Uber me baby!

I attended the National Retail Federation “BIG SHOW” earlier this month at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.

NRF's 105th Annual Convention & EXPO was an amazing event. There were more than 33,500 attendees, hundreds of sessions, miles of EXPO, technologies to boggle the mind and so much more.

Retail sales workers include both those who sell retail merchandise, such as clothing, furniture, and automobiles, (called retail salespersons) and those who sell spare and replacement parts and equipment, especially car parts (called parts salespersons). Both types of retail sales workers help customers find the products they want and process customers’ payments.

Last year (2015) in Retail:

Median Pay was $10.42 per hour / $21.6780 per year

Number of Jobs (Retail Sales Workers) was 4,859,600

Job Outlook: +7% (As fast as average)

According to the NRF, employment of retail sales workers is projected to grow 7 percent from 2016 to 2024, about as fast as the average for all occupations. Many workers leave this occupation, which means there will be a large number of job openings.

Did you catch that? Many workers leave this occupation, which means there will be a large number of job openings. People don’t leave a good thing.

Hertz never saw Zipcar coming; Zipcar never saw Uber coming.

Hilton and Marriott never saw AirBNB coming.

NBC, CBS, ABC (the big three) never saw HBO, Netflix and Hulu coming.

The National Retail Federation (with 105 years of wisdom) never saw Amazon.com coming.

Last night my son and I (finally) saw the new Star Wars movie in IMAX 3D. Tickets were $20 each, plus snacks. Normally we wait to watch most hit movies at home - unless it is a movie that “requires” the IMAX 3D experience. My living room with a big screen TV is usually just fine for movie watching (at a fraction of the price). We bought our Star Wars tickets in advance, online with a smartphone. Self-service, thanks to the cloud.

Before the movie, we stopped at Red Robin (for an adult beverage). It was self-service via a new fancy restaurant kiosk. So basically, we drank beer and then gave a 20% tip to a droid.

Our local grocery stores all have self-service checkout as a option. Our local CVS and Walgreens drug stores now have “minute clinics” where you can use Telemedicine (powered by IBM Watson) to perform self-service medical exams, diagnosis and even write prescriptions - all without a “live” medical expert.

In our household we are “power users” of Amazon Prime with free 2nd day shipping. We try to buy everything that that is non-perishable (dog food, paper goods, canned goods, soap, etc.) online with convenient, automatic delivery right to our door. Our local grocery store (Kings) is not known for having low prices. Eggs, milk, bread - anything with an expiration date - we go to Kings. You would be crazy to buy batteries, cereal or tuna fish at Kings. All Hail Amazon Prime!  I just learned that the USPS shall start making Sunday deliveries for Amazon Prime, so that is now a 7 days a week service, including holidays. The world of business has invented new verbs in the past few years.  Blockbuster was “Netflixed” <verb> and went out of business. Yellow Cabs have lost business to Uber and Lyft. Formal education and training have now been “Khanned” by Khan Academy.

We shop, research, browse, buy and consume all manner of goods and services via the cloud and the IoT (Internet of Things). Once again: the NRF stated at the show: Job Outlook: +7% (As fast as average). Retail sales workers help customers find the products they want and process customers’ payments. How can job growth in retail be growing at 7% when every day we see technology popping up to do MORE business with LESS people? Why is big business so keen on automating the entire retail process? 

If the number of jobs (Retail Sales Workers) was 4,859,600 in 2015, there is NO WAY this number is going to increase at 7% with all of these self-service tools becoming more and more popular. New Jersey is one of the few states where it is “illegal” to pump your own gas. So, I guess those jobs are still safe - for now.

In the end, what are the things that humans can just do better than apps or kiosks?

Technology lacks flexibility. When we’re interacting with a person and we’re having trouble understanding something, the person can adjust to us. If we’re having a misunderstanding, they can help clarify it. Technology really can’t do either of these things. A person has the ability to delight us or disappoint us. It’s really hard for a technology to ever delight, however, because it’s standardized and is built on a set of rules. But it is possible for technologies to disappoint us.

The video below talks about how the future of retail is “bright” but not for everyone. Retail sales workers who help customers find the products they want and process customers’ payments - your future is very cloudy.

Here is an Original thought for 2016

Dear friends, colleagues, and random people in my LinkedIn network: I hope that your 2016 is off to a wonderful start.  I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of Adam Grant’s new book “Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World”

Did you make your New Year’s Resolutions yet?  If not, you might want to hold up.

Adam’s new book is about how anyone can speak up and champion new ideas, leaders can fight conformity, and parents can raise children to think differently. Originals is about the choice to battle conformity, buck outdated traditions, and champion ideas and values that go against the grain. Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can fight groupthink to build cultures that welcome dissent.

You'll learn from...
An entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest
A woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below
An analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA
A billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him
A TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor


Adam Grant is part of the NYDLA “Talent” collaborative I would greatly appreciate your support in getting his book off to a strong start.“Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World” If you’re a giver who enjoys being helpful, a matcher who thinks you owe me a favor (you don’t), or a taker, here are few ways to help:

1.       Pre-order the book.  Pre-orders make a big difference in encouraging Amazon and bookstores to notice, stock, and promote a book.  This one is available in paper, electronic, audio, and stone tablet formats: http://adamgrant.net/originals

2.       Take the quiz.  Here’s a sneak preview of what it takes to be original, in the form of a 15-question quiz: http://adamgrant.net/quiz

3.       Spread the word.  Below my signature are some quotes from the book.  You’re welcome to share them—or the quiz—via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and singing telegram.

4.       Meet Adam on tour. Adam will be speaking and signing books in Chicago, LA, London, NYC, Philly, Santa Barbara, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington DC: www.adamgrant.net/events

If you made it this far, I’m grateful. And to prove it, all paid members of the NYDLA.org for 2016 will get a FREE copy of BOTH of Adam’s books in electronic format (Give and Take & Originals). Really. It’s on me (because I read his FIRST book). Just click here and place Adam Grant in your subject line. DONE.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2016.

Cheers,
Thomas Capone
Executive Director
Tom@NYDLA.org 

·         In search of excellence and in fear of failure, most of us opt to fit in rather than stand out. #Originals: www.adamgrant.net/originals

·         Being original doesn't require being first. It just means being different and better. #Originals: www.adamgrant.net/originals

·         Enemies make better allies than frenemies. #Originals: www.adamgrant.net/originals

·         Dissenting opinions are useful even when they're wrong. #Originals: www.adamgrant.net/originals

·         Great leaders don't just bring original ideas into the world. They unleash originality in others. #Originals: www.adamgrant.net/originals



We need more walls!

For the last two years, a team of NYDLA.org contractors, Harvard.edu faculty and global collaboration experts have been working to create an incredible new space: HBX Live, a virtual classroom that connects students from anywhere in the world to a Harvard School of Business professor in Boston for a dynamic and engaging HBS-style discussion.

How does it work?  Participants from around the globe can log in and join real-time, case-based sessions with HBS faculty, who teach from the HBX Live studio on the Boston campus of public broadcaster, WGBH.  In the studio, high resolution monitors are arrayed to mimic the tiers of an HBS classroom. Sessions are expertly “produced” using still and roaming cameras—so realistically that we have had participants break out in a sweat as they experience a professor moving toward them. 
You can see this AMAZING technology in action in this 3 minute video:

And then, it hit me.

After Paris. After the San Bernardino shooting. After all of the talk of BUILDING MORE WALLS - building walls to keep people out, building walls to keep us safe. YES! We DO need more walls!

HD Video Walls.

Why can’t this same amazing technology be used to BREAK DOWN barriers? Why not use this amazing global collaboration technology to meet our neighbors? Truly meet them - deeply get to know our GLOBAL neighbors, no matter where they might live, no matter where they were born.

Strangers have been coming together for years, living on college campuses. Sharing dorm rooms. Joining fraternities, playing on sports teams. Sharing meals in cafeterias. Lifelong friendships have been formed. Strangers from around the world, people from the most diverse cultures, all becoming friends and colleagues. We have done it for years. It can be done.

It is so easy to hate people you never met. It is easy to be afraid of cultures we have never experienced.

Technology like the amazing video wall at Harvard Business School was built for a reason: it works. It allows people from around the world to work together and collaborate as a unified team. If this amazing technology works for the world of business - why would it not work for the world of…..well just THE WORLD?

I agree that we need more walls.  We need walls that unify. Walls that bring us together, not walls that keep us apart. Did you see the video from the International Space Station this week? We all share a single home, we all share this one tiny, fragile planet.

We need more walls. We need lots and lots of walls. We need enough walls so that we can allow ALL of the children to get to know each other. Let them learn together, let them play together. Let them form friendships. Hatred is learned, we are not born to hate. We are taught to hate.  Well, then we need to un-teach it. Classmates, emphasis on the two combined words: Class and Mates.

It will not happen overnight, but it will happen. It must happen. We are smarter than this, right? We are smart enough to make a video like the one below, and we cannot address this issue? How many HD Video walls can we build and deploy around the world, for the cost of just one trip to space?

 We all share one planet. Why not share one global classroom? 

We're Bugging Out!

A bug-out bag is a portable kit that normally contains the items one would require to survive for seventy-two hours, when evacuating from a disaster, however some kits are designed to last longer periods of time than just 72 hours. The focus is on evacuation, rather than long-term survival, distinguishing the bug-out bag from a survival kit, a boating or aviation emergency kit, or a fixed-site disaster supplies kit. The kits are also popular in the survivalism and prepper subcultures.

The term "bug-out bag" is related to, and possibly derived from, the "bail-out bag" emergency kit many military aviators carry. In the United States, the term refers to the Korean War practice of the U.S. Army designating alternate defensive positions, in the event that the units had to displace. They were directed to "bug out" when being overrun was imminent. The concept passed into wide usage among other military and law enforcement personnel, though the "bail-out bag" is as likely to include emergency gear for going into an emergency situation as for escaping an emergency.

The primary purpose of a bug-out bag is to allow one to evacuate quickly if a disaster should strike. It is therefore prudent to gather all of the materials and supplies that might be required to do this into a single place, such as a bag or a few storage containers. The recommendation that a bug-out bag contain enough supplies for seventy-two hours arises from advice from organizations responsible for disaster relief and management that it may take them up to seventy-two hours to reach people affected by a disaster and offer help.  The bag's contents may vary according to the region of the user, as someone evacuating from the path of a hurricane may have different supplies from someone who lives in an area prone to tornadoes or wildfires.

Where you going with this, Tom?

In today’s “living in the cloud” workplace, we are all connected. We all have email. We all have social media, smartphones, Facebook pages, LinkedIn, voicemail, Skype, VoIP. We have laptops, iPads, portable WiFi and the ability to be connected anytime, anywhere.

Scenario A: Bad Weather is Coming Soon!

If you KNOW that a (snow storm, hurricane, typhoon, etc.) is on its way, did you prepare your “Go Bag” in the cloud? Did you pre-record an updated voicemail message? Do you have a storm related autoresponder email vacation/away message all set and ready to go, at the click of a mouse? Can you re-route or forward your business phone lines, or change your phone tree greeting in seconds? Do you have a social media strategy all set and ready to go? Can you alert clients, vendors, suppliers and staff “via the cloud” and via your perfected “checklist” that you can activate in seconds?  If not, you have work to do. With today’s cloud technology, what is your excuse to NOT have such a strategy in place, ready to go with a click of a mouse?

Scenario B: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Not everything comes with an advanced warning - but very few things in life are truly a surprise. Sadly, family members will have accidents. Sometimes minor, sometimes serious. Our children will cut their finger bad enough to need stitches - without any warning. In today’s always on, globally connected world, at any moment there can be an event that we “did not see coming.” But, were we really so completely and totally surprised? When it happens “to us” should we be so shocked that SOMETHING happened that caused us to change our plans for the day (or our plans for the week or the month)? If you never saw it coming, you were not looking very hard.

“Common sense is not very common.” We hear this saying all too often. Earthquakes have a way of sneaking up on us. Hurricanes, not so much. A young puppy who gets into the holiday candy might need an emergency trip to the vet. If you have “kids” (human or otherwise) you know that at any moment, your Monday Morning plans can change. If you are the primary caregiver to an elderly family member, and you are still trying to manage a career, a job, a life - did you take the necessary steps to prepare for the inevitable “Boss, I need to take a few days off” conversation? 

Did you properly prepare your “Bug-Out bag” out of respect for your boss, your clients, your vendors, your co-workers?  

I tell my global remote staff to think: how does a hospital, airport or even busy restaurant run? How does a grade school teacher “call in sick” without causing total chaos? They prepared for the inevitable. Teachers, waiters and even air traffic controllers can all get the flu. Everyone has parents, many of us have children. We all need to prepare to be prepared. It is our DUTY as responsible adults - it is our duty as global citizens to be prepared. Very few things in life are truly unforeseen. When we say that something hit us “out of the blue” it makes us look foolish for not being prepared for the inevitable. It’s called life people. Blaming it on being surprised, while knowing what we know about life on planet earth is never going to cut it.

Having our “bug-out bags” ready to go at all times is our responsibility. Technology can certainly help us to be more responsible citizens, but it starts with us. The tools (both physical and virtual) are there, but we need to pick them up and use them - before and during the storm.

Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.

https://youtu.be/xzV9DIL_vrM

World Peace or Cash?

Surveys and focus groups

It doesn't matter what people say. Watch what they do.

The story is told of a focus group for a new $100 electronic gadget. The response in the focus group was fabulous, people all talked about the features of the new device with excitement.

At the end of the session, the moderator said, "thanks for coming. As our gift to you, you can have your choice of the device or $25."

Everyone took the cash.

Surveys that ask your customers about their preferences, their net promoter intent, their media habits--they're essentially useless compared to watching what people actually do when they have a chance. The media wastes their time and ours handicapping politics based on polls, on changes in polls, on expectations based on polls—it's sad. Polls are always wrong.

The best part of show & tell has never been the telling part.

~ Seth Godin

*****

My blogs are normally about technology, knowledge and talent. I usually try my best to tie news stories and popular culture to how they impact the world for eCommerce, and collaboration, and how we “learn, work, live and play in the clouds.”

Seth’s words above were written for a marketer, or for someone targeting the business community and a financially motivated audience.

And then, Paris.

It doesn't matter what people say. Watch what they do. ~ Seth Godin

I read this again, and then again. These words seem to be more about the world in general, than marketing or business or sales. Seth’s words seem to be more about Politicians. Governments. Corporations. Leaders.

It doesn't matter what people say. Watch what they do. ~ Seth Godin

The entire world can now see in seconds: murder, torture, beheadings. Drone strikes, refugees, human rights being violated. It is now - right now, right here, in our homes, in our living rooms in HDTV. Because of the cloud, it is on our smartphones and via our Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. You cannot hide from it, you cannot look away. You cannot say you did not know. We shall all talk about Paris. We shall comment on it, post on it.

It doesn't matter what people say. Watch what they do. ~ Seth Godin

What’s next? What do we (all of us) DO next?

It doesn't matter what people say. Watch what they do. ~ Seth Godin

I paraphrase my friend Seth's words......

At the end of the session (our lives - our short time on earth) the moderator (God) said, "Thanks for coming. As our gift to you, you can have your choice of world peace or cash."

Please God, help us to choose wisely. Please give us the knowledge, technology and talent to choose wisely for our children, and for every child on earth.