Top 10 Companies Beyond Business Transformation by beyond!

TOP 10 COMPANIES BEYOND BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

BUSINESS

Issue 13 Autumn 2018

A World-class Software Expert

EMPOWERING TRADERS FOR OVER FOUR DECADES

Why Customer Feedback is Killing your Innova on Eï¬&#x20AC;orts P.26

6 Things You as a Leader Need To Know About Technology

Lane Mendelsohn President VantagePoint ai, LLC

The How-To: Using AI To Transform Consumer Businesses P.54

P.30

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EDITOR’S CORNER

he rapid scale in which the business world is changing is unprecedented. The cause for the same can be the emergence of technological advancements, globalization, shifting inclination towards digitalization, fading line between industries, increasing rate of competition and other notable factors. But one thing is all but clear, business transformation is no longer an option, rather it is an imperative step for businesses. Organizations, small and large, across a widevariety of industries are bringing-forward new innovations, introducing new tools and providing unparalleled services to attain business transformation. Here at Beyond Exclamation, we value companies that are willing to stand out from the crowd; that are transforming the business landscape; that are going beyond to attain exclamation! To highlight such companies, we have launched this issue titled “The Top 10 Companies Beyond Business Transformation.” Featuring as the Cover Story of this issue is VantagePoint ai, LLC, which is a company with over four decades of experience and has dedicated its mission towards one goal – to empower traders daily. The company boasts a rich history and is the ﬁrst ever commercially successful trading software that utilized artiﬁcial intelligence.

Aside from VantagePoint, the issue also features innovative companies like TA Square, Inkwell Cards, High Spark, and Southpaw Technology, which have transformed their industries in their own respective manner. In addition to these, we have some of the most thought-provoking articles from various leading industry experts. Dive into the magazine and start scrolling through the journeys of these inspiring companies!

Editor in Chief CHRISTINE [editor@beyondexclamation.com]

Managing Editor JOHN [john@beyondexclamation.com]

Art Director VIJAYKUMAR [design@beyondexclamation.com]

Graphic Artist NICK [nick@beyondexclamation.com]

Project Manager JENNIFER [jennifer@beyondexclamation.com]

Development Manager JUSTIN [info@beyondexclamation.com]

CONNECT!

John London www.beyondexclamation.com BeyondExclamation @BeyondEx Beyond Exclamation beyondexclamation

In addition to our print magazine, we also provide relevant industry news and updates, as well as some thoughtprovoking articles and blogs on our website. Make sure to follow the same as we at Beyond Exclamation are looking forward to interact with our readers. Let’s connect on the web!

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Inside... Business Boulevard

B E O N 12

Empowering Traders for Four Decades

Omniscient Voyage

Architecture at its Best

Excellence Causeway

22 Offering a Modern Twist to a Traditional Approach

26 Why Customer Feedback is Killing your Innovation Efforts

Newsmakers Locale

42 Helping Brands Communicate Powerfully

Younick Corner

Y D

30 6 Things You as a Leader Need To Know About Technology

DeďŹ nitive Destination

48 Bridging Departments using Both Sides of your Brain

54 The How-To: Using AI To Transform Consumer Businesses

Louis B. Mendelsohn CEO VantagePoint ai, LLC

Empowering Traders for Four Decades â&#x20AC;&#x153;Now more than ever, today's markets are globally interconnected. By utilizing the power of AI, we have continued to empower traders for nearly 40 years.â&#x20AC;?

raders around the world boast the uncanny ability to make money irrespective of whether the market is moving up or down. However, this should not lead one to believe that trading is an easy money- making opportunity; rather, it requires a sound knowledge of the market, a disciplined mindset, the right analytic tools and some much-needed skillsets. Many people enter into the trading world with this mistaken belief that it is the easiest way of making money. Contrary to popular belief, it is the easiest way of losing your money. Trading is not meant for the faint hearted and the battle goes beyond the trading hour, before even the opening of the market, but through a disciplined and knowledgeable approach. For 40 years, VantagePoint ai, LLC, a stock forecasting company, has dedicated its mission towards one goal – to empower traders daily. It seeks to help traders by enabling them to make more effective trading decisions. The company boasts a rich history and is the first ever commercially successful trading software that utilized artificial intelligence. The Humble Beginning VantagePoint, previously called Market Technologies, was founded by Louis B. Mendelsohn back in 1979. A time when the use of personal computers was little to none, a time when floppy disks were just invented, a time when there was no internet or cell phones! Naturally, back then, people who were trading the markets were charting the numerical figures by their hand owing to the lack of technological advancements. However, Louis saw an opportunity therein; an opportunity to bridge the gap between technology and financial markets. It was laborious and extremely time-consuming, yet Louis had his sight set and knew exactly what he wanted through the software and developed the very first trading software in the world that had the

capability to conduct historical strategy back testing and simulations on a personal computer. In the late 1980s, Louis saw a real shift in the market. The global stock market crash of 1987, famously known as the Black Monday, was surprisingly a milestone in the mind of Louis. He saw it to be a clear indication that the market is becoming more and more globalized and integrated and Louis embarked on a journey to bring forward a new disruption in the market – Artiﬁcial Intelligence.

“We hold two patents on technologies that combine intermarket analysis with neural networks to create leading technical indicators that forecast global markets with uncanny accuracy.” The Integration of AI Louis realized that the continual focus placed on individual markets was quickly becoming obsolete. Thus, he started to develop intermarket analysis software that looked at how global markets aﬀect each other. Growing up, Louis went to Carnegie Mellon University and was fondly involved in the various areas of mathematics. This helped him to grasp the subject of AI better. Although the concept of AI wasn't as broad as today, there were a number of researchers who were leaders in the application of AI back then.

Lane Mendelsohn President VantagePoint ai, LLC

Louis started looking at the various aspects of AI and researched it thoroughly. His study led him to the conclusion that AI was the right tool for successfully implementing his concept of intermarket analysis. This resulted in his company releasing the ﬁrst commercially available, AI-driven, intermarket analysis trading software for PCs in 1991, the VantagePoint Intermarket Analysis Software. For Louis, the biggest challenge behind his move to integrate AI was the lack of development in the personal computer space. The computer power which was necessary to perform trading actions and allow AI to learn through the same just wasn't developed enough during that time. This prompted Louis to rent time on a minicomputer and use accelerator boards in PCs with a hope to beef up the computer power. Even though the concept of AI dates back to the 40s, the computing power, especially for personal computers, hadn't reached the required level. The Present Day Scenario Following his father's footsteps, Lane Mendelsohn entered into the trading industry back in 1993 and has since then shouldered the company towards unmatched success as the President of VantagePoint ai, LLC. As a child, Lane had developed a keen interest about the ﬁnancial markets, the trading patterns, and how the

“Our entire team always strives to do better and help others to do better.” company operated. Today, he has helped educate thousands of traders and has helped steer them ahead to be successful in the trading pursuits. His expertise surrounding trading software and his vision of empowering traders daily has led to the launch of successful educational websites that are solely dedicated towards helping traders for absolutely zero cost. The father and son duo have helped establish a global name for the company with a striking customer base of over 30,000 worldwide. Headquartered in Wesley Chapel, Florida, the multi-million-dollar trading company boasts a global footprint that reaches out to more than 140 countries. The company stands at the forefront of trading software research and software development. Its work is rooted in the application of AI-based technologies to the intermarket analysis of today's globally interconnected ﬁnancial markets by utilizing a powerful, mathematical, pattern recognition, tool known as the neural networks. VantagePoint realizes that it can be a stressful experience when one is

not entirely sure of their trading decisions. The company offers that much needed confidence and clarity amongst traders by providing them with relevant information which helps them to act on those decisions. The company is proud to help its customers attain the success which they had desired through their trading activities and has been doing so for the past 40 years and will continue to be the story over the course of the next 40 years and beyond! Miles Ahead than Others It is seen that most newsletters, software programs, or information sources look into a single stock in isolation. This is how Lane explains it, if they're looking at Apple, they're solely looking at the price action, fundamentals, and news about Apple. These sources have their blinders on, and what they are not allowing for is to look from a 360-degree global perspective. But Lane knows that in this day and age if one aims to gain an edge in today's global markets, one needs to have a global approach; an approach that was duly followed by Louis back in the 80s. Unlike others, VantagePoint gathers all the data and uses the same to make its forecast. Instead of viewing that single stock in insolation, the company looks at the bigger picture. It follows that up by using artificial intelligence to predict the likeliest occurrences

with a high degree of accuracy. This is something that one doesn't ﬁnd anywhere else and this is the very reason why VantagePoint has enjoyed a tremendous rate of success and expanded its customer base over the years.

The uncanny predictive accuracy acts to be a major boon for customers, as it gives them the opportunity to pull the trigger at the right time. This was something that was unheard of before the inception of the company.

A True Market Frontier With a stunning proven accuracy of up to 86%, VantagePoint forecasts Futures, Forex, ETFs, and Stocks. By using artiﬁcial intelligence, the patented Neural Network tool of the company helps predict the changes in each market and the direction it might take 1-3 days in advance. This information and data provide traders the opportunity to conﬁdently get in or opt out at the precise moment.

With a team of proﬁcient executives, engineers, customer care professionals, and developers behind its back, VantagePoint is driven by the thought of seeing trading solutions which others overlook or fail to deduce. The company operates with a determined and focused entrepreneurial drive and consistently pushes itself to think out of the box. This ambitious and visionary approach has helped the company to maintain its long-

standing position as the leading provider of intermarket analysis software for the individual trader. According to the company, “With nearly four-decades and more than $10 million dollars of research and development invested, we help traders preserve their hard-earned capital and create real wealth.” Moving ahead, the company aims to continue on its trail of reﬁning and updating its software to make it even more user-friendly and easier for the customers to gain proﬁt from its increasingly accurate forecasts.

Oﬀering a Modern Twist to a Traditional Approach

n order to do anything in our lives, we must start from the beginning; we must take the ﬁrst step. However, taking the ﬁrst step is easier said than done. It is what determines and welcomes change, and change is a daunting prospect.

In her view, handwritten messages are the epitome of thoughtfulness. The reality, however, is that the art and sincerity of the written message is quickly fading away and handwritten messages are being replaced by text messages and e-cards. Through Inkwell Cards, Andrea has decided to bring back the old-fashioned touch of handwritten messages through the modern touch of technology.

But unlike others, Andrea Loborec was willing and determined to take the ﬁrst step; she was willing to tackle her self-doubt and steer past the idea of rejection and failure. She is the CEO and Founder of Inkwell Cards, who took the ﬁrst step and steered her company towards success. Herein, Beyond Exclamation proudly looks into the journey of Inkwell Cards and Andrea Loborec towards business transformation.

Turning her Dreams into Reality Andrea always had an inherent entrepreneurial spirit with a desire to lead people. From opening a lemonade stand in her parents’ front yard to owning and operating a licensed coﬀeehouse while going to University, Andrea has always enjoyed being her own boss and turning her dreams into a reality. She is quick to point out that “When it’s your business you have no one to blame but yourself for missteps, but at the same time when things work out, the sense of accomplishment is huge.”

More than just Cards For Andrea, cards have always had a special place in her life. “My mom used to tuck notes in my lunch on Fridays when I was in elementary school. I had pen pals from exotic places around the world and I loved receiving their letters which came covered in foreign stamps,” Andrea recalls.

She ﬁnds this inspiration to stay dedicated and passionate as an entrepreneur from fellow female entrepreneurs in the city she lives in. She loves ﬁerce lady bosses who are leaving their mark on the world. "It’s not an easy road and to see these brilliant minds putting themselves out there with creative ideas and hard work is very inspiring. I am greatly inspired by the support of my husband and my family. From day 1 they have always told me that I could be anything I

When she sees handwritten text on a greeting card – words written speciﬁcally for her – she mentions how special it makes her feel. “You know that card was picked with you in mind and the time was taken to write those words speciﬁcally to you.”

Andrea Loborec Founder Inkwell Cards

wanted to be, their belief in me inspires me to work hard and to succeed,” Andrea claims. Key Moments that Stand Out Andrea recalls the moment when for the ﬁrst time an artist reached out to Inkwell Cards. The artist mentioned that she loved the work of the company and how she wanted to be a part of their business. Another moment that stands out for the company is when a large group of sales representatives signed up after they saw the products of Inkwell and loved the quality and design that was oﬀered. It was back in July 2018 when Inkwell Cards started wholesaling its greeting cards and today the company has its cards in almost 100 stores throughout Canada and the US. Looking to bank further on this booming period for the company, Andrea mentions “We are less than 8 weeks away from launching our website which will make it seamless for individuals or large companies to send handwritten greeting cards to one person or multiple people within minutes, from anywhere.” The Evolving Market Landscape The greeting cards industry has been around for 100s of years, but the environment has drastically changed over the course of time. There is much more competition,

and some amazing technology that adds gold and glitter and all sorts of add-ons that never existed before. There is definitely a huge market for those type of cards, however, Inkwell believes in simple designs that appeal to many on luxe stationary. The company has taken great care and time in selecting its card stock, in order to ensure that both the look and the feel exudes quality. For the company, it was also equally important to have an environmentally sustainable and FSC approved product. Inkwell is also unique in that it hand-selects each of its artists to ensure a fit within its brand and vice versa. "We are ultimately a platform for these artists to reach a broader audience." Inkwell pays a higher royalty to the artists than the current industry standard to ensure that this relationship is nurtured and builds loyalty. Services for All For corporate clients, Inkwell believes cards to be a great way to recognize clients and colleagues and show them gratitude. They understand that businesses need a reliable and efficient way to do this for multiple recipients. Inkwell makes sending a handwritten greeting card just as easy as sending an e-card, whether it’s to one person or to 100 people.

Inkwell even has an option if you want to schedule a handwritten greeting card to be sent to a different friend or family member every month for 6 months or a year. The company offers a card of the month club where you can do just this. Add to this, there is an option to send greetings cards to your friends and family members overseas, without even leaving your home. With Inkwell you can do all the above seamlessly without moving off the couch. The only thing you need to do is to select the perfect design for your card, write a message on a scrap of paper, input the address of the receiver and click on the send button. Inkwell takes care of the rest and they even pay for the postage! Over the course of the next year, Inkwell is looking to expand its sales team across both Canada and the US and continuing growing its presence. The company is also hoping for the opportunity to get their greeting cards into a large retail chain. “It is also a goal of mine to add a charitable element to my business, I have some ideas but nothing formal as of today. I would like to roll something out on this front within the next year,” concludes Andrea.

Why customer feedback is killing your innovation eﬀorts

Brant Cooper Co-Founder Moves The Needle

he return of a portion of the output of a process or system to the input, especially when used to maintain performance or to control a system or process.

Instead, we do it wrong. We ask for feedback: Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

Feedback is not what people think it is. Originally, feedback is an electronic signal received in response to an electronic output. The signal received back can help determine if the outbound signal was “right” or received properly. Today, the term can be applied to non-electronic and non-automated processes, too.

Without deﬁning the objective From people who have no businesses providing it In ways that don’t work

Feedback vs. opinions Your method of eliciting feedback matters (and actually determines whether you are in fact getting “feedback”). Ironically, your target is more likely to give feedback in the true deﬁnition of the word, than how you desire or intend it to be. Asking for feedback takes the target out of the correct context for your purposes.

Feedback is good for improving or correcting a process. It’s not good for measuring the impact of the process. Feedback on a product feature, for example, may tell you if it works as expected, but not if the feature contributes to some larger desired outcome. If you want to know about the desired outcome, you have to ask explicitly for that.

Entrepreneurs love the idea of pitching their idea and then asking for feedback: “What do you think?” The question doesn’t seek to understand whether the product solves the potential user’s problem, but rather asks the customer to help the entrepreneur. The context is the entrepreneur’s problem of desiring a successful product.

True “feedback” must be in response to a speciﬁc outbound signal and must be provided by somebody or something that fundamentally understands that output and its purpose.

The “user” is prone to give advice on the pitch or on the potential success of the idea. The features she may

proﬀer are not ones she will necessary use or pay for, but rather features she would build as if she were the entrepreneur! Is that what you intended?

You’re asking for customer speculation. Is this valuable? Is this your intention? Again, true feedback demands knowledge or expertise with respect to the question being asked.

Let’s look at an example.

Bottom line:

Say you’re seeking to disrupt air travel hoping to reinvent the traveler’s experience through modular airplane interiors. In pursuit of this idea, you might want to learn:

The level of dissatisfaction with current design Ÿ Whether the new system will improve the level of satisfaction Ÿ Whether the new system will hurt the current level of satisfaction Ÿ

You could use surveys to get “feedback” on some aspects of current air travel. You could have users rate their experiences; you could utilize Net Promoter Score to measure customer “passion.” Customers will be able to respond honestly because you’re asking how they feel with respect to their travel experience. It’s not “feedback” to ask them whether they’d like a modular interior design. Nor is it “feedback” to ask if they’d feel less safe. They don’t know. They can’t know. Similarly, it’s not “feedback” to ask airplane manufacturing people those questions.

“Feedback” is for responding to a deﬁned process or output Ÿ Qualitative “feedback” is not right for measuring customer impact or achieving aspiration Ÿ Feedback giver should be an “expert” in the domain they’re providing feedback on Feedback’s role in lean innovation Asking for feedback incorrectly is simply an invitation to criticize. The target is no longer acting as an agent of the process and is now mentally engaged with the question about the quality of your performance, regardless if the process achieved its purpose or not. To many startup entrepreneurs and corporate innovators, asking potential customers and users for “feedback” is the sum and scope of their “customer development” practices. It also happens to be a primary critique of lean startup, pointing to the comments of “visionary” entrepreneurs famous for stating that they’d never ask customers about product needs or desires. Thing is, the “visionaries” are right. But the problem is not in the

asking, it’s how one asks and what one learns. Customers are notoriously bad at providing useful product “feedback” because their responses are merely speculated opinions based on current preferences from past experiences. They know what they like and don’t like about existing products, but that’s about it. For this reason, Lean Innovation techniques seek to run experiments that measure customer behavior that better demonstrate the value of a product or feature instead of merely asking for “feedback” about a solution idea. Generally, the more “innovative” the idea, the less likely asking your potential customer about it will yield accurate results. This is also why many traditional market research techniques like focus groups and surveys are also less likely to yield useful data or insights for more innovative ideas. When working on something new, consider if you should ask for feedback at all. Anyone will give you feedback whether or not they have the expertise to do so. How you present your request determines the likelihood of its relevance.

Richard Lieberman Author

6 Things You as a Leader Need To Know About Technology

any leaders think that technology is just a tool to help employees better perform their jobs and that investment in the latest hardware/software will keep their company competitive in its industry. But this belief may be fatal to the companies they lead. A recent MIT study showed why. According to researchers, the large companies they studied that had strong leadership promoting innovative technology were 26 percent more proﬁtable than their industry peers and had 9 percent higher revenue. The conclusion: Companies that make technology an essential part of their corporate culture lead their industries. (For more information, see "The Digital Advantage:How Digital Leaders Outperform Their Peers In Every Industry," MIT Sloan School of Management, 2012). So, as a leader, what should you be doing? Consider these six essentials. First, leaders must recognize that we are in the midst of a technological revolution in the business world comparable to the Industrial Revolution. The most successful companies are not simply doing the same things more eﬃciently with technology; rather, they are using technology to conduct business in entirely new ways. This means creating a culture of employee collaboration with technology for more productive internal operations and better processes to reach customers.

Second, leaders must recognize the silent generation gap in most companies between older and younger employees. Digital natives, those under age 35, who grew up with technology, work much more virtually then their older colleagues and managers. It is important that a company’s leadership understand what its younger employees are doing and how they work, and enable them to work in the most productive and creative ways. Many of the advances in work eﬃciency and customer outreach are

coming from the younger generation, and it is essential to recruit and support the best and brightest young talent. Third, leaders must encourage older employees, managers and executives to embrace the new technologies and think creatively about using them to advance the business. Too many people are wedded to the traditional ways of working and are resistant to technological advances in the workplace. To compete, everyone must take full advantage of current and emerging technologies. Leaders

must create a corporate culture that fosters this attitude. Fourth, leaders should ask themselves whether they have a truly deep understanding of how their company is using technology in all key areas of the business. For example, in a manufacturing company, is the best technology being used to make the supply chain the most eﬃcient in the industry? Or for sales, is technology used in the most creative and eﬀective ways to reach customers through social media, state-of-the-art software, etc.?

Are the best digital technologies used to permit employees to communicate with one another? And is management fully immersed in using technology to advance the company? Fifth, traditional office space is expensive and increasingly unnecessary or even counterproductive for efficient work. Leaders should carefully determine the best physical location for employees, whether in a central or regional office, shared or rental space near home or in a home-office. Technology is now providing broad

options as to where people should work, and these critical questions should be asked by leaders, not left to happenstance. Sixth, and most important, leaders should ask themselves: Does the company have the technology and corporate culture needed to ensure it will have the most most productive workforce in its industry and the best interaction with its marketplace? If the answer is no, it’s time to initiate a change in leadership.

Architecture at its Best

he architectural sector is very competitive and the recent technology advances have enabled architects to work almost anywhere in the world. In an industry where ego and architectural design or ‘form’ often compete with a client’s ‘functional’ objectives, the ability to deliver a functional project has been part of T-A Square’s culture of success. T-A Square ﬁrmly believes that by being humble, approachable and easy to deal with contributes to the success of the business. The company is passionate in building strong and lasting relationships with its client base and this is reﬂected in the company’s repeat business with them.

and Antony Tsjin. The directors worked with larger firms to gain the required experience while taking on smaller projects during their free time and weekends to build up the project folio. In 2010, Timothy decided to leave his job with the large established company to focus on T-A Square (the studio was a 3 person team) and started building his network and contacts to work on luxury residential homes, boutique townhouses and apartments projects. During that time, Tim also coinvested on his first Food and Beverage business which is a small hole in a wall Korean restaurant. This opened opportunities and experience for him to start offering interior design as part of the services from TA Square. This eventuated to enable T-A Square to work on commercial, shopping and retail sectors. T-A Square is currently working on architectural and interior projects all around Australia, Malaysia as well as the United States specifically in L.A and Houston.

For its architectural/interior projects, T-A Square often pursues a holistic approach and this drives the company to examine the whole aspect of the scope of works and where possible T-A Square handles the branding, concept and interiors by collaborating with the right graphic designers for the owner’s brand to achieve successful outcome. T-A Square’s clients appreciate that the company goes above and beyond its services sometimes to ensure the ﬁnal outcome of the project is successfully executed.

The rise Today, T-A Square is a full service architectural and interior design studio. The firm offers feasibility studies, concept/sketch design, development approvals, master planning and project management services. For hospitality projects, T-A Square is able to offer graphics and branding solutions by working closely with collaborators to achieve the best outcome for the client’s brand and identity. For every project that is given to T-A Square, the directors are

The beginning T-A Square was established in 2007 as a collaborative design studio between university mates, Timothy Yee

Timothy Yee Director T-A Square

responsible for the design process and a senior associate or project architect is assigned to assist them manage the process efficiently. A project management tool is also used to ensure the client is always updated with the progress and to ensure the project can be delivered on time and within budget for all stakeholders involved. T-A Square works closely with its clients by communicating with them in an open and respectful manner and always strives to provide innovative, functional and cost effective design solutions for every client projects. The encouraging journey T-A Square’s journey has been quite encouraging for the company. They have been experiencing consistent growth for the company; from a 3 person studio back in 2007 to a team of 20 strong architects and interior designers. The biggest challenges for T-A Square is securing bigger projects in different typologies as clients seems to favor the bigger firms over the mid-sized ones. Project budgets is also quite challenging as T-A Square has to stretch its ideas by ensuring they can still achieve maximum impact without affecting their client’s budget especially the hospitality sectors. These issues however have been improving after being shortlisted for design awards in recognition of the company’s works. The team is also working on interesting projects such as boutique hotels, student

accommodations as well as education sectors. “We have been quite fortunate as our clients have been with us all the way since inception, recommending us to their own networks which allowed us to grow organically without the need to advertise our services through repeated business as well as referrals through word of mouth. We are grateful for their encouragement and support,” shares Tim. A passionate believer in architecture As one of the founding partners of T-A Square, Tim is a passionate believer in architecture that is responsive to context, clients and commercial consideration. After receiving his Bachelor of Architecture (Honors) and Deans List from the University of Melbourne, Tim worked with three diﬀerent ﬁrms to gain experience on residential, commercial and aged-care and senior living projects. In addition to guiding the studio’s design and development process, Tim is responsible for ensuring every client receives outstanding service as well as the highest quality architectural and interior solutions. Business development is one of Tim’s key strengths and he is also responsible for spearheading the interiors division towards gaining a strong reputation in delivering award winning hospitality, retail and commercial projects too. Being an F&B investor/owner also helps as it

gives Tim an intimate knowledge of what’s the latest trend in hospitality design as well as giving his clients the conﬁdence that the design produced by the studio will work well operationally too. The vision T-A Square understands the importance of innovation in an ever-changing world, and has made it its mission to provide adaptable services to the client’s needs. Markets and client needs has always been changing and evolving rapidly because everything is connected to the internet these days and T-A Square recognizes there is a need for an architect who can tap into their requirements to ensure the projects that T-A Square delivers for them are evergreen and will not be outdated. T-A Square works closely with its collaborators to ensure the projects viability will always be a successful outcome for its clients. T-A Square is still growing and its vision is to work across both public and private sector in Australia and internationally. “Our adaptive approach embraces the client as a key design contributor throughout the project and we want to continue to do good work, win awards and forge long lasting relationships with our present and future clients while having fun along the journey,” Tim concludes.

Helping Brands Communicate Powerfully

he professional education industry in Singapore has been active for decades now, but little has changed. Apart from the evolving vernacular due to upcoming technologies integrated into programs, most education companies are still selling the same approach of old. Enters HighSpark as consultants in its presentation storytelling and design niche. The company considers itself fortunate to be able to offer a first-hand perspective with directly applicable case examples to improve communications across teams in large, complex organizations. Isolating its underlying processes in the way HighSpark does business and helps its clients has proven useful in transforming persuasive communications for the participants it trains. It’s more common to find trainers that show up and share generic tips and techniques on a variety of topics like public speaking and stories. For HighSpark, it doesn’t just ‘teach’ the topic, but it actually does it on a daily basis in its agency arm of the business. The roots that paved foundation It all started when the idea came years back when the founders saw a clear gap in terms of internal and external corporate communication when presentations were concerned. Seated as a student in their many school lectures, the founder, Eugene Cheng noticed that his lecturers were putting boring, sleep-inducing presentations. Some were even reading from their slides! After deeper exploration, they found out that this problem was not only isolated in the education space, but also rampant in corporate organizations as well. Areas like public speaking, presentation design and such were all overlooked. Even the largest organizations (apart from design-focused ones like Apple) didn’t have an in-house team to design persuasive presentation narratives and experiences. After validating these ideas by uploading on Linkedin and SlideShare, HighSpark began offering such services and found that the uptake was brisk. Before they knew it, business began picking up at an exponential rate. Helping corporate leaders ace their presentations Today, HighSpark is a strategic presentation consultancy and presentation training company that helps corporate leaders ace their high-stakes presentations. Most executives lack the time and communication expertise to present their thoughts and ideas in a clear, simple and persuasive story. Till date, HighSpark has developed more than 300 presentations for top executives and organizations. Presentation Consulting: Typically, clients come to HighSpark with a complex brief, existing presentation or idea they have in mind. The team then gathers more information and transforms it into a clear, persuasive narrative that increases buy-in. For startups, the company offers pitch deck design services. Past consulting clients include Fortune 500 and best-in-class organizations like Nike, Oracle, institutions

Eugene Cheng Co-founder & Creative Lead HighSpark

of higher learning like SMU, NTU, public organizations like A*Star and soaring startups like Glints, Plusmargin and even block chain companies like BOLT and Switcheo. Visual Presentation and Storytelling Training: Organizations that seek to empower their teams to improve their presentation visuals and align on sales narratives reach out to arrange presentation skills courses that run for half-day or full-day runs for their staff to learn the methods HighSpark uses to service its clients. Via associate trainers, HighSpark also offers sales training and public speaking training for organizations that seek an end-to-end training solution. Previous training clients include MasterCard, Singapore Management University, FWD and many more forward-looking organizations. Childhood interest only grown to be a full time entrepreneur Eugene has always been interested in starting an enterprise of sorts since his youth, but only properly understood the idea of entrepreneurship at a much later age. In his younger days back in primary (or elementary) school, Eugene his peers used to catch and collect various types of spiders and erasers for fun. Encouraged by his parents, Eugene took it a little bit of a step further and began selling them to his friends for a dollar or fifty cents. “Since starting the company at 19, I’d say we’ve had to grow tremendously as a result. The steep learning curve accompanied with

‘learning-by-doing’ has enhanced our capabilities and thought processes very quickly,” Eugene shares. “Early on, we faced a lot of push back from prospects because of our age. Especially in a ﬁeld like consulting, looking too young can work against you. There were many instances in the early days where prospecting clients didn’t take us seriously because of how old we looked and were at the time,” he further adds. “They weren’t willing to pay the premiums we were asking for, and are almost always initially skeptical on our ability to deliver. We’d get

objections like: “You’re my son/daughter’s age, what value can you add to me?” or “Are you sure you can do this?”,” Eugene remarks. However, over the time, HighSpark has managed to overcome this through experience which reﬂected in the way they spoke, carried themselves and dressed. Eugene believes that putting on a jacket and a pair of fake glasses does wonders in adding years to your perceived age. “We’ve learned that age is just a number, and that it’s very possible to deliver equal or more value than our

I felt that there was nothing to lose and decided to participate. That’s where my partner Kai Xin and I first began working together.” They didn’t win the competition, but emerged as finalists. Shortly after, during a term break, instead of relaxing and playing as Eugene would usually do, he went to participate in another competition where his team was awarded 2nd runner-up. He also went to immerse himself in deep study on communications, entrepreneurship and specifically presentation design and delivery. “When I returned back to school after the term break, the effect was transformational. The new skills that I had acquired became very useful in class projects. Our clearer and more persuasive approach to presentation visuals and storytelling helped us stand out among other business students and gave us a clear competitive edge,” Eugene adds. older peers if we offer fresh perspectives that deliver results. As professionals, we’ve gotten much better at holding our ground and proving our worth. As individuals, we’ve learned through growing our business in terms of various skills in communications, negotiation and finance as well,” Eugene says. Inspiration for the years to come Talking about his inspiration, Eugene remembers, “One day, during a marketing lecture in high school, there was an announcement to participate in a business competition.

The journey always made him look at his roots Like any other entrepreneur, Eugene has had his ups and downs in business. The key highlights of his journey involved him and his partner being able to return back to their high school to train the lecturers that used to teach them about visual literacy and storytelling. “At the same time, we sometimes have the opportunity to witness our clients taking the stories we developed together with them to the big stage at conferences, Demo Day

events and we also celebrate when our startup clients successfully close a fundraising round. Till date, we’ve collectively helped our startup clients raise close to $20Million in funds from investors. As we tell most clients, the proof is in the pudding and the return-on-investment they get when using us. It also validates the work that we do,” Eugene asserts. “After striving for close to 5 years in this line, it’s clear that our hard work has paid off as we’ve built a lean team of six to service anchor clients like Oracle, Universal Robots and more innovative companies driving a comfortable income for the firm and lasting value for our clients,” he adds. The vision that is powerful enough to become a global brand Moving further, HighSpark is seeing increasing demand from its clients who want to apply the storytelling methods the company teaches to achieve a higher level of clarity in marketing initiatives. This can include digital presences or print collaterals. The company will gradually be offering a wider scope of services for selected clients and expand the team in those areas. There is also great room to expand its training business into more horizontals and deliver added value via education. HighSpark is putting together its training methodologies on storytelling into a book that Eugene is hoping to release next year.

Bridging Departments using Both Sides of your Brain

The enterprise use case of TACTIC came later on as large companies such as Lockheed Martin and P&G approached Southpaw Technology to help with the ineﬃcient digital asset management operations within these organizations. Historically (and indeed currently) most enterprise operations predominantly utilize shared folders, spreadsheets, and emails as alternatives. It turned out that these organizational structures with complex interdependencies and collaborative functionalities across departments need well-tailored workﬂows as well. The result was — TACTIC.

t is no surprise that lefties are legendary at thinking diﬀerently. Strategically, it is an advantage to be left handed in certain sports: baseball pitchers, boxers, martial arts, etc. These people are referred to as Southpaws. A former UCLA associate professor Charlotte Reznick, PhD (a Southpaw herself) explains, that Southpaws see the world through a unique lens. “When we’re left-handed, our right brains are usually dominant, and that’s where creativity and intuition are centered. So it’s often easier for us to be creative than logical. And our brains more easily use both sides of the brain at once, so we have the advantage of also being more ﬂexible in our thinking.”

· Architecture TACTIC is a dynamic, open-source platform used for building enterprise solutions. The TACTIC Platform can be used as an overall system for integrating microservices into well-defined, cohesive workflows. This is accomplished by integrating a core Workflow Engine, a robust Digital Asset Management System, and a Content Management system to provide a complete set of tools to create customized enterprise solutions.

This is a journey of several southpaw experts coming together to form a next generation digital company, Southpaw Technology. Currently led by a left handed CEO, David Lowe, Southpaw Technology applies its unique southpaw lens to help clients apply the best practices on ‘workﬂow’ and business process management. Owing to the learnings across various industries and companies, the company’s consulting group, R&D team, and the Southpaw product group achieve high levels of excellence.

With the core Workflow Engine, TACTIC allows users to optimize their own workflows by building customized data management systems tailored to their specific workflow needs. Workflows are organized through pipelines or process command chains that grant users the ability to define discrete processes within a workflow. The system is modular where by components can be plugged in or upgraded as needed using a flexible “microservices” architecture.

A Larger than Life Vision Prior to founding Southpaw, the two founders had worked extensively in the computer graphics animated film arena. This is an industry with highly complex workflows to ensure a film is delivered on time and on budget. There are often hundreds of people working on the film and often in many locations. Through this understanding, they designed TACTIC – a proprietary technology that optimizes these busy production environments with high traffic volumes of digital content.

Many of TACTIC’s DAM processes are automated for ease of use, including ﬁle cataloguing, versioning and event triggering. As you work, TACTIC automatically names,

David Lowe CEO, COO & Creative Leader Southpaw Technology

catalogues and tracks your files. Files are organized intuitively using deep metadata commits, so documents are always securely organized and made easily accessible by search. · Microservice Orchestrator Microservices are a means of building a modular system by which components can be added as needed. Building a system with microservices enhances the robustness of an entire complex system. A microservice architecture is an ideal way to build and integrate a scalable and flexible system to solve complex real world business problems. TACTIC provides the glue that holds all of the microservices together. It orchestrates when these microservices are needed and what they should be doing. This type of architectures enable continuous delivery and deployment. TACTIC is a workflow platform where each process node makes use of external services. Each process is set up to communicate to external or internal microservices. The platform orchestrates the flow of information through the various systems. TACTIC itself can also provide microservices as needed. Either way, a deployed TACTIC ensures that all jobs are completed according to specified workflows. In fact, a fully deployed TACTIC Platform can serve as a central foundation for the creation, maintaining and execution of all workflow in the enterprise operation. A Trailblazer Leading the Path of Excellence David always had a passion for science and technology and business. His undergrad degree was in Environmental Sciences from the University of Toronto. He studied climate change, waste management,

and energy systems. He admits (with a smile) that was a long time ago but the education gave him a peak at the future. His interest in technology started focusing on media early in his career as the internet unfolded and he had a strong desire to do something important tied to this information-agedisruption that was a game changer. David never thought he would get so deep into enterprise operations but like many things, things unfold in strange ways and it turned out that enterprise workflow needed some disruption. According to him, most companies have internal operations that are shockingly inefficient and there is a whole world of improvement that can happen in any given company. “The thing is that they often make so much money that they can afford to just bury the inefficiencies; but from a scientific and analytical point of view that is not a good enough excuse!” The entrepreneurial drive for David comes naturally from his desires to make things work better and better. “Running a company like Southpaw is a big time commitment. It is almost like this living-and breathing-thing stuck in the middle of your life. It can wake you up at strange hours and can jolt you in many ways. It can also provide comfort and satisfaction. It feels very good to watch it grow and help users in many industries and companies,” David said. “We recently looked at each other and went wow, our vision is really coming through. In a recent quarterly meeting we literally had to step back and just smile when we looked at our client list and our sales pipeline. We are also entering industries that we never know how to crack into. Yet, due to power of our open source community and word of mouth, we found ourselves into industries such as banking and

financial services. It turns out that our software is very good in highly regulated environments. It adds layers of security, intelligence and automation that these financial clients greatly need,” David shared. We happen to believe health care is coming next. Helping Companies Solve Complex Business Process Management Issues Southpaw’s solutions are quite unique in the market. The company has built its platform with a workflow engine at the core. This is unique in the marketplace and it allows for quick deployment that can solve simple or complex business process management issues in a short amount of time. Southpaw builds close relationships with its clients and through that a deep understanding – of what is causing pain and where Southpaw’s professional services team can help the team identify ways to make their specific workflows work better and better. The benefits of automation and precise delivery are its core drivers that can serve large corporate operations. Hence, over time, the company is looking forward to add larger and larger customers that have complex global requirements to the list. Southpaw will continue to offer service excellence to its customers and plans to add all sorts of new capabilities through partners for example, in machine learning and AI. The nature of the company’s deployments offer an enormous amount of data collection within these Fortune 500 companies and Machine Learning / AI teams are very excited to help these same companies benefit from their own internal data. Southpaw is growing fast in the US but increasingly so in Europe and South America.

The How-To: Using AI To Transform Consumer Businesses

Sunil Suresh CMO & Global VP –Strategy Capillary Technologies

nless you’ve been living under a rock, you are sure to have heard of artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML): it is the current buzzword, and every technology company worth its salt talks about how AI is going to transform everything. The strange thing is that most business leaders, especially in consumer businesses, claim to be excited about AI, but they will be hard-pressed to give a tangible example of how AI has been used in their business, or what diﬀerence it has made to business performance.

So, is this all just hype, or is there some real impact that AI is going to have on businesses? If you think about your everyday life, it is almost certain that AI-based technologies are an integral part of your everyday experience. See content and posts that you like on social media? Powered by AI algorithms. Talk to your smartphone assistant to search for answers, or set a reminder? AI again. Order food on a food aggregator app, and chat with customer support? You’re likely talking to a machine for the ﬁrst few minutes. If you watched the latest Google I/O, you’d have seen the new Duplex AI, where it can have whole conversations with real humans, and do things like book appointments for you. AI is slowly but surely transforming the way consumers experience the world by allowing for personalized and easy experiences. The algorithms are able to gobble up the vast amounts of data created every second, and use it to predict and take decisions on what is most likely to be relevant and appeal to diﬀerent people. This is leading to consumers

increasingly living in an “easyverse,” an easy universe of connected and seamless experiences. What’s more, AI and ML gets better at its job as it learns from data and interactions. For any business to survive, being able to be part of this easyverse, and provide consumers with the experience they have come to expect is critical. To be able to compete, deploying AI is going to be mission critical. So, what are the areas where AI is likely to have maximal impact in the short -term? While there are several long-term bets being made, from self-driving cars to cyborg technology or robots as friends, here are a few of the tangible competitive advantages consumer businesses should be looking for immediately. 1. Quicker, better insights Say a business wants to know why sales are down the previous week. The traditional way would have taken a team of analysts a few days to come up with answers, and the accuracy of these answers would be limited by what questions have been asked. With AI, tens of thousands of questions can be processed, and the impact of these factors on the business can be assessed in mere seconds. It can throw up surprising insights on what action is likely to have most impact on the business. This can be an incredible advantage in a fast moving and evolving environment. 2. Personalized and connected experiences AI can learn from your consumer’s behavior, and make predictions of what they may like. This allows for the most relevant products and

recommendations to be served up. In various studies, it has been proven that personalization improves conversion by as much as 30%-50%. Think big marketplaces like Amazon, where each customer sees a diﬀerent set of products and recommendations based on what is most relevant. This is now easily possible on your brand website! 3. Better, 24x7 customer service Deploying AI as chatbots and using natural language processing algorithms as call agents means that they can do a credible job of handling and resolving the vast majority of routine queries that typically hit customer service centers. This allows for quicker resolution, 24x7 service, lower cost and, of course, happier customers! 4. Automation, personalization of campaigns, and marketing ROI Marketing is typically an area with a lot of spend and where it is diﬃcult to keep track of return on investment (ROI). As American marketer John Wanamaker famously said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” With AI tools, it is now possible to manage campaigns on an individual level, with each consumer being put on their personalized lifecycle, with messaging that is almost unique, tailored to their unique behavior and needs. It is also possible to track thousands of signals across the marketing lifecycle, both in traditional and digital media to continually optimize the marketing mix and improve sales performance and marketing ROI. Indeed, the holy grail for any marketer!

5. New powerful streams of data from offline stores The past decade has been a story of online marketplaces and e-commerce stealing consumers away from offline retail. While convenience and easy experiences are an important factor, with the advent of omni-channel retail, offline retailers are able to hold their own and, in fact, have an edge in providing consumers with a great experience. A big gap however, continues to be the amount of data available, and how it can be used to create personalized experiences, and to optimize the business. In the online world, you know who is visiting the mobile site or app, what they are looking at, how much time they are spending, and so on and so forth. This was typically information that was just not available offline. Now with AI tools including computer vision and natural language processing, it is possible to anonymize and track visitors to store, generate style profiles, track trends, identify hot zones and in effect create an offline clickstream. This data can have profound impact on the consumer experience and business results- with sales impact of upwards of 10%! These are just a few of the key areas where every consumer business should be looking to deploy AIpowered solutions so as to be able to win with their consumers. There are several reasons as to why, a lot of businesses are not able to make meaningful progress in driving digital transformation that delivers results, let alone deploying AI within the business; but that is a conversation for another time!

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