Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
Ecommerce as Video’s Killer App a16z (reading time: 8 minutes)
Short form video is experiencing a resurgence. I’ve been experimenting with the hot new app Tik Tok and short video formats feel better this time around. This intriguing post by Connie Chan and Avery Segal at a16z explores how Chinese companies are taking advantage of short form video and enabling shopping. The videos are fascinating to watch. The way people consume media continues to evolve and every decision maker needs to be paying attention.
The rise of the Virtual Restaurant NY Times (reading time: 9 minutes)
“If you don’t use delivery apps, you don’t exist.” The rise of food delivery apps like Uber Eats, Doordash and GrubHub have enabled a whole new type of restaurant to emerge, a virtual one where there is no seating. I’ve seen a few in Montreal while ordering on Uber Eats. The Times explores this new world of online ordering and virtual restaurants. An interesting angle is how companies like Uber use data to help restaurateurs predict demand and specific types of meals in their neighbourhoods.
Looking to stay relevant, big enterprises embrace the platform MIT Sloan (reading time: 6 minutes)
This is a short good read on how companies are embracing platforms. It’s a topic we’ve been diving into with some of our customers and it is endlessly fascinating. There are some good examples offered in the post. BCG offers another good recent post on the topic of ecosystems.
Present futures: automation and the politics of anticipation Futures of work (reading time: 8 minutes)
I’ve been guilty of sharing articles focused on the “future of something”. Oftentimes, these posts serve as a great time killers but rarely yield any insights on what exactly is going to happen. This article presents the concept of the “politics of anticipation” which allows consultancies to sell problems to be solved.
The Arc of Collaboration KwokChain (reading time: 18 minutes)
This is an incredibly thoughtful post on collaboration and productivity at work. We’ve often covered topics on the future of work and this is one of the best articles I’ve read on the topic. At the heart of the issue are the tools that we use; Slack, Dropbox, and how they shape collaboration.
