Through our most read articles over the last week, I have identified a growing interest into the new customer journey: from end-user to centric-user. It definitely is a fascinating transition, especially with regards to the learning and teaching initiatives that are being launched to find solutions for intricate and global issues. This new Connecting Dots takes you through the long term perspective of learning more from and with your customers.

Customers and end-users are becoming knowledge savvy. They want to process information into simplest and most complex thinking models to make the right decision. This can also be used for bad purposes, and put users’ security at stake. Experts seek to investigate the human factor. They want to address the learning opportunity as well as the experience. Users want to learn more, and learn better, which challenges brands and businesses approach to information sharing.

How can knowledge providers better organize themselves around the centric user?

Knowledge wanted

It just stands here as a gentle reminder in the midst of a crowded innovation talk: “Smarter than you think”, an initiative outlined three years ago which illustrates a citizen and cross-generation initiative to learn more, and learn better. As societies move towards agile cultures and knowledge sharing, they also question the critical place of learning and developing skills that provide the required adaptation to disruptive changes.

 Shiraz Datta from Smart Data Collective explains how 3D printing and analytics will disrupt business models while Eyes In mentions “Smarter Than You Think” initiative built for adults and children “to develop children and adult’s appetite to discover their best way to learn and how to maximize it.”

Read more: “The Disrupted Society and The Last Mile“, WAI November 2014

On the opposite side of opportunities, the growth of malware and global cyber-attacks drive a number of questions and investigations on the security and resiliency of our IT platforms. There is a speed, resources, financial scope calling for a smarter approach to security policies, and experts have been outlining this trend for a number of years already.

 “We can still cope but the criminals have more resources and they do not have obstacles. They are driven by greed and profit and they produce malware at a speed that we have difficulties catching up with”, quotes BBC News.

Read more : “Privacy, sharing 2.0 and synergies that save more than money“, WAI October 2014

What about the human factor, then? Inspiring leaders are building the changing face of our approach to management and development, putting personas at the heart of change, and teaching them to grow smart ambitions.

This may have inspired women leaders to consider how they role model in developing human capabilities to overcome this intricate framework for change. They build connected communities to inspire change. They raise smart students able to cooperate in caring, encouraging teams and working environment.

Read more: “Because we dare“, WAI March 2017

 

The human factor

Perhaps the human factor is the link needed between a fast-paced systemic change driven by digitalization and a slower-to-adapt human cultures and models. Interestingly enough, it seems technological developments have given the voice to very specific development stakeholders: the end-users. Those “at the end”. The next technological challenge is to flexibly organize around this reversed decisional order.

 They question the ability of organizations to support the roll-out of such solutions given the lack of specialized resources able to build Hadoop based solutions and the difficulty they have to adapt to new governance models.

Read more: “Hadoop: structuring the future“, WAI May 2015

They are even more valid now that the Internet Of Things starts to generate even more data-based usage, for end-users and enterprises. This is why Gartner calls for CISO to create an infrastructure flexible enough to support Internet-Connected objects.

Read more: “More data, more problems. More solutions?“, WAI September 2014

Because at the “end” of the discussion, ideas are being organized. So what would be interesting to analyze is how to better coordinate the “intersections”, rather than the “ends”. A new dynamic is given to customer relationships, and they now demand a higher level of commitment and engagement.

By gradually mastering the rules of change, smart innovation craftsmen and women get the work done without losing sight of their core values.

Read more: “7 traits of smart change makers“, WAI March 2017

As a result, new economic and business models are being experienced, through individual or open-innovation angles, providing a living ecosystem to test and trial ideas of partnerships and agile cooperation. By outlining and learning from their failures and successes, startups engage with their ecosystems to build intelligent social and economic models.

As a growing number of startups have now had time to achieve a journey towards business success and failure, they are able to spread best practices on a systemic basis through clusters, hubs and connections with other company type, including incumbent companies in need for agility and open innovation.

Read more: “9 systemic innovation trends fueled by startups“, WAI December 2016

“Learn more, learn better”

Restricting this transverse change to startups would again decentralize the discussion from its core engine. It is people that have had ideas. It is people that have faced challenges. And it is people that have combined experiences to build solutions, whatever shape and success they may have had.

Citizens and politicians, customers and providers, teachers and students: roles and responsibilities are being challenged by new models developed thanks to collaborative technologies and communication tools.

Read more: “Managing the “Breakthrough Decade” through innovation“, WAI October 2016

Unfortunately, such “people” are infinitely more complex to understand than technologies, or the use people make of it. It is not a mere information flow or cash exchange that can track and translate a human need. The reversed conversation implies to consider the issue from the other end. How would tools and solutions enable end-users to better express what they need?

By wondering how to better address human needs through technologies, innovation analysts and customers help us understand what they would expect from impactful, meaningful change makers, which we can also call exponential catalysts.

Read more: “How can you become the next exponential catalyst?“, WAI March 2017

This is where the solution starts. From the on-going intersection where needs, issues, tools and solutions are identified, developed and assessed jointly. Technologies and humans are not partnering to form new markets and consumption models. They are rather building a common sense of intelligence, one that empowers communities to learn more, and learn better, hence developing growth, hence generating value from user centricity.

Because the spread of new services and technologies are accelerating together with the economic and social impact they drive, it becomes critical for any change maker to develop appropriate tools and thinking frameworks to understand and align with an ever changing project environment.

Read more: “The Digital Crowd Rules – Human Centricity and Systemic Innovation“, WAI February 2017

Developing knowledge and thinking frameworks for change is the ambition of our global think l@b. Make sure you get your own copy of our management reports to learn more.

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Photograph: Nirina Photography