What do you get when you gather over 20,000 techies in Vegas, add in a celebrity chef and sprinkle in a dash of Aerosmith?
The whirlwind week that is known as IBM InterConnect, IBM’s new premier cloud and mobile conference.
Digital transformation and disruption were the threads running throughout the 2000+ sessions, which covered everything from the Internet of Things, to hybrid cloud, to integration of key technologies such as cloud, mobile and analytics.
(Image credit: Anastasia Medytska)
It’s well known in the tech industry that data paves the road to insights, that mobile and social engage a broad audience and that cloud is the engine that keeps everything running.
As Bob Picciano, SVP IBM Analytics, masterfully summarized – “Data is the what. Cloud is the how. Engagement is the why.”
While those were crucial themes at Interconnect, the conference took it a step further by showing how these technologies can be applied and, more importantly, “interconnected.”
(Image credit: Anastasia Medytska)
One particularly popular application is the connected car – fueled by data from the cloud, it is a prime exhibit of the digital disruption of a traditional industry.
These machines can analyze traffic patterns, react to weather conditions, and use behavioral analytics to better understand the driver. From the Tesla parked in the middle of the Solution Expo and sessions with Volvo and Volkswagen on their work in this field, it became clear that the connected car is closer than you might think.
Another unique application of these integrated technologies is disrupting the food industry. In one of my favorite sessions from the conference, Fabio Viviani, a restaurateur and former Top Chef contestant, whipped up some recipes with Chef Watson and Bon Appétit using big data.
Chef Watson taps into the Bon Appétit recipe database to help any home chef cook up meals based on type of occasion, desired cuisine, available ingredients, omitted ingredients (i.e., an allergy inducer) and more. You can select how “surprising” or “traditional” you want a particular meal to be, and Chef Watson will analyze and suggest ingredients that alter a single recipe in multiple ways. It’s a delicious marriage of data mining and cognitive computing, run on cloud of course.
(Image credit: Anastasia Medytska)
While it may seem surprising at first, data and analytics are becoming pantry staples in the food industry. Beth T. Smith, GM IBM Analytics, asserted that “analytics are no longer for seeing how your business is doing, but for driving how it will perform.” Our recent study, “Inside the mind of Generation D,” would suggest she’s correct. It found that data-rich, analytically driven companies report above average performance on KPIs, such as share of wallet, customer retention and revenue from digital channels.
The old adage “show, don’t tell” was the differentiator for me at InterConnect. Stories from Citi, Mayo Clinic, Shiseido and others demonstrated real business results from these technologies. Multitudes of demos and labs showed IBM products in action. Physical applications of these technologies such as the Urban Art Cloud, allowed people to actually interact with a cloud-powered product – blurring the lines between physical and digital experiences.
And, finally, no conference is complete without an Aerosmith concert, right?
(Image credit: Anastasia Medytska)
But given that it’s Interconnect, even this show was digitally disrupted using cloud-powered wristbands. They changed color and flashed in beat with the music as the legendary band rocked the stage.
Echoing IBM Cloud CMO Nancy Pearson’s keynote, the crucial question to consider as you evaluate these key technologies is, “Will you disrupt or be disrupted?”
Related:
- More posts on the IBMCAI blog about the Internet of Things
- More posts on the IBMCAI blog about Generation D
