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With the advent of the Internet and cloud processing, it is now possible to supply different departments with custom made BI.  The number of tools available for analyzing that intelligence have also multiplied. Different teams can now generate their own "personalized" reports on an ongoing basis. Information generation and analysis are no longer in the hands of one team of specialists.

Different units now want to use data in more specialized ways and expect data to be presented in ways they can easily use. And they'll generate their own reports if they can't get what they want. This trend toward individualization is accelerated by the proliferation of self-serve analytics tools available.

This creates a problem with regard to curating data. While different departments need different data and different ways of processing it, there comes a point where individualized demand and self-service can present a number of problems. The last thing anyone wants is an every department for itself attitude. That can make information sharing, both vertically and laterally, very difficult. The key lies in satisfying the various stakeholders while still maintaining a centralized system. This can best be achieved by understanding how different departments use data, who they transfer information to and why.

And so it is necessary to understand the purposes and goals of the different teams involved and how those relate to the purposes and goals of the organization as a whole. Different departments will view the same data differently and extract different meaning from it. However, the information generated by the various departments should coordinate into a big picture whole that directly relates to daily business actions and management goals. As long as everyone agrees on an overall definition of success, there is no reason why different departments cannot use data in unique ways.

This involves coordination, discussion and collaboration as well as each department having a clear understanding of what the other departments need and why. If this can be accomplished, then centralized data management will not only be possible, it will be easy.

The one thing that is obvious is that digital technology has demanded the development of an entirely new skill set. The youth of today can swim through a digital world with an ease that is the envy of the over forties. Technology has also filled the knowledge vacuum that previous generations were forced to deal with. It is possible to learn faster than ever before. These two changes have profoundly affected the way millennials think, whether the use of digital technology causes changes in the brain or not.

Perhaps the biggest psychological change has been the reduction of that sense of isolation that was the common experience of youth. Social media gives millennials the chance to wear their hearts on their sleeves and expose their inner thoughts and weaknesses without the uncertainty of direct person-to-person communication. While they might experience rejection or mockery, there will always be those who understand. And so millennials are redefining the tribe. It is no longer one's relatives or those who live in the same geographic area, it is those who think alike.

This means that while digital technology is lowering national barriers and spreading ideas, it is also dividing the world's population into niches.  All of us like to hang around people who think like we do. IT has made it possible to hang out with like minded people across the entire planet and has also provided access to information on an unprecedented scale. Which is probably why millennials are hard to market to while being generally optimistic despite the economically uncertain, rapidly changing world into which they were born.

Do millennials think differently than previous generations? Of course they do. But, then again, technology has been changing the way people think for almost two hundred years. It wasn’t always that way. For example, Roman Civilization started out with the aqueduct and the road and ended, twelve-hundred years later, with the aqueduct and the road. The Roman mind changed less in twelve centuries than the modern mind has changed in the last fifty years.

The human race has been running a vast and ever more complex social experiment on itself for almost two hundred years. Where that experiment will take us in the future is, as always, in the hands of youth.

As the number of people who mobile shop continues to increase, the mobile friendly site has become a vital part of successful marketing. Research has shown that intuitive layout is a centerpiece of a quality user experience. Whether it's mobile sites or retail apps, the abilities to search, explore, navigate and purchase easily are the major determining factors in successful conversions.

Retail design no longer means just an attractive site with nice product images, but is now part of an overall pattern that guides the customer through a smooth retail process.  A smoothly running process means that there are no points where the customer is frustrated by things like lack of product details, few payment options or confusing checkout forms.

The average retail website gets only one chance to impress. If potential customers find it cluttered or confusing, then they are likely to move on without even searching the site for the product they came to find. On the other hand, an easy to understand site is an open invitation to browse.

Mobile customers consider fast load time to be a major element of website quality. Mobile shoppers are, by nature, shopping on the move and they don't have time to sit and wait. They will abandon an app or site that does not load quickly and so speed testing is an important part of website or software testing.

Another important principle is to not get too nosy. Don't ask for personal information right up front if it isn't absolutely necessary. It's even a good idea to provide a guest checkout function and ask for registration only after a purchase has been made. Keep the communication line with the customer open throughout his or her visit. If possible, add a chat function. At the very least, make sure that the customer knows where you can be contacted right from the start.

Don't demand that users download your app right up front. Remember, they probably don't know you. Establish a trust factor by delivering value first and then ask for a download. And when you do ask, use a discrete banner and avoid popups that are probably blocked anyway.

The best way to make sales is to provide clear and easy to understand product information that both describes the product and addresses common customer concerns such as fit or cross platform usability.

Stay in communication with customers and invite them to communicate with you. Keep an eye out for common problems and questions and make sure they get answered right on your site. Remember that no matter how advanced platforms may become, sales is still a person to person activity. Making sure that your site treats the customer as a valued individual, is the best way to improve user experience and enhance sales.

Many companies attempt to overcome problems associated with groupthink by rotating teams on projects, breaking projects into smaller chunks, or team building events. No matter how many new-age workplace changes you throw at this problem, defects in software continue to be overlooked by employees and are still finding their way into releases.

At Bugwolf, we overcome these issues by assembling elite teams of digital professionals who have little knowledge about your applications. There testers are external to your business and bring different perspectives to the process. They perform tasks like any real customer would. By providing a fresh set of eyes, we discover things our clients didn't even know existed.

And this means that really major bugs that can seriously damage the customer experience and your brand, are much less likely to get to market.

While the terms electronic medical record (EMR) and electronic health record (EHR) are often confused, they actually mean different things. An EHR is an encapsulated summary of a patient’s chart, while an EMR is a patient’s complete medical history in detail. EHRs are for sharing between providers. All that matters is that the provider be an authorized user. EMRs are the detailed records of a specific provider, such as a doctor, dentist or nurse practitioner with regard to a particular patient and are the sole property of that provider.

Electronic medical records offer considerable improvement over paper records. Processing electronic records through software applications takes far less time and effort than doing it manually. It is much easier to drill down to the details, which means improved data tracking. Better use can then be made of the information.   

EHRs enable the sharing of information in real time and provides precise data to assist providers in the decision making process while, at the same time,  lowering the risk of missing or out of date information. It’s actually quite easy for paperwork to get misplaced and anyone who has worked in an even slightly complex organization has heard such terms as “lost in the filing cabinet” or “buried in the bureaucracy.” A patient’s history becomes more clear and precise. This enables better tracking of the patient’s situation resulting in preventative checkups and on time reminders for renewal of prescriptions and screenings. There is no need to decipher poor handwriting and forms can be kept in an orderly manner.

EMR and EHR create an environment where medical information is presented in a user friendly manner. Electronic health records also reduce cost by making healthcare more accurate and avoiding mistakes that can raise malpractice insurance rates. But, one of the most important aspects of EMR and EHR is that the rapid feedback throughout the healthcare process enables greater patient participation. The patient is no longer as isolated within the medical care system and can be informed in an up to date manner. This means that the patient is more able to take responsibility  for his or her health and treatment outcomes.

Clean design and muted tones

There are a number of things that can be done to make an eCommerce site easy to understand and use. For one thing, the site should be comfortable. This usually means no garish colours. But not always, it depends on the products being sold. A website selling party accessories like paper plates, noisemakers and funny hats, can and should feature bright colours and maybe even a little animation, but only a little. Thankfully, the days of animation heavy websites are long gone. On the other hand, a site featuring fine leather goods should not be decked out in bright orange and red. People subconsciously associate certain patterns and colors with certain products, so the site should always reflect the products being sold.

Strong branding and easy navigation

The site should also be clearly established right up front. Everything important should be laid out on the landing page in an easy to comprehend manner. No customer should be forced to use a search bar, plugging in different words in an effort to find the product he or she is looking for.  

Transparent and easy transactions

When it comes to ease of use, nothing is more important than shopping carts. Shopping carts should have quick and easy access. Ideally, they should not require the user to “abandon” the product area of the site in order to glance at the shopping cart. Shipping cost should be calculated before reaching the checkout page. Surprise shipping cost is one of the most common reasons people abandon purchases. It’s better to have customers know the shipping charges ahead of time, and cut down a bit on their purchase, than to be surprised on the last page and abandon everything.

If there is any one word that defines user friendly, it is the word “intuitive.” You know you have the right design when customers can easily navigate, and readily find what they want, almost as soon as they arrive at the site. Building a site that turns visitors into conversions will take some time and research, but it’s worth the effort.

A major factor is that development is in continuous contact with operations. Development means those people directly involved with creating the product, such as coders and QA testers. Operations concerns such people as release engineers, security professionals and system administrators.

DevOps grew out of the lean and agile concepts of software development to encompass operations as well. In fact, operations now uses many of the same agile techniques as developers do. Software testing, quality assurance and ux testing are then made easier with tools such as FPM, Ansible,YUM and Git. The point is to keep development and operations talking to each other by keeping their activities as automated as possible. Yet never automating for automation’s sake.

Basically, DevOps is based on the agile idea of finding a better way of doing something by doing it. It’s a hands on approach where nothing, not even planning, is taken to the extreme and tools are used to the degree that they are useful.

In DevOps, tools make life easier, but person to person communication is valued more highly. It”s Agile philosophy also means that a working prototype is better than copious documentation, because you can’t function test a document.

By bringing everyone involved, from coder to customer, into the development and deployment process, DevOps assures clear communication between stakeholders and the ability of all involved to respond to change as a group.

There are many steps which car manufacturers take to test quality assurance and ensure the safest outcomes for drivers. However, with pressures on car manufacturers in recent years and declining growth and sales, you can’t help thinking that this pressure may be increasing competition between manufacturers to ship new innovation faster.

As the world becomes more connected, including cars, there is growing demand for manufacturers to adopt an agile approach to shipping them. We need to see more car manufacturers looking to software developers to not only build the cars of the future but also adopting faster ways of delivering innovation at lower cost without jeopardizing quality.

Futuristically, car recalls could be a thing of the past and if there is a software glitch, your car could be updated over the internet without hefty global recalls.

Reference: These are the 10 biggest automotive recalls ever

Applications talk to each other through API. It is API that enables websites to use Google Maps and establish real time interface with Facebook, for example. However, APIs also set the level of interface and draw the line beyond which an accessing application cannot go.  By limiting access, APIs protect proprietary code, at least to some extent.

Today, the majority of operating environments provide programmers access through APIs. Web APIs allow access to already established infrastructure, thus enabling third party programmers to create software to fulfill niche needs of end users and program solutions that fill in the gaps where required.

Application programming interfaces save time in software development and provide the means to link mobile apps together to perform various functions without the need to write new code to do things that are already being done. It isn’t necessary to reinvent the wheel each time. It is this quality that is the single biggest driver of mobile apps. It enables people to carry considerable computing power in their pockets without the need to carry the computer itself. It’s there in the cloud, on the Web or available for download. API is there to link applications together across digital space and provide the means to build a digital world out of many separate pieces.

We have a proven and tested go to market strategy. And we've achieved this while in private beta and being bootstrapped. We have a kick-ass team, and our clients rave about us. I’ve always believed you could not only build a business locally, but also grow and fund it from Australia once traction has been gained. Atlassian are a great example of doing exactly that but after spending the last few weeks pitching I can start to see why many startups leave for the US.

I believe our early stage funding problem in Australia is not a shortage of capital or enthusiasm about the space. Many investors I meet with are sitting on a significant pool of cash, ripe for investment and are truly excited about getting involved. I believe our problem is only a few who have the money to invest, really understand technology which makes it more difficult for those investors to take a leap of faith. In fact I don't blame them but question what can be done to assist future entrepreneurs to stay and raise capital from Australia.

If it's typically not something they know about such as a consumer app or marketing product, then many investors in Australia are naturally less likely to invest. And there's nothing wrong with that. If I was an investor it's unlikely you would find me investing in mining or financial services when I know tech. I also believe it's more difficult to raise capital because we have very few tech entrepreneurs that have exited and investing.

When I woke a few mornings back I discovered the news Brad Harrison and Scout Ventures was setting up a $40 million investment fund in Australia to invest in Australian Startups. Brad is an entrepreneur who has exited businesses and they really get tech. This is brilliant news. They are also taking the lead in many of their investments, which might make it easy for startups to generate more funding flow by giving the less experienced Australian investors more confidence about following Brad and his team into deals.

We need more US investors supporting and investing in Australian startups. They know tech. Many of them come from entrepreneurial backgrounds which is something we lack in this country. And maybe having more US investors in Australia may help mentor Australian investors which are keen to move into tech and bridge the knowledge gap. This may allow future Australian born startups to remain wholly Australian even in global expansion. High five to Brad Harrison and Scout Ventures for being the first to make the move. Also, appreciation to the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Australian Government for recent changes to make the investment opportunity in Australia a global opportunity.

We've got the talent, products - and many of startups are building and growing successful businesses and traction in a risk averse market. In any case we set sail for Web Summit in Dublin in a couple of days. I’m looking forward to getting over but would prefer to take the weather with me. Which sounds strange being based in Melbourne.