„Digital Marketplaces Unleashed“ – a book worth reading.

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dmu-coverIt´s been my pleasure to contribute a chapter to the new book „Digital Marketplaces Unleashed“, which is published by Springer on October 13th, with my dear co-author Björn Matthies.

This collection of different views on how digitalization is influencing various industrial sectors addresses essential topics like big data and analytics, fintech and insuretech, cloud and mobility technologies, disruption and entrepreneurship.

The technological advances of the 21st century have been massively impacted by the digital upheaval: there is no future without digitalization. The sale of products and services has left the classical point of sale and now takes place on a variety of channels. Whether in the automotive industry, travel and traffic, in cities, or the financial industry – newly designed ecosystems are being created everywhere; data is being generated and analyzed in real time; and companies are competing for mobile access channels to customers in order to gain knowledge about their individual contexts and preferences. In turn, customers can now publicly share their opinions, experiences and knowledge as User Generated Content, allowing them to impact the market and empowering them to build or destroy trust.

 

WEF: How Europe can build a Silicon Valley

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wef_0There is lots of intelligence at the World Economic Forum – but this piece I like in particular for many reasons. Mostly, because it is honest and realistic. It simply just does not work that some city or metropolitan area tries to be the „Silicon Valley of XYZ“ by proclamation. Too many ingredients make the actual Silicon Valley what it is and next to public-private partnership and the close-tied web of relations, the cluster, the special openness to change, itarations and – yes – failure. Adoption of change and embracing of change. And let´s be fair, also the Silicon Valley is subject to change and has been time and time again. Currently the hottest companies leave the traditional „Silicon Valley“, named after the Semiconductor-Companies there, to be headquartered im San Francisco. So really we should talk about the greater San Francisco Bay Area. There will not be two areas of this kind on this planet, because you simply cannot replicate everything AND fill it with life, just because it is a political will. And especially this won´t work for a city or even one single European nation. So I like the analysis provided in this great article of the World Economic Forum: How Europe can build a Silicon Valley. 

State of BlockChain: Nice read, Pymnts.com!

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Pymnts.com is a good source for those interested in Blockchain and Payments – adding to this history is an interview they have done with John Callahan, CEO of the biometric authentication company Veridium. It does not change that Blockchain from my POV is still in a very experimental stage – yet interesting. You can read the full piece here.

Will Blockchain change everything? Or not?

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finextraI have so far not made a secret out of the fact that I find Blockchain interesting – but not too convincing and that I do not believe an open-source sort of approach to ledgers is the right way nor that single ledger tech will solve any real world issues. I also know that I am not alone, yet Blockchain IS interesting and in case the fundamental shortcomings are solved it could become something big. If not, it will die and we will talk about the next big thing.

Discussions like this are very fruitful; therefore I would like to share this piece from Finextra, titled „Blockchain will change everything, but only if we find the right talent„. I like this thought because it implies that we need the brightest of the brightest to find solutions to the many short-comings Blockchain technologies bear today.

Worth keeping that discussion going.

What is a container? Application Architecture moving forward.

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Recently there has been a bit of talk about „Containers“ for application design – versus Virtual Machines for instance. I am far away from being an IT expert but it sure smelled like a buzz-word that is confusing at best. So I tried to wrap my head around it. I found two articles most helpful, which is why I want to share them:

The first is from TechCrunch: WTF is a Container?

The other comes from CIO: What are Containers and why do you need them? 

Good reads, well recommended.