#innovation

#CodeX: The Future of Brewing —> Robotic Barista’s and AI /  by Ajit Minhas

In the heart of Tokyo, Japan, I recently experienced a unique coffee experience — a barista run by a robot. Henn na Café (Strange Café) in Tokyo, Japan, has established a fully automated production line, using a robot named Sawyer to serve freshly-brewed filter coffee and espresso-based drinks.

This sparked my curiosity about the evolving relationship between technology and the beloved ritual of coffee consumption.

From Tokyo to global coffee capitals, the integration of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the landscape of coffee retail, promising not just efficiency but an entirely novel experience for coffee aficionados.

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#CodeX: Think Different. /  by Ajit Minhas

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes ... the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

It’s been over a quarter of a century since Apple’s iconic ‘Think different’ ad campaign, which captured in two simple words Apple’s vision for the company in 1997. The tagline, which continues to resonate to this day, helped launch one of the biggest corporate turnarounds in history.

In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO after the company's acquisition of NeXT. The burning question in front of him was:

“Can we turn around Apple? Can we make Apple really great again?”

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#CodeX: The Power of Creative Destruction /  by Ajit Minhas

‘Uncertainty’ is inherent in the nature of Innovation.

But it's important to understand that innovation doesn't necessarily mean inventing something entirely new. Instead, it's about Creative Destruction, that truly unleashes the power of an organization by focusing on continuous improvement in all aspects of the business.

Innovation is a never-ending cycle, and product market-fit is constantly evolving. To stay ahead, organizations need to keep rethinking, refining and redefining their solutions.

CREATIVE DESTRUCTION is front and center to the true innovators culture. It’s the mechanism by which innovations continually displace existing technologies and ways of doing things (... get the job done). New organizations, new products and new jobs continuously replace obsoleted ones ... the new destroys the old.

AI Development is the emerging phenomenon of the current Innovation Cycle.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is on the cusp of creating autonomous, self-sustaining digital enterprises that can interact with humans seamlessly. The use cases for AI are vast, from business and consumer applications to customer relationship management, digital health, financial info systems and automated software engineering.

AI presents a momentous opportunity for humanity … IF employed intelligently.

“This is a moment of choice and opportunity. It could be the best 10 years ahead of us that we have ever had in human history or one of the worst, because we have more power than we have ever had before.” — Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT

As AI technology continues to develop, evolve and penetrate into many aspects of our lives, the opportunities are endless. But at the same time, these developments raise important policy, regulatory, and ethical issues, that need to be better understood and addressed due to the major implications it will have on the humanity as a whole.

In 2011, Marc Andreessen coined the phrase “Software is eating the World”. But now:

AI is eating the Software ( … as AI is increasingly powering the Software we use)

In conclusion, Creative Destruction is essential for businesses to stay ahead of the competition and is critical to the capitalist economy. While there are risks associated with innovation, businesses must engage in a continuous cycle of discovery, validation, development, registration, and commercialization to create and deliver value.

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#CodeX: Think Inside The Box — THE INNOVATION PARADOX! /  by Ajit Minhas

THINK INSIDE THE BOX means to innovate within the constraints defined by the box. It's a 'constraint-based innovation' and the idea behind it is to understand your constraints and utilize them to innovate beyond the box. The box can be an Organization, Government, Startup, or a Team. And as you make progress those constraints can change over time.

Asking The Right Questions help establish the right constraints — ones that create boxes that are useful, but different, from the boxes people currently think-in. These boxes (boundaries/constraints) in-turn help people with focused thinking and prevent them from straying.

What matters is to ask "Questions" that have the potential to uncover the kind of extraordinary innovations like Amazon, Google, eBay, and PayPal.

“What question would have caused me to see this opportunity first?” — In other words, “reverse engineer” every great idea or innovation you see.

Think Inside The Box does NOT mean to constraint the thinking of people but to better orchestrate the process.

People are at their most creative self when they focus on the internal aspects of a situation or problem at hand — and when they constrain their options rather than broaden them. By defining and then closing the boundaries of a particular creative problem, most of us can be more consistently creative — and certainly more productive. The most consequential ideas are often right under our noses, connected in some way to our current reality or view of the world.

Innovation works best when we utilize an exceptional and uncommon way of creative thinking, when we challenge the existing norm, assumptions and develop new approaches, when we THINK DIFFERENTLY. Innovation is a thinking activity ... key is how can we manage our thinking, so it is understandable, reliable and repeatable.

Creativity is rarely achieved by wildly divergent thinking. Using "inside the box" innovation techniques involves retraining the way your brain thinks about “problem solving”. Most people think innovation starts with establishing a well-defined problem and then thinking of solutions. Think Inside The Box takes an abstract, conceptual solution and find a problem that it can solve.

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#CodeX: KISS → Keep It Simple, Stupid. /  by Ajit Minhas

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” — Albert Einstein

Simplicity is one of the most deceptive concepts, because simplicity takes work, simplicity is far from simple.

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