Edition 14
The biggest IT scandal you've never heard of, cars moving backwards, AI fixing customer service, peak humanity and more.
This week’s Nowism is sponsored by the idea “why don’t we seek a little more discomfort”. What’s the worst that can happen if we put ourselves out there, feel alive, do our best and try to be proud of what we can make happen.
This Week
Emission Impossible
The UK Government kicked the can down the road this week, pushing back its plan to allow car makers to only sell EVs by 2030……. to 2035 or whenever it’s someone else’s problem. Car makers seemed both angry and shocked, which seemed odd as for most casual observers it seemed utterly impossible to imagine it happening by 2030 and almost all car makers haven’t figured out to make both EV’s and profit any time soon.
The shift to EV’s is one of the most fascinating movements on the planet, nobody knows if EV’s are soon to hit a tipping point, or a ceiling to adoption. The picture feels very different across the world. In Oslo or Singapore or Guangzhou mass use of EV’s is todays reality, in Istanbul, Recife, Jakarta or Lagos, EV’s are an extravagantly pipe dream, In Bozeman or Fairbanks they seem preposterous. I’m quite keen to buy an EV, but almost no buildings in Miami take the idea of fitting EV chargers to more than 1% of their spaces seriously. In this city, a recycling bin is hard to find.
Many of the factors for EV adoption feel like network effects, where greater EV sales create economies of scale, reducing prices of EV’s, spurring investments in Charging infrastructure, and a virtual cycle ensues. On the other hand how many more people can come close to spending $60,000 on a new car in an age of high interest rates and a cost of living crisis. How can cars be charged with power generation at a 30 year low and with a Government seemingly unable to build anything. The rapid drops in the price of used EV’s around the world for me are a pretty strong sign that moving from early adopters to mass adopters will be far more challenging than people think.
Going Postal
Imagine if a bodged implementation of a core IT system lead to 4 deaths and 500 ruined lives. You’d imagine that would be a big deal.
This week one of 736 postal workers was offered compensation for wrongful imprisonment for what turned out NOT to be widespread theft and fraud, but a disgraceful implementation of a core banking IT project.
For about the last 6 months I’ve been keen to draw attention to a story that even in the UK isn’t picked up much when it should be known around the world as one of the most disgraceful examples of bodged Digital Transformation, and flawed systems
I suggest all readers digest some of the information on the Wikipedia page ready to be utterly shocked by it all.
I’m putting this image here, not because it’s visually interesting, but to take up space so you consider reading more about this story. At some point we have to wake up to the idea that bad software matters and amazing software can unleash incredible impacts in all directions.
AI can see you now
Open AI just now announced the ability to see, hear, and speak. More on it here.
The video used to demo it brings home some concerns I have. Are we training people to become extremely stupid. How much of life is about HOW WE LEARN and not removing the ability to think. I personally do lots of stuff that is a bad use of my time to ensure I’m never lazy.
One good way ( I think) to think about value creation in the age of Generative AI is to ask this question.......What insights, ideas, vantage points, data points can you find, develop, conceive that AI can’t.
If everyone on the planet can now get "Top 15 threats to DTC Mattress companies" or "What things are altering the Car industry" or "What new trends in consumer electronics are" .... for free, 24/7, in seconds.
This (lovely) site by Google seems one of the better examples to show us that over time people relying on AI more and more, may just fail to maintain vital cognitive skills.Calculators have indeed made me do simple maths faster and slowly become worse at mental arithmetic. Being poor at mental arithmetic is one thing, but the idea being bad at writing, thinking, developing concepts or imagining, is terrifying for me.
Investing In Customer Experience (sponsored)
Everyone in Marketing knows that everything a company does it marketing. The Marketing industry invests around $1.3bn a year on outbound communication hoping to reach customers, and it’s consider a wise investment.
Yet the moment they want something from us, we consider it Customer Service, and something to minimize, despite the delight it can offer. One of the real hopes of Generative AI is how it can enable huge quality improvements and cost efficiencies.
That’s why I find Zendesk compelling and why I pleased to share news of this event next week.
It’s the latest news and announcements on Zendesk AI, including new generative AI capabilities and what it means for CX, EX, and data security. This is a global event with three broadcasts over 24 hours. It’s a day of thought leadership, deep product sessions, mingling, and big AI names like Allie K Miller, Zendesk CEO Cassie Kozyrkov, and Stephanie Dinkins.
It’s free to register, more information here.
Passports passing
The first step of any digital transformation is we add it to what we have a build on old systems. So Passports went from being dead trees, to dead trees with biometric chips.
The next step is we rethink the system. Now we can create the world we should have, one where passports are permissions in the cloud linked to our eyes, voices or fingerprints. Singapore is making this happen first.
Little ones
The Apple Genius Bar in Cuba? Some nice reporting about tech around the world
5 Charts about the EV revolution, early days to be drawing too many conclusions
Is the world more volatile unknown complex and ambiguous, I agree with this piece
This piece asks an interesting questions, indirectly, is a planet with fewer people better or does it mean there wil be billions of lives never lived that could have been wonderful, or what happens if we’ve an economy that no longer grows when the fundamentals of our entire economic system assume continued growth. Or what happens with a planet of older people supported by fewer younger folk
I’ve long wondered why nobody makes a microwave with an on button, a cancel button and a dial for time, this piece on how poorly designed they are made me feel better
This documentary about “The Line” in Saudi Arabia made me feel excited about the future. I’m not saying the plan ( or Country ) is perfect, but my goodness it’s nice to see places with a vision for the future and building things. Nice quote “If you are building “x” of the future, by definition you haven’t figured it all out”
Is AI going to create cognitive inbreeding, this piece considers what happens next.
Seen images like this? Here you can make them.
Me Me Me
I’ve ended up booking up all my Keynotes slots for this year, but feel free to book me for 2024, this is my newish reel.
Thats all for now, have a lovely week, and I’m here to read any replies.
Tom, great email. Your observations on microwave design are spot on. 👍