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This year has been especially challenging. Now that we’ve crossed the 6-month mark and head into the winter, mental health becomes more important than ever. We’re still working remotely and unable to enjoy the same level of socializing with colleagues, friends and family that we’re accustomed to. Plain and simple – it’s not easy for anyone.

Here at InRhythm, we are committed to advocating against any social stigma associated with mental health. In fact, we’re aligning with the theme of this year’s World Mental Health Awareness Day, which is “greater investment – greater access.” This past Saturday, October 10, we welcomed the team to pause and reflect on how they’re truly feeling. I find it extremely important that they take the take the time to meditate and connect with the thoughts that are in their hearts and in their minds. 

We take this very seriously. If my team needs help, they will get help. And we’ll be with them every step of the way. 

The first step that we’re taking is to bring resources such as Headway, Headspace or Calm to their attention. Secondly, we advised them to take advantage of the internal resources, such workshops we will be hosting and Employee Assistance Programs that are readily available to them. Finally, I can never say thank my team enough. Everyone is doing their very best under extraordinarily challenging circumstances.

Each of us have different situations and varying needs. If you are not feeling quite like yourself – pause. Take a break and consider talking to a professional.

Know that there will always be someone here for you every step of the way.

I was recently invited to attend an Executive Education Series for a Global Leadership Community of Chief Executives with approximately 29,000 members in more than 130 countries. 

The sessions are conducted in partnership with a leading private technological university and place a heavy emphasis on Digital Transformation. 

This event was kicked-off by an alumnus of the university who introduced the Dean of the university’s Office of Digital Learning. This professor is an icon in his field, a renowned IoT expert and a distinguished professor of Mechanical Engineering at the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

He was invited to talk about Innovation and IoT in the context of Digital Transformation and he was joined by three panelists who were members of the Leadership Community. 

To launch his presentation he asked the panel, if IoT was a technology, a platform or a solution and then introduced the concept of IoT as a design language.

To illustrate his point, he offered an analogy that compared the impact of the internet on business with the impact that electricity had on architects:

Without electricity, architects could use only windows as a source of light, instead of light bulbs, and steps instead of elevators. The invention of artificial light changed the language of the architect. Through this simple analogy the professor illustrated the need for business leaders to focus on “a rethinking of their business narrative.”

That rethinking is centered around an obsession with understanding what consumers really want. It also involves understanding how new technology can change the delivery of a product or service offering in this era of the experience economy. Again, he illustrated his point with a simple question:

“When people buy a drill, do they want a drill?” No, they want a hole!

Coming back to the world of IoT, he declared Uber as the ultimate IoT company with GPS sensors connected to the internet, your smartphone and the car. Other car companies thought consumers wanted a car and hadn’t obsessed enough with the question of what consumers really wanted. Unless you’re driving a Ferrari, which is obviously all about the driving experience, you are likely interested primarily in transportation. People are getting frustrated with parking, speeding tickets, insurance premiums, running out of petrol, skidding on ice, etc. and Uber exploited that insight.

Amazon rethought their business narrative numerous times. When they sold books, they knew it wasn’t about books, it was about access to content and information so they developed the Kindle. Then it wasn’t about the Kindle, it was about the e-reading technology service that they took to Apple, and the Kindle app transformed the business with the launch of the iPhone. Amazon didn’t stop there. They discovered that consumers’ need for reading may be a need for having a narrative in their ear and that insight created Audible and then Alexa.

The professor mentioned that Jeff Bezos (whom he knows personally) wanted to own the experience. Owning the experience requires “the peeling of the onion”, another analogy that refers to discovering the core, the consumer’s need, the stuff that people really want. The outer portion of the onion is the product not the experience.

“Did you really buy a CD because you wanted a CD or because you wanted to have the music on the CD play in your ear?”

Apple is successful because they have always changed their business narrative. From the iPod, to iTunes to the iPhone and the Apple watch – and they will change that narrative again when they launch Apple Glasses.

However, you don’t have to be Apple to change the narrative. Now is the time to really think about your ideas and consider them as being valid. Talk to a friend, get advice, consider it deeply. We’re in a time where things are changing massively and your idea might be totally relevant.

He continued his talk with more examples: “What does a door do?”

It keeps people out from getting inside and let’s you go outside from inside. But if you rethink the narrative of the business of a door, it also lets shipments come in, it lets your nanny or your dog walker come in and that insight created the smart door with a smart lock and a smart doorbell that allows you to do more with your standard door.

“What does a mattress do?”

It provides better sleep, more comfort, better refreshment the next day, etc. 

EightSleep exploited that and leaned on neuroscience research that indicated sleep was important to achieve those objectives. The fearless and creative mind of the inventor of the product was key to this.

Most people are unaware that Rolls Royce pioneered the concept of moving towards an experience economy where the needs of the customer is central, instead of the product. When they sold aircraft engines, their true interest was in a service economy where planes anywhere in the world could be serviced by dedicated Rolls Royce partners. They use a satellite system that recognizes when a plane lands in Boston, for example, and then connect the airplane for relevant service or maintenance with a service partner in the Boston area.

The professor provided more examples of service economy players such as Solar City (a service beyond solar panels) and then describes how a turnkey solution/offer creates high margins but also requires high investment. Exceptions are companies like Uber and Airbnb that have managed to offer turnkey solutions without the investment into tangible assets and people, which makes them particularly successful.

Amazon invested in the cloud as they recognized businesses’ need for computing, not computers.

Netflix produces great content because they constantly analyze viewer data and insights. Big data is becoming more important and with that privacy concerns rise. One way of addressing this is to create synthetic data whereby banks, for example, can create data sets from real transactions with all records being anonymous.

The power of the idea is the most important aspect and is the key to technological advancement. While new technologies used to land in sequence with one major ripple coming out of an invention, these days technological impact is exponential. It’s like a storm with rain drops falling on a still pond creating multiple and overlapping ripple effects. It’s the intersection of ripples where the exponentiation of technology takes place.

For example, the AI revolution comes from the technology overlap of neural networks that have existed since the 80s, and GPUs in gaming and the internet. Cell biology, genetics and chemistry has led to Crispr. Quantum computing is the combination of quantum mechanics and computing. Cryptography and distributed ledgers came together and created blockchain.

Electricity and motors existed for a long time but lithium batteries and railroad magnetic motors enabled the electric car revolution. Radar existed for a long time. As vision and computing took off, the three technologies overlapped to enable self driving cars.

These are all examples of intersecting circles. We’re in an era where the magic of technology is changing many things. This should encourage us to consider our ideas deeply. The professor recommends giving them a thought and discussing them with people.

The third aspect of today’s technological landscape is the growth of Jedis. These are founders of companies who have pioneered change. The so-called PayPal mafia who were people that initially worked and later left Paypal to create major innovation are an example of this. It shows that you can learn from one other and become a Jedi. Ideas and leadership are the difficult part, not the technology.

For example, Kiva Systems was invented by an inventor who had the vision that the product in the warehouse should come to the picker not the other way round. It was this idea of a different workflow that changed the game. The inventor sold the company to Amazon which is now rolling out the system across their warehouses nationwide under the name Amazon Robotics.

The fourth aspect is the great Covid acceleration that will likely create a “new abnormal” with Zoom Inc now worth more than all leading airlines combined.

Even without Covid, there would have been a new way of working that would have seen greater virtual activity.

The professor concluded his talk with five key takeaways:

1. Understand the need you are serving. What does your consumer really want? “The peeling of the onion.”
2. Constantly scan for other ways of serving that need. “A door is not just a door.”
3. Find a client that champions your new offering.
4. Prototype to quickly get to market. When Amazon launched the Kindle, Barnes and Noble responded quickly with the Nook but Borders didn’t and went out of business.
5. Be a Jedi!

This Lighting Talk was given by our CTO, Chris Tava on the Introduction to Monitoring and Alerting with Datadog. Chris explains that Observability leads into Monitoring as you will observe and monitor things before you alert on them or do an analysis on what you have found. Chris goes into the “why” and “how”, the motivation behind using the tool and the approach to it and then outlines Onboarding practices together with examples of monitoring and alerting. For Chris, Datadog is important as we are likely using it on a new client project again to instrument and monitor cloud native Kubernetes clusters running in Azure. A great and timely talk as Datadog just achieved AWS Outposts Ready Designation last week.

Last week we were invited to an exclusive interview with the CEO of one the most prestigious brands in finance, a global pioneer in payment innovation and technology. Fortune magazine named him one of the most influential global leaders. He took over as CEO in July 2010, during one of the most difficult times of the company’s history, as the recession curbed credit card spending and new regulations cut into profitability. 

Since then, the firm has achieved year on year 30% compound growth with a market cap of $26.5b in 2010 accelerating to almost $320b in 2020 and a 1500% return on stocks. At the same time, this CEO has shown the corporate world that you can do well by doing good. It’s a strategy that he lives by. One example is stock ownership. Currently, 70% of the employees own stock up from 25% – 30% in 2010. 

While most people think of this firm as a credit card company, it really is a fintech innovator! 

Can you share your vision for the company and its role as a leading fintech innovator, and what impact has Covid had on innovation?

“As a Leader I believe that in life 50% depends on being at the right place at the right time. When I took over in 2010 the company with its assets and capabilities was in the right place to move in a space beyond payments. 

While the company still uses the payment transaction (be it a debit card, credit card, commercial payment or a prepaid card) as a source of what we do, we actually don’t make money only from transactions. 

New revenue comes from Analytics, AI, Cybersecurity, Loyalty and Rewards, that have become ancillary services to the main payment that wraps around or envelopes the transaction. The transformation of the company derived from taking what I call ‘the rails’ that we built and building services around those rails, using the flow of data in the rails to generate insights and capabilities for all their clients, including banks, merchants, governments, corporates and fintechs. 

During COVID our company delivers social benefits for governments to citizens – individuals and businesses. 

We are not a credit card company. In fact, we don’t even issue credit cards. Accounts are issued by banks or other authorized non-bank issuers, so Citi for example is one of our biggest issuers globally. Our company provides the infrastructure that manages 99% of UK payments and bank account transactions and that now operates in the US,  Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the Nordics, Peru, Indonesiam and Thailand. 

I care about seeing the transaction, we are not seeing the user data. We don’t see the customer’s name and don’t know anything about the transaction other than the 16 digit card number, the $ value, the transaction date and the merchant code. We don’t even know what the customer bought. The banks have that information but we only receive anonymous data and we are using this data to build new revenue streams. 

With that data we are getting insights and building services around loyalty, cybersecurity, rewards and that business is now making 27% of our revenue and we want to build on this through partnerships with banks, governments and businesses.”

What is your company doing to include unbanked consumers and SMEs to get them into the financial ecosystem and to allow them to get credit?

“Early on the company redefined our competition, steering away from other network players, such as the other three leading card payment firms and locals. We defined alternative payment forms, mainly cash or check payments, as our competition. 

Ten years ago, 85% of the world’s retail sales were in cash and 2b of the then 6.5b people on the planet had no identity or account. We wanted to offer a more efficient way to clear those cash transactions. When individuals or businesses operate with no identity and no account or card, it’s often with the purpose of tax evasion, which should be addressed and the issue for micro SMEs is that they can’t build up credit or get access to insurance. 

For businesses, the problem is with micro SMEs – small family run shops with no payment account, no insurance, no credit score, no infrastructure. We decided to support those and governments to provide cash payments to their beneficiaries (pensions, salaries, health benefits, unemployment benefits, etc.)  We needed to create an electronic form and then digitize the transaction to build credit scores. We have done this systematically. 

I made a wild commitment in 2013/14 at a World Bank Forum when people asked what my ambition was for growth. I mentioned that I wanted to get to a market capitalization of $500m by 2020 which we achieved and we are on the way to double this to $1t by 2025. We also added 50m micro SMEs to our roster of clients over that period of time and are scaling this proposition across consumers and businesses. 

The first step is to give them an identity and I’m a believer in freedom and therefore we, as a private company, should not know about the citizen’s data. It’s wrong. 

We want the government to do the social contract and then tap into this via the cloud. From there the account can be accessed with iris identification, phone or fingerprinting. By the way, 42% of the money that comes from governments doesn’t get to its beneficiaries because of sticky fingers in the middle. 

Our company supports micro SMEs in Africa to digitize the supply chain and utilizes AI to process credit transactions for farmers in Africa with RaboBank. We digitize the transaction to buy and sell fertilizer and crops to get them into the system to get access to insurance as well as credit. The trick is to get them into the digital space. Once you get them in, it changes everything.”

What do you think about cybersecurity and the dimensionality of the problem with COVID accelerating digital now?

“Cybersecurity is the single biggest challenge to exploit all the advantages of the internet. The internet is the ultimate transformative tool to democratise access. Think about what Google did to education! It created arbitrage but the Internet was not created for security and that is why cybersecurity is now problem # 1, 2 and 3. 

Cybersecurity will have a big impact and so will data and 5G. As we all know, certain big businesses have exploited user data in unauthorized ways and we require the support from the government to address this as we recommended when I was part of Obama’s CyberCommission. We should create the equivalent of nutrition labels that food businesses have or an ABC rating like for Restaurants. It allows you to make a decision, when you buy a TV or computer for example, the label will tell you how safe the device is with regards to cybersecurity. Then we have to get rid of passwords. It is the least secure way to keep us safe. 70% of adult Americans have not changed their online banking password since they opened their account, which is often more than 10 years ago. We have a real problem with security and data privacy. Therefore we invest into Biometrics, AI and crypto, which we see as consumer orientated security with global standards. 

We don’t want to go too far with organized data to hinder the great advantages of the internet, such as education or travel but if we are too open and too free it will cause privacy issues. We need an intelligent discourse and the right way to move forward. 

Most of us have been hacked but not everyone noticed it. The dangers are the large criminal rings and corrupt governments. We owe it to our next generation to get it right. Our work and healthcare depend on it and we have to get it right.” 

Why do you make diversity such a focus at your company? 

“When I moved here in 2000, the US was very welcoming. No one cares about how you look and I don’t think that many other countries offer this. It’s the power and magic of the US. Diversity is still work in progress and the US government still doesn’t give proper maternity leave which is disgusting and crazy. There is still discrimination. My company relies on diversity for innovation, survival and growth. It’s the power of America that we are surrounded by different people. People who are the same, also have the same blind spots. Blind spots are hindering survival. Diversity is good for you and everyone else. We should demand it and we should want it. Andy Grove from Intel used to promote Management by contention and suggested that no good idea is worsened by questions. Ideas are refined by questions. I have a sign in my office which says “Question Everything, Always!”. It’s about the diversity of perspective.”

What do you do as a Leader to manage through this crisis of the pandemic? 

“We are living in amazingly difficult times and in early March it felt like the world was going down. It’s better now but far too early to celebrate. There are still health and economic challenges. The problem now is the growing gap between emerging and developing markets. We have lost years of progress to close that gap and that exacerbates inequality and the issue between emerging and developing countries. I am deeply concerned that we are going back years now. 

As a company leader I need to keep my people safe and healthy and then deliver for our clients, so we went remote and our technology allows us to do so. 

We have a headwind on consumer spending and commercial spending and a tailwind on AI, Data and cybersecurity. The more you communicate the better it works for you and your teams but if you are young it might be different. If you live in an apartment in Manhattan with a spouse, a mother and a dog, it might be difficult to communicate and it can affect your physical and mental health. We have to find a way to address mental health as well. We have therefore signed up with Adriana Huffington to help our people with mental stress. We created an accelerator with the Wellcome Trust, the Gates Foundation, Madonna, the UK government, Michale Dell. We reached $400m and are making progress on drugs and vaccines. 

We put $250m into small business digital payment access, how to open a website, cybersecurity. We gave hospitals free cybersecurity. Doing well by doing good. This is our way through COVID. 

How long will employers like to work remotely? Innovation, creativity and culture cannot continue only through zoom calls. Trying to get back with social distance. Get employees more flexible in their work methodologies.”

Tell us about your definition of DQ? 

“When you are young they tell you IQ is most important, then later on EQ is more important but I have coined DQ. 

When I was younger it was all about passing IQ tests. But this Idea is about the ability to sort through difficult times, almost like managing adversity, to be able to pour oil on troubled water. DQ is Decency Quotient. People want to work for decent people. You bring your heart and mind to work and act transparent, frank and fair. I don’t mean nice. If someone doesn’t do a good job you don’t give them credit for it. That would be wimping out on a difficult moment. 

If you are a leader it’s a privilege. People look for guidance, a fair level playing field and help when they make a mistake. Decency means you recognize that you are in a privileged position as a leader and you bring your heart and mind to work and help people. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s about the ability to learn from them and how you respond to them.”

What is your company’s play in cryptocurrency? 

“My view is that the underlying technology of blockchain has enormous promise. The first use was cryptocurrency but bitcoin exhibited challenges, like volatility and anonymity. 

Bitcoin was an asset not a currency. I step away from bitcoin, I call it junk. 

I love blockchain technology because it democratizes access. It takes away the anonymity and instability that bitcoin has. So we have found some business cases that we continue investing in, for example proof of product, such as: 

“Is that organic shrimp actually organic and off the coast of New Orleans”? 

“Is that shirt that you are wearing actually from Egyptian cotton”?

“Is that recalled milk powder that you bought for your baby from a specific farm using a specific truck route and therefore that truck route is affected and therefore those products need to be pulled back, etc.?”

“Is that diamond a blood diamond and not mined in an inappropriate way?” 

“Is that art genuine and has all the right certification and isn’t theft”?

Those proof of provenance examples we have launched in a number of countries.

The question will be what role does the central banks play in all this and what role the commercial banks? There is a lot of sorting out to be done in a number of different areas.”

How is your company helping India to reach the poorest with direct benefits?

“India has made enormous strides on opening a bank account for people without a digital identity. They created an identity system and gave everyone a unique identity with their biometrics. The idea is fabulous and has been executed very well,  the person that designed it is a brilliant entrepreneur. The challenge is digital identity technology has moved on. And one of the ideas today is to distribute the identities rather than holding it in one place. The new digital identity measures keep the data in different places and you only get the piece of information that you need and you protect it in a cryptowall and that is a distributed digital identity. 

We helped farmers with a Farmers Network to connect them to smart phones and get access to cooperatives where they are able to get cheaper fertilizers and such and sell their produce into the cooperatives and they don’t physically sell it and have to come back with cash in their pocket and deposit into a bank account. Making it more efficient for the farmers and also having access to insurance is important. 

For micro SMEs, if you are a young woman in a village and you have your shop in your home and have no access to credit. The trucks that come with supplies from vendors once a week. If you can digitize the transactions, you can get these SMEs access to credit in the form of loans and get them underwritten. This is something that we are doing all over Africa and we are trying to bring this to some states in India. 

For small businesses, we help them take their business online and help with their website but also digital payments to get them going as in this day and age without digital your business is not capable of survival.” 

What do you think are the most interesting sectors for growth within the next 2- 5 years coming out of this COVID crisis?

“Going beyond FinTech, with 5G there is this whole new world coming where every device is enabled and to be a location that generates and receives data to make informed decisions. Sensors in every piece and they can speak to each other, there will be enormous opportunities in the sensor space and data management space and AI, cybersecurity and of course FinTech and payments space because of all the data.” 

Can New Account Management (Apple Pay, etc.) replace Credit Cards?

“I care about being part of the management of the account, I don’t care about the credit card. For example, Apple Pay can’t manage without access to someone’s account, which may be linked to a Credit Card or Debit Card or a Bank Account and the same for Paypal. You have to fund the wallet in some way. I am in that business, the account access business. I am different from my competitors who are not in the bank account connectivity business, they tend to be in the card business. We are in the multirail business. I  am agnostic as to which payment instrument you access your account with, I want to be there in the account access business and make it safe, smart and simple.” 

Looking forward to the next 5- 10 years which are the next 2-3 innovations which will have a big impact on the financial world?

“Blockchain in so many different ways, not Bitcoin. The idea of what the blockchain does through a publicly distributed ledger to come up with the digital identity. The old days of keeping everything in one place, that’s a bad place to be. You need to think about the distributed system that by the nature of the beast it adds complexity to break it. 

Secondly, the 5G revolution. Every device should be a device of performance, machine-to-machine transactions of small sizes will pick up a large part of what we do. For example, when you drive your car to the gas station, you will want to pay for your gas, but also pick up a Coke and go through the car wash and pay for all by the systems that recognize that this is you and it’s your car and you are authorized to use it for all these purposes and you want to pay from XYZ location and pay seamlessly either through your heartbeat or irises or by waving your hand or just by being there. The idea of blockchain combined with 5G and what it does with distributed devices, I think those two are going to transform everything. 

What can hold this up is cybersecurity and data privacy. It can turn back the clock on the opportunity of the next decade. The data privacy issue is already happening with all the controversy we have around certain companies and their access to your information. As a result, one or two mistakes will cause trouble for everyone. A knee-jerk reaction to stop everything or to organize data country by country would be a disaster. India, for example, wants to keep all data inside but if you do that you don’t allow that data to be merged with data around the world you will lose because you will not be able to see patterns or cyber developments. You won’t be able to get access to true medical advancement and at that point you will want access to data but don’t want to give access to yours. In the global interconnected world this is not good. We need to be thoughtful, we need to protect our citizens, their privacy but we should not put up barriers.”

Nick Richards, one of our Technical Writers delivers this fabulous Lightning Talk on “How to write professionally”. He explains that writing matters to all of us and explores some of the reasons that people are hesitant to write. Nick outlines what our motivation should be when we write and then goes into the nuts and bolts, the tools we are using and the importance of the audience that we write to. A great talk, full of helpful tips that you can apply to improve your writing instantaneously.