Software

Target. Home Depot. Buffer.
Two of those companies suffered major data breaches in the last year, making national headlines as millions of their customers were adversely affected by hackers. The latter company, Buffer, also suffered a data breach last year, but had a pro-active strategy in place in order to quell the fears of its customers. These are the three examples that customer loyalty expert <a href="https://twitter.com/AshTate" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ashley Tate</a> and Barry Kirk, VP of loyalty strategy at <a href="http://www.maritzmotivation.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Maritz Motivation Solutions</a>, go to first when discussing possible security threats in loyalty marketing.
<a href="http://technologyadvice.com/gamification/customer-loyalty-software/smart-advisor/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Customer loyalty programs</a> require certain underlying technology, and while there are not specific IT threats to that technology, Tate and Kirk agree that the omnipresent data breaches we seem to be having can negatively affect a loyalty program. After all, if a company loses customer data, it’s very likely that the customer won’t trust that company any more. According to Kirk, it may even cause people to generally stop providing their information to loyalty programs.

“What it potentially does is begin to dampen people's interests in giving even more data away to brands. Because that's really what a loyalty relationship starts with: me as the brand asking you as the customer, ‘Would you be willing to identify your behavior with me?’ Let me track that behavior in return for a more rewarding experience, because that data is important to me.”

In regards to Buffer’s breach, Tate noted how their response and preparedness generated more trust within her for that company:

“They provided very quick information on how to protect yourself if this was a concern for you. And that really kind of softened the blow a bit for me and made me feel like, ‘OK, this happened. I was at risk.’ But the fact that they had a procedure already set in place and were able to enact it immediately ... made me less scared to continue using the service and to give my data.”

To sum, loyalty marketing technology typically does not experience specific security threats, but the increasing amount of general security breaches concerning customer data can be a factor that greatly affects a loyalty program. Whether a security breach positively or negatively affects a program depends upon the preparations a company or brand has made before such an event happens.
To hear more about loyalty technology, listen to the full TechnologyAdvice interview above.
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This round table discussion is a segment on the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-customer-loyalty-space/id934907878?mt=2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Customer Loyalty Space Podcast</a>. Interview conducted by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarkbuckner" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Clark Buckner</a>.

Technology Trends in Loyalty

iCareHealth Chief Technical Officer, Craige Pendleton-Browne, provides some insight on the current and future technology trends for the aged care sector.

Technology trends - Craige Pendleton-Browne.MP3

After the smartphone, what business has the global scale (in terms of people and profits) that make it attractive for tech companies to turn their attention and capital towards? The answer, argues a16z’s Benedict Evans, is the automotive industry. Sure, cars are mobile -- but what do our smartphones have to do with our rides? More than we might expect.

Evans offers his vision of the future of cars, and perhaps the future of today’s biggest technology companies. Who will build these cars, who will own them, and who (or what) will drive them? We discuss this and more in this segment of the a16z Podcast.

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a16z Podcast: When Software Eats Cars

Podcast - Technology Trends in Education

Technology trends in event planning

Haakon Bryhni, CTO at Elliptic Labs and Guenael Strutt, VP, Product Development, two researchers with a clearly technical background, talk about the team’s research in the lab and how it led to a software technology that utilises ultrasounds for gesture recognition. Their patented ultrasound software technology can be as simple as opening a light with a gesture, up to permitting the replacement of the optical proximity hardware, on our mobile phones, with software. Something that actually brought strong funding and big business for the firm. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.


TTC #235 Using Ultrasound Software Technology to Recognise Gestures

Kent Langley is a hands-on leader and technology visionary with extensive startup experience. He is also sought after speaker, teacher, mentor and advisor on all things technical, data and exponential. In this episode of The Big Question Podcast, 

Kent and I talk about some of the most important technology trends that are shaping the future, and companies and industries that will benefit from them, so you can pay closer attention to them as an investor.

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BQP 010: Kent Langley On Future-Shaping Technology Trends

a 5 minute podcast on Technology Trends in Education 2016

Technology Trends

"All of a sudden you can program the world" -- it's the continuation of the software eating the world thesis we put out over five years ago, and of the trajectory of past and current technology shifts. So what are those shifts? What tech trends and platforms do we find most interesting on the heels of raising our fifth fund? Are we just building on and extending existing platforms though, or will there be new platforms; and if so, what will they be? Well, distributed systems for one...

This episode of the a16z Podcast covers all things distributed systems -- encompassing cloud and SaaS; A.I., machine learning, deep learning; and quantum computing -- to the role of hardware; future interfaces; and data, big and small. Podcast guests Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz (in conversation with Scott Kupor and Sonal Chokshi) also share the one piece of advice from a management and go-to-market perspective that all founders should know. And finally, why simulations matter... and what do we make of our current reality if we are all really living in a simulation as Elon Musk believes?

a16z Podcast: Software Programs the World

G M C software technology Interview

Find the arrow in the upper right, hit "account settings" then the "general" tab.  At the bottom is "download your Facebook data".  

Software

MarkDurbin104