Einstein

Kaplan Institute Exec Director Howard Tullman peaks at EuroFinance Conference in Geneva

How to survive the future? Adapt or die

Said serial entrepreneur, educator and technology futurist Dr. Howard A. Tullman this week at the EuroFinance International Treasury Management conference in Geneva.

Every industry will need to dramatically change the ways in which they deliver their products and services if they expect to remain competitive in the future. Financial institutions, in particular, need to understand and appreciate that they are being faced with new types of competitors emerging and entering from many adjacent markets and industries. Amazon and Starbucks are already “banks” in many respects and not merely merchants.

Loyalty, locked-in customers, substantial barriers to entry, and significant switching costs are all relics of the past which no longer afford traditional businesses which are unwilling or unable to rapidly adapt their business models and respond to shifting markets and customer demands any meaningful protection from new entrants and disruptive technologies. No one owns the customer any longer; you have an opportunity to own the moment and to create a compelling experience and you need to deliver on your promises each and every time. Customer expectations are perpetually progressive – it’s a “what have you done for me lately world?”. Yesterday’s miracles are today’s “so whats”.

Everything now is about speed, ready and ubiquitous access, and consumer convenience. Eliminating transaction friction, improving availability – “whenever and wherever the customers may be” – and providing a seamless experience from start to finish is the name of the game in a world where time is our scarcest resource and where you aren’t merely competing with your peers – you’re competing with whatever was the last and best experience your customers have recently had - and you need to measure up or they will quickly move on.

Attention is the newest currency and competing to reach and capture consumers’ fleeting attention is an everyday, all day process which is constantly growing more difficult because of the volume of noise, clutter and other media which makes it harder and harder (as well as more costly) to properly and consistently reach and engage your current customers and your prospects as well. The key to improving margins is to initially focus on deepening the existing connections you have with your current customers rather than engaging in expensive and largely unproductive conquest marketing in vain attempts to acquire new clients.

In addition, the rate of change (driven both by data availability and technology advances) continues to accelerate and the need to continually up your game is critical because in the “right now” economy, no one wants to wait for anything. You need to be there when the buyer is ready to buy or someone else will quickly take your place. Patience is also a thing of the past. Consumers want their needs and desires met immediately and they want things their way. Mass customization – being all things to each person – is now not only feasible, but also doable in a cost-effective manner due to technology and it’s increasingly becoming a competitive necessity.

The best businesses today aren’t looking backwards at where they’ve been; they’re focused on the future and on the need to use the new data-driven tools which permit them to anticipate and exceed the needs of their customers in order to keep raising the bar. Getting ahead of the clients requirements and helping to guide and manage their expectations is crucial to customer retention and differentiation – especially when so many new automated and low cost alternatives are being presented to customers who frankly may not really be able to tell the difference between offerings.

The bottom line for every CEO and CFO to take into the boardroom: make it fast, make it easy, and show me why it makes dollars and sense for me, or I’ll find someone else who can.

Serial entrepreneur, educator and technology futurist Dr. Howard A. Tullman, is the Executive Director of the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. He spoke this week on how to survive the future in a world of emerging tech trends at the EuroFinance International Treasury Management conference in Geneva

Kaplan Institute Exec Director Howard Tullman Speaks at 1871 for William Blair PE Conference

New INC Magazine Blog Post by Kaplan Institute Exec Director Howard Tullman

Avoid the Perils of Overpromising

Given the power of technology to radically change the way businesses operate, companies have a tendency to overwhelm customers with solutions they're not yet sure they need. So, consider backing off a bit on what you offer. Don't confuse them while you're trying to convince them.

By Howard Tullman

Executive director, Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship, Illinois Institute of Technology

@tullman

Promises always come with the peril of non-performance. It's a bad plan in life as well as business to promise more than you can deliver. If you expect people to believe your promises tomorrow, it helps a great deal if you kept them yesterday. This probably sounds like old news to most of you since we've all been lectured from birth by our parents, teachers and preachers about the necessity and difficulty of always trying to live up to your commitments.

But this is how life works. I certainly support the basic concept and agree that it makes all the sense in the world, but the difference today is that technological advances have radically changed the nature of the conversation.  The problem now isn't so much about arrogance or baseless bragging as it is about how and when to deal realistically and effectively with the truth. Because the truth today is a lot stranger in some ways than the fiction of yesterday.  

Given the powerful technologies we now have at our disposal and the actual and concrete results that new businesses can deliver, there's a somewhat novel sales problem that I'm seeing. Too many startups are so excited about the powerful possibilities and the real wonders their solutions can work that, in their eagerness and enthusiasm, they're losing sight of who they're selling to, and what kinds of solutions those buyers are looking for.

In the old days, we used to say that the main difference between a car salesman and a computer salesman was that the car guy knew he was lying to you whereas the computer guy was just deluded. Today, telling your prospects and customers too much about what your products and services can do is more likely to confuse them than to convince them.

Instead of offering simple initial implementations and step-by-step measured solutions --basically addressing and resolving the lowest and most obvious hanging fruit first-- what I'm seeing and hearing too often in these kinds of conversations are broad claims and bold statements.  "Our software can do anything - just tell us what you need." Even if that were true, which in some cases is almost certainly the case, it absolutely doesn't matter to the buyers.  And, worse yet, it's totally off-putting because it shifts the onus of specifying the problems that need to be solved on to the buyers.  Here's the issue: they may know what end results they need (cost economies, productivity enhancements, etc.), but they likely have no real idea of what your products can do or how your solutions would be introduced and incorporated into their specific operations. So, their natural reaction is to take two steps backwards rather than buying your pitch.

That's why it makes so much sense to start by sandbagging a little bit instead of bragging. Under promise and then over deliver. Let me give you a real life and slightly sneaky example that you'll be seeing practically every night on TV - if you ever watch TV. I say "sneaky" because this is a situation dictated mainly by marketing considerations, but it might also be to get around certain regulatory requirements about diet claims. If you watch the latest ads for several of the wonder drugs (no names please) -- after they make all the over-the-top basic benefit claims and after they list the 4 million side effects - you'll hear a little announcer aside that goes like this: "and you might just lose a little weight too." No promises. No guarantees. But, as good Samaritans, we thought you just might want to know. Right. That's under promising to a "T."

And, in your own business and sales approach, you need to be thinking the same way when you present your new products and services. Tone it down - don't go for the gold from the get-go. Prove your product a little bit at a time.  "New" is a nasty word to millions of procurement officers, buyers and other decision makers. "Novel" and "innovative" are right up there as well. Change is always hard to implement, but when it represents new costs, retraining and upskilling commitments, the risks of errors and mistakes, etc., it's an even harder sale. And it's no easier when the impact and the benefits aren't immediately demonstrable.

In the real world, no one is looking for a miracle. They want risk-free, middle-of-the-road, mundane improvements that might save their companies some money, but will certainly save their jobs. They want immediate solutions, not ultimate salvation. This is in part because they're not sure that they'll even be around for the big, long-awaited payoff. So, you need to plan, sell, and act accordingly.

Even if you can eventually move the moon, start with something that you can get done by next Monday.

Kaplan Exec Director Howard Tullman Speaks to Faculty on KI Plans and Vision

Tour of the Kaplan Institute with Bud Wendorf and Exec Director Howard Tullman

NEW INC MAGAZINE BLOG POST BY KAPLAN INSTITUTE EXEC DIRECTOR HOWARD TULLMAN

How Apple Plays the Price Game

The XS is the season's gotta-have gadget. Except that you really don't need it. The company is brilliant at adding features without much function and charging a premium for them. In other words, this is a sucker's game.

By Howard Tullman

Executive director, Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship, Illinois Institute of Technology

@tullman

Christmas came early this year, which is not very good news for the toy makers, whose businesses and sales are still pretty much in the toilet across the board. And here's the thing: the toymakers can blame technology all they want and complain about all the kids with their noses glued to the screens. But they're pointing to the wrong part of the problem. It's not that the kids aren't excited about getting a pile of new presents; it's that their parents are much more concerned with buying the new and very expensive "tech toys" for themselves. Let the kids wait until December; the starting gun for their parents' shopping sprees is the annual Apple announcement of the latest and greatest new phones and watches. And this year's race is on. 

Once again, Apple is leading the charge toward the inevitable cliff's edge in a breathtaking game of "consumer chicken" that would scare even Evel Knievel if he were still around. Just how high can these prices go for no good reason? Apparently, at least for the moment, there's no end in sight. This reminds me of the early days of the Intel Pentium chips when new chips kept rolling out even though the alleged incremental benefits in speed and processing power weren't apparent to most humans--at least none that I knew. Of course, that didn't keep the geeks (and anyone not on a budget) from upgrading to the newest versions-- see it, need it -- or not. In fact, this dependable and consistent buyer response (a market-driven version of the Moore's law belief that things just keep getting better and more powerful) set the behavior curve for the tech industry and its customers for years thereafter. Honestly, things aren't that much different even today.

Mom and Dad don't care about cornering the market for Bobby or Betty on this year's Beanie Babies. They'd rather brag to their neighbors and their carpool cronies about their new giant iPhone XS MAX with a new Series 4 Apple Watch on the side. Apple can try all they want to call this monster the "X-S", but what leaps immediately into your head is "EXCESS" and that says it all. Big dollars, big size, wretched excess at its finest. However, knowing that this gotta-have behavior makes no economic sense and keeping yourself from falling once again into Cupertino's clutches are two radically different things.

In the old days, we used to complain about planned obsolescence in the auto industry; then we witnessed the same thing in the mobile phone world when our phones' performance suspiciously degraded right before new devices rolled out.  Apple has also mastered the art of foolish functionality. The Watch is already approaching a level of complexity (like any other over-engineered product) where most of the embedded functions are unknown to most mortals and basically unusable by the vast majority of the users. The additional 8 or 9 features that are displayed on the face of the new Watch are called "complications." A complication is a traditional watchmaker's term for an added feature, but in this case it's more like unintended irony. And the beat goes on. We're buying into the new stories against our better judgment and even when we know that the things are no great shakes and not really doing the jobs that we need done.    

And, the really sad thing - particularly about the Watch with all its new bells and whistles - is that the battery life still basically sucks. How about fixing what's not working every once in a while instead of adding more battery-sucking functions that no one asked for. What good is a tracking device of any kind (especially one that's increasingly positioned as a medical management tool) if you can't count on it to last the whole business day and when you have to take the thing off every night and recharge it? Makes it a little bit challenging to measure your sleeping behavior if your Watch is sleeping beside you on the bed stand. I wrote about this angst a while ago and things haven't changed a bit. If your tracker isn't tracking, what's the whole point?  

Bottom line: No matter how much steak sauce you put on a hot dog, it's still a wiener.

AT&T Hackathon at Kaplan Institute

Technori Takes Equity Investment to Launch Technori Co-op

Technori Takes Equity Investment to Launch Technori Co-op, a Non-Traditional Startup Incubator Focused on Disrupting how Startups are Launched and Funded

·          

DV Partners, led by SMS Assist Founder and Chairman Mike Rothman, today announced a seven figure investment in Chicago's largest and most active startup platform, Technori. The funds will be used to expand its successful podcast show and event series, and to launch Technori Co-op, an entirely new startup incubator and investment platform.

"Nothing is more important to the growth and health of a startup community than the people who work tirelessly to identify, connect and positively promote the key players,"

CHICAGO (PRWEB) SEPTEMBER 12, 2018

DV Partners, led by SMS Assist Founder and Chairman Mike Rothman, today announced a seven figure investment in Chicago's largest and most active startup platform, Technori. The funds will be used to expand its successful podcast show and event series, and to launch Technori Co-op, an entirely new startup incubator and investment platform.

Technori helps startups gain traction by engaging with thousands of would-be investors, customers, and commercial partners such as, MB Real Estate, Bank of America, and Salesforce, through highly curated events and media. The Startup Showcase is one of the largest quarterly tech events in the U.S, and the first ever to allow attendees to invest directly in the presenting startups, via an exclusive partnership with Title III equity crowdfunding platform, Republic. Technori is also the creator of Chicago's most popular tech podcast and live radio show, hosted by its CEO Scott Kitun on WGN Radio.

To date, Technori has helped hundreds of companies raise more than $1 billion in venture capital and connect with thousands of first employees and customers by featuring founders on-stage at Showcase events, and in-studio at WGN Radio.

"Nothing is more important to the growth and health of a startup community than the people who work tirelessly to identify, connect and positively promote the key players," former 1871 CEO and current Illinois Tech Kaplan Institute Executive Director Howard Tullman said. "Scott has been one of the most important, consistent and valuable contributors to the tech scene in more ways and for more years than he's willing to admit and it's a big part of Chicago's success."

Rothman's investment in Technori is about accelerating and supporting Technori's mission of building the largest and most diverse tech community in the world, but it's also about helping startups gain access to strategic capital and connections - something Rothman has plenty of experience with.

As former CEO of SMS Assist, Mike Rothman raised several hundred million dollars for the company - at over a billion dollar valuation - from the likes of Goldman Sachs and Chicago-based Pritzker Group, among others.

"Technori has done an incredible job of providing founders like myself with exposure. But, there's a huge opportunity to make an even bigger impact on the startup community," Rothman said. "That's why I've partnered with Scott to extend the Technori services model to introduce the most innovative early stage incubation tool, called Technori Co-op."

Technori Co-op is an investment model that provides early-stage companies access to capital, board support and strategic advisory while enabling the founders to own a stake in the portfolio.

"We work to democratize how startups are launched and funded by allowing founders to use our exposure to equity crowdfund," says Technori CEO Scott Kitun. "The Co-op takes the best of those founders and gives them access to some of the most successful entrepreneurs and investors our tech community has to offer."

Initial Co-op advisors include, Lightbank Managing Partner Vic Pascucci, Blue1647 founder Emile Cambry, and Fanatics VP of Engineering Nate Lyman, among other influential tech leaders.

"Scott and Mike are visionaries. How this democratizes the startup process is incredible and I'm excited to be a part of it," said Pascucci.

"DV Partners has already made significant investments in tech startups, such as Dumbstruck, Residential Homes Group (RHG), and Theron Technology Solutions(TTS). And I'm sure whether we invest through DVP or launch a Technori Fund; we plan to deploy a lot more capital into disruptive technology companies," said Rothman. "But, speaking as a founder, the most valuable commodity is information - and we plan to use that to grow the value of our Co-op companies immediately."

TTS builds enterprise technology solutions that identify and improve operational efficiencies; founded by former SMS Assist Chief Product Officer Alex Rothman, Theron will also be participating in the Technori Co-op to provide portfolio companies with tech support.

"I learned very early on at SMS, it's not how fast you can build something, but how accurately you align it with a Go-To-Market strategy," said Alex Rothman. "Theron is here to share our industry expertise and offer founders what they'll need to build at scale."

According to Kitun, "this investment not only enables us to enter new markets and introduce the Technori Co-op, but also significantly grow our team, and develop the technology necessary to better reach our growing target audience."

For more information about applying for Technori Co-op, visit Technori.com, or follow and message directly through Facebook.

OTHER TECHNORI NEWS

Technori will now host its premier Startup Showcase events quarterly, with monthly lunch and learn workshops and founder's dinners - with an eye on expanding into new markets with pop-up events in 2019.

Clean tech hub takes shape on Chicago’s South Side

Clean tech hub takes shape on Chicago’s South Side

WRITTEN BY

Kevin Stark

Construction is underway on a plan to turn Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood into a ‘smart-tech innovation district.’

Two years after an ambitious clean energy campaign was announced for a South Side Chicago neighborhood, construction is moving forward on a clustered microgrid, a solar energy project at an affordable housing complex and a university-led clean tech center.

In 2016, the nonprofit Community Development Partnership announced acampaign to turn the Bronzeville neighborhood into a sustainable destination hub. The aim is to boost tourism and develop local black-owned businesses by partnering  with ComEd, Illinois Institute of Technology, and other clean energy businesses.

ComEd’s microgrid, which faced criticism over costs from the Illinois attorney general, will help form the first utility-scale clustered microgrid in the country with help from the Illinois Institute of Technology. A sun-tracking “smartflower” at the Renaissance Collaborative, an affordable housing center in Bronzeville, is awaiting an installation permit.

Also, the Community Development Partnership is providing input on  redevelopment plans at the old lakefront site of Michael Reese Hospital, a decade-long project expected to create 24,000 jobs and generate more than $520 million in property taxes and $164 million in sales taxes. The site in Bronzeville is being repurposed as a transportation logistics center with potential commercial tech space.

For Paula Robinson, who leads the Community Development Partnership, the work of turning Bronzeville into a center of clean energy technology is all about building on the rich history of the neighborhood.

“At this point, we have all these components and pieces coming together,” Robinson said. “We have stepped out to show that Bronzeville will be Chicago’s smart-tech innovation district.”

She sees her work in clean energy as building on the legacy of the neighborhood.

“We are definitely on this journey together,” she said of the community. “We’ve been talking about the neighborhood as a black metropolis, a National Heritage Area.”

During much of the 20th Century, Bronzeville was a center of African American culture and business in Chicago during an era when redlining and other government policies kept black residents from accessing all neighborhoods.

At a recent event updating the community on the campaign, Howard Tullman, director of IIT’s new innovation institute, shared a vision for the Kaplan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, a facility that will be completed this fall and will be the site of classes, workshops, and collaborations between technology professionals, students, and faculty.

“We are the only tech-centric university in the city, and we are really in the heart of the city,” Tullman said. “Building this project here was really important because we are going to be training people for careers that don’t exist yet, using technology that we will invent here. It will address problems that we think we understand, but also problems that we don’t yet know.”

Microgrid moves forward

For ComEd, the Bronzeville project is partly about leveraging smart grid infrastructure that has been built throughout the region since 2012. ComEd president and chief operating officer Terence Donnelly wrote last month that Bronzeville has undergone “one of the most robust grid modernizations programs in the nation.”

He added ComEd is “intent on building upon the strength of the stronger, more flexible smart grid platform that has dramatically enhanced reliability and customer satisfaction.”

In late June, the utility broke ground and began laying conduit that will eventually connect the microgrid to the ComEd system. The Illinois Commerce Commission approved the $25 million project in February following criticism from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office that it was too costly for ratepayers.

ComEd and clean energy groups argued the microgrid is an important, real-world look into the benefits integrating two microgrids. The utility developed a custom software so its new microgrid will be able to communicate with the existing microgrid at IIT. The goal is to optimize the use of clean energy resources in Bronzeville, while improving efficiency and resiliency.

During emergencies and outages, clustering the microgrids will help to identify the critical load, according to Mohammad Shahidehpour, a chairman in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of IIT.

“By clustering, we can island the microgrid on the campus,” he said. “By islanding it, we are in charge of our destiny. We can find out what is critical and can keep it on.” 

New INC Magazine Post: How Rahm Emanuel Made Chicago Thrive

How Rahm Emanuel Made Chicago Thrive

The best big-city mayor in the country shocked the Windy City by announcing that he won't run for a third term. The business community is losing a gamechanger.

By Howard Tullman

Executive director, Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship, Illinois Institute of Technology

@tullman

Last week Chicago lost a great mayor as well as the most aggressive spokesman ever for the city's tech and entrepreneurial community when Rahm Emanuel-- the best big city mayor in the country, bar none--announced that he would not run for a third term. Good news for him and his family and really hard news for the city. Family first. Period. 

In his brief announcement, and in the comments and interviews that followed, he offered some important lessons for us, and especially for the pack of losers who had already lined up to run against him. If it wasn't so sad for Chicago, it would be comical watching these one-issue, nichy little nobodies gripe, posture and position themselves as hopefuls and aspirants to a position many miles beyond their abilities. Imagine seeing a group of 10^thgrade Pony league pitchers trying to throw shade at one of the MLB pros. If you want to beat Babe Ruth, play him in golf, not baseball.

How painfully easy it is for the challengers to complain and criticize from the sidelines.  I call these people solution-less soreheads. And considering that most of them are presently gainfully unemployed, I'm reminded of the old crew expression that the only one in the boat who has the time to complain is the one who isn't rowing hard enough. I'd feel sorry for most of them because of how sadly deluded they are, but their rank arrogance in thinking that even for a moment any one of them is up to the task makes it hard to sympathize with their stupidity.

The media mavens and the other scriveners realized (grudgingly admitted, is a better way to put it) that a tremendous amount of important work got done in the last seven years and that most of it wouldn't have been accomplished without the pushing, prodding, pleading and insistence of the mayor. Substantial improvements in affordable housing, expanded access to public transportation, and the conversion of the Chicago river from a sewer to the spectacular Riverwalk are just a few of the initiatives that will serve the city well long after his departure.

Sometimes a song says it all and no one ever summed up this sad situation better than Joni Mitchell in "Big Yellow Taxi" with the line: Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone. People who are even a little bit in the know know exactly how devastating a blow Rahm's departure is to the progress of any number of ongoing projects and business opportunities. This announcement may be the end of any number of new prospective investments in the city unless someone with real credentials and serious skills steps quickly into the breach and offers some serious prospect of stability and continuity. No one likes uncertainty and change less than long-term investors and institutions.

But, one of the succession difficulties is likely to be that the most qualified new potential entrants have, at best, a complex relationship and a mixed history with Emanuel. His own entry into office was aided immeasurably by a warm handoff from the departing Mayor Richard M. Daley. Of course, that hearty handshake was accompanied by a bucket full of hot messes which Rahm spent years trying to straighten out, with substantial success. No other mayor ever endeavored--much less succeeded, in large measure-- in cleaning up Chicago's decades of mismanaged and underfunded pension plans for police, firefighters and teachers. No other mayor grew the city's tech sector by tens of thousands of jobs year after year and made Chicago the nation's leader-- five years running-- for corporate headquarters relocations. And no other mayor expanded the public-school day and school year so that by graduation, Chicago public school students will have spent more than two additional years in class than when Emanuel arrived on the scene.

No one expects a similar amount of support from the 5th floor of City Hall this time around for virtually any of the major undeclared candidates, at least at this point. Of course, politics makes for strange bed-fellows, so I guess we will just see what happens. But, apart from the politics and the befuddled state of the city at the moment, there's a very important lesson for prospective entrepreneurs as well in Rahm's parting comments.

Being the boss means doing it ALL. Every day. All day. You don't get to pick and choose the fun parts. You don't get to delegate the hard conversations or the ultimate responsibility. And you don't have to shoulder the disappointments when people let you down or the hurt you feel when you suffer alongside the families and the kids who you wish you could have only helped a little bit more.

Only a few special people are up to jobs like this - be it mayor or CEO. A lot of folks kid themselves into believing that this is what they want to do with their lives, but they have no idea of how all-consuming and enervating a task it is. And what it costs in terms of your personal life and health and the lives of your family.

My advice to every aspiring entrepreneur is to be very careful what you wish for and do your homework before you take the leap. Seven scars are just the beginning. The occasional highs are okay, but the inevitable and continual lows are brutal.

My advice to the clowns so far who are seeking to succeed Mayor Emanuel is to do yourself and our city a favor and keep whatever day job you may have.

Let Go & Lead

Deputy Mayor Robert Rivkin Tours New Kaplan Institute Building