I’ll make a blanket statement and say that we all take technology, in one form or another, for granted. It is not until we are without it that we realize what an important role it plays in our daily lives.

As recently as just a couple years ago, a computer crash would have completely prohibited a productive work day, but with BYOD and the cloud, my computer problems didn’t mean the equivalent of  taking a sick day.

Over a twenty-four hour period, without my main computer, there is really very little that I wasn’t able to accomplish from a work perspective.  Other than having my frequently accessed documents locally saved on my desktop and the ability to edit a full range of documents everything was at my fingertips on my smartphone or tablet, thanks to the cloud and mobility.

A mobile-friendly IT policy

What does all this mean?  Think mobile for all aspects of your organization.  How would your organization respond if their computer crashed for the day?  Or a week?  Could you still be effective?  Could you still serve your clients or perform your core competencies.  If the answer is no, you should start to reevaluate the role mobile plays in your daily activities..

In my opinion, a few necessary components should be implemented for a mobile progressive organization.  Now remember, these are all things mobile:

Strategy – Determine why you are introducing or supporting the mobile initiative.  i.e. how is it going to better the organization?

Center of excellence – Who in your organization should influence your policy?  And what does it look like?

Device, application, and content management solution – Do not think just about the device, consider the application and content also.  And while I mention apps and content, don’t overlook enterprise application stores.  They are becoming relevant and necessary very quickly.

Application development – Consider creating applications that are just as intuitive away from the office as if your workforce was behind their computer.  What you’ll find is these apps can offer a better user experience than your traditional back office application.

Professional services – They can be internal or external resources but mobility requires a dedicated resources and mindshare to handle new requests, existing deployments, and next generation projects

So, my questions to you are:  What do you most miss the most when you don’t have your computer?  And is it something that if you proactively plan for could be accomplished via a mobile device?

Why am I giving you  all of this horrible imagery about my house that I am now probably paying more for than it is worth and what does my pink house have to do with your network? Well, I’ll tell you.

Consider the outdated network

I bought this house because the good outweighed the bad. You did the same with your voice and data network. In addition, through business changes, you may have consolidated with other companies or locations that don’t work so perfectly with what you have. In other words -the equivalent of a pink kitchen.  It may work but you have a vision for something better.

So what do you do?

If you are lucky, you have a big budget and will just go ahead and tear everything out and remodel your network to make it look like the network equivalent of the kitchen of your dreams, complete with stainless steel appliances and granite countertops.

But if your budget is not so big, there are too many variables to make infrastructure changes all at once.  You have to consider what your company wants and needs, what your clients demand, and the technology changes that we are seeing in communications. It’s a little overwhelming.

Upgrade a little at a time

If your voice network has a pink kitchen, that cosmetic change could mean adding an easy value-add service to your business such as IP Toll Free that enhances what you are using, but you don’t have to make significant changes to incorporate it. Or add VPN to your data network and allow business to take place practically anywhere you want. In other words, make a change that works with what you have and takes you into the future.

Next thing was to eradicate the pink floor. This was a little more expensive so I had to save for it and really think about it. I mean, you don’t want to replace pink with equally soon to be outdated – green, or you will be resigned to constantly making changes.

Once you pick your protocol and platform, think of your core network as the foundation of the rest of your communications. The tricky part is to invest in something that is going to last. I had to look at the trends, just like you do with your network.  If you are still using PBX and PRI trunks for voice, you might want to take a good look at SIP trunking. It is a great foundation in that it is easier to manage your service, you can get more bandwidth and functionality, and like a good foundation, it is the platform for many other applications such as unified communications and a fully integrated network.  Same goes for data. If you haven’t already done so, a move to MPLS or Ethernet will take you well into the future.

Go for impact

When you make changes to your network, try to focus on where you can make the most impact and how that can be an investment and not just a change. Every time you touch your network, it should be to improve it and not just maintain it.

When you are upgrading, it isn’t always like for like. With the changes in technology, you want to look at how traffic is flowing through your whole network.  Look for where potential bottlenecks are in your servers and when you expand, keep disaster recovery in mind so that you can care for both things at once.  Also, if you can consolidate traffic, that will help as well.

Finally, after years of patiently making upgrades to my pink kitchen, the pink is gone. I wasn’t visionary or even methodical in updating the kitchen; yet slowly, I was able to transform it into a modern, efficient space with nice countertops and a normal stainless steel sink.

Are you slowly upgrading your existing network? What changes have worked out well? What advice would you give others who are gradually “remodeling” to incorporate the latest technologies and trends?

Hepplemann spoke of the third industrial revolution as the digitization of products. The digitization of products means a product takes on a full digital existence before it’s ever built. Ruh discussed how the industrial industries, such as aviation, locomotives, and gas turbines are moving from analog to digital businesses. Over the next decade, Huff claims the Internet will create shifts in the industrial business that are on par with the transformations we’ve seen in other industries. He says machines will become intelligent, machines will get connected, and software will be available to analyze the information.

Rise of smart products

Hepplemann predicted the continuing rise of smart products. In smart products, the product is more about the software rather than hardware. The software can be upgraded after the product is produced. For example, in your car there are between 50 and 100 computer chips that run software every time you start your car. If your car doesn’t work, there is a 50-50 chance it is due to a problem with the software controlling the engine, suspension, ABS, or entertainment. Cars are now upgradable.

Integrating sensor data, cloud computing, analytics

According to GE’s Huff, integrating new technologies, such as sensor data, with cloud computing and analytics could help industries deliver new efficiencies with existing processes. For example, the airline industry spends $200 billion a year in fuel. Developing a new aircraft engine takes years, but having the ability to tune the engine and give the pilot insight into how to operate the engine can create huge savings. Even a 1% change would equate to $2B a year in savings. In every industry, GE sees that there are five to twenty key levers, such as fuel efficiency, and that if the industry could experience a 1 to 5 percent change it would equal tens of billions of dollars in savings.

Huff notes there are great opportunities, but there are also challenges. One sensor on a GE gas turbine generates 500 gigabytes of data per day and there are 20 sensors on each turbine. GE has 12,000 turbines globally, and its challenge is how to collect and manage this volume of data. GE would also like to perform real-time analysis on the data to decide if a piece of equipment is reaching a critical failure point, such as a blade breaking.

A time of change

We are at a time of unprecedented change in technology. Each layer of the infrastructure stack is being transformed. Increasingly, there is difference between a product and a service in the digital age. Many items that would have been considered products are now sold as services. Salesforce.com and mobile devices are excellent examples of this. A mobile device without connectivity and without applications is largely useless. However, when connectivity and applications are used with mobile devices, the device transforms into a product of services.

Software upgradable products, machine-to-machine communications, and insightful analytics will be the underpinnings of any successful business going forward.

How will you use machine-to-machine communications within your business? Please leave a comment here or connect with me on Twitter at @MaribelLopez.

Maribel Lopez is the CEO and mobile market strategist for Lopez Research, a market research and strategy consulting firm that specializes in communications technologies with a heavy emphasis on the disruptive nature of mobile technologies. AT&T has sponsored this blog post.

On the heels of the OpenStack Summit in Portland, Oregon, and recent announcements from Microsoft, now is a good time to address the “state-of-the-state” of enterprise hybrid clouds. Due in large part to burgeoning industry alliances (e.g., OpenStack) and maturing cloud platform technologies (e.g., Microsoft Cloud OS), six technologies have emerged in the enterprise hybrid cloud market that deserve attention:

1. OpenStack
2. VMware vCloud
3. CloudStack
4. Eucalyptus
5. Microsoft Cloud OS
6. Google Cloud Platform

This diagram shows relationships between the leading cloud platforms and public cloud service providers:

Click here for Microsoft Azure IaaS                                        Click here for Google Compute Engine 

Once a customer selects a cloud platform, a private cloud can be deployed behind the enterprise’s firewall or by a service provider via an offsite, hosted service then a public cloud service provider can be selected that supports that particular cloud platform. For example, if OpenStack is the cloud platform of choice, a customer can choose among public cloud service providers like AT&T, Dell, HP, or Rackspace.

5 observations and predictions

So what’s next for the hybrid cloud? After following this developing market with great interest, I’d like to offer several observations and predictions about the industry:

1) OpenStack is the mindshare leader in the open source / open standards hybrid cloud space. Here’s why:

• Momentum - Contributors include major industry players like Ericsson, IBM, HP, Dell, Red Hat, Nebula, Cloudscaling, Piston Cloud, Ubuntu, AT&T, Nimbula (Oracle), SoftLayer, SUSE, Cisco, and VMware. As a result, there are many OpenStack solutions to choose from already
• Wide Adoption – Rackspace, which distributes and is a founding member of OpenStack, has moved aggressively into hybrid cloud, with customers like HubSpot , and partners like Persistent Systems.
• Growth – OpenStack has over 900 job postings
• Vision – OpenStack has made interoperability, or “no vendor lock-in,” an essential feature.
• Its recent announcement of a global cloud network is proof. Plus, Cloudscaling is offering an OpenStack cloud that can burst into Amazon or Google public clouds
• Prediction - OpenNebula, the open source cloud platform founded in Europe, joins the OpenStack Foundation. OpenStack strengthens its European presence. See Cloud Watch for more information.

2) VMware strengthens its vCloud message and markets its own public cloud to expand its proprietary, hybrid cloud solution — leveraging thousands of ESX customers.

3) CloudStack grows and seeks more public cloud partners, in addition to Terremark.

• Prediction – CloudStack establishes a closer, more strategic relationship with AWS to compete more effectively in hybrid clouds.

4) Eucalyptus merges with AWS.

• Prediction – In support of its new $600 million, ten-year CIA contract, AWS purchases Eucalyptus to expand aggressively into enterprise hybrid cloud solutions.

5) Microsoft Cloud OS /Azure IaaS, founded on Windows Server and Windows Azure, is successful.

We’d like to hear from you. Will OpenStack maintain its impressive momentum? Do you believe that CloudStack will make an alliance with AWS? How will Google fare in the enterprise hybrid cloud space? What does this mean for your business? We look forward to your comments.

Most of IT is trying to connect the dots in developing DIY policies; meanwhile, smartphones are exploding with new features and services. The in-house DIY strategy concept has created sleepless nights for the IT department. And organizations see ever-growing requirements to be better and faster at access control, compliance and self-governance, as well as policy deployment and enforcement.

Do you want to regain the control? Register Now.

Join industry analysts from ABI Research and International Data Corporation (IDC) at an AT&T mobility road show to better understand best practices for building a successful mobile strategy, including BYOD.

• Is your organization challenged with implementing a BYOD strategy?
• Are your mobile devices and applications really secured?
• What are the key mobile components for building a progressive organization?

These topics and more will be addressed at cities near you.

Register now and learn firsthand how you can propel your company to the next level of success using mobility.

This of course plays into the fears of executives who do not understand the value of social media nor its place in our modern society. “We can’t respond to them,” I hear executives declare. “If we do, we’ll invite more complaints and questions,” they’ll contend in defense of their position.

This isn’t as uncommon as you might think. I recently presented at a corporate conference where I received a question from someone in the C-Suite that gave me pause. The question went something like this, “Customers will complain on social media because it’s a natural thing to do. We know more people will say negative things than they will share positive experiences. What’s a company to do? What’s the point? How do we change behavior?”

The future of branding is shared experiences

The reality is that people will share their experiences at every step of the customer journey and throughout the customer lifecycle. In every moment of truth, touch points open and close and it is what they ask and find in each moments that decides the fate of their decision and your place within it. Among connected customers, websites may or may not play a role in providing guidance to prospects or resolution to existing customers. What will factor into every moment of truth however are the shared experiences of their peers and those who appear in blogs, review sites, communities, YouTube, and in the responses during real-time engagement across social networks and customer-facing apps.

The expressions that come back in those moments represent the real world, and they’re only amplifying in volume and magnitude. See, those experiences don’t disappear. They stay online forming a collective repository where expressions shape impressions. People trust experiences of their peers, whether good or bad, and without your engagement, you are the victim of a digital game of grapevine. Perception is reality. This is why now is the time to take part in shaping the experiences your want people to have and share. And, that takes an investment.

So how do we change behavior?

It starts by changing our behavior first.

Become the change you wish to see

Customers don’t’ see the roles and functions that define a business. They see one brand and therefore everyone who touches the customer must work together to deliver a consistent experience. When it comes to social media, customers are for the most part, only getting a glimpse of the brand, usually the lens of the marketing or communications department. This assumes that customers only want to connect for marketing or entertainment purposes. When you consider the multiple dimensions of the customer lifecycle and the expectations in each moment of truth, businesses are rather antisocial in their social media approach. It’s rather absurd that businesses think that social media is yet another channel for traditional marketing guised in a social promise of engagement and transparency.

Changing behavior takes understanding

We know that customers take to social media to share experiences for a variety of reasons:

• Because they can.
• Becase it’s cathartic and validating.
• Because social media tests and rebuilds relationships.

So if companies aren’t investing in cultivating positive experiences, they are by default investing the active exchange of grievances and speculation.

According to a recent report published by SimplyMeasured, almost 99 percent of businesses in the Interbrand Top 100 Brands maintain a social media presence on Twitter. Yet, only 30 percent have a dedicated customer service handle.

Among the top 10 brands as measured by engagement, with dedicated customer service handles, response times ranged from 40 minutes to 20 hours.

Yes it’s a new expense. Yes it’s different. But we know that it works. Improving the quality and quantity of “word of mouth” starts with changing perceptions. Martiz and Evolve24 found that when people seeking help or expression discontent were engaged on Twitter by the brand, 32 percent and 51.5 percent loved it or liked it respectively. Of course they did! And you know what? It changed how they feel in that moment and over time.

A Risk-averse leadership leads to a complacent market

Does engaging customers on Twitter invite more complaints? Hardly. Research shows that people take to social networks to vent because their attempts at seeking resolution through traditional channels already failed. People are seeking solutions; if not from you, from anyone.

Shared experiences are powerful and they don’t always have to be negative. The solution is positive reinforcement or positive conditioning. People are busy. They ask questions or voice frustration in the moment because there’s usually something in it for them. The same could be true for positive reinforcement. If you want people to share their honest experiences, and you believe them to be true, then you must proactively foster the behavior you wish to see.

Positive reinforcement applies rewards to induce or encourage desired behavior. To work, it must be individualized and then promoted to greater audiences to demonstrate your good work.

Earning good “carma”

When Ford launched its 2013 Fusion, it understood that people would share both praise and displeasure. However, the company believed that in order to incite social acclaim and positive experiences, it would need to proactively invite and reward the desired behavior. To do so, Ford introduced “Random Acts of Fusion” to thank fans for essentially saying nice things.

From customized “thank you” baskets to pop-up car washes to test drives to having comedian Reggie Watts remix customer Tweets, Ford was loud and clear in its intentions. As evidenced by its hashtag, #backatyou, people were at the center of this campaign and reciprocity was the takeaway. Ford’s random acts of kindness weren’t really random at all. Everything was not only cleverly planned but also promoted across social media far and wide. The company found that in addition to expanded reach and priceless PR as a result, positive conditioning works. And over time, Ford’s continued investment in positive engagement will eventually contribute to a more meaningful, co-created brand where people and their experiences define what the blue oval means to them and their peers.

Behavior change is just the beginning. If you want people to share positive experiences and accolades, you have to intentionally invite and reward them to do so. Additionally you must alter the negative experiences of those in need. The old adage, you reap the seeds you sow, has never been truer. In a social economy, happy customers will tell a few, and unhappy customers will tell thousands. It’s up to you, your imagination, and your intentions to shift the balance and change the equation to your benefit now and over time.

The future of business isn’t created, it’s co-created. #backatyou

Brian Solis is the author of the book, The End of Business as Usual. He is also a principal analyst at Altimeter Group. AT&T has sponsored this blog post.

I was honored to be among this inspiring and passionate group of innovators, educators, and entrepreneurs gathered in an intimate setting to collaborate and share ideas.  Traditionally, the TedMed conference brings together entrepreneurs and innovative startups; this year they added a panel consisting of global companies that are impacting healthcare either by bringing healthcare technology to market in a scalable manner or by influencing their corporate cultures by motivating lifestyle changes of their employees.

These issues have never been more timely,  as the first of the baby boomer generation reaches retirement and national healthcare costs are expected to continue to ramp up.  The time is ripe to re-engage and take an honest look at tangible mobile technology solutions that help you, the patient, work in collaboration with your doctor to use technology as a reliable resource for healthcare delivery.

After an exciting hour-long discussion, the key takeaways from the conversation include:

1. Stop and gain perspective.

Successful innovation in healthcare comes from a personal investment and a genuine understanding of who it is we are innovating for.  Gathering data is just a part of that process, but what is more critical is how we use the information and match it with resources to put that innovative new idea in motion.  At the end of the day, the collection of data means nothing if we can’t connect it across the healthcare continuum and make it mean something to the people who need the information most.

2. Look for ways to make the process better.

It isn’t enough to strive for adoption. To be a leader in healthcare innovation, we have to ask questions and challenge whether or not our solutions are making better doctors, stronger patients, and connected payers. With each solution developed, we are constantly asking the healthcare industry to invest and adopt new methods., Companies must carefully evaluate how each party – patient, physician and payer – has a stake in what is being brought to the table in order to become a change agent.

3. Listen to others.

To create sustainable and meaningful solutions, we must find a platform to build on. Rather than re-inventing from the ground up, start from the middle relying on larger resources such as our wireless networks to bring solutions to life. One way we can be effective is to search for partners that are going after the same innovative ideas and work with them to energize a larger constituency and make an impact.

AT&T ForHealth is a practice area of our business that is constantly paving new roads. We continue to ask questions along the way to bring effective, affordable and seamless ways to administer care to our loved ones.

Collaboration drives success and we encourage you to weigh in on the conversation. What are ways you think we can move healthcare innovation to the next level?

Competition is heating up as companies big and small roll out cloud services, big data, mobile content, and an unprecedented number of apps and API’s.  Although you may have a jump on the competition today,  such offerings will be considered little more than the ‘price of admission’ for businesses competing in the cloud generation.

Key to success is creativity

Ultimately, the key to success in the cloud is how successfully your business can deliver transformative and innovative cloud solutions through the creative use of your cloud assets.  Consider two essential strategies for competing and thriving in the cloud:

1. Stop thinking outside the box.

Thinking outside the box typically results in a more refined and sometimes, more innovative “box.”  However, we must come to the realization that in the cloud generation, “there is no box.” Transformative cloud solutions should have no hard and fast boundaries with regard to the functionality it delivers to the end user.  Although it’s useful to leverage existing solutions, they should serve as a starting point to inspire and implement a more transformative cloud- based counterpart.

Here’s an example of two solutions in the healthcare space:

Conventional cloud

• Monitor glucose levels for patient with diabetes
• Incorporate health tips and notifications to drive lifestyle choices based on illness
• Monitor for prescription compliance

Transformative cloud

• Monitor entire family health – with and without clinical illness
• Manage long term health proactively using family history, trending test results, and inexpensive DNA scanning such as 23andme to identify pre-conditions to support healthier outcomes
• Incorporate a family-friendly health dashboard incorporating gamification to drive goals, view achievements, and monitor ongoing challenges
• Offer a partnership API that provides incentives in the form of rebates and discounts to drive behavior in diet, exercise, and sleep
• Implement geolocation services and personas that enhance the daily user experience with health break reminders, healthy lunch offers, etc. all providing gentle guidance towards a healthier you

Delivering transformative and innovative solutions will differentiate your services from the competition while creating a unique value proposition for your customers.

2.  Create experiences, not apps.

Innovation has always been about the details, and it’s the details that can make or break the user experience.  As your business rises to the challenges in the cloud, it’s important to leverage your full arsenal of services to deliver seamless solutions designed for rich user experiences.

Businesses that dominate in the cloud generation will be those that successfully execute on an “all of the above” strategy that marries big data, intelligent notification, automation, geolocation services, voice, and on-demand content – resulting in an effective aggregation of cloud services that deliver an uncompromising, seamless user experience.

Imagine a user experience where your TV provides a personal greeting in the morning, speaks the weather, and offers a readout of your meetings for the day, then confirms that your American Express and car payments will be made as you head out the door. Your connected car closes the garage door as you drive away. The user experience continues during your commute with intelligent notifications based on contextual awareness and personal preferences. Foodies might choose to receive a notice for new restaurants that open nearby. Others might opt for special offers for an oil change or tune up.

Three great take-aways

1. Companies competing in the cloud generation will need to differentiate themselves by offering a unique and enriching user experience that delivers uncompromising value on a daily basis.
2. A successful cloud strategy should leverage your full arsenal of cloud assets to deliver transformative, innovative solutions.  Let creativity and objectivity lead you to forward thinking solution designs.
3. Redefine the boundaries of what’s possible to compete, thrive, and dominate in the cloud generation.

How will your company compete in the cloud generation? Have you considered all of the possibilities?

During the Final 4 weekend (April 5-7), AT&T incorporated NFC into our Fan Zone experience to educate consumers about NFC technology. We realized that a lot of people who own NFC-enabled phones don’t know the benefit of the technology and look forward to providing education in this area.

For app developers, we hosted our first NFC Hackathon, where five teams completed their NFC apps based on the education provided. This white paper offers more information on NFC technology, NFC tags, and Open Mode mobile app development.

Is this a good time to develop NFC apps?

Here are some stats you might want to consider deciding if this is the right time for NFC apps:

• On April 10, SIMalliance data showed that 30 million NFC-enabled SIMs were shipped in 2012. That is an 87% increase over 2011. The strongest NFC SIM markets were Japan/Korea (21 million) and Western Europe (6 million). Note: SIMalliance’s membership represents approximately 90% of the global SIM market.
• In March, ABI Research published a new report titled “NFC Devices, Strategies, and Form Factors: Update and Roadmap.” The analyst firm anticipates that the number of NFC-enabled devices in use will exceed 500 million in 2014.
• NFC-enabled devices continue to be released with innovation.  HTC First is one example. A 4G LTE-capable and NFC-enabled smartphone, this device is uniquely designed around Facebook Home. Facebook Home is a mobile app that enables users to connect with Facebook from the moment they turn on their phones — even while using another app.

WIMA, a leading global conference and exhibition dedicated to NFC, hosted its 7th WIMA NFC MONACO in Monaco on April 10-12. Solutions and products were showcased on an innovative exhibition floor. Sessions highlighted current case studies around the world, offering a clear view of where NFC is today. It’s an exciting time to explore NFC use cases, potential, and ideas for supporting the ecosystem.

What NFC applications have your business experienced first hand? What potential does this technology offer for your business?

Here we are five years later. While the number of women-owned businesses continues to grow, nearly two-thirds are struggling with annual revenues of $50,000 or less.

Why do female entrepreneurs lag behind?

Why do female entrepreneurs continue to lag significantly behind men?  In my opinion, it’s all about money.  First, when women start businesses they typically use their personal funds, credit cards, or loans from family or friends.  Only a small percentage of female entrepreneurs seek start-up capital.

More importantly, women business owners tend not to seek growth capital for their businesses.  When they do, their success rate falls well below men.  According to a recent survey from Biz2Credit, women-owned firms have higher operating costs, slimmer margins, and lower credit scores than businesses owned by men. Therefore, it makes it difficult for them to find the capital they need to grow their businesses. The Biz2Credit research shows that loan approvals for women owned firms are 15 – 20 percent lower than male-owned companies.

3 strategies for getting ahead

So what do women business owners need to do to build million-dollar plus organizations?  Here are a few suggestions.

Focus on the money.  Despite the strides women have made in business, there is an underlying sense that it’s unfeminine for women to aggressively strive to make money.  When I’ve worked with aspiring female entrepreneurs, they often tell me they aren’t interested in the money.  Really?  Then why go into business, I ask.  Women need to be more focused on growing their bottom line profits without feeling ashamed to admit it.

Be a business leader, not a den mother.  Women tend not to think of themselves as a CEO, but more like a hands-on member of the team that should be involved in every aspect of their business.  Their employees become like family members to them, and therefore decisions are frequently made based on emotions as opposed to business needs.  A growth focused organization must have a leader that can step back from the day-to-day details and engage other people to do the work.  You have to let go to grow.  Growth organizations need leadership that can build a dynamic team.

Educate yourself on funding options.  Women aren’t seeking equity capital at the same rate as men.  Various expert calculations find women receive less than 10 percent of all equity financing.  In part, that number has to do with bias, but also it’s the result of a lack of understanding of this type of financing.  Organizations such as Springboard Enterprises and Goldenseeds are working to change this scenario by educating women on how to position their businesses to attract equity capital.  It’s often this type of funding that allows a smaller company to accelerate growth.

What other advice could you offer to women-owned businesses to help them succeed?  What strategies have worked for you?