Month: December 2017

High performance and job satisfaction

How can your employees get more job satisfaction and be more productive? A two-part question, with one potentially surprising answer.
Give them more challenging tasks to do! This may sound counter-intuitive, but Hungarian psychologist ‎Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that it is absolutely the right way to go.

“The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his fellow researchers have been working to understand a phenomenon experienced by artists who immerse themselves in their work without the need for food, water or even sleep; this research is focuses on understanding how people can reache great satisfaction perfomerforming at their best.

Participants in the study were asked, at randomly chosen time intervals, to describe their level of satisfaction or happiness and what they were doing.
Based on this research, a detailed description of a mental state call “flow” was created, also known as “the zone”. Simply put, if a person is performing a challenging activity and they have the relevant supporting skills they will experience a mental state of being fully involved, energized and happy.

When your employees are working on difficult tasks aligned with their skills, they will perform well and enjoy the process.
So now the challenge is to understand your team members’ skills and abilities and with your investment of time and effort this can be done.
To help you in understanding the fascinating topic of Positive Psychology I would like to recommend books by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and you can start with a TED Talk by Martin Seligman: https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.)
Also, here is a link to Mihaly’s explanation of flow: https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow

Value creation

Working for and with companies creating IoT solutions and with businesses buying them I have observed an interesting trend.
The companies which are struggling with selling IoT solutions are focused on the wrong problem.
It is probably obvious for most of you that customers buying IoT solutions are not buying technology, IoT hardware nor IoT software. They are buying a solution which either giving them cost reduction, or increasing their profit, or both.
In the IoT space, a value is not coming from hardware, or software, or connectivity. The value is created by transforming data into information to optimise their operation, support, production and/ or new product development.
Technology itself is not adding value. It needs to be aligned with the relevant business model.
The IoT business model evolves from selling products (with IoT features) thought selling service to selling results/outcome.
My company was recently working on a demo to demonstrate benefits of IoT technology. We created a greenhouse model. The demo has simple set of temperature, humidity, light and air pressure sensors and actuators: heating, misting, light, window opening and fan. Sensors are sending data to the Cloud, and the actuators are updated based on a set of rules evaluated in the Cloud.
It is a beautiful and simple demo, and I will use it as the example to explain the business model evolution.
In case of product sell a customer will be buying an instrumentation of a greenhouse and will be able to set-up rules and remotely manage and supervise her greenhouse. She will benefit from additional feature she will be able to use. However, she will have to pay the cost of the solution as it is implemented.
The following business model is focused on selling services. In this case, a customer will be buying a function of having access to a dashboard with real-time sensor readings and ability to set-up rules and remotely manage and supervise her greenhouse. She will be paying a monthly, or a yearly fee for using the service. In this scenario, the cost of installation and maintenance has to be covered by the greenhouse instrumentation company.
The last business model is more difficult to explain using this example, but let me try.
This business model is based on the idea of paying for results a customer using infrastructure (greenhouse with sensors, actuators and smart management) and she will be paying only for level yields achieved. (In our economy paying for results is not broadly implemented for example how nice it would be to pay for our kids academic results and not for a college, or paying for result of medical procedure and not for a procedure itself, or for how relaxed we are after a holiday and not for a flight, hotel, …) All the cost of creating and maintain the infrastructure has to be covered by the greenhouse company. The customer will be paying for the outcome only (low risk and high benefit).
In the example of the company selling service or being paid for the outcome could benefit from the collected data and improve its efficiency, and can generate additions income stream by selling data to other institutions. They could as well work together with companies buying the production of the greenhouse (for example flowers) and companies selling seeds, fertilizers, … It would enable the creation of an ecosystem of working in a perfect lockstep where the right seeds are getting deliver when the greenhouse is ready and in the right time to have flowers ready when there is demand. And the right fertilizers are being delivered when needed. And finally by collecting and analysing the weather, yields and greenhouse environmental data you can further optimise production and reduce cost.
The examples are a relatively simple explanation of the IoT business models and how they can evolve in the future. The existing hardware, software, and connectivity technologies are allowing to implement it, but first, the decision which business model to choose has to be done base on the market, cost and risk analysis

Security

Security is a really hot topic right now.
Events like NHS cyber-attack in May, remind us that security must be an intrinsic part of each and every technology implementation.
Deciding on the right level of security for your business can be an emotive topic which may increase the stress levels of already busy people, and most will immediately think that the right technology will solve their security problems.
However, security is not just a technology discussion; security is a business discussion.
I am not going to recommend a specific software, hardware or process to solve your security needs. I would like, instead, to give you my perspective, a high-level observation, which can help you make the right choices; and here is the first thing: deciding on the right security solution is a compromise.
Also, you will not be deciding whether or not to protect your system from cyber-attacks, you will actually be making decisions about the right the level of risk, the cost of the solution and ease of usability of the process. You will be making a compromise.
For example, you can have a high security with the low cost if you disconnect all your devices from internet and power and lock them in a safe; great security – unusable business solution.
Realistically, you will need to consider risk, cost, and ease of use jointly to decide upon the optimal blend for you and your business. These considerations need to be made across all areas of your business.
What is the risk level I/my company can accept in a particular area?
What is the cost level I/my company can accept in a particular area?
How easily will this integrate into existing procedures?
The complexity of the correct solution becomes even greater as you also need to evaluate security risk in your specific business in conjunction with three more areas: technology, process and people.
Any solution also need to work in your specific business environment where you might have different people using the same technology for the same purpose, or the same people using different technologies for different purposes, the permutations are almost endless, and when coupled with a diverse level of security awareness within your team you will quickly see that there is no “one size fits all” solution.
It is common sense, but not always common practice.
Security is a risk evaluation decision.