In the metaverse, you are free to be who you want, regardless of your physical limitations, offering never-before-possible ways that individuals can explore their identity. By continuously advancing (digital) technologies, we will step into the metaverse ushering in the experience era.

The result will be more engaging work experiences, new ways to learn and novel ways to connect with customers. Earlier, I covered how the metaverse will change the employee experience; let's now look into how the metaverse will change how we learn and how we promote products and services.

Learning and Development in the Metaverse

One of the most exciting developments in the metaverse is those in learning and development. This includes education for children, skill-based learning (such as fixing your washing machine with augmented reality) and training in the corporate world, offering new learning experiences.

Corporate Training in the Metaverse

Digital twins or replicas of factories can be used to train (new) employees in a safe working environment until they master the skills to go out in the real world and work with the (advanced) tools. Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) and founder of the VR training company Strivr, called education and training the “home run” use case. Since 2015, Strivr has been creating software that allows customers to develop VR training programs focused on health and safety and customer service training. They worked with Walmart to train employees using immersive experiences, resulting in a 30 per cent increase in job satisfaction and a 15 per cent increase in knowledge retention rates.

In the metaverse, skills development and training could be revolutionized, drastically reducing the time needed to acquire and develop new skills. For example, an AI-enabled digital coach could provide employees professional advice and training assistance. In addition, all objects (e.g., a training manual, machine, or product) could become interactive, providing 3D displays and step-by-step instructions. A great example is when manufacturing giant Bosch and Ford Motor Company pioneered a VR training tool, using the Oculus Quest headset, to train technicians in electric vehicle maintenance.

The potential for workers worldwide to learn new skills and how to operate complex machines without risking being harmed or damaging the physical machine are practically endless. From employee onboarding, learning safety and security processes, preparing for rare and unexpected events, and improving customer-client interactions, virtual reality will offer new ways to learn a new skill faster and more efficiently.

Education in the Metaverse

In my new book, I also cover how the metaverse could change education as we know it. I would argue that teaching children is the most important task if we want to advance our society; after all, the children will be the innovators of tomorrow.

The fact that we have not innovated our teaching methods in the past 100 years while having all these technologies available is remarkable to me. We stick to the old paradigm of teaching children traditional subjects in a traditional way, most of which will become useless in the next decade.

Instead, we should teach our kids research and analytical skills, so they know how to form an opinion and self-educate, how to be adaptive and deal with rapid change, and how to use and apply technology (responsibly) by teaching them programming, robotics, and ethics. Above all, we should embrace the latest technology, from AI coaching to virtual and augmented experiences, to prepare our children for a world that will look fundamentally different by the time they finish school.

Research has shown that passive teaching methods are ineffective in transferring knowledge. The least effective approach is a lecture. Long-term retention rates of the knowledge shared in a typical lecture where the teacher stands in front of a class and talks are around 5 per cent while reading about a topic only marginally improves the retention rates to 10 per cent. However, participatory teaching methods drastically improve the memory retention rates, with group discussions bringing it to 50 per cent and learning by doing to 75 per cent. Hearing and reading can be helpful in some use cases, but the best would be to learn by doing, and that is where AR and VR come into play. After all, practice makes perfect.

In this sense, the metaverse aims to achieve more interactive and immersive content and promote networking inside and outside the classroom. One initiative in this direction is the platform created by KaiXR from California to promote a space where children can learn in an interactive and immersive way, using the technology that surrounds us today. Although some believe that VR is not suitable for (very) young children, there has been limited research to prove that, and the opposite could actually be true, as young brains are flexible. They could potentially adapt quicker to an immersive digital environment. The school of tomorrow could (and should) look fundamentally different from today's learning environments.

Imagine a history teacher that offers VR classes combined with a discussion with the group after the class has experienced Ancient Rome using virtual reality. It would allow students to enter a virtual environment, interact with the teacher and fellow students, pause or play back a scene or session, and notice new things every time they visit or replay a scene. It would allow the children to experience a new environment in a safe and controlled environment and explore knowledge from a different perspective while being fully engaged. We could teach children the world of quantum mechanics by literally stepping into the microscopic world or showing the effects of climate change on any environment. The potential is endless, and it would probably result in a fun learning environment and the best ratings for the teacher and school.

Metaverse and Experience Marketing

What can be done to change education can also be done for marketing. After all, marketing is about educating future customers about your product; the best way to do so is to offer them an experience.

With the immersive internet taking off, more and more organizations are stepping into the metaverse. When businesses want to venture into the metaverse to connect with consumers, it is wise to involve the creators, the artists, and the influencers who already have an in-depth understanding of the various virtual or augmented reality applications.

This also means that if you are new to the metaverse and want to enter a new community, be sure to be humble as a brand, even if you are a multinational organization. According to Justin Hochberg, founder of the Virtual Brand Group, brands tend to enter a creative community and turn it into the Super Bowlhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-hochberg/. Instead, brands can benefit a lot more if they become part of the community and do not bombard the community with advertising messages. This applies especially to the metaverse.

4 Ways the Metaverse will Change Marketing

Brands that do step into the metaverse have an opportunity to demonstrate leadership, associate themselves with innovation, and tap into new communities and channels, especially if they display authentic behaviour and closely align their immersive experience with the community they intend to reach. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are the creator generations. They are ready to participate and generate content with you, so you should create such opportunities as a brand.

The immersive internet requires a different perspective when reaching your target group. Brands would need to rethink how to create content, how people can interact with that content, and the capabilities and utility of that content. From promoting artistic creativity to community building, we can expect a broad range of marketing innovations in the coming decade as we move from social media marketing to metaverse marketing and brands learn new ways to engage and enlighten consumers.

Overall, there are four ways that the metaverse will change marketing, and these include:

• Enable: Brands should create unique virtual experiences with low entry barriers. This means enabling a seamless experience for your customers to interact with you in an immersive way.
• Participate: Connect with your customers in the metaverse and do so where your customers are. This means building up a presence in the new virtual worlds ranging from Roblox, Decentraland to The Sandbox or any of the hundreds of new worlds now being created.
• Innovate: Don't copy the physical reality but think out of the box. Remember, in the metaverse, the laws of physics do not apply, so there is no need to copy a physical store exactly in the virtual world. Be creative.
• Celebrate: Create gamified rewards , virtual goods and NFTs to celebrate your customers. Offering unique NFTs with utility is a great way to celebrate your customers and offer an experience that will grow engagement and loyalty.

Metaverse marketing is about offering an experience that should revolve around storytelling. Storytelling has always been at the heart of a brand's journey and how they connect with consumers. In an immersive digital environment, the narrative around a digital asset is as important as the asset itself, and organizations should experiment with new experiences.

The Metaverse Festival in Decentraland

What better way to experiment with metaverse marketing than during the metaverse fashion week? From March 23-27, 2022, the metaverse fashion week was held in Decentraland, bringing digital runway shows, shopping, after parties and panel talks to the virtual world. More than 50 luxury and digital brands stepped into the metaverse for a unique experience for four days.

Selfridges, the UK retail chain of high-end department stores, displayed 12 unique NFT dresses by Paco Rabanne and was inspired by Op Art movement pioneer Victor Vasarely. The exhibition mimicked a physical exhibition happening around the same time in Selfridges London. The luxury fashion house Dolce & Gabbana unveiled multiple outfits designed for the metaverse, which were presented using avatars looking like cats.

Plenty of brands also sold their (digital) fashion items to fashion week visitors. Brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo (the Gen Z brand by Hugo Boss) partnered with the Web 3.0 startup Boson Protocol to enable users to buy physical products as NFTs during the fashion week. This allowed users to dress their avatar in Tommy Hilfiger or Hugo while also receiving the physical item at home. A great combination of the physical and virtual converging into a phygital experience. Not only fashion brands joined, but also the beauty brand Este Lauder participated, giving away 10.000 digital wearables as NFTs, which were based on its famous Night Repair Serum, giving avatars an aura of sparkles and gold glitters.

As the event took place on Decentraland, the entire event was blockchain-based, ensuring the interoperability of the NFTs that users bought. However, reviews from attendees also indicated that the graphics were below-average, and there were plenty of glitches compared to other digital fashion shows because Decentraland is blockchain-based and has restrictions on 3D design capabilities. Despite these glitches, over 100.000 unique attendees attended the digital fashion week, and they saw a large variety of brands experimenting with metaverse marketing and NFTs in unique ways. If done correctly, NFTs are a fantastic marketing tool, and the brands who joined the metaverse fashion week have learned valuable lessons on how to connect with Gen Z and Gen Alpha in the metaverse.

Metaverse Marketing is Experience Marketing

Starting with small experiments is recommended when you want to start as a brand. For example, Taco Bell, an American fast-food chain, recently made tens of thousands of dollars after releasing a series of NFTs. While profits were modest for the well-established brand and the GIFs of a taco did not offer any utility, it shows that if a fast-food restaurant can sell NFTs of floating tacos and make money, then other companies can create unique NFT campaigns to offer a brand experience for users.

Due to the near-infinite possibilities in the digital world, brands have an opportunity to generate unique and engaging content that brings happiness to people. To quote the famous Don Draper, “Advertising is based on one thing: happiness.” It keeps people engaged and wanting to belong to a brand or community. The ideas behind it determine the success and impact on a brand's reputation and bottom line.

Final Thoughts

With the immersive internet undoubtedly changing how we experience things, whether it is education or connecting with brands, it is essential to remember that it is still early days. One could argue the metaverse is where the internet was at the end of the 1990s, so much work still needs to be done.

Regardless of what virtual or augmented experience you will be in, and irrespective of the objective (education or marketing), user-generated content will play an increasingly important role in the metaverse. Whether this involves designing and creating games, immersive songs, volumetric media, educational environments, or the virtual worlds, art, and avatars that will liven up the next version of the internet, the metaverse will be a creator economy, and user-generated content will be everything.

The result is the Experience Era, where everything that we do can be a unique and immersive experience, which will likely make work, education and connecting with brands a lot more fun. We are in for some magical experiences in the coming decade, and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg of what will be possible.

The post Why the Metaverse Will Usher in the Experience Era appeared first on Datafloq.

However, what you can do is plan and predict demand over the course of a year. New product developments need to always closely monitor people's personal preferences from the moment you start developing the product.

Nevertheless, let's discuss in-depth the seven ways we can predict consumer behavior.

7 Ways how companies can predict consumer behavior

Aim to reduce churn (attrition rate)

Churn or attrition rate is a heavily-discussed topic amongst business owners. A high churn rate means a reduction in repeat purchases, the total amount of purchases, purchase frequency, and much more. When you see a decline in purchases, you know something isn't going right and that you need to make significant adjustments to your product and services.

You can consider using predictive software to predict consumer behaviors individually. Some predictive software we recommend you use are:

• Qlik Sense
• Board
• Advanced Analytics
• SAP Analytics Cloud
• RapidMiner, etc.

Run a predictive analysis

Data is the key to getting many unanswered questions, but when you combine them with focus groups, in-depth data, panel tests, and much more, it can help you gain additional insights you have never thought of.

In order to be successful in doing this, different types of data sources need to be combined to build and train sophisticated models. Even when you use model assumptions, you need to question them. You can't just run assumptions that don't have anything to do with consumer behaviors.

Combining complex data gatherings and building reliable predictive analysis is not that easy. It's not only gathering data but also knowing what to do with it. In this case, you need experienced people who deal with data daily, not those who have never done so before.

It requires scientific thinking and a set of experiments to see how customers react to specific experiments. Then, when you see their reactions, you can better know what measures you need to undertake based on their behaviors.

Identify your customer value

Have you ever heard about customer value? Different customers will represent different levels of lifetime value (LTV). LTV is the total revenue you gain from customers over the period they use your product and services.

For example, if your LTV customers are using your product and services for a period of more than five years, the lifetime value will be the customer value * the lifespan of the customer. In this case, the lifespan is the number of years they use your product and services, and the value is the amount of financial contribution they had towards your business.

By calculating these numbers, you can identify what kind of value your customers are providing for you. You can better predict their behaviors when you see your loyal customers have a higher value. Consumers who do not contribute too much to your business are harder to predict since you don't know them either.

Run a sentiment analysis

To avoid further issues and prevent issues from arising, you can try to run a sentiment analysis. A sentiment analysis analyzes the emotions of a consumer text, such as a social media post, a comment, a blog, and anything else. Sentiment analysis helps you discover your brand's image and how consumers perceive you.

In short, it's taking a piece of data and analyzing whether it reveals a positive, negative, or neutral attitude towards your product and service. Sentiment analysis is usually conducted through user experience, survey replies, product evaluations, and more. Furthermore, you can consider using AI algorithms as a valuable tool for in-depth research.

To read more about sentiment analysis and how you can effectively conduct in-depth research, you can read Levity's guide here.

Increase customer retention

Customer retention allows you to measure and understand the customer's journey and experiences with your brand. You can do this by using customer retention software. This software allows you to combine different types of data and identify which type of customers will stay and which will leave.

The software will give you notice about the customers about to leave and help you resolve the issues to reduce the need for acquiring new customers. Some customer retention software you can consider using are:

• Zendesk CRM
• Open Loyalty
• Qualaroo
• KissMetrics, and more

Optimize your content

Each customer group has different preferences for the content they want to consume. This helps you identify the marketing strategies you can use and optimize your content based on your customer's behaviors.

For example, you can use surveys or even conduct customer interviews to find out what your customers are after when using your product or service and even when consuming your content. Instead of having assumptions, you are better informed of what you can do.

Improve customer engagement and satisfaction

Knowing your customers are satisfied with your content and brand is a success. This will increase the likelihood of them returning and recommending your brand to others. In addition, if your customer satisfaction level is high, it'll result in higher customer loyalty. Customers will seek to spend more money on your products and services when they are loyal. In fact, according to a study, loyal customers will pay up to 10 times more than regular customers.

Moreover, in order to fully engage your customers, you can collect experience via surveys, questionnaires, and using other feedback channels. For example, you can try measuring engagement levels using CSAT, customer effort scores (CES), and NPS.

What are the types of customer behavior?

Whenever you analyze customer behavior, the number one thing you want to pay special attention to is their spending behaviors. Analyzing customer behavior means paying great attention to the types of spending patterns customers have. However, each customer is part of one of the three customer behavior groups. Each of these groups has its own spending patterns, and it is important for you to identify which consumer belongs to which group.

• Complex purchases: This is the first group of buying behaviors and is primarily for large purchases that include buying property, a car, an apartment, etc. These purchases aren't really common since customers will take time to analyze these types of purchases. In addition, these types of purchases may usually include companies instead of individual customers.
• Habitual purchases: These makeup daily purchases that consumers make. These types of transactions don't require much thinking since they aren't large compared to the first type of buying behavior. Habitual purchases include everyday shopping, such as buying groceries, clothing, etc.
• Variety-seeking purchases: This includes when a customer is switching their brand from being unsatisfied with their previous brand or even because they want to try something new. This can consist of grocery shopping, such as buying a different milk brand, a different brand of sugar, rice, etc. If you think that your brand falls under this category, it's time to start thinking of new ways you can attract new customers.

Why is it important to predict your customer's purchasing behaviors?

There may be issues you haven't overlooked, and especially if you see an increase in your churn rate or see that customers are turning to competitors, you want to start paying more attention to your customer's purchase patterns before it's too late! Predicting how your customers behave during purchases means the following:

• Reduce churn rates
• Encourages customer loyalty
• Increases the quality of your marketing quality
• Meets customer demands
• Personalized and improves the customer's experience
• Allows products to market quicker and more

With all these advantages, it isn't a surprise why companies are rushing to analyze customer behaviors and use customer prediction software to evaluate purchasing patterns and experiences.

The final word

That's about it for this article. These are the top seven ways companies can predict consumer behaviors. With a high amount of competition in the digital age, it's becoming a must for companies to analyze consumer behaviors. Nevertheless, if you don't, it's not in your brand's favor.

What else can we say? Run a set of surveys and one-on-one or group interviews with your customers to see what they want from you. Monitor if they are sticking to your brand or looking for other alternatives.

If you never wish the best for your brand and don't deliver what your customers are looking to receive from you, you're only damaging yourself and the reputation of your brand. After all, customer loyalty is above everything else, so try to find it in the customers you trust most!

The post 7 Ways Companies Can Predict Consumer Behaviours appeared first on Datafloq.

Elsewhen, an agency specialising in digital transformation, has undertaken digital transformation projects for a diverse range of organisations. Here are seven examples that show the diversity of ways digital transformation can benefit your business.

1. Transforming manual processes to digital business

A common goal of digital; transformation is to move from traditional manual working processes to digitally-enabled workflows that enable efficiency and automation. One example is a financial services firm serving a lender to SME businesses. It has become a fast-growing alternative lender, serving more than 2000 business customers. The firm wanted to review its current processes and technology to determine the best approach to achieve its growth ambitions.

The business had launched with an attractive offering to customers but its underlying technology infrastructure was holding it back from its next growth phase. They brought in a digital transformation partner to help them architect a new streamlined customer journey for lending.

The project team worked closely to analyse and determine the critical pieces in a new technical architecture required to achieve the ambitious goals.

The business gained a complete action-oriented strategy to build its new digital platform. The approach ensured business continuity and minimised disruption during a safe migration of customers onto the new platform.

Digital transformation is enabling the path forward for the business to achieve its ambition of becoming the leading SME lender in the market. With the implementation of a new agile and scalable digital platform, it can give customers a best-in-class experience.

2. Improving how organisations interact with business customers

In the business-to-business space, many companies want to provide a higher quality of digital experience. They see the consumer-grade experiences provided by brands like Amazon and Netflix and want to bring that quality to the B2B environment.

One example is a leading satellite communications provider, enabling data connectivity to business customers worldwide.

The company wanted to replace its legacy customer ordering and provisioning process migrating customers to a new digital lifecycle portal. They decided to shift the lens and focus on enabling what the customer wants to achieve.

They worked with a digital transformation partner to redesign the entire customer journey. The aim was to create a new consumer-grade digital experience across the end-to-end B2B customer lifecycle.

The project team created a modern, easy-to-use, intuitive portal to enable self-service provisioning and improve customer satisfaction at scale.

3. Unlocking more business value from data

After this digital transformation success, the same satellite communications business embarked on a project to create more business value from its data. They wanted to enable customer insight with a self-service performance analytics tool.

Previously, if a customer wanted to understand the connectivity performance it receives, the provider would have to manually create a report from its various data logs, requiring cost, time and effort.

Working with the same digital transformation partner, they explored how digital technology could give business customers better and faster insights into the performance of their communications.

The project team created a new customer-facing online analytics tool, providing real-time and historical data insights on the connectivity experienced by each customer.

Now, customers can easily see and understand how factors such as location and weather conditions affect connectivity. They can also verify that their service performance is within agreed SLA parameters.

Creating a modern tool and API for visualising connectivity data enables the business to unlock new value for its customers. The benefits include reducing manual work required to resolve customer queries and improved customer satisfaction, loyalty and revenue.

4. Launching new propositions enabled by organisational assets

Digital transformation can enable organisations to exploit new opportunities and bring new propositions to the market. It can involve using technology to unlock the potential of existing assets, resources, skills and data that already exist within the company.

A recent example is when a leading independent private equity firm launched a new digital proposition for the SME market. The firm manages a portfolio of high-growth, sustainable businesses. It supports them with expertise and capital to drive growth.

The firm identified the potential for a new digital service targeted at SME businesses. They worked with a digital transformation partner on a proof-of-concept (POC) to explore how this service could work in terms of a value proposition, service design and technology strategy.

They identified a specific opportunity for a new finance management platform for SMEs, giving a clear end-to-end overview of cash flow and providing access to a full range of tailored financial services.

The project team built out a value proposition, service design and user interface. They visualised a prototype solution for a digital one-stop-shop for SME banking and finance. They also identified, assessed and shortlisted technology partners and financial service providers to enable the platform's core functionalities

5. Opening new digital business channels

Digital transformation enables businesses to open up new dynamic channels to engage with customers. This is demonstrated by the example of a leading B2B provider of self-service beverage and food vending machines.

Until recently, most of its business customers were ordering equipment and supplies via phone or email. The company relied on a complex mixture of legacy technology. Recent acquisitions and a variety of regional divisions have added to tech debt.

Now the business recognised that its future must involve more self-service and that this is a significant revenue opportunity. They worked with a digital transformation partner to create a proof of concept (POC), demonstrating the opportunity to grow sales beyond the companys traditional channels.

The team specified the requirements for a new digital platform enabling business customers to order, configure and manage products. They determined that the best tech option in this case was a specialist SaaS platform ensuring fast development, excellent support and resilient operations. To ensure a great customer experience aligned with the corporate brand, the team evolved a design that utilised UX best practices and consumer-grade design.

In just 6 weeks, the team built a minimum viable product (MVP) of a digital self-service channel and overcame challenges from business complexity and legacy technology.

6. Driving competitive advantage from real-time data

The rise of mobile devices, social media and the Internet of Things (IoT) creates an unprecedented amount of data. Digital transformation can enable an organisation to gain a competitive edge by analysing this data and applying the insights gained.

In one example, a leading motor insurer for professional drivers decided to use data to enable a more competitive product. The insurer worked with a digital transformation partner, using telematics technology to identify and reduce risk for customers through helping them improve their driving behaviour.

The team recognised that app-based telematics presented an opportunity to better understand individual risk and significantly reduce the cost of claims. This would help the insurer to price its products and policies more fairly providing better outcomes for customers.

App-based telematics uses the sensors in a drivers smartphone to monitor driving behaviour making it easier to deploy than conventional telematics devices. However, many drivers are reluctant to install an app that monitors them, and see little incentive to improve their driving

The team worked to overcome these challenges building a strong business case for telematics and accelerating its app-based product to market readiness in a timescale of just ten weeks.

The new app enables customers to automatically share driving data, allowing the insurer to assess risk more accurately and consequently offer insurance products to drivers at a fairer price. During the products first month, customers bought more than 3000 of the new telematics policies, successfully meeting the insurers launch objectives.

7. Building a customer conversion engine

Digital transformation enables a business to gain new insights into every stage of its operations. It can identify where problems have occurred in the past and fix these fast to better meet the needs of customers.

An example here is how a luxury travel firm was able to identify why customers were dropping off the buying journey before completing purchases and turn the situation around with a digital engine for customer conversion.

The business worked with a digital transformation partner to create a native mobile app, ensuring a luxury brand experience and overcoming their customer conversion challenges.

While they needed new functionalities, they had to achieve this without disrupting the existing systems. Using GraphQL middleware, the team enabled API queries to be managed more efficiently, overcoming resilience issues and supporting the new app.

Click-throughs from listings pages to purchasing increased by 24.4%, while successfully completed purchases increased by 210%. The average lifetime value (LTV) of customers increased by 25-35% when using the new app.

Start your own digital transformation success story

By learning from examples of successful projects like these, your organisation can gain expertise and confidence for your digital transformation initiatives.

The post 7 Examples of How Digital Transformation Makes Organisations More Efficient appeared first on Datafloq.

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Indeed, the amount of data required for the job has expanded significantly with the explosion of new technologies. Now, understanding database management and data analytics is almost an essential component of being a successful accountant. In fact, much of the finance industry has been taken by storm when it comes to the revolution that technology is bringing.

These rapid changes have encouraged many within the career path to learn an array of new skills. For those thinking about entering a finance-based educational program, technology and analytic software will suddenly be a much larger part of the curriculum. With that in mind, exploring how data is used in accounting and finance can be beneficial to all.

Big Data in Accounting

The ways that big data and analytics have altered the financial world are astounding. Today, traces of the technology can be seen in nearly every aspect of the industry. The term fintech has been coined to describe many of these adaptations. Fintech, by definition, is the computer programs and technologies that have led to significant technological changes and are enabling many banking and financial services today.

Big data can more accurately help financial advisors and CFOs alike understand and respond to rapidly changing trends in finance. Likewise, it can be used to gain a greater knowledge of the spending habits and behaviors of clients. In combination with other collected financial trend data such as commercial customer data, public and government sector demographic data, social media, and so on, financial institutions can make more educated financial decisions that will drive economic growth.

Many see blockchain as one of the biggest factors in the growth of fintech. The technology can be used to make faster, more secure transactions that ultimately speed up the processing time and security of financial management. These digital transactions are set to completely change the financial industry as we know it. In some ways, it already has.

A Changing Career Path

For many people who are interested in pursuing careers in finance and accounting, these rapid changes mean learning a different set of skills. Likewise, many professionals already in the field are finding that they need to continue to learn new skills to keep up with the changes that are happening in their workplaces. Professionals that already have these skills are in high demand and can make significant incomes with the right experience.

For instance, today many internal and external auditors and other financial professionals find themselves using data analytics to complete tasks that enhance their job performance such as:

• Regular monitoring of transactions

• Continuous auditing technologies

• Expansion to complete audits rather than samples of client transactions

• Assessing the best financial decisions based on currently available data trends

• Determining how customer behavior influences larger financial trends

Ultimately, the technology is poised to increase both efficiency and accuracy in accounting careers. It will allow professionals to take on larger, more complete projects where they can look at larger subsets of data to make decisions. With the help of big data, processing times will drop, more errors will be caught, and previously undetected connections may be made.

Improving Client Experience

All of these changes that come with the incorporation of big data will also substantially improve the client experience as well. For instance, the time that it takes to complete an audit will decrease and the ease of communicating important information to clients will increase. Both of these changes can create a greater understanding of the financial process and lead to increased client satisfaction with the work completed.

Data analytics in accounting can also help better personalize the experience to the customer. This means segmenting specific client-based scenarios and using data to better understand the customer's position within them. It can be used to help identify specific risks a client may be exposed to and mitigations that can help manage them. Likewise, it can lead to greater personal gains for a company.

This is true in personal financial management too. Financial advisors can assess spending habits, trends, and risks for individuals and help create a tailored financial plan that will work best for the client. For example, a client in Generation Z will likely have a very different outlook and set of needs when it comes to finances than a Baby Boomer. Even within age groups, clients will have different needs that can be better catered to using data analytics for financial management.

***

Data analysis, analytics, and big data are all tied to the concept of fintech and all are working to completely change the financial world. Today, skills in these areas are almost essential for finance professionals to do their jobs. These advances have plenty of benefits for customers from greater efficiency to greater accuracy to greater personalization.

The post Exploring the Use of Data in Accounting and Finance appeared first on Datafloq.

But for so many of the world's businesses, this quality information lives behind a veil that can only be pierced by trained professionals who specialize in data science or other niche topics. The user experience of business data generally suffers for companies seeking to make an impact employees must be able to interpret a complicated graph in order to arrive at actionable information, or be able to understand a number of complex acronyms or abbreviations. That's why it's likely that employees are leaning on domain experts in order to explain the nitty-gritty and provide the underlying analytics. This approach is less than totally productive because it doesn't promote the worker autonomy that actualized businesses depend on in pursuit of a goal.

What's worse is that employees may also be dismissing the data altogether. This weakens an organization's decision-making power and increases the overall risk of arriving at a suboptimal course of action.

It's easy to suggest data visualization tools as the catch-all solution for making it easier to interact with business data. These software products serve their purpose, but they commonly remain in the domain of specialized technical staff. They represent a stepping stone, not the destination, for companies seeking higher employee engagement with data.

In order to create new opportunities for workers to leverage the data that's already at a business organization's fingertips, we need a step-change in how people engage with that data. Specific implementations will vary from company to company, but it shouldn't be terribly difficult for any employee to recontextualize himself or herself as a data scientist that makes informed decisions backed by historical business information. These employees don't need expensive and time-consuming data science training, they only need to tag the skills they've been developing their entire lives: communication.

Accessing the right piece of data should only be as difficult as forming the question necessary to yield it. Existing data visualization tools may be useful when people are used to seeing an overview-style presentation of data with charts and graphs in a big report, but there are more and more tools that can be used on top of existing platforms that allow users to get data in real-time. Processing inquires, whether straightforward (Who were our three biggest customers in Q3 2018?) or complex (What are the three highest revenue cities of Product A the past five years in North America?), deserves rapid-fire, accurate responses. And technology is finally at a place to fill this gap.

It's called natural language processing, often shortened to NLP. This is a branch of artificial intelligence methodology that lets computers interact with common human language in order to run calculations and fetch data. Now human workers without any training can make queries as if they were speaking to a human data scientist dedicated to their requests alone. It's only a matter of having the data on hand and having an AI tool capable of scouring it.

This type of user interface nearly shrinks away to nothing, leaving organizations all the better for it. Instead of employees messaging a specialist with their query (who is likely working on a different task, by the way), employees can send that same message a piece of software that understands what they seek and returns relevant results immediately.

This intuitive user interface coupled with rapid response time leads organizations to a meaningful ROI in three arenas. They go as follows.

Productivity: employees spend less time in pursuit of data.

When workers are used to seamless consumer-grade apps, they have a hard time working with clunky and inefficient platforms. But people find greater productivity when they can use the tools they already prefer or feel confident in.

Yet mainstream data tools nowadays were designed with the specialist in mind. They exist to serve employees with niche knowledge who are specifically trained to use them. This presents a major hurdle toward getting more workers to use or otherwise engage with data, and the specialist is the bottleneck that the data must go through. This person is saddled with the burden of interpreting and making available data to the rest of the team.

But the natural language paradigm changes this forever: as easily as an employee could ask the human data scientist a specific question, automated software can now answer it. Whether it's identifying an arduous business trend or a single data point, business intelligence platforms that can process natural language requests increase productivity and efficiency.

Data-driven decisions trigger untapped business results.

When it's easy and ordinary for employees across the board to query data, with or without any special data science certifications, they're simply going to make better decisions as a result. Big data methodologies are overly complex, calling not only for the gathering of massive amounts of information but cleaning and sorting it across different sources before integrating it with various systems.

This process is too easily overwhelming for an uninitiated worker. Even if a company has a requisite piece of data on hand, it's less likely that workers will seek it out and use it to inform their decisions unless it is very easily accessible.

Natural language is a user interface as old as writing itself, so it comes quite naturally without any training necessary. And we're already using this in our daily lives through browser searches. When we need information about something, it's a quick Google search away. Having such quick and easy access to information comes intuitively in our daily lives, yet we haven't managed to create this in our workplaces. Yet by 2025, 75% of the workforce will be digitally native. They will demand that their enterprise software be as intuitive and functional as the platforms they use in their personal lives, not settling for information gatekeepers.

Reduced risks: organizations can take better-calculated bets.

Businesses might not always have the full picture, but easy access to quality data can help them paint it. When you don't know everything, the simple truth is that you want to know as much as possible, and by making it easier for workers across departments to access higher-quality data, they stand an improved chance of making calls that will pay off in the future.

Historical data can inform what's likely to happen in the future. While every company wrestles against the unknown future, it's clearly in their interest to democratize access to the data that helps them come to grips with the unknown.

It's simple: when people have access to higher-quality information, they're going to make higher-quality decisions. And natural language probably the most desirable interface for interacting with and accessing the piles of data that companies already collect by default. That data serves less use if it's left to the data specialists.

Businesses can instead reimagine each of their workers as a kind of data specialist. They only need a proper user interface in order to see a meaningful return on their investment in how they wrangle their data.

The post Why Better Data User Experience Means Better ROI appeared first on Datafloq.

Upscaling to Higher Resolutions

A recent example of artificial intelligence and its merger with cinema is the recent documentary Apollo's New Moon, made by MagellanTV. In an interview with the director of the documentary, David Sky Brody, he explained how AI technology was used to create the film. Brody and his team enhanced original NASA film footage from Apollo mission moon landings to 4K resolutions. And they did it with AI-powered software. The process resulted in unprecedented, crystal clear images of the lunar surface. While some images for the film were already in large format (70mm), there were reels of raw analog video of the moon missions that Brody needed to enlarge and clean up. That's where AI came to the rescue.

Standard upres software uses interpolation strategies to fill in the missing pixel data that form when an image is enlarged. But interpellation often results in unrealistic images not optimal for a documentary film. In contrast, AI upscaling uses deep learning interpolation. By feeding the software millions of images, filmmakers can teach it to determine the differences between a low-quality and high-quality image of a subject (e.g., the moon). With that information, the AI fills in with more natural-looking details. With the AI-assisted software, Brody notes that the team was able to dramatically increase pixel-density, making it possible to extract crisp, new renderings from the old Apollo analog film.

Audiences of the late 60's Apollo missions witnessed only blurry, low-res images broadcast to their TV sets. But AI rescaling technology is resurrecting these historical events with a realism not experienced by audiences watching at the time.

Live Performance Motion Capture

Motion capture is how VFX studios map a real actor's movements to a digital character. And getting it right is difficult. Typically, actors must don green bodysuits with white ping pong balls and perform in front of a green screen alone. The ping pong balls guide VFX artists to animate the CGI characters. For example, this is how artists matched Andy Serkis' movements to create Gollum in Lord of the Rings. Hundreds of hours of computer computations and labor can go into a single scene. But AI is now automating this workflow with advanced tracking algorithms to match actors to characters in real-time.

At the leading edge of this tracking technology is the VFX studio Digital Domain. The studio first unveiled its proprietary tracking software in 2018 for the film Avengers: Infinity War. The software used AI to track and match Josh Brolin's performance of Thanos. Artists trained the software with high-resolution 3D scans of the actor's face, which mapped every line and wrinkle. Brolin and Thanos were matched almost seamlessly in real-time.

AI's growth in the VFX and CGI industries is impacting every level of the movie-making process. Motion capture actors like Brolin no longer need to perform alone in front of green screens without seeing the result of their work for months. Instead, they can now run scenes with other actors wearing the actual costume and holding props. And they receive immediate feedback from their facial expressions, adjusting it as needed to suit their needs. The result is a more nuanced performance with stronger emotional depth.

And AI effects VFX artists themselves. The tedious hours of compositing and animating images frame-by-frame is now done more accurately and faster by software. This frees up artists to create and innovate more. And with speed and efficiency comes lower production costs. CGI-heavy films are getting cheaper to make. And some have even predicted AI technology will mean the immortality of movie stars, or at least their 3D images. Soon, AI tracking software will make it possible for any actor to play any other actor, living or dead.

Producing

Financial return is always the priority for commercial filmmaking. The difference between a movie that tanks and one that goes on to financial and artistic greatness can be as small as who plays the lead role. Knowing the difference between a flip and a flop is the Holy Grail of Hollywood. To hedge their bets, movie producers often use focus groups, surveys, trend analyses, and gut instinct. But AI is making this process look as antiquated as reading tea leaves.

One thing AI does better and faster than humans is to detect patterns in data and recurring trends. And new startups are taking advantage, developing AI software to analyze historical data and current trends for predicting a movie's financial success. The software uses deep learning to search for historical trends, like an actor's performances. Analyzing this data over decades reveals what emotions, themes, and roles connect best with audiences. Some companies have AI that can analyze entire scripts for things like target audience, race and gender of the protagonist, MPAA rating, and box office receipts. Ultimately, producers can use these algorithms to construct their films before production starts. Imagine plugging in Seth Rogen vs. Kevin Hart to see the difference in box office revenue each actor would generate.

As exciting as these changes to the movie industry are, they're also a little concerning. What does it mean when algorithms decide what movies are made? What will it mean when Carrie Fisher still plays Princess Leia played-by-way-of Alicia Vikander? Who's the real star and who gets credited? More importantly, what does it mean when an artificial intelligence tells our stories to us? Who will films reflect? Humans or robots?

The post How Artificial Intelligence Will Impact Filmmaking appeared first on Datafloq.

From education to manufacturing and IT, you will be challenged to come up with one industry where augmented reality doesn't offer a potential application. However, there's one particularly exciting industry that offers unprecedented scope for both integrations of augmented reality as well as benefiting immensely from it. Say hello to the events industry. According to an international study, 87 percent of event planners have already organized an augmented reality-based event. 87 percent! Of course, numbers aren't convincing enough on their own. So, we listed the most compelling collection of facts and benefits of AR in the events industry to help you realize what we are talking about.

1. Significantly better audience engagement

AR isn't as complicated as VR in implementation, i.e. it doesn't necessitate the use of headsets. It means that the audience at your event doesn't have to be completely isolated. Moreover, since AR requires the use of smartphones, it opens up a whole new world of opportunities for stuff like discover additional or previously undisclosed information about offerings, chance on interactive engagements and experiences, and more.

2. Immersive experiences

A lot of retail giants, such as IKEA, Adidas, and more are already making use of augmented reality to enhance retail skills. How? By enabling their customers to realistically visualize products within a set of their choice, including their living rooms, bedrooms, and more. This same analogy can also be extended to the events industry, wherein vendors can seamlessly integrate AR into their offerings to help deliver an overall experience that rates high on the entire immersive' bit.

3. Improve traffic

There are a plethora of AR apps in the market that allows event organizers can use to drive much better traffic to the event. Case in point, Google ARCore this app enables attendees to engage and interact with conferences and booths in unprecedented ways, including via games that can be tailored and educational pop-ups among other things. However, don't forget to let your attendees know about such features well in advance to ensure better ticket sales.

It is not to say that software for planning & managing events isn't capable enough on their own. The market has a plethora of such solutions to offer; however, with a little help from an expert, an event solution can also make way for the seamless use of augmented reality at your events. And that, dear readers, is one advantage that you definitely do not want to miss out on.

The post How Augmented Reality Is Transforming the Events Industry appeared first on Datafloq.

If you want to keep pace with the times or take interest in innovations and blockchain technology, as well as in alternative opportunities for financial instruments and the future of the banking sector, then you can't miss this event.'

At the two-day CryptoFin conference, the best speakers are waiting for you to share their ideas, knowledge and vision of market trends.'

The CryptoFin international conference will bring together the key figures of the financial sector and become the best networking platform for the market leaders and start-up companies. The CryptoFin format includes a rich program of speeches by experts and market leaders and networking events that will contribute to the establishment of partnerships for further development, including the largest exhibition and an all-in afterparty. We will have panel discussions, startup pitches and much more.'

CryptoFin Conference offers:'

• The most relevant knowledge in the field of cryptocurrency, blockchain and alternative banking;
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The main themes of the conference will be:'

• Blockchain as a tool in modern business model
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Do not miss the opportunity to express your project and be represented at the biggest and prestigious event in Northern Europe dedicated to blockchain, cryptocurrency, and alternative finance. Within the CryptoFin Conference will be held an exhibition of the latest developments, services, platforms, features, projects related to blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies, and finance.'

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The post CryptoFin Conference 2019 appeared first on Datafloq.

Difference Between Virtual and Augmented Reality

The concepts of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) differ on the following three major factors-

Major Players in Virtual Reality

1. Oculus Rift: This is the top leading player in the field of virtual reality. This is a small and well-crafted device that requires a connection to the computer. With this, the user can either sit or stand while playing games, but movements are somewhat limited. A large number of units are being sold every year, and thus Oculus stays at the forefront of virtual reality hardware
   
2. Microsoft HoloLens: Microsoft HoloLens uses holographic technology and is often marketed as augmented reality rather than virtual reality. It provides the users with an opportunity to interact with holograms present around them
   
3. HTC Vive: It is famous for developing the Steam platform for gaming. It is the first headset for SteamVR products
   
4. Samsung GearVR: By the use of head-tracking technology in combination with Android smartphones to power the experiences of a mobile VR. The lenses transform the phone's screen into a stereoscopic screen.
   
5. Google Cardboard: It is the most uncomplicated and most affordable VR headset. It is a device for Android smartphones at a very cheaper rate and with the variety of games and applications that are available from the Play Store

Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML)

The Web has already experimented with Virtual Reality before under VRML It is a language that is used for describing the 3D image sequences and possible user interactions. By the use of VRML, the users can build a sequence of visual images into the Web Settings with which he (user) can interact by viewing, moving, rotating and otherwise interacting with apparent 3D scenes. It is a standard file format for representing 3D interactive vector graphics, that are designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind.

Virtual Reality and the Web

The web has carried out its experiment with virtual reality before, with VRML and now WebVR is taking a new approach to the virtual reality. 3D on the internet was accelerated since 2011 with the releases of WebGL. These days the web can handle virtual reality with credits going to the new APIs which take advantage of the VR hardware utilizing a WebGL.

WebVR was developed in the year 2014 at Mozilla, and in the year 2016, an earlier version of it was available for desktop Chrome, Firefox as well as Samsung's VR web browser- the Samsung Internet for Gear VR. The ability of the web to handle VR content allows an individual to quickly share a VR experience in a URL and view it in the browser without much complication in app stores and longer downloading times that are associated with native VRs.

Emerging Trends in Web VR

1. The New VR: In today's time, most of the technology companies are emphasizing more on immersive technologies. Players such as Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla have announced their intention of bringing in the support for the VR experiences in desktop browsers in the future. Facebook has added the native 360 photos and playback of videos to their site, and mobile browsers can seamlessly act as platforms for the immersive websites.
   
2. WebVR API: The core of WebVR API is the VR display interface, which abstracts out the difference between the desktop head-mounted displays, mobile devices, and additional peripheral devices and represents them as a single entity to the developer. The headsets can then be queried for presentations and connections status, allowing the browser to detect the state for an application to use
   
3. Native Applications: With the rise of VR web support across desktop and mobile devices, native applications running on different platforms have embraced the API in unique ways.

   Ex: AltspaceVR, an application for desktop and GearVR, has developed an in-app web browser with customized WebGL renderer to make 3D objects from WebVR sites appear within the VR world as a part of the holographic mixed-reality content.

4. 3D Graphics Libraries: The web developers can utilize the 3D frameworks for generating objects, materials, textures and other application components for improving the experience. These can handle the translation of these concepts, such that they can be rendered directly to WebGL canvases and displayed in browsers. Whenever a user visits the page with a WebVR-enabled 3D experience, it'll appear with a single camera until the browser has been asked to shift into the VR mode

VR Elements for a Website

1. 360. Videos: A 360-degree video is a perfect way of creating immersive experiences out of any event or location across the world. The tools needed for making such videos could include a spherical camera that has a 360-degree lens and tripods. The use of drones could also be a viable option. Post-production, the website developer needs to have software such as Videostitch for bringing all the footages in one single piece and ensuring a high quality of visuals. The developer should also make sure that the content looks good on every possible device- desktops, smartphones, tablets, headsets, etc.

2. 3D Animations in VR: With the use of 3D animation, the users are not limited to viewing, as in the case of 360-degree videos. Here the users can move and interact with a particular set of objects. The web-developer can use plenty of tools and platforms for creating simple virtual 3D environments, which include- Maya, Structure Sensor, 3dsMax, etc.

The 3D graphics can take some of the following multiple forms and expressions-

1. Computer animations
2. 3D modeling
3. Visual effects
4. Product designs
5. Graphic and motion designs
6. Visualization for architecture, engineering
7. Stereoscopic 3D effects

Businesses Benefitting from VR

Some of the businesses that can benefit VR for better customer experience includes-

Thus, the web ecosystem with time will grow around the immersive content. The interaction patterns may vary across a different set of devices. Link traversal and navigation-related security considerations also require re-imagination of how global information is being conveyed across the web.

The browser is capable enough of, and the ability to shape new worlds on the web will prove to be influential for both- the internet as well as virtual reality development communities, which are increasingly overlapping.

The post VR Websites: A Reality? appeared first on Datafloq.