In a recently published Market Milestone, Todd Maddox, Ph.D., Learning Scientist and Research Fellow for Amalgam Insights, evaluated Skillsoft’s industry-first Digital Transformation Portfolio from a learning science perspective—the marriage of psychology and brain science. This involves evaluating the portfolio’s content and delivery to determine whether it engages psychological processes and learning systems in the brain effectively. It does. Amalgam’s overall evaluation is that Skillsoft’s Digital Transformation Portfolio is highly effective.
The digital transformation is fundamentally altering the modern workplace and is requiring companies to modify organizational structures, create new roles and develop new skill sets. This transformation affects every aspect of skill learning from “what” we need to know, “how” we need to behave, and the “feel” or awareness that we need to be effective in ever-changing digitally-driven corporate settings. Skills associated with the “what”, “how”, and “feel” are each mediated by a distinct learning system in the brain. Thus, digital readiness requires content construction and delivery that effectively engages each of these systems. Skillsoft’s Digital Transformation Portfolio meets this challenge and is poised to continue to meet this challenge as new and exciting digital technologies transform the workplace.
On October 18th, I presented a webinar at Calero World Online on the future of IT cost and subscription management. In this presentation, I challenge existing telecom and IT expense management managers to accept their destiny as pilots and architects of enterprise digital subscriptions.
Telecom expense has traditionally been the most challenging of IT costs to manage. With the emergence of software-as-a-service, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and software-defined networks, the rest of the IT world is quickly catching up.
In this webinar, you will learn:
How the latest trends and technology are driving change to enterprise management strategies
How the challenges of traditional TEM and cloud expense management are similar in nature (and why TEM is a good place to start)
How organizations are benefiting from ITEM best practices using sample use cases
To learn more about the upcoming challenges of IT expense management, aligning technology supply to digital demand, and being the shepherd for your organization’s technology sourcing, utilization, and optimization, click here to watch this webinar on-demand.
If you are in sales, you have likely heard stories similar to this on numerous occasions.
“I have been in sales for over a year now, and I just can’t seem to learn out to give an effective sales pitch. My sales manager tells me that my body language is off, and my verbal skills are unnatural and forced. I read all of the required sales training materials and I have even read other articles, books and blogs on the art of an effective pitch. My manager demonstrates how to give an effective pitch and I have watched many videos of others giving an effective pitch. I feel like I understand the material, but when I get in front of potential clients it doesn’t feel right, and they don’t react positively to me. I am at a loss and don’t know what to do…”
On October 17th, I presented a webinar with Incorta’s Chief Evangelist, Matthew Halliday, on the importance of BI architectures in preparing for AI. This webinar is based on a core Amalgam Insights belief that all enterprise analytics and data science activity should be based on a shared core of trusted and consistent data so that Business Intelligence, analytics, machine learning, data science, and deep learning efforts are all based on similar assumptions and can build off each other.
While AI is beginning to impact every aspect of our consumer lives, business data-driven AI seems to be lower on the priority list of most enterprises. The struggle to understand the practical value of AI starts with the lack of ability to make business data easily accessible to the data science teams. Today’s BI tools have not kept up with this need and often are the bottlenecks that stifle innovation.
In this webinar, you will learn from Hyoun Park and Matthew Halliday about:
key data and analytic trends leading to the need to accelerate analytic access to data.
guidance for challenges in implementing AI initiatives alongside BI.
practical and future-facing business use cases that can be supported by accelerating analytic access to large volumes of operational data.
techniques that accelerate AI initiatives on your business data.
This webinar is a short introduction designed for IT professionals who are exploring Infrastructure as Code especially focusing on SysOps, managers (from mid-level to C-Suite), and system architects. As modern IT systems become more diverse and complex, managing them, especially at scale can become very difficult. Infrastructure as Code presents a new way of thinking about infrastructure management that alleviates many of these challenges.
Consider a sales managers all-too-common nightmare…
“I wake up in the middle of the night in a pool of sweat worried about my sales teams’ ability to “think on their feet” and to “read” the ever-changing sales landscape. They know the product in and out. I know I quiz them frequently. During role play they also perform well. However, to a person, when faced with an objection, time pressure, or a resistant client, they choke. It is as if they have forgotten everything that they know. I am at a loss for what to do.”
This is a problem in “situational awareness” and it is common in sales, and many other domains (e.g., healthcare). A sales professional with strong situational awareness has an almost intuitive feel for the current situation and has a very good idea of what is coming next. This individual always remains calm and can retrieve critical product information whether in a routine or non-routine situation (e.g., under time pressure). This individual knows how to act in any situation. They always put their best foot forward, and maximize the chances of a sale, regardless of the situation. Continue reading Qstream Leverages Science to Train Situational Awareness in the Sales Brain
In a recently published Market Milestone, Todd Maddox, Ph.D., Learning Scientist and Research Fellow for Amalgam Insights, evaluated Percipio, Skillsoft’s Learning Experience Platform from a learning science perspective—the marriage of psychology and brain science. This involves evaluating the training content and delivery to determine whether it engages psychological processes and learning systems in the brain effectively.
Amalgam’s overall evaluation is that Percipio is highly effective.
Pecipio’s ELSA (Embedded Learning Synchronized Assistant) addresses the need for organized and easily accessible content as well or better than most competitor’s platforms. ELSA provides just-in-time, searchable and suggested content, all seamlessly integrated into the employee’s flow of work.
Percipio also engages the task appropriate system in the brain. The “watch”, “read”, “listen” framework allows learners to utilize the medium that is most effective in the current context and facilitates microlearning for a targeted and concise understanding of some concept or macrolearning for a deeper dive and understanding. The emphasis on storytelling and scenario-based content, when appropriate, engages emotional systems that upregulate processing in both the cognitive and behavioral skills systems in the brain. The addition of “practice” (to be released in 2019) will facilitate the development of behavioral skills directly in the workplace.
An unfortunate side effect of being an industry analyst is that it is easy to become jaded. There is a tendency to fall back into stereotypes about technology and companies. Add to this nearly 35 years in computer technology and it would surprise no one to hear an analyst say, “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.” Some companies elicit this reaction more than others. Older tech companies with roots in the 80’s or earlier tend to get in a rut and focus on incremental change (so as not to annoy their established customer base) instead of the exciting new trends. This makes it hard to be impressed by them.
Oracle is one of those companies. It has a reputation for being behind the market (cloud anyone?) and as proprietary as can be. Oracle has also had a difficult time with developers. The controversy over Java APIs (which is really a big company spat with Google) hasn’t helped that relationship. There are still hard feelings left over from the acquisition of Sun Microsystems (a computer geek favorite) and MySQL that have left many innovative developers looking anywhere but Big Red. Oracle’s advocacy of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has been at best indifferent. When the FOSS community comes together, one expects to see Red Hat, Google, and even Microsoft and IBM but never Oracle.
Which is why my recent conversation with Bob Quillin of Oracle came as a complete surprise. It was like a bucket of cold water on a hot day, both shocking and at the same time, refreshing.
Now, it’s important to get some context right up front. Bob came to Oracle via an acquisition, StackEngine. So, he and his team’s DNA is more FOSS than Big Red. And, like an infusion of new DNA, the StackEngine crew has succeeded in changing Oracle on some level. They have launched the Oracle Kubernetes and Registry Services which brings a Container Engine, Kubernetes, and a Docker V2 compatible registry to the Oracle Cloud Service. That’s a lot of open source for Oracle.
In addition, Bob talked about how they were helping Oracle customers to move to a Cloud Native strategy. Cloud Native almost always means embracing FOSS since so many components are FOSS. Add to the mixture a move into serverless with Fn. Fn is also an open source project (Apache 2.0 licensed) but one that originated in Oracle. That’s not to say there aren’t other Oracle open source projects (Graal for example) but they aren’t at the very edge of computing like Fn. In this part of the FOSS world, Oracle is leading, not following. Oracle even plans to have a presence at Kubecon+CloudNativeCon 2018 in Seattle this December, an open source-oriented conference run by The Linux Foundation, where they will be a Platinum Sponsor. In the past this would be almost inconceivable.
The big question is how will this affect the rest of Oracle? Will this be a side project for Oracle or will they rewrite the Oracle DNA in the same way that Microsoft has done? Can they find that balance between the legacy business, which is based on high-priced, proprietary software – the software that is paying the bills right now – and community run, open source world that is shaping the future of IT? Only time will tell but there will be a big payoff to IT if it happens. Say what you will about Oracle, they know how to do enterprise software. Security, performance, and operating at scale are Oracle’s strengths. They are a big reason their customers keep buying from them instead of an open source startup or even AWS. An infusion of that type of knowledge into the FOSS community would help to overcome many of the downsides that IT experiences when trying to implement open source software in large enterprise production environments.
Was I surprised? To say the least. I’ve never had a conversation like this with Oracle. Am I hopeful? A bit. There are forces within companies like Oracle that can crush an initiative like this. As the market continues to shift in the direction of microservices, containers, and open source in general, Oracle risks becoming too out of step with the current generation of developers. Even if FOSS doesn’t directly move the needle on Oracle revenue, it can have a profound effect on how Oracle is viewed by the developer community. If the attitude of people like Bob Quillin becomes persuasive, then younger developers may start to see Oracle as more than just their father’s software company. In my opinion, the future of Oracle may depend on that change in perception.
Note: This blog is a followup to Amalgam Insights’ visit to the “Change the Game” event held by IBM in New York City.
On September 19th, IBM announced its launch of a portfolio of AI trust and transparency capabilities. This announcement got Amalgam Insight’s attention because of IBM’s relevance and focus in the enterprise AI market throughout this decade. To understand why IBM’s specific launch matters, take a step back in considering IBM’s considerable role in building out the current state of the enterprise AI market.
IBM AI in Context
Since IBM’s public launch of IBM Watson on Jeopardy! in 2011, IBM has been a market leader in enterprise artificial intelligence and spent billions of dollars in establishing both IBM Watson and AI. This has been a challenging path to travel as IBM has had to balance this market-leading innovation with the financial demands of supporting a company that brought in $107 billion in revenue in 2011 and has since seen this number shrink by almost 30%.
In addition, IBM had to balance its role as an enterprise technology company focused on the world’s largest workloads and IT challenges with launching an emerging product better suited for highly innovative startups and experimental enterprises. And IBM also faced the “cloudification” of enterprise IT in general, where the traditional top-down purchase of multi-million dollar IT portfolios is being replaced by piecemeal and business-driven purchases and consumption of best-in-breed technologies.
In a recently published Market Milestone, Todd Maddox, Ph.D., Learning Scientist and Research Fellow for Amalgam Insights, evaluated Skillsoft’s industry-first Digital Transformation Portfolio from a learning science perspective—the marriage of psychology and brain science. This involves evaluating the portfolio’s content and delivery to determine whether it engages psychological processes and learning systems in the brain effectively. It does. Amalgam’s overall evaluation is that Skillsoft’s Digital Transformation Portfolio is highly effective.
