Tag Archives: Paris

DXC, Uncategorized

All over for retailers?

This week I attended the DXC Digital Retail event in Paris, and that got me thinking…

In 1969 Sears, Roebuck & Co was the largest retailer in the world, had over 350,000 employees with it’s irresistable mixture of physical stores and unrivaled delivery services. They divested into Insurance, Banking, Real Estate, even handtools and furniture.

They were so big that they looked for a new HQ and ended up building what was, at the time, the tallest building in the world, the Sears Tower in Chicago. By the time, the office was complete the world had moved on. Today the tower doesn’t even have the Sears name.

The parallels with Amazon are massive, especially at this moment. Back to the Digital Retail event.

Listening to the discussion groups, everyone danced around the subject but they were all thinking of Amazon. However, what was obvious is that nobody thought that this was the end game. In fact, one CIO said it best (excuse any errors in translation).

“We’re all still investing in Digital looking for the pay back”.

With no obvious playbook for everyone to follow, the game is still open and how to play it depends on your clients, your brand and, of course, your product.

What does this mean for DXC’s clients? It’s time to innovate, change and see what happens. That’s almost obvious but it’s not an open door to change.

Since there is no playbook, it’s almost worth trying anything on the shop floor, it also means that this isn’t the time to drop the ball on the basics. The back office needs to be efficient, solid and dependable; almost invistible. Only this allows you to shine in front of your clients day after day.

#DXC

 

Uncategorized

Paris in August…

I moved to Paris in July 1996 and all I can remember is the heat. Day after day of sun baked streets and each evening the heat of the tarmac as it released the heat that it has stored during the day. 

Paris is quieter during the summer; however it would be greater without all the English tourists!!! 

For the opposite view… Le Blagueur à Paris: Like a bear in a cave, but with sun

Environment, France, Photos

Cars and Cities…

1 Comment

Looking at these photos from the wonderful ParisAvant web site I can’t help feeling that we’ve ruined our cities with cars.

Howard Kunstler would be proud of me!

France, Technology, Uncategorized

Great article about Velib

Here is a great summary about what Velib has managed to do.

Re*Move: A lesson in business from the French

I don’t think that people either inside or outside of Paris have really realized what has happened in the last six months. There has been a revolution but nobody seems to have noticed.

If we’re to meet the challenge of climate change I think that we’re going to have to see far more of these hi-tech, low-tech mash-ups. I just can’t imagine what the next one will be!

France, IT, LeWeb3

Be careful Scoble…

Google’s new My Location feature apparently saved Scoble in London and now he’s counting on it in France while at LeWeb3.

One tip: Don’t use it indoors. Or at least if you do; don’t count on the results to save your life.

In my experience it works perfectly outside but the moment you get behind a window it starts putting you in the wrong place.

France, IT, LeWeb3, Technology, UK

My view on LeWeb3 2006: Part I

If you were on another planet you might have missed the fact that there was a controversy at LeWeb3 last year. I was there but didn’t have a blog at the time; I now have a voice.

The best summary in less than 10,000 words can be found here: LeWeb3 is actually “Loic for president” at blog.forret.com. Loïc wrote the 10,000-plus word version of events with his response here.

Here’s my view…

First, I had a fantastic time last year. Except for a couple of speakers, mainly in the group discussions, who were more interested in promoting the company logo than being interesting, it was well worth my time and money (I took vacation and paid for myself).

Second, I’d not been to any of the previous conferences and therefore wasn’t looking to replicate something from the past. I’m interested in politics, technology and just about anything that I don’t know. As it turned out, two of the best speakers were not IT speakers at all; Hans Gosling was amazing and Shimon Peres was inspirational and got a standing ovation. There were another ten presenters who were well worth the two days on their own.

Now to how I perceived things. I was sitting at the front at the left and it was very clear that something was happening on the other side of the room as early as the mid-morning on day one. This was before the announcements that supposedly sparked all the controvosy.

When changes were made to the program I just held onto my hat and thought that at least I was seeing something new.

However, when I got home to wi-fi that worked after day one the blogs were very negative and it seemed that I was the only happy customer in the room. By the end of day two the blogs had gone into meltdown and the end of the world was iminent.

The aftermath of the conference was the end of TechCrunch UK v1.0, discussions about starting a “real European conference in the UK” and even the end of Loïc’s career.

I can’t help feeling, even a year later, that most of the fuss was generated by a small group who had a hidden agenda. Conferences are big money and I think that last year was the last chance for someone to get a rival conference off the ground.

We’re now twelve months on and LeWeb3 is back and even bigger, I’ve not heard of any massive life changing conference in the UK and Loïc the poor man seems to have the hottest startup around.

So what was wrong with last year again?

France, Photos

Stuck In Customs

Stuck In Customs regularly publishing amazing photos, today is no exception and it has the added bonus of being an image of one of my favorite places.

Stuck In Customs » The Thinker in the Garden of Rodin

Why can’t I take photos like this? I have photos of the same sky on the same day and they look nothing like this.