Tag Archives: technology

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of February 2024

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of February 2024Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are February’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. Will Innovation Management Leverage AI in the Future? — by Jesse Nieminen
  2. 4 Simple Steps to Becoming Your Own Futurist — by Braden Kelley
  3. Master the Customer Hierarchy of Needs – Embrace Customer Expectations — by Shep Hyken
  4. Science Fiction Becomes Innovation Reality This Way — by Greg Satell
  5. Are You Engaging in Innovation Theater? — by Mike Shipulski
  6. Innovation the Star of the 2024 NBA All-Star Game — by Braden Kelley
  7. This One Word Will Transform Your Approach to Innovation — by Robyn Bolton
  8. Announcing the Second Edition of Charting Change — by Braden Kelley
  9. Resistance to Innovation – What if electric cars came first? — by Dennis Stauffer
  10. Goals Are Not the Goal — by Mike Shipulski

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in January that continue to resonate with people:

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last four years:

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

A New Innovation Sphere

A New Innovation Sphere

GUEST POST from Pete Foley

I’m obsessed with the newly opened Sphere in Las Vegas as an example of Innovation.   As I write this, U2 are preparing for their second show there, and Vegas is buzzing about the new innovation they are performing in.  That in of itself is quite something.  Vegas is a city that is nor short of entertainment and visual spectacle, so for an innovation to capture the collective imagination in this way it has to be genuinely Wow.  And that ‘Wow’ means there are opportunities for the innovation community to learn from it. 

For those of you who might have missed it, The Sphere is an approximately 20,000 seat auditorium with razor sharp cutting edge multisensory capabilities that include a 16K resolution wraparound interior LED screen, speakers with beamforming and wave field synthesis technology, and 4D haptic physical effects built into the seats. The exterior of the 366 foot high building features 580,000 sq ft of LED displays which have transformed the already ostentatious Las Vegas skyline. Images including a giant eye, moon, earth, smiley face, Halloween pumpkin and various underwater scenes and geometric animations light up the sky, together with advertisements that are rumored to cost almost $500,000 per day.  Together with giant drone displays and giant LED displays on adjacent casinos mean that Bladerunner has truly come to Vegas. But these descriptions simply don’t do it justice, you really, really have to see it. 

Las Vegas U2 Residency at the Sphere

Master of Attention – Leveraging Visual Science to the Full:  The outside is a brilliant example of visual marketing that leverages just about every insight possible for grabbing attention. It’s scale is simply ‘Wow!’, and you can see it from the mountains surrounding Vegas, or from the plane as you come into land.   The content it displays on its outside is brilliantly designed to capture attention. It has the fundamental visual cues of movement, color, luminescence, contrast and scale, but these are all turned up to 11, maybe even 12.  This alone pretty much compels attention, even in a city whose skyline is already replete with all of these.  When designing for visual attention, I often invoke the ‘Times Square analogy’.  When trying to grab attention in a visually crowded context, signal to noise is your friend, and a simple, ‘less is more’ design can stand out against a background context of intense, complex visual noise.  But the Sphere has instead leapt s-curves, and has instead leveraged new technology to be brighter, bigger, more colorful and create an order of magnitude more movement than its surroundings.  It visually shouts above the surrounding visual noise, and has created genuine separation, at least for now. 

But it also leverages many other elements that we know command attention.  It uses faces, eyes, and natural cues that tap into our unconscious cognitive attentional architecture.  The giant eye, giant pumpkin and giant smiley face tap these attentional mechanisms, but in a playful way.  The orange and black of the pumpkin or the yellow and black of the smiley face tap into implicit biomimetic ‘danger’ clues, but in a way that resolves instantly to turn attention from avoid to approach.  The giant jellyfish and whales floating above the strip tap into our attentional priority mechanisms for natural cues.  And of course, it all fits the surprisingly obvious cognitive structure that creates ‘Wow!’.  A giant smiley emoji floating above the Vegas skyline is initially surprising, but also pretty obvious once you realize it is the sphere! 

And this is of course a dynamic display, that once it captures your attention, then advertises the upcoming U2 show or other paid advertising.  As I mentioned before, that advertising does not come cheap, but it does come with pretty much guaranteed engagement.  You really do need to see it for yourself if you can, but I’ve also captured some video here:

The Real Innovation Magic: The outside of The Sphere is stunning, but the inside goes even further, and provides a new and disruptive technology platform that opens the door for all sorts of creativity and innovation in entertainment and beyond. The potential to leverage the super-additive power of multi-sensory combinations to command attention and emotion is staggering.

The opening act was U2, and the show has received mostly positive but also mixed reviews. Everyone raves about the staggering visual effects, the sound quality, and the spectacle. But others do point out that the band itself gets somewhat lost, and/or is overshadowed by the new technology.

But this is just the beginning.   The technology platform is truly disruptive innovation that will open the door for all sorts of innovation and creativity. It fundamentally challenges the ‘givens’ of what a concert is. The U2 show is still based on and marketed as the band being the ‘star’ of the show. But the Sphere is an unprecedented immersive multimedia experience that can and likely will change that completely, making the venue the star itself. The potential for great musicians, visual and multisensory artist to create unprecedented customer experience is enormous.  Artists from Gaga to Muse, or their successors must be salivating at the potential to bring until now impossible visions to life, and deliver multi-sensory experience to audiences on a scale not previously imagined. Disruptive innovation often emerges at the interface of previous expertise, and the potential for hybrid sensory experiences that the Sphere offer are unprecedented. Imagine visuals created and inspired by the Webb telescope accompanied by an orchestra that sonically surrounds the audience in ways they’ve never experienced or perhaps imagined. And of course, new technology will challenge new creative’s to leverage it in ways we haven’t yet imagined.  Cawsie Jijina, the engineer who designed the Sphere maybe says it best:

You have the best audio there possibly can be today. You have the best visual there can possible be today. Now you just have to wait and let some artist meet some batshit crazy engineer and techie and create something totally new.” 

This technology platform will stimulate emergent blends of creative innovation that will challenge our expectations of what a show is.  It will likely require both creative’s and audiences to give up on some pre-conceptions. But I love to see a new technology emerge in front of my eyes. We ain’t seen nothing yet. 

Las Vegas Sphere Halloween

Image credits: Pete Foley

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of April 2023

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of April 2023Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are April’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. Rethinking Customer Journeys — by Geoffrey A. Moore
  2. What Have We Learned About Digital Transformation Thus Far? — by Geoffrey A. Moore
  3. Design Thinking Facilitator Guide — by Douglas Ferguson
  4. Building A Positive Team Culture — by David Burkus
  5. Questions Are More Powerful Than We Think — by Greg Satell
  6. 3 Examples of Why Innovation is a Leadership Problem — by Robyn Bolton
  7. How Has Innovation Changed Since the Pandemic? — by Robyn Bolton
  8. 5 Questions to Answer Before Spending $1 on Innovation — by Robyn Bolton
  9. Customers Care About the Destination Not the Journey — by Shep Hyken
  10. Get Ready for the Age of Acceleration — by Robert B. Tucker

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in March that continue to resonate with people:

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last three years:

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






Five Steps to Digital Transformation Success

Five Steps to Digital Transformation Success

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

Digital transformation is increasingly becoming an integral part of businesses in the modern age, as companies seek to leverage technology to gain a competitive edge. But, while the potential benefits of digital transformation are tantalizing, it’s not always easy to make the transition. To ensure a successful digital transformation, here are five key steps you should consider.

1. Understand Your Goals

Before you begin your digital transformation, it’s important to understand your goals. What do you want to achieve with your digital transformation? Do you want to improve customer service, create a more efficient process for managing data, or something else entirely? Being clear on your goals will help you to focus your efforts and ensure you’re making the most of your digital transformation.

2. Develop a Strategy

Once you’ve established your goals, you’ll need to develop a strategy for achieving them. What technologies and processes will you need to implement? What resources and personnel will you need to make it happen? Having a clear strategy will help to ensure success, as you’ll have a roadmap for getting from A to B.

3. Focus on the Customer Experience

Digital transformation should always be focused on the customer experience. How will the changes you’re making improve the customer experience? Will they make it easier to purchase products or services? Will they make it faster to access customer service? By focusing on the customer experience, you can ensure your digital transformation is successful.

4. Invest in Technology and Resources

Digital transformation is an investment, and you’ll need to invest in the right technologies and resources to make it successful. This could include investing in new software, hardware, personnel, and training. While these investments may be costly, they’re necessary in order to ensure the success of your digital transformation.

5. Plan for Change

Finally, it’s important to plan for change. Digital transformation can be disruptive to your business, so it’s important to plan for the changes and prepare your team for the transition. This could involve training staff on new technologies, creating a communication plan to keep everyone in the loop, and establishing processes for dealing with any issues that may arise.

Digital transformation can be a daunting process, but it can also be incredibly rewarding. By following these five key steps, you can ensure your digital transformation is successful and that your business can reap the rewards.

Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






Transformation Insights – Part Two

Transformation Insights - Part Two

“The world needs stories and characters that unite us rather than tear us apart.”~ Gale Anne Hurd, Producer of Aliens and The Terminator

GUEST POST from Bruce Fairley

In my early years I was fortunate to spend some time on film sets. Unlike how the entertainment industry is portrayed in the Netflix series, The Movies that Made Us, I did not come to blows with any of my directors as Eddie Murphy apparently did with John Landis during the making of Coming to America. Nor did I witness an entire crew mutiny, as James Cameron did on Aliens. Instead, I often saw the same dynamic I’ve witnessed in the tech sector from the first moment I stepped off set and into I.T.

People coming together.

Skilled, diverse, passionate people hard at work fighting against miscommunication, technical issues, and time constraints – coming together to achieve something significant. I referred to this in my previous Transformation Insights post, The Future Always Wins as:

Collaboration Between Complementary Influencers.

This dynamic is as true of a film set as it is of a firm engaged in digital transformation. In both cases, expertise in various areas is required to create a successful whole, with C-Suite leaders in the corporate sphere tasked with providing the articulated vision at the helm. Of course, the success of any endeavor comes down to human-powered action and decision making at every level of execution. And while the challenges of a digital transformation project may not be as bone-breaking dangerous as the stunts in an action film, getting to greatness requires a similar fusion of mind and machine – of talent and technology.

If that sounds like The Terminator, consider that its box office success speaks to the fusion of mind and machine as an unstoppable trajectory – but those who deepen their humanity rather than succumb to machine rule are the heroes that triumph. This was mirrored in the making of the film, which was nearly shut down when the crew put down their tools. Addressing their humanity and acknowledging the value of their contribution changed the story from disaster to blockbuster.

Humans lead – technology serves. Not the other way around.

When that is reversed, dystopia ensues whether on screen or in the boardroom. Having witnessed many occasions in which technology was expediently obtained before its value to the user could be established, I am convinced we have lost the plot in telling a wider, corporate story. Technology was supposed to liberate not enslave. Instead, how many times have you attended a Zoom meeting or prepared weeks for a presentation only to discover the sound not working, the slide deck freezing, or even a hidden ‘on’ button? These may be simple examples, but they rob the intrepid hero of the corporate journey; the chance to shine and advance their creative talent much like the crew of Aliens putting down their tools. Now multiply that by the large scale digital transformation projects I’ve spearheaded, and it becomes clear how a broken axis between human-powered decision making and technology can break the bottom line.

Optimism and momentum towards a more positive, successful outcome hinges on more than technological expertise. It requires an understanding of the whole story – and how the team, tech, leadership, and consumers each play a role. The story you wish to tell about your corporate journey requires buy-in at every level of service – human and tech. Obstacles are not indictments, they are merely obstacles. But they do often require a third-party complementary collaborator that understands how to transform pitfalls into profits.

When I launched the Narrative Group I wanted to amplify the genius of C-Suite executives through the optimization of the business-tech relationship. Similarly to how I observed the inner workings of a set and how all the pieces had to fit together to create a screen success, I spent years observing digital transformation from the inside. Across continents and boardrooms, I learned, led, and transformed as well. This only increased my commitment to helping talented leaders tell their story successfully.

If you’re a C-Suite leader that would like to storyboard the trajectory of your corporate success, please feel free to reach out and continue the conversation at:

connect@narrative-group.com

Image Credit: The Narrative Group

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






Creating Innovation with Hardcore Soft Skills

Creating Innovation with Hardcore Soft Skills

Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Yadira Caro on the Hardcore Soft Skills Podcast.

In the episode I define what innovation really is, how people, process and technology come together to create innovation and where people go wrong.

The conversation includes a discussion of how to craft successful innovation teams because it’s such a crucial factor for successful innovation.



I also speak about the peril of idea fragments and the importance of respecting your employees by putting funding and execution capabilities in place BEFORE you ask your employees for even a single idea.

We talk about top-down innovation…

We talk about bottom-up or middle-out innovation…

And, we also speak about many different innovation misconceptions.

So, I encourage you to check out the episode!

You can listen to the embedded podcast above or click this link to go to the podcast page.

Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






The ABCDEs of Technology Adoption

The ABCDEs of Technology Adoption

GUEST POST from Arlen Meyers, M.D.

Every day, doctors have to make daily decisions about whether or not to adopt a new technology and add it their clinical armamentarium, either replacing or supplementing what they do. In doing so, they run the risk of making a Type 1 or a Type 2 adoption error.

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy generally concerned with the nature of knowledge. It asks questions such as ‘How do we know?’ and ‘What is meaningful knowledge?’. Understanding what it means to have knowledge in a particular area—and the contexts and warrants that shape knowledge—has been a fundamental quest for centuries.

Data Information Knowledge Wisdom Pyramid

In Plato’s Theaetetus, knowledge is defined as the intersection of truth and belief, where knowledge cannot be claimed if something is true but not believed or believed but not true. Using an example from neonatal intensive care, this paper adapts Plato’s definition of the concept ‘knowledge’ and applies it to the field of quality improvement in order to explore and understand where current tensions may lie for both practitioners and decision makers. To increase the uptake of effective interventions, not only does there need to be scientific evidence, there also needs to be an understanding of how people’s beliefs are changed in order to increase adoption more rapidly.

Only 18% of clinical recommendations are evidence based. There are significant variations in care from one doctor to the next. Physicians practicing in the same geographic area (and even health system) often provide vastly different levels of care during identical clinical situations, including some concerning variations, according to a new analysis.

Clinical and policy experts assessed care strategies used by more than 8,500 doctors across five municipal areas in the U.S., keying in on whether they utilized well-established, evidence-backed guidelines. They found significant differences between physicians, including some working in the same specialty and hospital.

The study results were published Jan. 28 in JAMA Health Forum.

One practice difference the authors found surprising was in arthroscopic knee surgery rates. In these cases, the top 20% of surgeons performed surgery on 2%-3% of their patients, while the bottom 20% chose this invasive option for 26%-31% of patients with the same condition being treated in the same city.

The question is why?

There’s an old joke that there are two ways everyone sees the world: those that see it as a 2×2 matrix and those that don’t.

Type 1 Type 2 Errors Kris Martin

A type 1 error occurs when they make a “false positive” error and use or do something that is not justified by the evidence. Type 2 errors, on the other hand are “false negatives” where the practitioner rejects or does not do something that represents best evidence practice.

The most recent example is the campaign to get doctors to stop prescribing low value interventions and tests. The Choosing Wisely campaign, which launched five years ago, hasn’t curbed the widespread use of low-value services even as physicians and health systems make big investments in the effort, a new report found.

The analysis, released  in Health Affairs, said a decrease in unnecessary healthcare services “appear to be slow in moving” since the campaign was formed in 2012. The report found that recent research shows only small decreases in care for certain low-value services and even increases for some low-value services.

The reasons why American doctors keep doing expensive procedures that don’t work are many. The proportion of medical procedures unsupported by evidence may be nearly half. In addition, misuse of cannabis, supplements, neutriceuticals and vitamins are rampant.

Evidence-based practice is held as the gold standard in patient care, yet research suggests it takes hospitals and clinics about 17 years to adopt a practice or treatment after the first systematic evidence shows it helps patients. Here are some ways to speed the adoption of evidence based care.

Unfortunately, there are many reasons why there are barriers to adoption and penetration of new technologies that can result in these errors. I call them the ABCDEs of technology adoption:

Attitudes: While the evidence may point one way, there is an attitude about whether the evidence pertains to a particular patient or is a reflection of a general bias against “cook book medicine”

Biased Behavior: We’re all creatures of habit and they are hard to change. Particularly for surgeons, the switching costs of adopting a new technology and running the risk of exposure to complications, lawsuits and hassles simply isn’t worth the effort. Doctors suffer from conformation bias, thinking that what they do works, so why change?

Here are the most common psychological biasesHere are many more.

Why do you use or buy what you do? Here is a introduction to behavioral economics.

Cognition: Doctors may be unaware of a changing standard, guideline or recommendation, given the enormous amount of information produced on a daily basis, or might have an incomplete understanding of the literature. Some may simply feel the guidelines are wrong or do not apply to a particular patient or clinical situation and just reject them outright. In addition, cognitive biases and personality traits (aversion to risk or ambiguity) may lead to diagnostic inaccuracies and medical errors resulting in mismanagement or inadequate utilization of resources. Overconfidence, the anchoring effect, information and availability bias, and tolerance to risk may be associated with diagnostic inaccuracies or suboptimal management.

In addition,  there is a critical misunderstanding of what information randomized trials provide us and how health care providers should respond to the important information that these trials contain.

  • Has this trend been studied?
  • If so, who conducted the study?
  • Was it somebody who may make money based on study results?
  • Did the study include a control group?
  • What population did they use to test this trend?

Do you know how to read the medical literature?

Denial: Doctors sometimes deny that their results are suboptimal and in need of improvement, based on “the last case”. More commonly, they are unwilling or unable to track short term and long term outcomes to see if their results conform to standards.

Emotions: Perhaps the strongest motivator, fear of reprisals or malpractice suits, greed driving the use of inappropriate technologies that drive revenue, the need for peer acceptance to “do what everyone else is doing” or ego driving the opposite need to be on the cutting edge and winning the medical technology arms race or create a perceived marketing competitive advantage. In other words, peer pressure and social contagion is present in medicine as much as anywhere else. “Let’s do this test, just in case” is a frequent refrain from both patients and doctors, when in fact, the results of the treatment or test will have little or no impact on the outcome. It is driven by a combination of fear, the moral hazard and bias.

Here are some common customer fears when it comes to adopting a new product or technology and how to overcome them.

 Although investment in start-ups is significant, complex barriers to implementing change and innovation remain.

These “unnecessary” barriers, which vary from complicated funding structure to emotional attitudes towards healthcare, have resulted in the uneven advancement of medical technologies – to the detriment of patients in different sectors.

Economics: What is the opportunity cost of my time and expertise and what is the best way for me to optimize it? What are the incentive to change what I’m doing?

Here are three insights as to why physicians are still skeptical about using wearable technology to monitor patients’ health:

  1. Data access. Clinicians aren’t interested in using wearables if data from the devices isn’t connected to their organization’s EHR. Only 10 percent of physicians said they have integrated data from patient wearables, leaving clinicians unable to access the data or having to enter it manually.
  2. Data accuracy. Some physicians do not trust data from consumer wearable devices; for example, the FDA and other global regulators have cleared a smartwatch application that can alert patients who have already been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation when they are experiencing episodes. However, the capability is less useful as a mass screening tool and has generated many false positive results.
  3. User error and anxiety. If a wearable device is not worn correctly, it may generate inaccurate results. Some who use wearables to monitor their health can also become too focused on vitals such as heart rhythm and pulse rate, which can cause anxiety-induced physical reactions that mimic conditions such as atrial fibrillation.

The past 600 years of human history help explain why humans often oppose new technologies and why that pattern of opposition continues to this day. Calestous Juma, a professor in Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, explores this phenomenon in his latest book, “Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies.”

Here are the key takeaways.

Research indicates that doctors make these kinds errors frequently(http://ecp.acponline.org/sepoct01/pilson.pdf). Moreover, we are witnessing the development of digital health technologies like medical mobile apps, most of which are not clinically validated. So, how should a clinician decide when to adopt new technology? How much evidence is sufficient for an unsophisticated physician to begin adopting or applying a technological innovation for patient care? How do you strike a balance between innovation and evidence from a patient safety and quality standpoint?

Changing patient behavior has been described as the “next frontier”. To make that happen, we will need to change doctor behavior as well.Some interventions work but passive interventions don’t.

Here are some suggestions:

  1. Recognize, that like most customers, surgeons buy emotionally and justify rationally.
  2. Surgeons should be introspective about how and when they adopt new technologies and try to minimize Type 1 and Type 2 errors
  3. While an initial step is to be sure that surgeons are aware of new information that might drive an adoption decision, research indicates that simply presenting them with that information does not change behavior.
  4. Doctors should be skeptical about digital health technologies that might be technically and commercially validated, but not clinically validated.
  5. Doctors will have to resolve the conflict between best evidence and personalized medicine. We face the opportunity to individualize care yet are faced with the challenges of delivering mass customized care when it is becoming increasingly commoditized.
  6. Technology adoption, diffusion and sustainability vary depending on the product offering like drugs, devices, digital health products, care delivery innovation or business process innnovation.
  7. Doctors often have nothing to do with choosing which technology is adopted or, more importantly, paid for by a third party.
  8. Doctors, particularly those that are employed, have to concern themselves more and more with making the numbers, which involves implicitly or covertly rationing care, as irrational as it may be.
  9. Conflicts of interest hide, in some instances, the motivation for technology adoption.
  10. Doctors have high switching costs when it comes to including something new in their therapeutic armamentarium.
  11. In most instances, dissemination and implementation has more to do with leading change than the technology. Consequently it is best to get buy in from clinicians early, define a clear unmet need, have internal champions and leadership from the C-suite.
  12. Adoption and penetration happens in organizations when there is a match between the values and skills of intrapreneurs and organizational innovation readiness as demonstrated by teams that are willing to pull the oars in the same direction.
  13. Here are some ways to to change doctor prescribing habits to conform to evidence based medicine

The job doctors want virtual care technologists to do is that they want you to give them a QWILT: quality, workflow efficiencies,income, protection from liability and giving them more time spend with patients (face to face, since, in most instances, that’s how they get paid) Increasingly, they also want to spend more time “off the clock”, instead of being overburdened with EMR pajama time and answering non-urgent emails or patient portal messages.

While monetary incentives and behavioral “nudges” both have their strengths, neither of them is sufficient to reliably change clinician behavior and improve the quality of their care. Sometimes nudging helps. Organizational culture, while diverse and complex, provides another important lens to understand why clinicians are practicing in a certain way and to put forth more comprehensive, long-term solutions.

The public shares some culpability. Americans often seem to prefer more care than less. But a lot of it still comes from physicians, and from our inability to stop when the evidence tells us to. Professional organizations and others that issue such guidelines also seem better at telling physicians about new practices than about abandoning old ones.

Medicine has a lot to learn from the consumer products industry when it comes to using the power of brands to change behavior. Some are using personal information technologies to give bespoke information to individual patients, much like Amazon suggesting what books to buy based your preferences. We need to do the same thing for doctors.

Like most consumer electronics customers, doctors will almost always get more joy from technology the longer they wait for it to mature. Cutting-edge gadgets can invoke awe and temptation, but being an early adopter involves risk, and the downsides usually outweigh the benefits.

There are many barriers to the adoption and penetration of medical technologies. The history of medicine is full of examples, like the stethoscope, that took decades before they were widely adopted. Hopefully, with additional insights and data, it won’t take us that long.

Image credits: Pixabay, ResearchGate.net, Kris Martin

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






Why so much medical technoskepticism?

Why so much medical technoskepticism?

Guest Post from Arlen Meyers

Medicine has transitioned from high touch to high tech to low trust. The explosion of post COVID technology “innovations” is leaving a wake of skepticism from the healing class.

As noted, Covid-19 let virtual medicine out of the bottle. Now it’s time to tame it. If we don’t, there is a danger that it will stealthily become a mainstay of our medical care. Deploying it too widely or too quickly risks poorer care, inequities and even more outrageous charges in a system already infamous for big bills.

Medical technoscepticism is driven by:

  1. Unresolved conflicts between the ethics of medicine and the ethics of business
  2. False promises and marketing hype
  3. Resistance to change
  4. Faulty thinking leading to technology adoption errors
  5. The halo from BIG TECH shenanigans and the resulting distrust
  6. Social media misinformation and infodemics
  7. Not addressing the needs of end user healthcare professionals and what they value
  8. Rules, legislation and administrative mandates and that interfere with dissemination and implementation and the resulting unintended consequences
  9. Inequitable access and lack of clinical validation to solutions
  10. Inadequate professional and patient education and training about present and future medical technologies and their value
  11. Fear about artificial intelligence and its effect on society
  12. Security, privacy and confidentiality concerns

The pandemic resulted in an increase in virtual care.  But its place and value in the post-pandemic world is up in the air. To help policymakers, payers, providers assess the  various ways in which virtual care programs could have a positive impact for patients, clinicians, payers, and society going forward, the American Medical Association and Manatt Health developed a framework. It can be used by care providers to develop and evaluate new digitally-enabled-care models, by payers to inform coverage and payment decisions, and by policymakers to establish regulations.

Much like addressing vaccine skepticism, technoskepticism will require a multipronged approach. . Maybe you should just take all those worthless vitamins and supplements and forget about all the technology snake oil.

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






What is digital transformation? – EPISODE THREE – Ask the Consultant

Live from the Innovation Studio comes EPISODE THREE of a new ‘Ask the Consultant’ series of short form videos. EPISODE THREE aims to answer a question that many people struggle to answer or accurately discuss:

“What is digital transformation?”

Digital transformation is a complicated topic for people to speak intelligently about and to explore in depth because there is so much misinformation and confusion about what a digital transformation actually is – a lot of it espoused by technology vendors.

Together in this episode we’ll explore what digital transformation is by looking at two definitions that show what digital transformation is not.

1. Wikipedia’s bad definition of Digital Transformation

“Digital Transformation (DT or DX) is the adoption of digital technology to transform services or businesses, through replacing non-digital or manual processes with digital processes or replacing older digital technology with newer digital technology. Digital solutions may enable – in addition to efficiency via automation – new types of innovation and creativity, rather than simply enhancing and supporting traditional methods.”

— Wikipedia

2. This Definition of Digital Transformation Gets Closer But Still Isn’t Right

“Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to customers. It’s also a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment, and get comfortable with failure.”

— EnterprisersProject

So, let’s dig into what Digital Transformation really is …

A digital transformation is the journey between a company’s current business operations to a reimagined version of itself from the perspective of how a digital native would build the same business operations leveraging the latest technology and scientific understandings of management science, leadership, decision science, business and process architecture, design, customer experience, etc.

A digital transformation can only be successfully achieved if you put customers and employees at the center to create a human-centered data model and explore the intersection between what’s needed and what’s possible to simplify processes, reduce complexity, and to design elegant experiences.

The key thing to remember is that technology comes at the end, not the beginning, starts by making strategic choices, and focuses on identifying and building the needed capabilities to execute the new strategy.

Here is a quick review list of ten things to keep in mind for a successful digital transformation:

  1. Reimagine your business from a digital native perspective
  2. A Human-Centered Data Model (customers & employees)
  3. Put your customers and employees at the center
  4. Identify intersection of what’s needed & what’s possible
  5. Simplify processes
  6. Reduce complexity
  7. Design elegant experiences
  8. Technology comes at the END – not the beginning
  9. Start by making strategic choices
  10. Build capabilities needed to achieve your transformation

}} Click here to watch the video {{

Help Shape the Next ‘Ask the Consultant’ Episode

  1. Grab a great deal on Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire on Amazon while they last!
  2. Get a copy of my latest book Charting Change on Amazon
  3. Contact me with your question for the next video episode of “Ask the Consultant” live from my innovation studio

Below are the previous episodes of ‘Ask the Consultant’:

  1. EPISODE ONE – What is innovation?
  2. EPISODE TWO – How do I create continuous innovation in my organization?
  3. All other episodes of Ask the Consultant


Accelerate your change and transformation success

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






The Future of Transportation

Autonomous Vehicles and Beyond

The Future of Transportation: Autonomous Vehicles and Beyond

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

Transportation has always been an essential element of human progress and development. From horse-drawn carriages to steam locomotives and automobiles, our journey towards efficient mobility has been nothing short of remarkable. However, the next phase of transportation promises to be truly revolutionary, thanks to the advent of autonomous vehicles. In this article, we will explore the potential of self-driving cars and highlight two intriguing case studies that illustrate the trajectory of this transportation revolution.

Case Study 1: Waymo’s Self-Driving Taxis in Phoenix

A prominent player in the field of autonomous vehicles is Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company). Waymo has been steadily forging ahead with its self-driving taxi service in Phoenix, Arizona since December 2018. This ambitious project aims to replace traditional ride-sharing services by providing fully autonomous transport to residents in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Waymo’s test fleet consists of various autonomous vehicles equipped with an array of sensors, Lidar, radar, and computer vision systems. These technologies enable the cars to perceive their surroundings, navigate complex traffic situations, and interact with pedestrians and other road users safely. As of 2021, Waymo’s taxis have successfully completed over 20 million miles on public roads in autonomous mode, honing their capabilities through machine learning algorithms.

The Phoenix case study showcases the potential of autonomous vehicles to revolutionize daily commuting. By removing the need for human drivers, self-driving taxis can significantly reduce traffic congestion, carbon emissions, and the costs associated with car ownership. Moreover, they offer improved accessibility to transportation for those who are unable to drive, such as the elderly or individuals with disabilities. Waymo’s ongoing success in Phoenix hints at a future where autonomous transportation becomes the primary mode of urban mobility.

Case Study 2: Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability

While Waymo focuses on ride-sharing, Tesla, the electric vehicle pioneer, has been at the forefront of enabling autonomous driving for personal vehicles. Tesla’s Autopilot system, a suite of advanced driver-assistance features, has been available in their vehicles since 2014. Over the years, Tesla has continuously refined and expanded its Autopilot capabilities, aiming to eventually achieve full self-driving (FSD) capability.

Tesla’s approach to autonomy revolves around utilizing an ever-increasing fleet of vehicles to collect vast amounts of data. Those data are then used to train machine learning algorithms, which inform the development of autonomous driving software. Through regular over-the-air updates, Tesla’s global fleet’s driving experiences continuously contribute to the improvement of their autonomous technology.

This case study demonstrates the power of leveraging data and machine learning to achieve greater levels of autonomy. Tesla’s wide-reaching network of vehicles, each acting as a data-gathering entity, allows for rapid advancements in autonomous driving capabilities. As Tesla’s FSD technology matures, it has the potential to transform personal transportation, offering individuals the freedom to relax or be more productive during their journeys.

Looking Beyond Autonomous Vehicles

While autonomous vehicles are undoubtedly the future of transportation, the revolution extends beyond cars. Other transportation modes, such as trucks, buses, and drones, are also ripe for autonomous disruption. Self-driving trucks, for instance, have the potential to revolutionize logistics and freight transportation by maximizing efficiency and minimizing the risk of human error. Furthermore, autonomous drones could soon revolutionize last-mile deliveries, bringing packages directly to our doorsteps more efficiently and at lower costs.

Conclusion

The future of transportation lies in autonomous vehicles and beyond. The case studies of Waymo and Tesla illustrate the significant progress being made towards this future, where fully autonomous transportation becomes the norm. As we ride this wave of technological innovation, it is crucial to embrace the opportunities and challenges that autonomous vehicles present. By doing so, we can shape a future of transportation that is safer, more efficient, and more sustainable for us all.

Bottom line: Futurology is not fortune telling. Futurists use a scientific approach to create their deliverables, but a methodology and tools like those in FutureHacking™ can empower anyone to engage in futurology themselves.

Image credit: Pexels

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.