Adobe Symposium - Part 1- Key Trends and Best Keynotes

The Adobe Symposium was a blistering paced day and a half of a lot of talk on solution strategies, product roadmaps, and of course marketing speak. Adobe talked about their offerings and their roadmap into the future – their restructure of their product families ( quite similar to the American Summing a while back )

But two key themes came up again and again in some ways shape or form

1.      End to End Digital Transformation

2.      Enterprise Data Management ( First party, second party, third party )

As I have alluded to in previous blogs, setting up a content management system today is basic hygiene for an organisation. It’s already considered as a de-facto part of foundation capabilities for most companies today . The focus has unequivocally shifted towards experience syndication and end to end digital transformation .

This year, more than anything, we saw quite a few companies who have already embarked on their journey of digital transformation, achieved key milestones, learnt some valuable lessons and are settling in for the long haul . Some of them have been at this for almost a decade and have been waiting for tech to catch up!

The key difference from this conference than others I’ve seen is the focus on end to end integration between, not just different technologies, but also key parts of the business – that digital transformation is about people , process and culture first , and technology second – this was quite refreshing to hear and something I personally subscribe to .

One of the most inspiring of the keynote sections by ANZ Group Executive, Digital Banking , Maile Carnegie  talked about the need for 20th century companies to allow for the complete rewiring of the their very business engines in order for them truly step into the 21st century and allow for transformation to truly succeed.

Of course, digital transformation for its own sake is no good, and in general , the aim for such an initiative was to transform the customer experience at all touch points as possible , to be able to convey the right contextual messages , services, in line with the promise of your own brand

A key ingredient in doing that is insight on your customers. How can you serve them if you don’t know anything about their needs? There were a lot of folks talking about the need to setup good enterprise data architecture.

Once you’ve done that, it is imperative to understand that whatever competitive advantage you have in the industry is right there in your own data, sitting there waiting to be used! How do you tap into that and apply it to your transformation strategy ? It’s no good being a TV network and not being able to tap into the data on tv-watching habits of your people that visit your website ( hint : Nine Network is doing this to offer better programs and services ! ) .

Sadly the sessions on data did not have as much as depth we were hoping were.  While that was disappointing, I can understand that such wide omni-channel scope for data strategies are is in its their fledgling state .

You can check out the Adobe Symposium sessions here:

Side Note: There was a lot more from Adobe on Machine Learning – Adobe Sensei, something I will cover in a later post.

Hype and Adoption

Let’s discuss the trends of Digital Transformation and Data Management across

1.      Hype Cycle – A Gartner curve showing the hype around of technologies across five phases.

2.      Roger’s Bell Curve – A curve showing the uptake of technology within the industries

Neither are precise sciences; however they are helpful in providing a good indicator of where the industry is headed. While the Hype Cycle showcases what the industry feels about a tech or a trend, the Bell Curve showcases the state of adoption in the industry.

Src: Hype Cycle & Roger’s Bell Curve. Fun reference - Bell curve from 2009

Summary of Trend Placement

e2eDigital Transformation

End to End Digital Transformation brings together concepts such as IAAS, PAAS, CAAS and EAAS together across all channels offline and online.

The game is wide open for at least a few years or so , where new entrants will gain the first mover advantage, after that a lot of it will be followers and the low hanging fruits till be taken.

Placement on Hype Cycle – Slope of enlightenment - in the process of some consolidated strategies emerging.

Placement on Roger’s Bell Curve – Entering Early Majority Phase - just before mass market.

Enterprise Data Management ( 1st, 2nd, 3rd Party data )

Management of first party, partner and 3rd party data is a key ingredient to your end to end digital transformation . While this may be strong in areas such as CRM, it is still in its infancy when it comes to bringing enterprise wide sources of data together for a common purpose.

This is going to be , IMO, one of the key lagging factors. How well you do here will be a good indicator of how much your company’s managed to rewire itself for the 21st century. If you are not focusing on this right now, waiting for others to solve key challenges, you will be left behind as the hurdles to encounter in this space will be specific to your company.

Placement on Hype Cycle – Passing the height of unexpected and emerging from Trough of Disillusionment - lots of fragmented strategies.

Placement on Roger’s Bell Curve – Entering Early Adopter Phase.

Details of Trend Placement

End to End Digital Transformation

If you want to influence technology products and industry solutions for syndicating contextualised experiences across online and offline space, get in this space now ! Now is the time to do gain that industry leading advantage! Next couple of years will be too late and you will be forced to follow .

Key technologies for DXM ( Digital Experience Management ) and CEM ( Customer Experience Management ) have permeated the industry and people are now well on their way to building complex integrated solutions.

But it’s not just about the tech. It is about realising what’s necessary to succeed in the digital age and taking full advantage of the opportunity presented to you. More than anything, it will take a bold vision that has enterprise wide buy-in , to see you through.

Companies that are thought leaders on this, are moving with such velocity that they are leaving their traditional suppliers behind simply because they can’t respond fast enough.

Think about this. This is where disruption comes from. Facebook is literally making their own transponders through their initiative of Telecom Infrastructure Project ( TIP )  as traditional suppleirs are too slow. This has the potential to impact the likes of Cisco, Juniper Networks and more heavy weights in the previously thought untouchable telecom infra domain. ( Recommended article  )

Qantas is leveraging its loyalty programs to venture into insurance and retail  - they know most about their customers, so why not ? ( Recommended article )

If you’re not an early adopter, or innovator, you are great risk of having your market share being eroded by these early movers.

The game is wide open for at least a few years or so , where new entrants will gain the first mover advantage, after that a lot of it will be followers and the low hanging fruits till be taken.

Enterprise Data Management ( 1st , 2nd, 3rd Party )

While areas like CRM and pure-play analytics are fairly mature, I think this is still into its infancy when it comes to harnessing all data sources an enterprise has available to it for a single purpose. People are still experimenting and trying to solve their legacy challenges and 20th century wiring.

It will take time to mature at an industry scale.

It’s similar to how ECM technologies were limited to form data entry before exploding to take on the focus of web content management and subsequently digital content management.

We’ve been shown some great ‘What-if’ scenarios of smart homes knowing what groceries you want or how your spending habits may impact your next vacation.

Data marketplaces and ecosystems such as Redplanet and Adobe CoOp , Data Republic and LiveRamp are coming up and the foundations for supporting and e2e digital transformation are being placed.

Machine learning brings greater efficiency and insights to traditionally menial yet critical tasks of attribution or anomaly and these solutions are great.

To leverage all of the above and more to realize the 'Wow' visions, is easier said than done. Watch this space, there are a lot of hurdles to cross this one and different industries will have to contend with different issues, not the least of which will be national and international regulations .

If you don't start developing a strategy on this, however, you will get left behind. Regulatory body compliant solutions can take a long time to materialise. Your data challenges, internal , external or regulatory will be unique to you, your industry and your competitive position. Not spending enough time on this in the beginning will leave you deprived of basic capabilities essential to effect transformation.     

Best Sessions :

There were a lot of excellent sessions from a lot of companies from both solution providers, vendors, implementers , clients from the likes of ANZ, Qantas, Westpac, Publicis Sapient ( who had a very cool Smart Home presentation ) , Sydney Opera House , Xero Accounting, Western Sydney, Suncorp, Nine Network, Dell.

You can access the sessions online here.

While I’d love to provide detailed view on each of their presentations, I’d like to call out my favourite ones.

 Best Keynote Sessions

ANZ Group Executive, Digital Banking , Maile Carnegie

This was, hands down, the session that almost everyone was talking about. Frank and honest views on what is needed for digital transformation. 

Maile Carnegie had recently changed jobs from being the CEO of Google Australia to being a Group Exec for Digital Banking at ANZ and spoke with infectious fervour on how leadership needs to understand that flashy tech and latest apps are episodic and that 20th century companies are not wired for 21st century experiences. 

She mentioned how the pursuit of transformation is going to be exhausting and is going to take courage , passion and an understanding that it’s going to take time , and buy-in across all stakeholders not just the top.

The endeavour will force you to have brutal conversations with people that assess their skills alignment for doing digital business.

Above anything else, it’s going to require an open culture in the organisation, one of innovation and distributed leadership, and recognising that everyone, including your own internal teams are customers of each other. Building such a culture will not just happen , it’s a science and needs to be nurtured.

Checkout the keynote here:

 Best Evocative Session

Western Sydney - Angelo Kourtis and Deng Thiak Adut

This was probably the most heart-felt sessions I had experienced at a conference and a masterful exercise in re-branding .

Western Sydney talked about the need to go back to one’s roots and core offerings when speaking to their customers ( i.e. students of all ages ) and offering to them what they expect from the brand ( i.e. the capability to transform their lives with education )

For this, the university underwent what they term “ Retro Branding” - a complete overhaul on their courses and a challenge to the traditional view of the educational degree. In doing so , they won over many of their own skeptics internally and went on to make an award winning campaign about Deng Thiak Adut - a refugee child from South Sudan, now a lawyer and refugee advocate.

The University now offers direction to students, in terms of what they would like to achieve in life, e.g. tackle climate change, transform international law and guides them to appropriately tailored courses.

Check out the keynote here :

Some (Not So ) Random takeaways from the Keynote

These are a mixture of lines from my presentation from with my take on them

1.      Scale of digital experience is infinite. Content is the vehicle & data is the fuel.

2.      Fast moving early adopters of digital transformation will outstrip their slow moving suppliers and will bring true disruption.

3.      Your competition may not even come from companies in the same field.

4.      Pull marketing is the better than push marketing – pull your customers to your properties online and offline.

5.      Get your data in order to recognise correct context. Context is just the starting line for a good experience.

6.      In the world of data integration watch for data leaks across integration.

7.      Master experiences on owned media to scale well on paid media.

8.      VR is the most interesting prospect of 2020.

9.      Identify must win moments – A chance to be bold and inspiring evoking the same response.

10.  Innovation comes from the ground up - Ensure you give people context on what you are doing.

That’s it for part 1

In the next two parts , I talk about Adobe’s spectrum of offerings and my take on aspects key for digital transformation

Is there anything you’d like me to spend more time on ? Anything you don’t agree with up there ? Feel free to leave a comment !