Mikael Eriksson Björling

3 ways that new technologies are accelerating innovation

vr-headset-1

Most innovation is directly or indirectly driven by new technology – even business model innovation and changed consumer behaviors – and the way new technology transforms our world and various markets. In this way then, an understanding of new technology and its impact is a prerequisite to be able to innovate, and to do it constantly.

So, how are emerging technologies, such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and virtual and augmented reality contributing to innovation? They do it mainly in three overall ways:

As founder of new markets
As vehicle for innovation
As enhancer of human capabilities

Let’s go through these three ways one by one:

Technology as founder of new markets

New technology has a huge impact on markets and market dynamics. This has always been the case, but in the digital age this is happening faster than ever before. Over the last decades we’ve seen how digital technology has disrupted many different markets. Streaming has disrupted the music industry, as well as TV and film, and social media has radically disrupted the entire media sector.

Let’s take a look at 5G – a technology that Ericsson is developing. As 5G starts to become a reality in the marketplace, many new capabilities and possibilities emerge, such as network slicing, ultra-low latency, lightening fast speeds, and extreme reliability to mention a few. And these capabilities are enabling many new use cases: from remote controlling vehicles in a mine to small sensors that have 10 years of battery life. These technology features will transform the current logic in many businesses and create new markets for those who sees the possibilities.

When new technology becomes established in our society it also drives new behaviors among people and their role as consumers, and these new behaviors represent potential new markets. The same thing happens in industries: when a new technology becomes available organizations can possibly change areas within their business, such as value chains and operations, but also whole business models and the entire market itself.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is another hot technology area that will open new markets and market niches in many industries. Today, most areas are related to innovation efficiency and effectiveness (the areas to the left in the model I described in my previous blogpost).

The most common area of exploration today is the automation of business processes, for example, digital and physical tasks. Harvard Business Review recently said that 25 percent of the 250 business executives in their survey think AI will help them pursue new markets. Far more of these executives see AI as helping out with efficiency and effectiveness in their current business logic.

Technology as vehicle for innovation

As we’ve previously discussed, innovation and technology are tightly interlaced. Two very notable ways technology propels innovation forward is that it boosts tinkering and experimentation, and that in itself accelerates innovation processes.

Not long ago experimentation with new technologies was only possible by multinational corporations or government-funded research labs. Today, affordable technology – digital and other – makes it possible for most enterprises – big and small – to experiment with ideas and concepts in whole new ways, and also in reality instead of only in test labs.

For example, it’s now possible to test products and services online at a very low cost, as well as test out updates, alterations and tweaks. Prototyping has become available to all through easy to use software and 3D printing. AI can simulate various market scenarios based on available real-life data. Virtual reality makes it possible to create completely new types of blueprints that actually make products and services come alive for real, and thus make them possible to evaluate prior to building or manufacturing them.

Digital technology and the new technologies that it enables (like AR, VR and AI) cut the traditional industrial age innovation process short. What used to take years of planning, testing, and executing can now be accomplished in months and sometimes even weeks.

Another way emerging technologies – AI in particular – can speed up innovation, is by removing obstacles of uncertainty or lack of information. Continuously identifying and ruling out hypotheses at a quick pace will no doubt make the innovation process more focused and effective in generating strong solutions. AI, being far superior to humans in analyzing big amounts of data in an instant, cuts innovation processes significantly. Data is the protein of AI systems: if there is a sufficient amount of data, AI will be able to increase the speed of innovation.

Technology as enhancer of human capabilities

One way of looking at it is that digital transformation, after having transformed domain after domain, has reached technology itself and is beginning to recursively transform technological evolution as we know it. This unlocks a great potential, but it also raises concerns as to what it means that technology – and not only humans – has control over technological progress. As discussed further, there are both optimistic and pessimistic stances in regard to our technological future.

Regardless of position in this matter, it is clear that emerging technologies are becoming increasingly important in the very process of innovation.

Now, technological evolution has reached a point where it can help us overcome – or at least circumvent – our own cognitive short-comings. Where the human mind fails to display characteristics beneficial for driving change and creative thinking, technology can give us an extra push towards a greater innovative capacity.

One area close to my heart is design, and in particular design and innovation. The designer today has a completely new set of possibilities and tools for designing and prototyping. Both rapid as well as creating shapes and interactions that would have been impossible a decade ago.

Ericsson Strategic Design Lab is working with cities and city planning questions, and for this they are using AR to remove buildings from a real environment and place models of the new architecture into it, creating a tool that makes it possible to explore city planning with an extreme low cost and possibilities that were only fantasy some year ago.

Another example is seen in car manufacturing, were companies are starting to do car models in VR instead of the super expensive and time-consuming clay model that was traditionally used. And in the same industry, there are newcomers such as Local Motors who are challenging the traditional way of designing and producing cars using crowd sourcing, open source and 3D printing technologies for physical prototyping and production.

Finally, and to summarize, an understanding of new technology is necessary in two primary capacities:

Understanding technology as a starting point: Organizations that want to innovate must (in most cases) understand the seedbed that new technology creates for any market today. How has new technology changed the conditions in your market and what technologies are out there that will transform your products and services, and how do you model them for the market?
Understanding technology as an enabler: The second capacity in which an understanding of technology is necessary for innovation is as an enabler. For example, how new technology can help make new ideas and inventions possible to realize on the market. Technology is also an enabler for experimenting with new ideas and testing out new concepts, and organizations that understand how to utilize new tech in this phase of innovation will gain leverage that other organizations lack.

So, how will 5G, AI, VR and AR, contribute to innovation in your industry? Do you see the possibilities, or only threats?

Like this post? Don’t forget to check out the first and second at Ericsson Big Ideas Blog

August 6, 2018 0

5 key steps to creating an innovation mindset

mindset

If innovation is about developing something new that impacts the market and creates value for users – what is required to make that happen?

Innovation is a question of mindset, and creating that mindset precedes everything else. In my opinion, it’s the innovation mindset that overrides the aspects of human nature that are often holding back innovation in large organizations.

So, how do we create an innovation mindset?

1. Be open to change

To be open to change means to admit and embrace the notion that the world is in constant transformation and all areas of society are challenged by this change. It also means to be aware of where this transforming world is heading and to curiously keep track of change and new phenomena. Finally, it also means that you have to constantly keep analyzing what the transformation means and what the possible consequences of the transformation will be for your business.

Change is a tricky thing – we all have to deal with it and organizations are no different. Accepting the fact that technological transformation is about to impact your business is usually very hard for established organizations.

Let’s apply a light version of the Kübler-Ross Change Curve to this: kubler-ross-change-curve-768x401

Denial is a common reaction to new technology and new market forces that can potentially overthrow an organization’s incumbent business.

‘We’ve been doing what we do for many years: it has proven successful and if we just continue to deliver on our quality we will be back on track again. The newcomer does not even have a working business model and are financed by venture capital.’

Defense is the next stage in the Change Curve: a kind of anger or aggressive energy to defend one’s current business model. A prime example of this can be seen in the music industry when MP3 and streaming came along as new technologies, and established organizations tried to change laws and prosecute against their customers.

The next stage is depression, where an organization will begin lamenting the state of affairs. Only after this depression stage are they ready to accept the new market paradigm and start working towards managing and adapting to it.

In today’s fast-moving markets there is little time to dwell in the different stages of the Change Curve, as competitors and new market entrants are pushing forward while you’re in the first three stages. To be innovative, established businesses must learn to shortcut the Change Curve and go directly from shock (pre-denial) to acceptance, without dropping into any of the stages in between.

2. Embrace creativity

The other aspect of an innovative mindset is to truly embrace creativity. An innovator’s attitude is that creativity is the solution to problems, rather than a traditional scientific method. This argument is predominant among many of those who have successfully practiced innovation in the realm of daily business activities. The innovation-as-art perspective in business stems – to a large extent – from the concept of design thinking.

But importantly, to equate innovation with art doesn’t rule out the necessity of structure, processes and methodology for innovation. All these are required also when practicing the art of innovation. However, the innovation-as-art perspective stresses that the starting point for innovation is creativity, rather than implementation of management processes and organizational structures for innovation. Which, in turn, requires a certain kind of culture and organization that enables creativity. In this area, we see many digital companies positioning themselves. For example, Valve Software, who stress their flat organization and the freedom – and every employees responsibility – to be creative in everyday work in their company handbook.

3. Think big

Today, most academic researchers and experts on innovation agree that innovation is about more than just incremental improvements to existing products or product extensions.

This leads to the point that innovation requires an ability and the courage to think bigger and beyond the current norms and truths in the market. Innovation is about stretching one’s thoughts out of everyday ordinary thinking and analysis.

We’d argue that big thinking and innovation is a combination of analytical skills, entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to fantasize. Few individuals are blessed with all these capabilities, but a group of people – and certainly organizations – are well equipped to accommodate these capabilities under the same roof. This is also one of the reasons why a diverse organizational culture has emerged as a key prerequisite for innovation: diverse groups that combine skills and capabilities can accomplish big thinking more easily than homogenous groups that are likely to reproduce versions of similar thinking over and over again.

4. Show courage

Innovation doesn’t happen unless organizations and the innovators within them have the courage to constantly rethink how things can be done. It takes courage not to conform to widespread beliefs and popular “truths” in big organizations. It takes courage to challenge proven strategies and successful products and services before they go into decline. It takes courage to question management and colleagues for doing things the way they have always done. It takes courage to constantly problematize and be that one person who always goes against the grain and tries to think about things from a different angle. It takes courage to be vulnerable rather than playing it safe according to established business practice. It takes courage to venture into the new and uncertain, risking failure.

But all of the above is necessary to push innovation forward and to create an innovative climate in organizations. Because when has anything new ever happened unless someone dared to take that step into the uncertainty of the unknown? When I think about the courage needed to take that first step I always think about the guy that started a dance party at Sasquatch music festival. That is exactly how things can work in an organization as well.

5. Think and act fast

Innovation within an organization must be a fast-moving process to keep up with the change going on outside of the organization.

Twentieth century innovation was often a slow process, with long lead times from idea to concept, and concept to market. A lot of time usually went into extensive R&D. In the automotive industry, for example, the timeframe to invent, design and launch a new car model has been around eight years. But today, eight years is an eon in an automotive market that is transforming year by year. Potentially disruptive business models for auto manufacturing like Local Motors have proved that a new car can be dreamed up and launched in the market in 12 to 18 months, and with advanced 3D printing technologies and VR-aided design and manufacturing, that timeframe can probably be cut even shorter in the years to come.

To sum all of this up succinctly, there are five main ingredients to an innovation mindset. We need to be open to change, have a bias towards to creativity, an ability to think big, unrelenting courage to challenge the norm, and be characterized by speed of thought and action.

An organization with the desire to be innovative must think fast and apply a fast-paced innovation process with an efficient go-to-market roadmap. In this context, it’s also critical to adhere to the notion of “failing fast”, as new ideas and concepts have to be tested out quickly and be shut down just as quickly if they don’t fly. In this way, the organization can move resources to the next concept instead of getting stuck in a dead-end innovation project, because after all, the world’s next “big idea” is just around the corner.

Want to know more about how Ericsson works with an innovation mindset? Discover how real-time connectivity is fundamentally changing the way we innovate, collaborate, produce, govern and live sustainably.

For more Big Idea blog post visit: https://www.ericsson.com/thinkingahead/the-networked-society-blog/

May 14, 2018 0

Why is innovation the buzzword right now?

factory

What exactly is innovation? And how does it work in the business transformation context within ICT?

At Ericsson, we have talked about the fundamental digital transformation that is taking place across our entire society for many years, with particular focus on the new opportunities and challenges it brings.

This shift has matured recently: new businesses move from startup buzz to industry disruptor at lightning speed. Just take a look at the great impact on traditional businesses that companies such as Airbnb and Uber have had in their industries. This will only accelerate as more and more intelligence moves up in the cloud.

Just a short while ago, digital transformation was only on the agenda of the larger tech players. Now, it’s on everyone’s agenda. Businesses and organizations of all sizes in every industry understand that digital transformation is also affecting them and the way they do business both now and into the future. They are all aware that in this new world there might be a garage startup, either around the corner or on the other side of the globe, with ideas that will disrupt their current market by offering radically different propositions.

So, when there is awareness, what should traditional businesses and organizations do? Let’s begin by answering the questions I asked in the beginning of this post.

There are four different drivers in our innovation model, which you can see in the figure below: innovation-model-768x332

‘Outside Drive’ (at the top) are areas outside of a company’s control. This could be changed laws or regulations, shifting consumer behaviors, or new disruptive technologies such as AI, VR or 5G.
‘Inside Control’ (at the bottom) are areas a company can control, such as definition of their core business, consolidation, scale gain opportunities or maturing technology.
The left side of the model is evolution from where the business is today, to the right which is disruption.

To secure a good position in the future market of your business, you must be aware of what is happening in your broader industry related to the fields in the model. If we plot where innovation is happening, we can see that traditional businesses focus naturally on the left side of the model in value chain effectiveness and efficiency, while we often find the digital giants and startups on the right side of the model.

The lower left corner of the model is about using new technologies to innovate for better performance of current offerings. If we take the example of a car manufacturer, this could be using ICT to automate the flow and construction of cars in the factory. Basically: do what you do more efficiently than the competition. ict-cityview-768x440 The upper left corner is about using ICT to innovate value chain efficiency and improve offerings to the current market. In the car industry, this is typically a connected car. Today’s connected cars are sold as any other car, but they make use of the connectivity to improve the offerings toward the car buyer. This could be to offer safety features like calling 112 automatically if an accident happens, or having built-in connected features like ‘find where I parked my car’.

Read the rest of this blog post at Ericsson Big Idea Blog

March 27, 2018 0

OCRWC – VM i hinderbanelöpning!

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Blue Mountain Village. Photo by: Jeff S. PhotoArt at HDCanvas.ca
Nu är det mindre än en vecka kvar till starten på OCRWC, Obstacle Cource Racing World Championship 2017 i Blue Mountain, Ontario Kanada. OCR, eller som det hette när jag var liten hinderbana. Det har funnits ganska få möjligheter att träna och springa hinderbana utanför det militära fram tills för några år sedan då både antal OCR lopp och träningsanläggningar poppat upp som svampar i skogen. Själv minns jag första gången jag prövade stridshinderbanan på Ränneslätt. Jag var 10 år gammal och familjen hade åkt de 6 milen till Eksjö garnisons övningsfält för att jag skulle kunna testa hinderbanan.

Här är några bilder från i våras. Till vänster springande med en stock på axlarna under Ultimate OCR och till höger precis kvalat in till VM under Toughest i Stockholm/Lida.

MEB_OCR

Fotografi av: Ultimate OCR och Toughest

OCR

OCRVM som börjar på fredag nästa vecka är det fjärde i ordningen i denna snabbväxande sport. Det sägs vara en av världens snabbast växande sporter. Jag hittar ingen officiell statistik på det men helt klart har antalet lopp och deltagare ökat enormt mycket de senaste åren. Själv tycker jag OCR är den ultimata kombinationen kondition, smidighet och funktionell styrka. Enkel i sin grundidé och stor i upplevelsen. Terränglöpning i härlig natur, utmanade hinder och bra människor!

Skog

Detta blir mitt första VM och jag springer 15km loppet på lördag 14/10 med starttid 12:15 lokal kanadensisk tid, vilket blir 18:15 svensk tid. Perfekt tid för lördagsmys med hinderbanelöpning! Surfa in på OCRWCs facebooksida och följ livesändningarna eller titta på deras instagramkonto.

De tre föregående åren har det sett ut såhär med deltagandet.

2014 var det 573 deltagare, 154 kvinnor och 419 herrar. Av dessa var det 17 svenska atleter. 251 tävlande klarade banan utan straff, 21 av de 154 kvinnorna och 230 av de 419 herrarna. Platsen för VM var King’s Domain, Ohio, USA,

2015 var det 1359 som gick över mållinjen på 15km banan. 742 gjorde det utan tidsstraff. Av de som startade var det 395 damer och 964 herrar. Platsen för VM var King’s Domain, Ohio, USA.

2016 flyttade VM till Blue Mountain, Ontario, Kanada och antal deltagare var 2144. 1482 herrar och 662 damer kom över mållinjen. Av de som kom i mål gjorde 1244 detta utan straff. Jag hittar ingen siffra på hur många svenska atleter som startade förra året men skulle jag gissa var det säkert 50+. Någon som vet?

2017 går VM åter igen i Blue Mountain, Ontario Kanada, en skidort två timmar väster om Toronto.

Världsmästare på standardbanan (ca 15 km och ca 60 hinder) 2014, 2015 och 2016 är multisportande britten Jonathan Albon och det ska bli intressant att se om han även i år åker hem med en guldmedalj runt halsen.

För mer information om OCRWC och möjlighet till att följa live-sändningarna på www.facebook.com/OCRWorldChampionships/

Vill du veta mer om OCR, träning etc. surfa in på Andreas Tjärnbergs superkroppen.nu eller lyssna på den eminenta OCR Podden

Allt om terränglöpning finns på trailrunningsweden.se och letar du lopp att springa finns de flesta listade i löparkalendern,se

October 8, 2017 0

Converging Technology – Diverging Families

ESOMAR 10 Year ago, we (Fredrik Öhrfelt, Mikael E Björling, Erik Kruse) submitted a paper “Converging Technology – Diverging Families” to ESOMAR. The paper was nominated to the ESOMAR award ”best research paper of the year”. The research we did 2006 was about technology usage in middleclass families in US, Sweden, and Spain. Well, is an understatement a lot of water has passed the bridge since this research was performed. This was pre- iPhone and Mobile Broadband, but interestingly many questions related to children’s usage is still the same today.

2006 not everything was published online, therefore I publish this paper again as it looked when it was printed in Resarch World.

Converging Technology – Diverging families (OhrfeltBjorlingKruse)

September 1, 2017 0

Design from the dot com era

I developed this IP telephony concept during the autumn 2000 for Ericsson Business Corporation. The work included doing the interaction design, graphical design, prototype development and usability testing. This was three years before the first version of Skype was launched 2003. The sound quality in the application was incredible good at the time. This at a time when most people used dialup modem to access internet and hardly anyone used a wireless access. Laptops was rare, and about 90+ % of the population in the developed world still had fixed line phones at home. In Sweden at that time about 40% of the population used internet at work at least on a weekly basis.

Personal_voice Personal_voice_expanded

August 29, 2017 0

Mobile phone interface design from year 2000-2001

ER380

These design sketches are from about year 2000. Mobile phone screens still had black and green screens and this is seven years before the first Apple iPhone was launched. I still have my R380 in a box together with most other phones I have used.

I did these screen designs in a project where we wanted to update the Ericsson R380 phone interface to improve the user experience. This was one of the most advanced phones on the market, combining a mobile phone and a personal assistant.

default_closed default_open
default screen portrait and landscape mode

phoneBook_closed phoneBook_open
Contact screen portrait and landscape mode

Users could still not install their own applications on mobile phones. 2001 we wanted to add a navigation software called Personal Navigation Tool for which I designed the interaction design and the screen design. Below you can see the flow chart of the interaction design and some of the final screen designs for the navigation application.

PNT_interaction_design

favourites01 find01e find06b find10b

August 29, 2017 0

Systemet och miljön

Wind, en prisbelönt kortfilm om hur levande system påverkas av sin miljö och hur det måste ändras när miljön ändras. Arbetslivet (ett levande system) påverkas i högsta grad av sin miljö (samhällsstruktur, marknad, ekonomi, etc.) Detta är en utmaning för de flesta när vi nu lämnar industrialismens miljö till det uppkopplade samhällets miljö.

Mer animeringar av Robert Loebel hittar ni på http://www.robertloebel.com/

June 26, 2017 0

Vem äger bilden av dig?

compyMan Efter att ha följt nyhetsrapporteringen veckan som gått efter terrorattacken på Drottninggatan är intrycket att de flesta skötte sig utmärkt, gjorde sitt jobb och handlade rådigt. Detta gäller både allmänhet, räddningstjänst, polis och press. Med det är också något allvarligt fel när bilder på en sargad 11-årings kropp delas och sprids på internet.

Vi har läst om det många gånger förr. Det finns människor som väljer att fotografera, sända live eller bara stå i vägen vid olyckshändelser och nu pratar vi inte om yrkesfotografer eller journalister. I många lägen har bilder hjälp till att avslöja brott och fått oss att förstå en händelse och då det verkligen funnits anledning till publicering av bilder som kan vara stötande. Bilden är ett fantastiskt redskap! Men det finns ett par aspekter som stör nu när alla blivit fotografer.

De som väljer att hävda sin rätt att fotografera eller filma olyckor och andra människor i svårigheter och tycker detta är viktigare än att släppa fram räddningstjänst till olycksplatsen eller sedan låta dem jobba ostört
De som tagit bilder och sedan känner att de måste dela dem för att tillfredsställa sitt eget behov av snabbt socker (likes, spridning och snabb bekräftelse) utan att tänka dig för. Det är inte troligt att de skulle vilja se sin egen sargade kropp spridas på internet eller att någon står och filmar dem när de får första hjälpen av sjukvårdspersonal i en dikeskant. Vem ger dem rätten till detta? Nu har ingen i min familj som tur är nåtts av bilderna på 11-åringen som dödades i terrorattacken på Drottninggatan och det är jag tacksam för. Men jag lider med familjens fruktansvärda dubbla öde.

Detta leder till ett antal frågor. Vem äger bilden av en annan människa och var går den moraliska gränsen för att lämna ut människor som befinner sig i en svår situation? I tidningar och teve finns det professionella bedömare ifall något bör publiceras eller inte. Men vilka krav bör vi ställa på allmänheten och vilket ansvar har delningsplattformarna?

Tittar man på vad som gäller för fotografering på allmän plats så finns det närmast ohämmat skydd för fotografen och dennes bilder men inget skydd för den fotograferade. Man får fotografera människor oavsett om det är kränkande eller inte för denne och man behöver inget tillstånd. Det är i princip bara skyddsobjekt som är skyddade mot fotografering. Fotosidan.se har en bra sammanställning vad som gäller för fotografer. Bilderna som fotografen skapar skyddas givetvis av upphovsrätten och det är bara i reklamsammanhang man behöver den fotograferade personens tillstånd att få använda bilden.

Men det är kanske dags att se över detta om det inte blir skärpning i ledet!

Polis och räddningstjänst bör ha rätt att komma fram till olycksplatsen utan att bli hindrade av människor som vill sända live, ta bilder till sitt Instagram eller tjäna ett par tusenlappar genom försäljning.
Räddningstjänst måste kunna jobba ostört på platsen.
Människor som blir drabbade av olycka eller brott borde ha rätten att behålla bilden av sig själv och inte lämnas ut i sociala medier eller tidningar för den delen utan sitt medgivande.
Likaså bör vi vara skyldiga att hjälpa till eller ingripa när vi blir vittne till brott eller olycka (ibland kan det vara att använda kameran).

Vi kan också fundera över upphovsrätten som idag skyddar bilden fotografen tar. Läser man om den på Wikipedia står det ” Upphovsrätt bygger på idén att den person som har skapat ett verk av en viss verkshöjd också ska ha ensamrätt att bestämma hur detta verk får användas.” är inte det exakt var en människa är, ett unikt verk skapat av andra människor.

Glad Påsk på er!

April 14, 2017 0