CT60A7000 - Critical Thinking and Argumentation in Software EngineeringSpring 2015

Group Final PresentationThe New Killer Apps

What is the book about?

1. How to build “Killer Apps”?

2. Why focus on large companies? 95% of start-ups fail. And big should win.

3. How to make your business boom? How big company can be creative and innovative? How to make more money? List of

do’s and dont’s with examples:

a. In short: “Think big, start small, learn fast.”

b. 8 rules on how innovation process should run within a company and on how to create killer apps.

c. Killer app is a commercially successful innovation that changes the industry.

d. Big companies have resources and small companies don’t

i. Money

ii. Personnel

iii. Experience

iv. Connections

4. Megatrends technologies that large companies incorporate in their business

The New Killer Apps: How Large CompaniesCan Out-innovate Start-up

Building Killer Apps: The 8 rules (1/2)

1. Context is worth 80 IQ points - Know what’s happening and going to happen in the technological forefront

2. Prepare for doomsday - executives - find and rate threats, find doomsday signposts (awareness) through

scenarios

3. Start with a clean sheet of paper - leave established ideas behind

4. “First, let’s kill the finance guys” - finance guys too quickly assess innovations => innovation is not viable. Ideas

should move quickly => conception, testing and for demos.

5. Get everyone on the same page: Culture has to be taken into account when innovating. Trying to force change

against a culture can easily lead to failure. A leader must spend time to get everyone in sync.

Building Killer Apps: The 8 rules (2/2)

6. Build a basket of killer options - Many ideas for killer apps

7. A Demo is Worth a Thousand Pages of Business Plan - Test and demo

8. Remember the Devils Advocate - somebody in the organisation to criticize

“Contrary to popular belief, ‘flashes of genius’ are uncommonly rare. Purposeful innovation begins with the analysis of

opportunities. The search has to be organized, and must be done on a regular, systematic basis.”

1. The book emphasizes one method that they see very efficient in planning killer apps: Future histories.

What is Killer Apps (the book)

2. Manual for rules to build successful apps

3. List of pitfalls that entrepreneurs might encounter

4. large companies have the potential to produce innovations

5. they have their own weaknesses and strengths

a. Strengths

i. time, money, contacts and expertise

b. Weaknesses

i. company culture, big egos, finances, “get everyone on the same page”

Summary and conclusions

Comparing the ideas in the books “Big Data” and

“The New Killer Apps”

1. “Big Data” book is mostly about new emerging technology (Big Data) and its possibilities and threats.

2. “The New Killer Apps” book focuses more on management issues.

a. Understanding the future technologies is one big issue and important first step (“Context is worth 80 IQ points”)!

b. In the book the Big Data is referred to as emergent knowledge.

Killer apps with Big Data:

3. Current technology with big data mindset provides ground for new innovations that have not been doable before.

4. Idea of Big Data has been applied in many cases successfully. Many businesses base their idea on big data already.

5. But: There are a lot of applications that have not been founded yet.

6. Process described in Killer Apps can be applied in innovations that are based on Big Data.

Comparing the ideas in the books “Big Data” and “The New Killer Apps”:

Example: Building Killer app from Big Data.

PHASE 1

Rule 1: Context is Worth 80 IQ Point

1. Sensors will be more and more, and devices will be connected to each other. The amount of data will increase

exponentially. The storage of data and analyzing of it will be cheap and can be done with relatively easily with cloud

services. => Opportunities for business with cheap data mining and selling mining results.

Rule 2: Embrace the doomsday scenario

2. Privacy issues and temptation to exploit private data within the company?

3. Not enough data to collect, data providers stop delivering necessary data. Data collection very restricted by law.

4. Trusting too much data analysis and making wrong conclusions.

5. The fall of Internet?

Rule 3: Start with clean sheet of paper (What could this new big data product be?)

6. Data collection of learning? => Finding out the best methods to learn.

7. Fully quantified people? => Can predict illnesses, what food is good for you, how long sleep is optimal etc.

8. Datafy all possible species’ DNA and running analysis on it => find lost relatives, track evolution, create DNA for new

species and Human 2.0.

Critical evaluation of the books

Big Data

1. Well written, entertaining, great examples and case studies.

2. Explains Big Data well even for beginners.

3. Comprehensive coverage of the topic listing pros and cons which makes it more credible.

4. Many credible sources and list of sources.

5. Partly philosophical and idealistic.Big Data sounds very groundbreaking and likely the basis for 4th industrial revolution.

The New Killer Apps

6. Too many praising words in the beginning from famous people, trying to convince the reader about the book.

7. How factual some of the numbers were?

8. Not anything concrete, filled with no-brainer advices.

9. Focusing on large companies limits the audience

10. Does not feel as realistic in its viewpoints as Big Data.

What did we learn?

Coursera course

1. Terminology and framework for argumentation, critical reading.

2. Differentiating and locating common types of fallacies in written text

3. Evaluation of credibility of written arguments.

Meetings

4. Argumentation in practice

5. How other people saw Big data / killer apps

6. Different approaches

7. Presentation

Books

8. Facts / authors opinions?