Even as technology advances at a rapid pace and the possibilities for AI increase, it’s important to remember that the most effective applications of AI will still require a human touch

As artificial intelligence (AI) technology continues to advance and its capabilities expand, we might wonder what the role of humans is going to be as things become increasingly automated. This is particularly true when it comes to creativity, given that the ability to ideate and produce new things is one of the characteristics that distinguish humans from other animals.

Defining ‘Creativity’

We already have many examples that AI can be trained to exhibit creative behaviours. For instance, AI can be used to transfer a particular artistic style to original photographs. Mobile applications like Prisma, which allow artistic style transfer, have become extremely popular. AI can also be used to generate new images or paintings. It was recently reported that a new painting created by an AI program has been sold at auction for astonishing US$432,500!

It’s important to distinguish ‘creative behaviours’ from ‘creativity’ with regard to what AI technology is actually doing. How humans decide what is and isn’t creative is largely subjective. AI cannot be creative, in that it cannot experience something like inspiration, but rather it can learn creative behaviours and mimic the human creative process, via which it can produce an output.

Also read: How to cultivate your team’s creativity by thinking outside the box

AI is widely acknowledged to be good at handling huge data sets, uncovering patterns and relationships in data, optimizing towards a clear objective and making predictions. In the case of the painting mentioned earlier, the data set was 15,000 portraits painted over a period of 600 years. An algorithm was then able to emulate the properties of the paintings and produce something based on what it had learned. Other specific applications of ‘creative AI’ include developing special effects for entertainment; providing customer service through chatbots; and designing new proteins and chemicals in the health and science arenas.

The Role of Human Intelligence

Human intelligence (HI) is better at creating content, such as art or literature, and is better at creative problem-solving, such as identifying an opportunity to start a business. Even though AI has been used to generate art and descriptive text, it can only mimic what already exists. It cannot yet create ‘new’ styles of art, dance or literature. In other words, AI can learn patterns that underlie the creative process. However, for things like starting a business- which are rarely if ever replicated in exactly the same way — HI significantly outperforms AI.

Also read: How artificial intelligence is disrupting education

Because of this, even as AI capabilities advance, humans are still important. Subject matter experts are critical for creating examples for AI to learn from, and we still need to provide the goals for AI to work towards and the parameters within which to do that. Humans are still the final decision makers on what ‘creativity’ looks like.

At Appier, one way we have experimented with AI and creative behaviours is to see if it can design clothing. I recently spoke at an event hosted by SGInnovate, where I spoke on the topic of AI and creativity, and I showed the audience both human designs and AI designs. Several people were certain that the AI designs were created by humans, showing that in this case, there was some alignment on ‘creativity’ from both an AI and HI perspective. As Appier works with many e-commerce clients, identifying ways to expand the capabilities of our AI technology allows us to provide more comprehensive solutions to our customers.

Understanding AI’s capabilities and limitations

For now, even as technology advances at a rapid pace and the possibilities for AI increase, it’s important to remember that the most effective applications of AI will still require a human touch. Bringing AI in the creative process will not diminish the role of humans or replace them, but rather it will enhance the creative process and help people produce greater and more varied content and allow them to explore more options when it comes to creative problem solving.

The most critical role for humans working alongside AI is to be clear about what we want it to achieve. We must clearly understand AI’s role and limitations, and provide it with the assets it needs to best perform, particularly robust and high quality data for it to analyse and learn from.

—-

This article was first published on e27, on November 26, 2018.

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Photo credit: Unsplash

The post Creativity is humanity’s only advantage against AI, but can bots be creative in their own right? appeared first on e27.

The ineffectiveness of too many how to’s on leadership can be solved by knowing this one trick

I’m simply going to get right into it: a lot of leadership traits are bullshit.

For one, leaders are expected to have many ‘qualities’ and ‘traits’. How many traits should leaders have? Is it 10? 11? Or is it 5?

Fact is, great leaders are an embodiment of many qualities. It is the blend of the qualities that makes each leader unique in every environment. Some leaders may be more cool-headed; others may be great communicators.

Leadership is such a nebulous term which has various definitions based on the organisation that they are in. The culture and values of the organisation are factors that can set the type of leadership they are looking for.

“Siri, what are the traits that leaders should have?”

Asking that gives you at least 350 million results, within the first page and the second page being almost indistinguishable. The only distinction between all the links? It’s about the source.

Does it come for a blog or from a news site? Is it a thesis, or is it a contributing article on Forbes? The similarity between all of them is that they are talking about the same few traits repeatedly: honesty, integrity, communicating skills, to name a few.

While important skills, as a leader, you need to understand that these values are merely extensions from your fundamentals. Let’s not even talk about the theory, like servant-leadership and laissez-faire leadership.

Also Read: 6 leadership techniques for business growth acceleration

As a leader, you need to have laser-focus: what are your fundamentals? The base of your leadership is significant as it is the deciding factor for how your ‘extensions’ will be like and how effective they will be.

In this day and age, leadership is a tricky thing; businesses have to manage a multigenerational workforce and millennials and Gen Z’s pose great management challenges on their own.

Be it at work or on campus, effective leadership is only displayed when a team of people with opposing personalities work together with enthusiasm and passion, without asking for rewards or holding any expectations.

Here’s the key: asking for rewards and holding expectations.

Setting the stage

Ditch those traits on integrity, passion, and respect—we are looking at fundamentals here. Like a content strategy, when you operate without a clear direction, your leadership is bound to have multiple blind spots and flaws which you cannot resolve as quickly as you would like to.

Think of traits as branches from a tree: without the root, you are unable to grow. How can there be so many branches without a single tree trunk?

Also Read: How OKR training for managers can create a more realistic approach to learning

You need to set your ‘stage’: a single, solid value that you abide by like a principle, which you carry with you in every task that you do.

Violating this principle is equivalent to being contradictory to your leadership, and that is something you must avoid.

If you’ve been reading The Human Leader or following my posts, you will know that I am a big believer in empathetic leadership: it is the only leadership style that can bring any business or organisation the best of both worlds in results and engagement. Autocratic styles do not work anymore, and Laissez-Faire is only useful to a certain extent.

You’re in the listening business.

Complete autonomy married with limited management is the style. Instead of focusing on control, you focus on guiding. You adopt the role of a mentor.

However, this article is not about theory; it is about the single value that leaders must adopt to build a fundamental for the growth of their leadership.

And that is gratitude.

Gratitude specifically for the team that you’re leading; without them, there would be no you. It is the same kind of gratitude that you should have for your parents; it is through a blend of unique experiences and personalities that you are able to grow and reach the level where you’re at right now.

When you’re grateful for your team, you understand their significance in the organisation that you’re in. You know that these are the people that you’re working for—not the other way around—and that these are the people who will prop you up in the future. They are your supporters.

When you adopt gratitude, growing the ‘branches’ of that value is extremely easy only because it makes so much sense:

Why would you not respect your team?—you know that they are significant. You know that they are important to you: why would we not respect the things that are important to us?

You’re going to pay a lot more attention to them—when you are grateful, you pay close attention to what they are doing. You know that they are the people who will help you: hence, you are going out of your way to see what you can do for them. Do they need more resources? Does someone need mentorship and guidance?

Honesty will be the only policy—one of the most difficult extensions (considering that we lie every day). Honesty refers to full transparency: the process, your expectations, your objectives and such.

You’re going to be genuine—having a single solid base is the key to being consistent, and that means being authentic. When you are consistent in applying your values, you are going to grow the courage to hold true to your values and principles: sometimes, lost values form one of the biggest causes of downfalls.

Why will you not be supportive and encouraging of your team?—Knowing that your team supports you, your role is to be 10x more supportive and encouraging. Help them hit their goals and provide them with the right resources. Chart their path and assist them in growing.

You will actually start caring for your employees — caring for your team member goes beyond work: it is the conversation during lunchtime and in between breaks that allow you to understand them as a human being, not just as your team member. You know that their success if predicated many different factors, and you want to understand where and how you can best help them.

As a leader, you need to think ‘preventive’. By being grateful and adopting empathy, you’re going to understand your employees better regardless of what kind of personality or life they have.

Also Read:  Filling the leadership gap: Why you cannot delegate responsibility

Before underperformance starts spreading, you aim to keep your team going no matter what situation lies before them with useful, gratitude-centric leadership.

–

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: CAPITOL STANDARD

The post The only value that you need as a leader appeared first on e27.

As businesses compete, the impacts of Big Data can give founders an edge in the ever-changing landscape

 

 

Every day three quintillion bytes of data is generated. This data comes from different sources like digital pictures, videos, posts on social media, e-businesses, intelligent sensors, and log storage in the IT industry.

According to McKinsey, “big data” refers to datasets whose size is far beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage and analyse. 

Real-world challenges of Big Data enterprises

One of the major sources of data is the log storage, which is present in the IT industries because the IT industry stores a lot of information in the form of logs of data.

This data is so vast that the traditional system becomes unable to handle such kinds of logs as this data is semi-structured in nature and is growing with great velocity.

 Sensor data refers to the data coming out of sensors. An enormous amount of sensor data is also a challenge for big data. One example of sensor data is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

LHC is the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. The data-flow in its experiments consists of twenty-five to two hundred petabytes of information that has to be processed and held on.

Also Read: How big data is impacting the legal world

So we can say that this sensor data is a very challenging one for management as the traditional system cannot handle such a variety of data.

Another place where we can find big data is in Risk Analysis.

So any financial institute needs to model data, and based on this data, they need to calculate what kind of risk can occur.

One of the problems with the data of risk analysis is that it is huge and is generally under-utilised. We need to perform big data analytics on such data to get more accurate information and predictions on risks involved in the management of risk analysis data.

The data generated from social media can be of any type—may be structured, semi-structured or unstructured.

The rate at which social media data is increasing is astounding. Therefore, it is also one of the important sources of big data in a real-life scenario.

Apart from the above scenario, there are some other significant data contributors as well; for example, customer analytics, experience analytics, threat analysis, fraud analysis, and brand sentiment analysis, where we use big data.

Big Data opportunities

From this real-world scenario, we can say that big data has a lot of applications and opportunity and lots of use cases. So it is essential to study this big data and perform analytics on it because it can be very advantageous for an organisation. 

According to a survey conducted by SoftServe in 2016. 86 per cent of organisations are now using big data analytics solutions for retaining customers, understanding customers, the trending interests of the customers, and more.

Out of this, 45 per cent of all respondents use it across an organisation, and 41 per cent use it in their organisations.

The areas where big data analytics provides the most value are:

• Customer Intelligence
• New Revenue Opportunities
• Better Customer Services

There is a lot of application of big data analytics in fields like healthcare, telecommunication, financial firms, retail, law enforcement, marketing, new product development, banking, energy and utilities, insurance, and education. 

With increasing analytic skills among various organisations, the advantage of big data analytics can be realised in sectors like constructions and material sciences.  

Also Read: Busting the myths around AI, IoT, Big Data and Cloud at Echelon 2019

Big Data analytics uses

• Big data analytics applications regularly include data from the internal system and external sources.
• Weather and demographic data on customers collected by third party information services providers.
• Also, streaming analytics applications have become common in a big data environment.

Big Data issues: security and privacy

The prime concern with big data apart from conceptual significance entails both technical as well as legal relevance.

An individual’s private information, when combined with large external datasets, leads to the inference of new and specific facts about the said person.

When law enforcers take assistance from big data, the chances that certain tagged people might have to go through uncalled sufferings decrease drastically.

Big Data analytics solutions

Getting out the secrets hidden in big data is a critical factor for developing future strategies which can help in the growth of a business. So, for this, there are many big data solution companies, which are big data solution providers.

These big data solution providers have different big data consulting strategy for solving complex big-data challenges for enterprises.

Big Data Consulting Services Companies

As all the organisations, business companies and industries are using big data analytics. The big data consulting services are largely used for big data services and solutions. There are many big data consulting services companies which are operating mainly in India like Spec India, Pythian, ScienceSoft, etc. 

Conclusion

As data is increasing day by day at a very high pace, there are a lot of challenges involved in big data and enterprises can have a lot of opportunities from this.

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, big data is in every industry and business function and is an important factor for production as well as business growth and development.

Also Read: Implications and solutions for Big Data in insurance

Many companies for big data solutions are coming with a different strategy for big data solutions and are providing big data solutions to various organisations and business companies. With the help of big data, we can make more educated decisions, and our focus can remain on business operations moving forward.

–

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: Stephen Dawson

 

The post Challenges and opportunities for Big Data enterprises appeared first on e27.

It’s easy to see why any company or individual would want to use cloud platforms to host their most important files

You’ve seen it in marketing materials, your smartphone’s menu options, and even on social media and gaming, but why is ‘cloud’ a buzzword right now?

Cloud technology has quickly risen to prominence in internet infrastructure over recent years, and many systems use cloud-based hosting to store your most important files. 

What is the Cloud? 

The ‘cloud’ refers to a dynamic form of a web server that is capable of scaling to meet users’ and systems’ changing needs, on-demand.

Also Read: The cloud has moved mountains, but always keep an eye out for security

Whereas a traditional web server is a static, unchanging platform to host files online. Cloud servers can be added-onto in terms of both size and resources to meet customer needs. 

Why the Cloud is Everywhere 

Cloud-based technology is built to be fast, secure, and accommodating. Since cloud infrastructure is virtual, it can be deployed over a vast amount of physical web servers in a variety of locations.

This allows for super-fast data retrieval, which is handy if you’re looking to download games, photos, movies, or other large data files over the Internet. 

Common applications of Cloud hosting systems 

Smartphones, including iPhones and Android-based phones, rely on cloud systems to store videos and images that won’t fit on the internal memory system.

If you regularly take high-def videos on your phone, then you can expect a prompt to move future files to a cloud storage system, saving you the hassle of making manual backups or deleting files. 

Games and other software now use cloud systems to store primary files, making it more efficient for downloaders across different regions to access and use shared files.

Also Read: How to enter the cloud mining market

The cloud also applies to businesses and shared projects on the web, who rely on the ease and readiness of cloud tech to share updates to projects with multiple contributors. 

Cloud hosting for websites 

Another is where cloud systems are often applied is in the storage of public websites.

When you visit a website with your browser, you’re calling for files from a specific web server. Many web servers are now running on cloud-based platforms so that they can scale and meet the needs of dynamic web traffic patterns.

This is particularly useful for sites that see fluctuations in traffic or sudden spikes in visits from viral content. 

Cloud-based website hosting works similarly to traditional web hosting but typically offers boosts in speed and performance, as well as different pricing structures.

Since your usage of a cloud server may vary significantly from month to month, many cloud providers charge on a per-user basis. 

Other benefits  

Aside from being fast, secure, and scalable, there are a few different reasons that cloud systems are becoming so ubiquitous.

Clouds are highly efficient because they allow for resources to be distributed as needed. This eliminates the waste of idle resources often seen in other types of more static hosting platforms.

Eliminating such waste not only reduces utility bills for cloud providers but allows machines to be utilized to their maximum potential, which helps reduce overall e-waste. 

Also Read: How a Taiwanese cloud storage provider took on Europe and Japan

Since cloud platforms are virtualized, it is easy to build redundancy into a cloud infrastructure. One risk of any file hosting system is that files could go missing, either because of corruption due to software issues or due to natural disasters, such as flooding, sometimes at data centres.

Cloud tech mitigates this risk by making it easy to build redundant copies of each server at a different physical or even geographical locations. 

Uploading files to a cloud server is no different than uploading to a traditional server, and in many cases, cloud servers are faster than competing systems.

With cloud-based technology, you can feel more secure about your file storage, easily share projects and files with others, and even store your most important personal data directly from your phone, computer, or gaming console.

–

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit:  Rabia Elif Aksoy

The post Why virtually everything relies on cloud technology in 2019 appeared first on e27.

As a startup, it can be incredibly difficult to scale up, here’s how growth can be accelerated

The secret

The secret, according to Rene, is standardisation, partnerships and people. Based on his years as CEO of McDonald’s in Holland and working with lots of companies with his acceleration programmes. Why companies are there to serve staff and clients.

That needs to be anchored into the DNA of an organisation. Only then can your business grow. Why half of the human energy leaks out of a company. Only 20 per cent of your employees are truly energetic about the work they do.

Also Read: Here are 5 ways to advance your life and enterprise with a growth mindset

Standardisation

How standardisation is the most underestimated management tool in the 21st century. Think about it, only through standardisation can you create a multiplier to scale.

His rule is 1-2-3. Stop doing half of the work, do the other half twice as good and become three times faster.

It improves your quality, makes your product more recognisable and more important increases the speed of your organisation. Speed is a pre-requisite, particularly when you want to serve lots of customers.

More speed, less friction, happier clients. With his McDonalds background, you would understand, and he uses the example of the grain of salt that McDonald’s use.

Every grain of salt is described and specified exactly, and every restaurant uses the exact same salt. You can also imagine what standardisation does with your purchasing and your cost structure.

It makes life a lot easier. Every business should develop a franchise handbook for that reason alone. Quality becomes a lot more manageable, and that will result in happier clients and happier staff. Happy clients and happy staff are the best advertising you can get. Read “Talk triggers“.

Partnerships. Don’t do it alone

The largest brands are a network of businesses. Why would you not follow that example and start building relationships with the best of the best?

Creating win-win-win. Preferably long term relations with clearly defined roles, goals and expectations. With honesty and mutual respect as the cornerstone.

An ecosystem of businesses as family or friends. It will make your life a lot easier and pleasant and create the economy of scale of a network of relations you can trust. Imagine using that ecosystem as the advisory board of your company.

When was the last time you asked a supplier what he/she really thought of your company?

People

Rene thinks there are three elements to an organisation and it is shaped as a Xmas tree. The trunk, which are the core values, the support organisation as one part of the tree and the sales organisation as the other part of the tree. The start on top is the client.

The Xmas ball at the lowest part of the tree is the CEO.

You are responsible for the well being of your customers and your staff. Starting with a clear definition of the core values. By defining your core values, you create collective leadership and accountability.

It only works if it is authentic and you should regularly check if they fit with how your clients perceive you. Core values are a fundamental part of your brand. Read “Fusion“.

Serving leadership

You need to know what you stand for and it is highly unlikely to be products, process and money. It is more likely to be about people, love, attention and respect. Do that well, and the money will follow.

Also Read: 3 essential crisis communication strategies every entrepreneur should know

You can copy any product or process, but you cannot copy an authentic culture. Successful companies are nice places to work, where the management team serves the employees, help and coach, share knowledge, train, and give positive attention.

These type of companies are also twice as successful. Read “Lovability“. CEOs, CFOs, COOS, are there to serve the shop assistant, mechanic, rubbish collector and not the other way around.

CEO

You are here to serve as a leader. Making sure that the emotional electricity moves towards the clients and not towards the CEO.

The only job of a CEO is to make sure that all barriers are removed to ensure that a client is happy. You lead by example and an epitome of the core values.

You network, you ensure the feedback flows, you consider the future, you energise and most of all you are the metronome and beating heart of the organisation. You pave the road and set the direction.

Sales

When Rene talks about sales organisation, he does not mean just the salespeople. He means everybody that has contact with the client. Direct or indirect. Helpdesk, toilet cleaner, the truck driver. Everybody.

Do you know who they are? Have they been instructed to ensure that the client gets the best experience possible? That their job is to deliver happiness. The book “The connected company” asks if you are designed for delight? Are you? So you need happy staff that are genuinely interested in people and want to make them happy.

As part of the core values of your company. With your support structure, making sure that everything is available to make that happen. All you want is fantastic customer service, reducing the cost of marketing. Marketing is the price you pay for being unremarkable. Read “The laws of brand storytelling”

Feedback loops

The final thing you need is smart feedback loops. A good information system increases your ability to learn and grow. His suggestions:

• No spreadsheets, but (client) stories. Ensure that the feedback loop works with all units within the company.
• Let your employees use their common sense on what information they need.
• Use formal and informal structures.
• Feedback can come from anywhere — suppliers, clients, staff, etc.

Realise that organising the feedback is a management role. If you do it right, the feedback loops ensure that your workload gets diminished. People know what to do themselves. Shared leadership.

De Efteling

Rene uses examples from McDonald’s, HEMA, Cool Blue and the Efteling (my favourite park).

The Efteling works with the best in the business, and everything is centred about making their visitors feel good, making them a fan (like me), who come back to visit regularly and whose brand is a love mark. That is what you want.

Also Read: “Nail it then scale it” – the new mantra for startups

Your business needs to become the Efteling of your sector. Where every client has a positive, authentic, human experience. Where clients become fans and friends, where the client is not part of your work, but the work. If you do that you will grow.

–

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: Diggity Marketing

The post Steps to unleash power for the growth for your startup appeared first on e27.