eFeature: Crossing the Cognitive Chasm, Circa 2017

**Introducing the notion of "cognitive destruction" of established industries...**

Many many pundits have made their predictions for cognitive technologies in 2017. Here we provide a sampling of links to those predictions. However, let’s also raise our perspective and look at the state of cognitive from a macro perspective. We can use Geoffrey Moore’s 1991 classic “Crossing the Chasm,” but update it with a parallel update to Joseph Schumpeter’s 1942 “creative destruction,” the “process of industrial mutation that revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.” To wit, look at Amazon’s impact on the retail industries with the once new technology of e-commerce (remember Borders Bookstores?).

Now a new technology, cognitive technology, is driving creative destruction so it’s time to introduce the notion of the “cognitive destruction” of established industries.

In their book Smart Customer Stupid Companies..."Why Only Intelligent Companies Will Thrive, and How to Be One of Them“...the authors Michael Hinshaw and Bruce Kasanoff articulate four excellent points as they relate to cognitive computing:

The greatest possible competitive advantages stems from having knowledge of customers that your competitors lack. Companies can't be competitive if they can't stay ahead of their customers.
Disruptive forces are changing customer experience...which is changing customer expectations.
Dramatically reduce complexity to gain competitive advantage. Your company must be able to act smarter than its customers, or it will cease to exist.
If you're a company putting your customer through a mindless robotic voice recognition system that requires you to navigate through layers of menus to retrieve a simply answer, then your company is endangered of ceasing to exist.

The book captures the true essence of disruptive changes with a quote from General Eric Shinseki, Retired Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, "If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less."

“We are on the cusp of a change as big as when e-commerce hit,” said Chris McCann, president and CEO of 1-800-Flowers.com. “It’s giving us the opportunity to have such deep relationships with our customers that it’ll be like the company hasn’t existed before. It can change our market, our supply chain. Everything. It will drive change all through the company. It is as if we were starting a new company.

The awesome changes being ushered in go beyoud the creation or modernization of companies and their ROIs, it goes on to societal change... on to ethics: the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.

Below are number of discussions and actions related to ethics, esp. in light of Fake News and Alt-Facts:

Google purges nearly 200 websites in fake news crackdown

Facebook Inches Timidly Forward In Fight Against Fake News

The Future of Work

The Future of Work and Workers

Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society

Transparency and Trust in the Cognitive Era: Gini Rometty

And here is a short collection of predictions from the pundits, including master cyber criminals, super-trojans, workforce shifts, advanced analytics and more:

After a big 2016, next year may be A.I. tipping point
computerworld.com

5 Big Predictions for Artificial Intelligence in 2017
https://www.technologyreview.com

2017 Will Be the Year of AI | Fortune.com
fortune.com

Artificial intelligence to drive China VC investments in 2017: KPMG
www.cnbc.com

2017 will be big year for AI thanks to Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and ...

4 Predictions for Artificial Intelligence in 2017
www.inc.com

Artificial intelligence: The 3 big trends to watch in 2017
techrepublic.com

Baidu's Andrew Ng on the Future of Artificial Intelligence | Time.com
time.com

15 Artificial Intelligence Predictions for 2017: Expect AI-as-a-Service ...
www.cbronline.com

Welcome back from pundit-ville. Let’s go on to some macro-perspectives. Here is Geoffrey Moore’s classic model for adopting new technologies, esp. from a consumer’s point of view.

But let’s move on from consumers of radical new technologies to the business and other organizations that need to adopt them for competitive reasons, for reasons of staying relevant. Forget Moore’s familiar bell curve, which is good for statistics classes. Let’s look at the “S” curve, where the Late Majority and Laggards are made irrevelant.

So, how big is this change being brought to us by cognitive destruction?