A new addressing paradigm for the connected world

Last week's "Click" programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v2yr5 presented a very interesting case for unaddressed letters and parcels for users of social media. (Sometimes BBC iPlayer URLs are restricted to UK users only)

John Taylor from Parcel Genie, Jonathan Grubin from SendSocial and Dan Taylor from ByBox were interviewed on the article. In the same way that PayPal is used as an intermediary for payment information the use of a "trusted intermediary" for address information is possible meaning that you could use an email address on your parcel to route it to the right address in the UK.

This is particularly interesting because I am off to Post Expo in Copenhagen this week and will be attending the innaugural session of Charles Prescott's Global Address Data Association

http://www.globaladdress.org/

Google's new URL shortner produces QR codes

Google has now released its own URL shortner http://goo.gl and the really cool bit is that it automatically generates a QR (qick response) barcode. If you read the barcode above with a QR app on your smartphone using the camera it will take you directly to my website.

The link contained in the barcode is http://goo.gl/BzaQ.qr so even the top level domain is qr instead of .com or .co.uk

It sounds really simple but this could be a huge development in the market and you will start seeing QR codes being used by SMEs. In Huntingdon where I am very active in the SME community the use of QR codes has really taken off.

RFID market for rollcages and totes doubles

I am attending the IDTechEx RFID Europe 2010 in Cambridge. Yesterday I helped Peter Harrop present the RFID masterclass on passive, active and Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) - it was really good fun.

This morning Raghu Das the CEO of IDTechEx is in the middle of presenting his overall RFID market analysis.

The really interesting point for me is the part of his analysis where he shows that the number of RFID tags used for "Container, Rollcage, ULD and Tote" applications has grown from 39 million to 76 million items. The value of this business sector in terms of the RFID industry has risen from $35m to $47m

The postal industry needs to get itself organised in terms of "usage rules" and "industry standards" to take advantage of this now mature technology. I will be speaking about this next week at Post Expo in Copenhagen

Asia Task Force - Opportunities

I attended the UK Trade and Investment "Doing Business in Asia Event". The new Business Secretary Vince Cable gave an excellent "Keynote" address. He highlighted the importance of the Asian market and how Asian growth is changing international trade dynamics. He saw UK expertise and particularly trade with Asia as a key driver for UK economic growth.

In the postal sector countries like China and Korea have been significant postal technology innovators but for some reason Postal Technology events have failed to obtain any traction in the region. There are a number of really excellent Postal Consultancies in the UK but they also find it very difficult to engage with the large Asian markets.

UKTI had arranged for UK Ambassadors and Consul-Generals from Asian markets to hold 1:1 meetings with UK companies interested in doing business in the region. I used these excellent meetings to try and understand the consultancy markets in these countries. The dilema seems to be that "they want UK expertise" but they dont have very well-developed markets for consultancy. The different markets that I discussed seemed to represent slightly different cultural challenges from a consultancy perspective.

My "take-away" from this excellent event is to use the UKTI "in-market" expertise to try and open some doors for me. Triangle are organising a PosTech event in New Delhi in December http://www.triangle.eu.com/conferences/PosTech/default.htm and I suggested to our UK Government representatives in India that we could use this as a trade mission opportunity for UK Postal Consultancy companies and UK Technology companies.

I plan to hold a small webinar on this subject. Let me know if you are interested and would like to take part.

New Linkedin Group Functionality

As you probably know I am a very strong advocate and active user of Linkedin. Today I noticed that some of my Groups have been converted to the new functionality. It is quite a big change and in particular introduces some neat functionality for both group members and group owners.

Using this link you can find out what the main changes are http://learn.linkedin.com/groups/

Just found out that I am a DOMAIN engineer

I went out to the Gulf last week to support an RFID Technology company that I have worked with in the past. They put me in touch with a large technology company in the region who were looking for a "Domain" expert in Postal Business. The term "Domain Expert" intrigued me - I had never been described as a "Domain Expert" but when I thought about it - that is exactly what I am.

Over the years I have held Commercial, Operation and Technical roles at Director level in the Postal Industry and have extensive experience of successfully delivering complex information systems. It has always been difficult to pin a "label" on exactly what I do. Although my business experience covers a number of industries lets take "postal" as an example.

On the business side of the Postal sector we talk about things like "Last Mile Solutions", "Hybrid Products", "Designated Postal Operators", "Terminal Dues" and "Liberalisation" which are terms that are fully understood within the industry but Gobbledegook to an IT analyst trying to design a new application.

The IT sector talks about things like "CMMi Level 5", "BPMN Business Process Modelling Notation", "Client Server", "Next Generation Networks" which is Gobbledegook to a Business Manager.

I understand both these domains intimately and can speak both "langauges" and translate between the business and the IT solution provider.

However translation in itself is not enough. A "postal" operator is looking to improve its business processes and become more competititive than the other operators in the industry. There is therefore often a need to re-engineer and improve the information processes before automating them !!

This is my world. I think in terms of "logical data structures", "entity life histories", "Data Flow Diagrams", "third normal form analysis" and "psuedo code". This help me make sense of the business in information terms and allows me to understand improvement opportunities. You might be familiar with old style tools in this field like SSADM and IEW. I would never talk to Business or Technology Solutions people in this language because it would not be understood and would only confuse. However it is an excellent business langauge to use between a business analyst working for the Business and a business analyst working for the IT solution provider.

So actually I am a "Domain Engineer" and not just a "Domain Expert". If you are looking for information solutions and your IT solution providers dont get it - why not give me a call and I will help you understand and then translate. This is the best way to avoid the type of application system disasters that are only too common these days

So I might redesign my business cards this weekend and call myself a "Domain Engineer" I would really like to hear from you and understand whether this makes sense to you ? Please let me have your views richard.wishart@del-mgt.com

The Postal Innovation Concept

The "Postal Innovation" concept is about physical, virtual and financial postal services in a trusted environment. Posts that have adopted this model have acheived good financial results despite the recession. The so called threat of "physical substitution" is in fact a myth. On a recent visit to Abu Dhabi Richard Wishart gave a TV interview on this topic.

http://www.idworldabudhabi.com/index.php?id=richardwishart_vid10ad