“Digital Twin Applications”

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Welcome to IoT Coffee Talk🎙️44 to chat about Digital #Tech #Analytics #Automation #IoT #DigitalTwins #Edge #Cloud #DigitalTransformation #5G #AI #Data #Industry40 & #Sustainability over a cup of coffee.

Grab a cup and settle-in with some of the industry’s leading business minds and technology thought leaders for a lively, irreverent, and informative discussion about IoT in a totally unscripted, organic format.

In this installment we discuss digital twin applications. What are they? What are the cool ones that are actually valuable? What are the typical category of applications and solutions that can be built on digital twins or using digital twins.

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Reimagining the Future

Rob and Kevin

#IoT Strategies and #Mobile #Apps for the #COVID19 Pandemic Response

Kevin Benedict and I discuss how the Internet of Things can help companies respond and react to the pandemic and my ideas on the kinds of mobile apps we need to help contact tracing with COVID19.

IoT Day 2020: Fighting COVID-19 with Digital Twins

Covid Twins

With #COVID19 sweeping the globe, knowledge is our best weapon in fighting this pandemic and associated economic collapse. #DigitalTwin technology is perfectly suited to represent people who have symptoms, are infected, or have recovered.

This capability can also aid in identifying people an infected person came in contact with via contact tracing using mobile apps and Bluetooth. Lastly, “green zones” can be identified where people can go back to work. Join Rob to learn how this powerful technology can be put to work in overcoming the Coronavirus threat.

Why the Internet of Things is as simple as Twitter

IoT and Twitter

Yes, #IoT + #IIoT and #Twitter are truly birds of a feather.

Twitter is made up of people who have something to say. These people express themselves by Tweeting. Oftentimes, no one is listening. There are other people on Twitter who choose to follow those Tweeters in order to listen to what they have to say. Those people are called Followers. These folks often follow lots of Tweeters to understand the state of their collective minds. A Follower gets notified when a Tweeter they’re following says something. Through the clever use of Hashtags, followers can also choose to search for specific topics aggregated across many Tweeters in order to derive larger insights. Depending on the insight, the Follower takes action. Sometimes, a Follower wants to say something to a Tweeter. They can do this with a Direct Message (DM). Of course, a Follower can only send a DM if the Tweeter has authorized this by following the Follower back. The Follower may say something to the Tweeter that either changes her behavior or updates her state of mind.

You never know.

The Internet of Things is made up of machines that have something to say. These machines express themselves by Publishing their telemetry data to some nearby or far away computer system over a communications network. Oftentimes, no one is listening and that data just piles up. There are computers, people, apps, analytics, machine learning and automation systems who are interested in what the machines have to say. They are called Subscribers. They Subscribe to lots of Publishers in order to know the current state of their collective health or performance. A Subscriber often gets notified when a Publisher streams new data which allows them to process that information in near real-time. Subscribers can also choose to search through data swimming in a lake to derive larger insights. Depending on the insight, the Subscriber takes action. Sometimes, a Subscriber or some other endpoint wants to send data to a Publisher or group of Publishers. They can do this through a Command and Control channel. Of course, a Subscriber can only send a message if the Publisher has authorized this action. The Subscriber might send a Command that either changes the Publisher’s behavior or updates its configuration.

You never know.

I realize it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer complexity of these systems that are transforming our world. That’s why it’s important to maintain the simplest view of what these IoT systems are actually doing. Explaining it to others gets easier which allows you to focus on the specific element that drives value.

Mobile Apps Must be Instrumented Just Like IoT Devices

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Just like #IoT devices, #mobile apps should be instrumented to send usage, feedback, error and engagement telemetry to analytic systems.

Instrument everything!

While many developers have written code or used frameworks to log errors, they only scratched the surface when it comes to the amount and types of metrics an app should capture. Beyond data collection, apps must stream telemetry back to analytic systems to benefit marketers, product managers, the QA team and developers. This is all about gleaning insights and improving the app and user experience you’re delivering to your customers and employees.

Capture the following app metrics:

  • Runtime errors and fatal crashes to help developers find the root cause of bugs
  • User feedback and app ratings (stars)
  • Task completion rates
  • Passive sentiment via app engagement depth and duration
  • Sales conversions
  • App launch rates, usage patterns and where users are clicking
  • Underlying operating systems, devices, mobile operators, app versions, available memory, CPU usage and power management data

In addition to passively capturing metrics, actively engage users via push notifications to ask for feedback.

Improve user productivity through app instrumentation to create a feedback loop that continuously enhances the quality, usability and performance for customers and employees. Does the organization where you work instrument all its mobile apps?

Learn how to digitally transform your company in my newest book, “Mobile Strategies for Business: 50 Actionable Insights to Digitally Transform your Business.”

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Click here to purchase a copy of my book today and start transforming your business!

Accelerate Mobile Development with Cross-Platform Tools

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Cross-platform tools allow developers to repurpose existing skills to accelerate native, multi-platform #mobile development.

While many of your mobile, cross-platform goals can be accomplished with HTML5, you might be wondering if there’s a solution for pure native code. There are a growing number of options out there using popular programming languages and even no code at all.

Appcelerator provides an IDE and the Titanium SDK allowing developers to create cross-platform apps using JavaScript. Unlike Hybrid apps, the JavaScript is compiled to native code for better performance. APIs are included to ensure apps can take advantage of all platform features as well as native UI elements.

If you’re a .NET shop with developers comfortable with Visual Studio and skilled in the C# programming language, Xamarin is right for you. This development tool runs on its own or plugs into Visual Studio allowing you to build native iOS, Android and OSX apps. It also implements the native UI of each platform so users will never know the apps weren’t built in Objective-C, Swift or Java. Xamarin is a great way to leverage .NET investments across devices.

Zero-code or low-code solutions like AppArchitect, Alpha Anywhere, SkyGiraffe, Force.com, PowWow, WorkSimple, PowerApps, Reddo, MobileSmith, StarMobile and others are worth your due diligence to speed up development efforts as long as they don’t create a risk to your business platforms.

Reduce expenses by building apps for all mobile platforms with a single codebase and a smaller development team to get your product to market more quickly and pervasively. Has your company pivoted to cross-platform development tools?

Learn how to digitally transform your company in my newest book, “Mobile Strategies for Business: 50 Actionable Insights to Digitally Transform your Business.”

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Click here to purchase a copy of my book today and start transforming your business!

Mobile Apps Must be their own Fortress to Withstand Attacks from Hackers

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A #mobile app must be its own fortress and never assume platforms are encrypted, authenticated, use VPN or require a PIN for #security.

I guess developers can’t count on anything these days. How you deal with security is what separates consumer app developers from enterprise app developers. The best apps assume an insecure, unencrypted and completely compromised mobile platform. In a world of bring your own app (BYOA), this will differentiate consumer app developers from trusted enterprise app developers. Imagine the scenario where a logged-in device is left behind in a taxi and is stolen before device security kicks-in to log the device out. A window of time ranging from five to fifteen minutes of exposure is realistic.

So how does a mobile app take charge of its own security? On launch, it must prompt for enterprise credentials like a password, PIN, face or fingerprint before allowing a user inside the app. Eliminate the use of cached credentials and tokens or keep expiration times to a minimum. Next, the app must provide its own encryption for data at rest. This is accomplished through the use of a mobile platform’s crypto APIs. Oftentimes you can reuse login credentials as a password and salt value. Use this to encrypt all downloaded and user-entered data before saving to local storage. The app must use TLS or per-app VPN tunnels for all remote communication to secure data in transit. Lastly, trustworthy apps should never take dependencies on platform capabilities they don’t actually require.

Reduce risk to your business by insisting every enterprise app you build or buy provides its own comprehensive security capabilities. Is your company making app security a top priority?

Learn how to digitally transform your company in my newest book, “Mobile Strategies for Business: 50 Actionable Insights to Digitally Transform your Business.”

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Click here to purchase a copy of my book today and start transforming your business!

Mobile Apps Must Work Offline Because Wireless Connectivity isn’t Ubiquitous

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Intermittent #wireless connectivity requires #mobile apps to follow sync patterns using pre-fetched #data via APIs and offline local storage.

If the network isn’t available, it’s pretty hard for your native app to call web APIs or for your web app to load new web pages. On the Ethernet connected desktops of the past, developers didn’t concern themselves with this issue. In our wireless connected mobile society, ignoring this issue leads to a poor user experience. Most of the time, devices are connected via 2G/3G/4G wireless data networks whose reliability is driven by cell tower density, the number of devices connected to a given tower, wireless frequencies, bandwidth and the number of buildings in the area.

Rather than assuming everything will “just work,” developers of successful apps assume “nothing works.” For starters, mobile apps must take advantage of platform APIs that detect the existence of network connectivity. Once this is established, an app must not only download the data it needs at that given moment but enough data to get through the day. Depending on the amount and complexity of this data, it should be stored locally on the device in a mobile database or as serialized files. From then on, the app should only use the local data to perform its tasks rather than reaching out to servers. Changes made by the user to this local data should be tracked so that only deltas are sent to backend systems when it’s time to upload. Extensive error handling and “sync retries” are needed to ensure reliability. Employees can work in airplane mode or when roaming internationally without using data.

Increase revenue and improve user productivity by using sync to create apps that keep working whether the Internet is available or not. App downtime on a sales call in front of a customer is not an option. Has your company made the move to apps that work offline?

Learn how to digitally transform your company in my newest book, “Mobile Strategies for Business: 50 Actionable Insights to Digitally Transform your Business.”

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Click here to purchase a copy of my book today and start transforming your business!

Delivering Apps to Mobile Devices via Remote Pixel Projection is a Terrible Idea

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The use of remote pixel projection technology to view Win32 apps on #mobile devices should be considered nothing more than an interim workaround.

What’s the fastest way to move Win32 desktop apps to mobile devices? Don’t feel bad if you chose a remote desktop or screen sharing technology to project PC desktops to smartphones or tablets. This happened decades earlier when companies migrated from 3270 terminal emulation to PC apps. Lots of screen scraping took place to avoid large rewrites.

If you’ve tried various remote desktop technologies on smartphones, you found yourself doing a lot of pinching, zooming, panning and scrolling to accomplish simple tasks. The intermittent nature of wireless data networks results in a frustrating experience. A lack of offline capabilities leads to application errors and possible data loss. Nonexistent integration with essential smartphone sensors leaves employees without the contextual experiences they expect. Obviously, tablets fare much better due to larger screen sizes that more closely match the desktops they’re trying to render. When paired with corporate Wi-Fi, this delivers the least-bad remote experience. The tablet + Wi-Fi scenario is the best compromise for large apps that are difficult to migrate or third-party apps that are out of your control. In limited scenarios where sensitive corporate data is not allowed on a device, remote desktop technologies keep your device free of data. For everything else, remote pixel projection should be a short pause on the road to complete mobile migration.

Reduce risk to your business by using remote pixel technologies in situations where sensitive data cannot be securely moved to a mobile device. Is your company taking a pass on employee productivity by not migrating legacy desktop applications to mobile apps?

Learn how to digitally transform your company in my newest book, “Mobile Strategies for Business: 50 Actionable Insights to Digitally Transform your Business.”

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Click here to purchase a copy of my book today and start transforming your business!

Complexity Kills so Simplify your Mobile Apps Now

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Migrate Win32 #apps with complex user interfaces to #mobile apps where each screen is focused on a single task or idea.

The 90s was a time where many developers did their best to create NASA mission control screens. If an app performed ten different functions, they’d see if all those activities could be performed on a single screen. No one ever considered there might be a correlation between those complex screens and the mountain of training manuals and classroom instruction required to make employees productive. A lack of empathy for app users left many employees confused and intimidated by technology. Complexity kills.

You now have a second chance to kill this complexity. In the same way that I want you to break up your large, monolithic Win32 apps into multiple apps, I also want you to do the same for individual screens. Take a look at how many different tasks are accomplished on your complex screens and break them apart into their own screens. Once you’ve created multiple, mobile screens for each discrete function area of a complex Win32 screen, focus on which UI elements you can eliminate. You may find sub-tasks on your new mobile screens that can be further broken out into their own screens. Some designers call this Progressive Reduction. Keep iterating on this process until each screen is easy to understand and has the minimum number of UI elements needed to accomplish a single task.

Improve user productivity by breaking complex screens into multiple, simplified screens to reduce expenses and training requirements by making apps faster and easier to use. What is your company doing to make corporate apps easier to use for employees?

Learn how to digitally transform your company in my newest book, “Mobile Strategies for Business: 50 Actionable Insights to Digitally Transform your Business.”

Book Cover

Click here to purchase a copy of my book today and start transforming your business!