly, I was able to not only share my knowledge and experience, but also take in & learn from industry experts, especially around Robotics and Reality (both, Augmented and Virtual).

There were many more events taking place around the capital city.. and next year, i’m looking forward to spending the whole week and participating in more events.

The more we are able to collaborate, the more we are able to experiment on new ideas.