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The Mixed Reality of Mixed Reality

1/20/2018

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How a Crappy Consumer Product Started Saving Time, money and, in some cases, lives


The Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit started off on the right foot. Thanks to the quick acting, always accommodating team at Lux Research, I was able to nab a last-minute invitation to see the biggest, brightest and most widely adopted solutions in the wearable space at 2017's close. This story takes place in Boston but begins a few years back and roughly 3000 miles west.

Google Glass started off in 2013 as a colossal launch followed by an equally as rapid, equally as colossal failure. Alphabet's moonshot seeking organization 
X - the same entity most recently publicized for deploying balloon powered internet over a distressed Puerto Rico - had convinced themselves that "AR was THE consumer platform of the future". Shoppers were going to engage with products in new ways; dogs would walk themselves; cars would read signs for us; blah blah blah. The only problem? They forgot to ask the consumers what they thought about the proposition. But what began as a mega flop from an otherwise unscathed heavyweight in the Valley tech scene has slowly reemerged as one of the most exciting technology platforms in all of the manufacturing space. Google Glass, a modern day Phoenix. 


Given that I am a relative newcomer to the uses of AR & VR technology in the enterprise, I truly couldn't have asked for a better learning opportunity than was presented by Zach Bloomgarden and the BRAINxCHANGE team, coordinators of the EWTS. During the course of the two day conference, mega industrial players like DHL, John Deere, BASF, Cisco, GE, and Siemens presented their experiences, successes and even some failures as related to these novel technologies.

Meanwhile, the demands of these mega firms were met with exciting presentations from a handful of entrepreneurial firms helping accelerate this once nascent technology into the mainstream.  A trail once lonesomely blazed by Google's most far-fetched idealist is now being set upon by hardware and software firms from around the globe. (Google, the ultimate source of FOMO for tech heads?) . Upskill, Proceedix, Realware, Vuzix, Bartec and a host of other upstarts took stage to showcase their latest developments. Ne'er to pitch without discussing what large corporates could do better to enable their "game changing" technology, they also divulged some of the challenges facing industry before adoption at scale is possible. Words and phrases like Bluetooth, solution integration, data transfer, process optimization, Six Sigma and full stack offering, the most beloved buzzphrase of all techies,  flew around like Expelliarmus* spells at a Harry Potter convention.
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​*This isn't to say the learning was any less valuable, though as a slight aside, firms both big and small should heavily consider ditching the consultant speak for good old fashioned English. Attending a tech conference is always easier when one doesn't need to hire someone from Deloitte as a translator.

​My primary objective in attending the conference was to learn more about the wins and losses experienced by companies with similar use cases to Evonik. (It is always easier to convince the boss when you can flaunt the "look what so and so is doing" card!) To that end we've begun exploring potential use cases for the technology. In doing so, as tends to be the case with any novel exploration, I've identified three primary pillars of resistance.
  • Lack of integration with legacy systems and existing workflows​​
To keep it short, if a young(ish) startup is serious about working with large multinationals, they should have an integration strategy for other legacy, already embedded technology firms. Startups seem to loathe - justifiably so at times - the idea of working with "those old, slow, last generation tech firms". Well, big companies still view the Microsofts, Oracles and SAPs of the world as industry leading pioneers. Unless the startup's interest is changing that perception globally...one mega firm at a time, take the tip and change these integration protocols. In fact, I'll go a step further by saying this: If you don't use "out-of-box SAP and/or Oracle integrations" as standard marketing language, build it out and then build it in.
  • Lack of intrinsic safety considerations for dangerous environments
The lack of intrinsically safe offerings, particularly in the hardware sections of the market, were quite surprising. And while I do have to consider my viewpoint somewhat tainted by the background of Evonik being a specialty chemical manufacturing and therefore more in-need for such safety precautions, there was clamoring from multinationals far and wide for this notched up safety certification. The value proposition is quite clear from the perspective of the startup: "Let us first show value in the non-hazardous zones, prove ROI, and save money on upfront, yet-to-be-justified product development". These companies simply have to consider that large organizations are often incentivized to avoid risks, literally the polar opposite mentality of a startup whose growth is fueled by such exposure. Therefore, the smartest startups will either come to the table with a killer app outside of hazardous zones, or they will come to the table having spent a little more time and money getting proprietary or partner network products IS certified.

On a positive note, many of the hardware vendors in attendance were all over this topic, promising 1Q2018 releases of their "IS certified headgear". Well, 2018 is here RealWear, ODG, Vuzix and Google Glass, so we are looking for you to deliver soon.
  • Lack of willingness to test / adopt novel technologies
The Third change factor that we view as incredibly easy in a certain respect but almost insurmountably hard in another is the simple change of workflow and mindset of our own colleagues. People have a resistance to new and novel things especially when those new and novel things will be worn as a part of their PPE or typical working gear. And to a certain extent I simply cannot criticize their resistance to this change. My primary go there for is to identify a use case or use cases in which the worker receives significant benefit to his daily job the company receives significant benefit from the worker having used such equipment and the company with whom Evonik chooses to collaborate also receives a benefit. I think this is the definition of a win-win-win situation and is nearly a prerequisite that I see for Evonik to adopt these Technologies. ​
​None the less The trip to Boston was well worth it. In order for evonik to adopt these new technologies into our standard work practices we must have individuals such as myself willing to explore with other industry leaders perhaps in and outside of the chemical manufacturing industry to show where potential or realized value are hidden. Luckily this was indeed the case when seeing a number of the presentations at the ewts in Boston last month.
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New Lab, Brooklyn's New Work Frontier

3/16/2017

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A new kid on the entrepreneurship block

Technically spoken, New Lab is more “massive accelerator / coworking space” than “kid”. For the sake of a solid 80s reference, let this one live. To throw out some hard numbers, this new age experiment of software meets hardware has come to a beautiful fruition in New Lab: 50+ companies, 350+ employees, 10+ 3D printers, 1 welding/laser cutting shop, and 100+ espressos from the on-site café (duh!) call this place their daily home.

That’s all well and good, many of you might be saying, but why exactly is Evonik – a multinational B2B specialty chemical supplier - paying this place a visit?
Software may be eating the world, but the world still runs on hardware.
For one, this place embodies the future of digitally enabled manufacturing. There’s a lot that all manufacturing firms, Evonik included, can learn from their iterative, quick-to-market approach. Furthermore, close integration of hardware and software is something that essentially lives in the DNA of companies like New Lab and HAX, the China-based firm with a similar model. Where these two were formerly treated separately and unequal, like kids from the gifted class and those destined for blue collar trade jobs, today the two dance more in concert than ever before. Evonik Digital was founded on the belief that this intermingling of world class materials with top-line software is indeed the dance of the digital future.

In a time where software has been receiving the lion’s share of investment dollars domestically and abroad, firms like New Lab are helping ensure that companies seeking to bring physical manifestations of the software revolution have a home. And since hardware companies, unlike software startups, often take both serious amounts of space (hello, NYC real estate prices) and physical materials to operate, these so-called “maker spaces”, brand friendly name included, provide the ideal low capital investment locale for such enterprises to get their start. Additionally, New Lab takes neither equity stake nor profit sharing from tenants, making the recipe for scalable solutions all the more feasible.
As for the companies that call New Lab home, a number of these could be potentially interesting for Evonik’s business. Here’s a list of a select few, a brief explanation of what they do, and where I see potential for development and/or use with each: 
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Waverly Labs – A translator for the future. Two users that don’t speak the same language each place the earpiece. Then, with no hindrances, as each user speaks his preferred native language the device translates the output into the preferred language of the listener. Evonik is a multinational organization with offices in more than 100 countries. Imagine the scenario: the German or Brazilian or American leader of an organization can speak directly with an important supplier, who previously was unreachable because of language barriers, in order to negotiate a big deal or simply commit to future common goals.

3DP Partners – Firms like MakerBot, Ultimaker and BigRep all partner with the space, providing at no additional costs to tenants access to their printers for creating the next big thing. As many of you may know already, Evonik is one of the world’s largest suppliers of high performance polymers, or in other words, the “ink” that powers these revolutionary manufacturing devices. There’s a lot we could both teach to and learn from these real time R&D operations.

StrongArm Technologies – Blue collars are out, industrial athletes, at least according to StrongArm, are in. Their flagship product, the V22 ErgoSkeleton places a focus on safety, strength and endurance through injury prevention for the industrial workforce – think the lifters, pullers, diggers, and climbers. There are direct safety implications for such a product with a firm like Evonik who employs 20,000+ manufacturing workers globally.
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Fero Labs – With the advent of modern machine learning techniques, most statistical models used in Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing practices are outdated. Fero applies Bayesian methodologies – traditionally used in statistical fields – in the manufacturing environment. Add to it their proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms and they’ve (supposedly) created the recipe for predicting better product quality, less equipment downtime and more efficient energy utilization. Evonik sold north of 14 bUSD in manufactured chemicals last year. In simple mathematical terms, increasing efficiency alone by 1%, assuming energy to be 1/10th of overall cost, Evonik could save 14 mUSD
  annually by leveraging such technologies.
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AB InBev |x| Techstars - Connection

2/24/2017

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Why the world's largest beverage company cares about A.I.

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    I'm Zack and sometimes, in addition to writing about food, I also go to work. This is my attempt at doing the latter in a shared, collaborative way.

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