Gert Christen’s April 2020 newsletter: This newsletter is dedicated to disruption. Think disruption is over because we accepted apps like Uber or websites like Airbnb? I’ve got news: It’s not over. Entire industries are not only ready for disruption, they’re at the very beginning of being disrupted. I discuss two examples in this newsletter.
“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…” this is how I started an article about Blockchain in the July 2019 Digigram. And here we go again: The next such technology is TikTok, the world’s fastest-growing social media platform and the hottest new thing for 2020! TikTok will be very BIG. And it is way more than just a selfie-app for kids: Firstly, it completely hits the sweet spot of today’s mobile social media users – A “video first” combination of Facebook-Instagram-Vine-Snap-Twitter all in one. Secondly, it is easier to use than its predecessors – It includes tools for video creation and editing and for adding music (legally and without royalty costs!). An advantage that is hard for Instagram & Co. to copy because of their user interface legacy. And thirdly, they started with an almost exclusive focus on the teen segment, precisely the age group that advertisers will want to communicate with once TikTok …
The bi-monthly newsletter of December 2019. Covering TikTok, the next hot trend, Xaas – Everything as a Service – and the backend business opportunity. Top of the month: 26 Swiss managers & HWZ master students in Silicon Valley, and one of my teams reached 4th place in the startup competition at UC Berkeley.
Meet me here: At UC Berkeley’s “Deplastifying the Planet” course starting in Jan 2020
On my table: Thanks are on my table. Wish all happy holidays and happiness & success for 2020
(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 …
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 …
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 …
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. …
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 answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe and everything is 42. At least according to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which it takes a supercomputer 7¼ million years to compute the answer.
Marks of Disruption #1: (Too) comfortable industries that haven’t changed in a long time are vulnerable A Business Insider article was one trigger in my decision to focus on disruption in this newsletter: “Apple sold nearly 10 million more watches than the entire Swiss watch industry in 2019”. Think about it. Apple shipped 30.7 million watches in 2019, compared to 21.1 million watches shipped by the entire Swiss watch industry! What’s even more alarming is Apple’s 36% growth in volume over the previous year, compared with a 13% decline for Swiss watches. For 40 years, the Swiss watch industry stuck to the same strategy: Mass-produced, reasonably priced analog quartz watches at the low end, and super-high-quality, expensive luxury watches at the high end. Its marketing remained frozen in time, too, with suitable brand ambassador celebrities, event sponsorships, and airline-magazine-style glossy ads. This approach worked well for the Swiss for decades, so there was no need to rock the boat. Enter the iPhone and Fitbit, and the boat began taking on water fast. Fitbit started the …
