All posts filed under: News

This is DIGIRAM, the digital telegram – “digigram” – from Silicon Valley. I write on what I consider trends and emerging topics in technology and the Silicon Valley community, I list my personal Silicon Valley tops and flops, and report on events I plan to attend.

Hot Trend: XaaS – Everything as a Service is how we work and live today

Published by Gert Christen

In my last Digigram, I wrote about XaaS and wondered what would be next for this trend. Since then, I have concluded that XaaS includes much more than only technology platforms that virtualize assets in value chains: XaaS covers how we work and conduct business today, and how we consume modern products and services. New work = Gig economy = Work as a Service We all agree that companies such as Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Upwork, and WeWork disrupted the value chains and asset distribution in many industries. Like it or loathe it – the fact is that these models fit the way many people live their lives today. Both as consumers of services (e.g., getting even small items delivered by Amazon or bike couriers instead of going to a store) or as a provider of services (e.g., teaching via the internet or contracting via Upwork). The megatrends of changes in life- and work styles are what enabled the XaaS phenomenon in the first place. Especially Gen Ys love both sides of XaaS! It provides them …

7 Takeaways of what constitutes Leadership in a digitalized business world

Published by Gert Christen

(The full article was first published in German by André Meister for HWZ University’s Institute for Digital Business. The full article in English is posted on my website.) #1 Digital leaders are able to lead experts and teams in virtual organizations, recognizing the potential of diversity such as gender, cultural background, personality, age, skills, and experience. #2 Digital leaders have these traits: Vision, clear values, being role models, being present, developing employees, being communicative and just, having some expert knowledge, and being self-reflective. #3 Digital leaders shape agile, flexible, and efficient organizations capable of succeeding in VUCA environments. #4 Digital leaders transform both the core business for optimization inside of the existing organization and create new businesses fit for tomorrow outside of the core organization while connecting today’s capabilities with tomorrow’s. #5 Digital leaders understand that “10% better” is not good enough an objective anymore and they aim for 10x better. #6 Digital leaders understand the success factors of digital businesses: Global platforms, the fusion of new and old functionalities, open organizations, disruptive hypothesis, testing …

New trend: XaaS stands for everything as a service!

Published by Gert Christen

A very common form of disruption is to “virtualize” traditional business models by moving them to the internet. Email sent letters with an electronic service, displacing the physical letter monopoly by the postal services, iTunes sold single pieces of music in a download service, displacing the CD records industry, Airbnb did the same to the hotel industry, Uber to the taxi industry, Netflix et al to cable TV, Amazon AWS to the computer server industry. Companies that escaped disruption by virtualized services realized that they needed to jump on the “as-a-service”-bandwagon before being displaced by yet another outside company: Microsoft’s Office 365 and Adobe’s Creative Cloud are such examples. Both were once sold as CDs in a box and now they are sold as subscription services and with features that can be activated online only.  What is next for this trend? What comes after “software as a service”, “entertainment as a service”, “hospitality as a service”, “mobility as a service”?  I believe that technologies today enable everything to be offered in a service model: The “virtualizing” of assets and packaging them as a …

Hot Technology: Blockchain, look beyond the noise and it’s very real!

Published by Gert Christen

Every now and then a technology appears that is so intriguing that it spikes fantasies of what it is, does and all the things it might make possible: Examples are the Internet, GSM mobile telephony, or social media. And no doubt, Blockchain is such a technology, too: Oh, the hype and oh, the claims of all that it will do, and oh, the fears of all it will replace: Agencies, banks, currencies, jobs, “everything!” While the fantasies run wild with every up and down of cryptocurrency prices, these are just one use of Blockchain technology. I observe something completely different: Away from the noise and hype, Blockchain has matured into a solid IT technology that is used to solve previously unsolvable problems and produces increasingly novel applications. And the Blockchain startup scene is alive and kicking. Here are two use cases of Blockchains that exemplify this: SyraCoin, citizens crowd-fund city services in exchange for tokens. By City of Syracuse, NY and VITE.org. Citizens of Syracuse, NY, can now donate money to help out other citizens …

Digigram Newsletter of July 2019!

Published by Gert Christen

Thank you Thank you to the more than 4000 of you who saw my first Digigram. I am surprised, delighted and very humbled. And I appreciate all of you who gave me your comments and feedback, I will try to incorporate them. Please enjoy a wonderful summer, happy reading and ‘till soon, Gert Explore Digigram – July 2019 Hot Technology: Blockchain, look beyond the noise and it’s very real! New trend: XaaS stands for everything as a service! Top of the Month Congratulations to Scoot, a pioneer in the electric moped rental space, for the acquisition by Bird, the electric scooter rental heavyweight. Meet me here: Meet me in Berkeley from next month. I am excited to have been appointed an Entrepreneurship Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. I wanted to continue to teach part-time ever since moving back to California and I couldn’t be happier to do it in Berkeley. Check out my first course here! What’s on my table? Summer reading: “Make Elephants Fly. The process of radical innovation” by Steven S. …

Silicon Valley: All is well. Is it really? Change is coming.

Published by Gert Christen

So much success, so much light: Silicon Valley might “produce” as many as 19 IPOs in 2019. Oh, it’s the promise of the traditional Silicon Valley startup culture come true: Where the end justifies the means and the winner takes it all. Really? Not really anymore, because more and more people object and start speaking up. A very healthy movement. I admit that I didn’t pay much attention when I heard of cases of startup culture going overboard: Less women founders than men – of course, same thing all over the world, going to take another generation to fix. Hired less women than men and paid the women less – of course, less women study engineering and inexperienced managers falling for the salary trick. However, I did start paying attention after reading Susan Fowler’s blog entry about “one very strange year at Uber” with her account of how women were bullied and disadvantaged at Uber[. She shook me and many many others – thank you, Susan, for bringing this to light. But there’s more: In …

The new New Work might be virtual:

Published by Gert Christen

The last Digigram explored “COVID Tech,” which helps us stay productive during COVID. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that 100% remote work works reasonably well. Not for creative work, where serendipitous strokes of genius don’t happen as often when apart, but it’s OK for the other 80% of our work. And companies took advantage. They’re saving money by moving jobs to lower-cost regions, attracting new talent by offering 100% remote jobs, and slashing expenses by not renting and offering a workplace. Good tactical moves! Once COVID is over, will we go back to normal? With office cubicles, the water cooler, and all? Or will we build on what we got used to and move on to what comes next—virtual-working? Remote workers could benefit from an additional layer, such as augmented reality. It doesn’t have to be a full-blown holodeck, but AR could improve the working experience, create a team atmosphere, and spark more of those “lightbulb” genius moments. I predict that after a year of acclimatization to Zoom, going entirely virtual is not a big …