Buying IoT from startups

Buy smart: best practices for sourcing IoT solutions from start-ups

A lot of the innovation around Internet of Things (IoT) is coming from start-up companies. But how do you buy a solution when the technology is still evolving, the use cases are emerging, and the company selling it may not be in business a year from now? Your “tried and true” sourcing practices that you use with your more established suppliers will actually increase the risks for both you and the start-up company that you are buying from.

This post describes the three main risks and highlights ten new strategies for buying IoT solutions for start-up companies.

IoT sensors

Back to Basics – Sensors for IoT applications

While a lot of the attention on the Internet of Things (IoT) is on platforms, analytics or even machine learning, IoT really starts with the sensors at the point of use, or the “edge”.

This post is part of the “Back to Basics” briefings on the Internet of Things (IoT) architecture for executives, managers and anyone new to IoT. Using the “Follow the Data” approach, I’ll start at the edge with the IoT sensors, and work my way back to the core of the IoT system.

This article will describe the sensor technology and considerations when selecting sensors.

smart homes for real people

Smart Homes for Real People – Where’s the Value?

I saw many smart home and home Internet of Things (IoT) products at the 2017 Consumer Electronic Show (CES). All were interesting. All solved the wrong problems. And all missed the mark with real world buyers.

While today’s smart home products do useful things, they solve “first world” problems of convenience that are not useful to “real world” buyers.

This post discusses what problems that smart homes really need to solve, and provides some takeaways for smart home designers to consider to make their solutions more attractive to “real world” buyers.

Five things managers should do first in an emerging IoT market

There is no lack of IoT platforms, business models, and innovative products in the market today. However, today’s products are still immature point solutions. From technology standards, to business models, IoT will evolve over the next few years.

Given the immature state of IoT, what should transformation, business and IT managers do today?

This article discusses five things that managers should do now as they plan and deploy IoT strategies and projects.

5 types of innovation

Innovation is not just about technology – the five types of innovation all managers must know

Recently, I met with key executives from an industry trade group to discuss disruptive innovation in Silicon Valley.

One key concept I shared with them is that although many people equate innovation with technology, there are actually five types of innovation and that some or all may occur at the same time.

This post describes the five types of innovation, and provides managers with three takeaways to guide their innovation strategy.

Innovation of Things, not the Internet of Things will drive real innovation and transformation

Are you ready? The Internet of Things (IoT) is here and its ability to drive new innovation will be huge.

But how much is real and how much is hype? Today’s IoT are “point” solutions that don’t live up to the hype. They offer limited utility and solve a small set of problems.

This articles discusses what IoT will look like when it lives up to the hype. It provides fives takeaways for managers to do today to begin the transformation from Internet of Things to Innovation of Things.