Enterprise hits and misses - can AI save the legal system? And who will save software user events?
- Summary:
- This week: AI's disruptive impact on the legal system (and hacking it from within). Also: why software user events need a rethink. Your whiffs include failed Twitter apps, and robots flipping burgers (and humans).
MyPOV: Chris shifts his cautionary AI tales to the legal quagmire system. Yes, we should avoid Terminator-style AI hyperbole, but: Chris came back from a London AI event with a doozy of a question.
What if an autonomous system is designed to kill?
Now we're in the land of moral hazards, algorithmic burdens, and a gray area galore. Example:
What is the way we code an object or person as a reasonable target of attack? There are all sorts of moral issues bound up with that.
But the more pressing question is the "dilution of human control, and therefore of human moral agency." Now, most enterprises outside of Aerospace and Defense won't have to confront the question of killing. But there's plenty of scenarios where human agency will need to be programmed in. Then there's the automated career gap between trainees and old fogies managers, which is impacting the legal profession at a rapid rate:
Kemp Little’s Joint explained how when he was a junior lawyer his job was to read masses of case histories – a task that can now be completely automated.
Chris sees a problem with "asking AI to fill that gap and help us make critical decisions." I do too. That's where the action is.
Diginomica picks - my top three stories on diginomica this weekJC Penney axes dedicated omni-channel exec role while bigging-up need for omni-channel future - Stuart parses a head-scratching move from a retail flounderer: "JC Penney needs to sell more stuff, not fiddle about with the executive line up and shave $20 million off of costs. And to sell more stuff, it needs to have more stuff that people actually want to buy." Ouch! Stuart's final twist of the analytical knife:
We’re not trying to be Amazon.
On the second point at least, JC Penney is succeeding…
Oh boy. For a (slightly) happier omni-tale, check Stuart's The integration imperative at Nordstrom - striking the omni-channel balance.
- Amadeus has no reservations about a graph-based enterprise architecture map - Gary looks at how this travel giant graphed its way to sanity.
- Brexit - UK will leave EU Digital Single Market, but wants strong data relationship - Derek on how the Brexit is becoming tangible, sort of: "It’s so hard to know at the moment what this means in reality. Effectively Theresa May is trying to state what she wants, whilst also appeasing politicians on all sides of the debate. We can’t yet be sure that the EU will play ball, as negotiations continue." See plenty more on our sister site, government.diginomica.com.
Vendor analysis, diginomica style. Here's my three top choices from our vendor coverage:
- Finance and healthcare tower as Salesforce officially breaks $10 billion run rate - Stuart on another monster milestone: "The size of enterprise customers continues to grow. Block talked about a doubling of the number of $20 million accounts year-on-year Secondly, the fact that renewals among existing customers are becoming larger."
- From legacy distrust to robotic arms and executive dashboards - OFSi's cloud ERP story - One of my fave use cases of the year via the Acumatica Summit. A tale of a plucky IT manager, and how he (finally) won the trust of the business.
Jon's grab bag - Den got a different view of the legal system than Chris, but with some intriguing AI parallels, in Lawyers and code - who'da thunk? Yet Global Legal Hackathon hailed as success. (No final confirmation on whether Den's team was misguided clever desperate savvy enough to let him flex his coding chops).
Speaking of legal spankings, looks like the EU has cleared laps and grabbed paddles for our sanctimonious tech overlords Silicon's biggest. Derek's got the story in Amazon, Google and Facebook in line for new EU tech giant tax. Finally, if you want a bit more of my particular brand of vinegar - or if you simply want to have a great analyst day and not a craptastic one, take a gander at my How to screw up a vendor analyst day - in 12 simple steps.
Best of the rest
Lead story - Musings - Time to bring back the software user conference by Holger MuellermyPOV: The software user conference has lost its way. Constellation's Holger Mueller has some unexpected ideas on how to bring it back, such as: curtail the late night parties and cut down on the philanthropic time suck during keynotes? As Frank Scavo put it, that's the iconoclastic Mueller style. Mueller is really talking about cutting down on fawning celebrity cheese, and focusing on the low-key payoff of users connecting with users. Mueller:
There is instant validation, trust and respect from a user to another user presenting. There is direct bonding of being in the same boat and sharing experiences from that. No celebrity can do that. Glamour effects don't last.
Or as I said during an extended Twitter hash:
yup. the best vendor conferences are about community sparked by educational sessions, networking and learning together, while building towards a collective voice to communicate concerns back
— Jon Reed (@jonerp) March 7, 2018
Honorable mention
- Knowledge Management Systems and the Rise of Slack - Ross Mayfield breathes life into the old "knowledge management" dry heave. Mayfield says Slack-type collaboration is moving us into a third - and more promising - knowledge management phase. It's about jugular immediacy now - not cryptic tools that no one uses.
- For Satya Nadella, Business is Personal - Vinnie Mirchandani's book review explains his changing views on Microsoft - and how Nadella's leadership factors in.
- Mobile World Congress 2018 - 5G and more - Holger Mueller strikes again, this time with a report from the massive Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Question: how can you call an event "mobile world congress" - and Apple isn't involved? Hey, at least Blackberry was there.
- Acumatica Summit 2018: A “Rambunctious Teen” Cloud ERP Vendor Shaking Up the ERP Establishment? - A thoughtful review of an evolving cloud ERP player from TEC's PJ Jakovljevic.
- EPM, Project Orion, and the Beginner’s Mind - Bonus points to Host Analytic's Dave Kellogg for sneaking Zen concepts like Shoshin into an enterprise blog post. "Having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions." Bonus points if you can "step outside your paradigm."
- Facebook's Political Nightmare Is About To Get Worse - Another day, another linkbait headline from Buzzfeed, but: useful stuff on where social media and civilization goes from here.
Whiffs
Shall we start with a few ludicrous linkbaiters? How about:- Man calls 911 about clam chowder — 4 times (souper productive)
- Steven Seagal Becomes The New Face of “Bitcoiin” (love the bit about "the strength of the spiritual man" and how he was "obvious choice" for brand ambassador)
- From an email PR pitch: "Article Idea: Voice is so 2017, AR is the future " - (sure wish the cell phone yappers on my train today were wearing VR dorkwear instead).
I took to Twitter for satire and service, and did quite a lot better with the former. The latter:
.@BofA_Help so are you guys planning to do anything about 45 minute plus small business call center hold times or should I consider this the new normal?
— Jon Reed (@jonerp) March 5, 2018
Cue the chirp of crickets and the sourpuss aftertaste of the supposedly powerful social consumer (though I'm not done with my bank just yet). Satire worked out better:
Email: "Blockchain is poised to overhaul B2B software sales" oooh boy. Buckle seat belts people! cc: @Steve_Lockstep
— Jon Reed (@jonerp) March 1, 2018
I won't call this a cheap shot but it was certainly target practice:
Without Bullshit - United Airlines should learn that you can’t create consistency with a lottery https://t.co/t7I2w3wFb3 -> I'm fine with this - after all, every United flight is a customer experience lottery also
— Jon Reed (@jonerp) March 6, 2018
Meanwhile, Brian Sommer breathed new life in my 2014 piece on how to botch a customer use case with this doozie:
Freshened up with @brianssommer "1,400 install" road burn anecdote at the top :) https://t.co/8FLalEvfuI https://t.co/scvLuoQhrF
— Jon Reed (@jonerp) March 6, 2018
Jon - let me help U start this piece. From a true story, a vendor tells the prospect that the product is installed at 1400 customers. Turns out it was only in 1 active customer for the new reworked product line and no reference is available yet. That, btw, happened last week! https://t.co/vopXLlJiSD
— Brian Sommer (@BrianSSommer) March 5, 2018
Hmmm - 1,400 to 1 is not such a great ratio. Brian - hopefully that one live customer is at least on the blockchain?
I could actually use your help with this one:
Flippy the Burger Flipping Robot Is Now Cooking at the CaliBurger Fast Food Chain https://t.co/Jm92NAnDI0 -> ""The kitchen of the future will always have people in it" - reassuring, but not sure why you'd say that when the robot is doing the cooking
— Jon Reed (@jonerp) March 5, 2018
Am I wrong here? If Flippy cooks the meat to gristled perfection, what else in the kitchen is safe from automation? Maybe the gourmet kitchen of the future has people in it, but does Caliburger? So the machine needs human help - not for the skill of cooking - but putting the raw patties on the grill? Nahh, that can't possibly be automated. So that's the human cook of the future? I'd seek another automation island if I were a burger patty placer.
Finally, I am still grappling with this:
Yeah, no need for notifications, they aren't important. Delete app. Great job great effort @hootsuite. pic.twitter.com/3ARfU0muGk
— Jon Reed (@jonerp) February 28, 2018
"Hootsuite Helpers" are an enthusiastic and responsive bunch, which ups the absurdity factor. What is a Twitter app without notifications? That's a full-on neutering right? Why not just take the app out of its misery? Yep, it's Old Yeller time for Hootsuite's Twitter app I'm afraid (but evidently things are going great on Instagram!).
HootSuite has an explanation for why they did this, but get this: they WILL ONLY share it by email. That's right, a social media company can only communicate via email. You can't make this stuff up. I don't know what the email says as Google (wisely?) blocks them. Stay tuned as I circle the bowl...
If you find an #ensw piece that qualifies for hits and misses - in a good or bad way - let me know in the comments as Clive (almost) always does.
Most Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed. 'myPOV' is borrowed with reluctant permission from the ubiquitous Ray Wang.