Are you missing a trick? High tech, low tech, no tech

1. High tech

AI isn’t new. My wife’s a vet and they talk about AI all the time - but that involves turkey basters and the like ( artificial insemination ) so we’d do well to be clear about the terminology ! 

AI, as in artificial intelligence, isn’t new either. The Mechanical Turk was doing a very good job of beating the world’s chess players from 1770 to 1854. The trouble was the intelligence was artificial, provided by clever humans inside a box.

Today the height of artificial intelligence is in the Google Brain Team. You can apply to join for a stint and work alongside Google’s brightest. They are pushing the boundaries of deep maths to see where AI can take us. The acceleration is impressive. Go is a Chinese board game which is harder than chess. In 2016 they gave a machine the rules and all the data they could from1000s of matches between leading players. The computer eventually learned to beat all the players. In 2017, they only gave the latest computer the rules and no data. It played itself until it had learned the game. It beat the 2016 model within days and beat the world champion within 40 days. The peak of the AI algorithm challenge is to have a computer decide what good looks like in any situation without reference to humans. If you are testing and learning at this pace, the human telling you what’s working slows you down enormously. 

So our classic cartoon says “ Careful analysis of all the data has revealed we have too much data”. By 2016, you could not have too much data as machine learning wanted big data sets to work with. In 2018 you can have too much data again.

And what about robots? We expect them in the Land Rover factory making cars. And picking goods in an Amazon warehouse. But are we ready for cyborg robots and cyborg people with robotic implants. Great if it’s a cure for a lost limb or Parkinson’s. But what do you think about door passes in your arm and for nudging a human what to pick?

And can you believe your eyes? Augmented reality with intelligence or items added to our view through our phone or glasses. Or mixed reality through goggles with our world shifted to design new stores or see things that aren’t really there.

So are any skills protected for humans alone? Certainly there are myths. With wages in China surpassing Latin America and some European countries, the massive number of graduates have no guarantee of their aspirations for work. Some argue the glass is half full and that this tech creates new jobs. The UK government does in its industrial strategy. Some see the glass half empty, wth massive numbers of jobless and a need to rethink what employment is and what a universal wage is. So whilst the London Mayor threatens Uber licences to protect taxi drivers jobs, the government backs the move to driverless cars. Half full, half empty. 

How will legal thinking and structures keep pace with this 4th industrial revolution? How will social and ethical thinking move with it? How will politicians cope with swarm warfare with millions of robotic flying insects, each targeted to kill an individual though recognition software? How do companies and governments rethink what “to care” is? The World Economic Forum predicts “very different effects on companies, nations and individuals”.

The point is, it’s complex stuff. You can’t know it all but you can have a point of view. You need a point of view. For yourself, and your business. Investing 10 minutes a day reading may be part of that.

 2. Low tech

What’s the difference between high tech and low tech? If you don’t notice it, it’s not really high tech - is it?. So many things now use stuff we didn’t dream of a decade ago. Not least the high powered computer in your hand. It maybe freezing on holiday in Iceland but I can still put the heating on in the kitchen in the UK. I can tell the delivery man what to do whilst I’m on the train. I can do all sorts with Alexa and the lights, heating and security. “Alexa turn the temperature up to 22”. 

I can use voice to interact and tiny bots to link things together. Voice isn’t new. It’s just that it works now. Mostly. 

We think of robots as being humanoid or building cars, but most are bits of software carrying simple business rules. Such as inputting data or carrying out linear tasks. IFTTT - if this then that - is the very simple end of the scale and each instruction takes seconds to set up. The lights flash when Alexa’s alarm goes off. Or when the space station goes over. There’s even a bot for getting yourself out of a blind date.

Low tech isn't techie, it is human centred & designed, it is simple. However much tech is in the device, the aim is to be low tech. Companies who know this do well by constantly testing both their software and hardware interactions with people. Witness how you set up products like Nest and Ring.

3. No tech

So what’s the no tech route? You can’t easily avoid technology. But you can avoid focusing on it and focus instead on optimising what the tech does. The no tech solution. 

Optimising details is the key to a digital world. It always was. IVR is 30+ years old but seldom does it work well. The tech is one thing, the way it is used is another. If you can’t set up and constantly optimise your IVR, what chance do you have with chatbots, apps and online self service?

That’s why our passion is “How do we stop dong dumb things to our customers and our people?” It’s about paying attention to the detail for your customers so they don’t have to go to the effort of working through your technology or trying to get stuff done that shouldn’t have been there to start with. And it starts by knowing your customers needs inside out. 

Take parcel delivery, where the alert text doesn't click through to what you need and asks you to enter a 16 digit code from your text to the app on the same screen.

This attention to detail isn’t new. Rolls-Royce became the best car in the world 7 years after the company was founded. “Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble” was one of Henry Royce’s sayings. And it’s that attention to the details and optimising them in a digital world which pays dividends.

When needing to understand delivery options, try searching for ‘delivery’ on eBay and Amazon and see the difference in result. Amazon is obsessed with removing stuff which irritates or frustrates customers. Always has been, always will be. Obsession with brilliant basics .The Best Service Is No Service.

And in a world of referral amplified by Trip Advisors or all sorts, this matters even more. From doctors to university lecturers in Singapore, customers comment and grade. And others read it and make decisions accordingly.

So it matters how long it takes you notice, react and to fix stuff. The Empire State building went up in a year. Can you get service options through your website altered in less? Getting stuff fixed quickly has to be part of your DNA in this high tech, low tech, no tech world. Too many businesses are comfortably numb to what their customers experience every day.

And of course this comes down to culture and people. A passion for your people is still absolutely crucial in a high tech world. Someone has to train and implement the AI. Well for now anyway…..