‘‘Chewing well and seeing around corners’’

 Google do this well. Their slow, methodical chew to becoming not just online but ‘The Internet’, is much like the chew of one practicing Hara hachi bu.

Store. Gmail. Google Drive. Google Search. Youtube. (Whilst keeping that all important brand identity of ‘a lot of white space on our landing page’). Theirs is an obvious story of success but more importantly a stalwart of ‘How not to rush’.

Very hard to do in an industry which literally changes as you type. If you’re an internet based business two practices are imperative; Innovation and Slowly, Slowly…

The ability to detect a market trend and offer a unique solution (or see around the corner) is a rare talent because with seven billion plus on the planet and the internet the gel that binds – most are taken. When you do stumble upon that elusive golden egg, the urge to rush to market for fear of being trumped can be all consuming but DO NOT RUSH.

Before you pour money into your project do your due diligence; research your market, work out the ROI – if it is good it will work. Being beaten to market is just a precursor to what will eventually happen anyway, someone will come and offer what you offer cheaper or with a slightly tweaked USP; basically copy your idea.  However by methodically chewing your idea BEFORE launch, you can cover any angles you may have missed by rushing to market and launch The Best solution on offer.

I mean, it allegedly took God seven days to create everything and seven days is a helluva long time if you can do anything.

Future of Digital (Wake me up when we're talking Hoverboards)

Future Of Digital: 10 CEO Predictions

When it comes to the future of digital, here’s what the CEO’s on stage had to say:

Big Data ROI

“There is a massive business opportunity in using software to anticipate industrial equipment maintenance needs,” said Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE. “Take the jet engine. It has about 20 sensors that capture real-time continuous data—temperature, engine performance, etc. If I can take that data and use it to model a consumer outcome—say, more time on the wing or less fuel burn—that’s worth an awful lot of money to my customers. A one percent change in fuel burn for an airline is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Connected Stadiums

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai and San Francisco 49ers chief Jed York are teaming up to bring “beer-proof tablets” to the stadium experience. Come 2014, their smart stadium will connect fans in more ways than just replays. The tablets will be capable of showing the best places to park, the best routes to stadium destinations and even ordering food from your seats.

“The camaraderie of being at the game—there’s nothing like that,” York said. “We want to take that great home-entertainment experience and bring it to the stadium.”

Electric Cars and Trips To Mars

“I think it’s important that we transition to sustainable transport,” said Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity. “Eventually we’ll face extremely high gasoline costs and the economy will grind to a halt if we don’t.”

Musk says the ultimate goal, though, is to get technology to the point where it can take us to Mars.

“Either we spread Earth to other planets, or we risk going extinct,” he said. “An extinction event is inevitable and we’re increasingly doing ourselves in.”

Fertility Apps

PayPal co-founder Max Levchin’s latest project aims to help women get pregnant. His new fertility company, Glow, uses analytics to track ovulation cycles and advise best times to conceive.

“My wife and I were lucky. We had our children without any issues,” said Levchin. ““But we have people close to us that have gone through multiple IVF trials, and we’ve heard them say, ‘We’re not going to put my wife’s body through this anymore.’”

Beyond pregnancy, Levchin hopes to use this model to give people more data on other areas of their health that will ultimately decrease health care costs overall.

Internet Of Things

Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann thinks his company is well positioned for the future of the Internet.

“Many things were once very text-based and very popular,” Silbermann said. “But instead of being time-based, we made it visual . . . I think the web and media are becoming more visual in general.”

Silbermann also freely admitted that Pinterest isn’t making any money yet, but that it takes “more of a long-term perspective” to build a company that will stick around.

Mobile Data

“Transport will become free,” said Cisco CEO John Chambers, predicting that cellular data charges will fall like voice cell service. “Architectures will change. With intelligence throughout the network, the network will become the platform of the future.”

Smarter Phones

This fall, Motorola will release a “hero device” called the Moto X. The new phone will have a variety of always-on sensors that makes it more contextually aware—like knowing when you take it out of your pocket.

“We’re going to play a different game than Motorola has played in the recent past,” said Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside. “It’s not going to radically change the world in the first launch, but we do think that the products will find their markets.”

TV Disruption

“We’ve recognized that Twitter is the second screen for TV, and TV is more fun with Twitter,” said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo when asked about the next stage of the company. “There are a bunch of ways that we can be complementary to broadcasters. Traditionally, many in our area have viewed broadcasters as competitors—we think of it as complementary.

Virtual Assistants

“I think we will see virtual assistants within two years that are quite robust,” said Nuance CEO Paul Ricci. “I also believe that within two years we will see that virtual assistants will work across platforms.”

Wearable Computers

Wearables were a hot topic at D11 this year, especially with the buzz surrounding Google Glass. Here’s D11’s compilation of prominent speakers (including Hirai, York, Costolo and Tim Cook) sharing their thoughts and feelings about wearable computing devices, the future of that industry and whether they plan to get involved.

Source: CEO.com

"Legio mihi nomen est, quia multi sumus." - What is your name amongst your online community?

Confusion arises amongst your online community if they are expecting English but get Latin.

‘’ My name is Legion: For we are many’’.

 How many social networks do you have representing your ‘Digital Being’? The omnipresence of social media now makes it possible to create a digital representative which you wish to communicate to your customers. This ‘Being’ is immortal (until you delete your account) and is accessible (dependent on your privacy settings) at all times.

But are you consistent with this portrayal in all social feeds?

If you are a business or a business representative you represent a brand. Period. If your business is for example an endorser of healthy food and you’ve spent millions on online and offline marketing; yet your Instagram account regularly depicts you gorging on junk food, your consumers are left confused. An off the cuff tweet on Twitter can leave you with a few thousand less customers.

It’s a drastic example but look at the example of #FBRape – A single hashtag that caused the omnipotent online deity that is Facebook in changing its policy on content publication endorsing rape and violence against women after a social media campaign. Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, writer and activist Soraya Chemaly and Jaclyn Friedman from Women, Action & the Media joined forces to launch the hashtag Twitter campaign #FBRape last Tuesday and saw companies such as Finnair, Dove and Nissan UK contact Facebook to block their advertisements on the site.

Of course you don’t advocate violence against women (or men for that matter) but what about that ‘funny’ meme you just re-posted on Instagram?

Your online name has now become as important, if not more so, than your offline. As such it is imperative to you as either a business or business representative to ensure that in an online world where landscapes change in micro-seconds your online name remains consistently, The Same.