Our guests, Robert Falzon, a financier, and Massimo Cesaro, a technologist, are two of the co-founders of Inkwell Data. They joined forces to bring to market their Altior IoT operating system which Massimo designed and developed.

In this episode, Robert, Massimo and Bruce discuss:

• What the digital twin is, both conceptually and physically.
• The stages of developing Inkwell Data’s Altior digital twin: connecting data sources to data structures (wiring it), describing it with a language so processes can be visualized and preparing the data to apply external analytics and AI on it.
• An example of a smart building digital twin.
• A comparison of the costs of using an IoT managed cloud services versus using a virtual private server for storing, integrating and updating a digital twin.
• Methodologies for securing digital twins.

Related links you may find useful:

• • Season 2: Episodes and show notes
  • Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
  • Season 1: Episodes and show notes
  • Season 1 book: IoT Inc
  • Training: Smart digital transformation certification

Our guest, Steve Latham is the founder and chief executive officer at Banyan Hills Technologies, a software company specializing in remote management and monitoring.  Steve has been in tech for over 20 years and has extensive experience in cloud-based software and the Internet of Things.

In this episode, Steve and Bruce discuss:

• What an IoT platform is and the tech used to move data from the edge (device) to the cloud.  The hardest tech and the behind-the-curtain-tech that needs to work well to achieve scale and device manageability.
• Use cases for a remote monitoring and management system and examples of when Banyan’s products and services led to unexpected value discoveries – including new business models and surprising quick wins.
• Case studies of how a remote monitoring and management system were used, the investment required, and the types of value created.

Related links you may find useful:

• • Season 2: Episodes and show notes
  • Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
  • Season 1: Episodes and show notes
  • Season 1 book: IoT Inc
  • Training: Smart digital transformation certification

Our guest, Scott Giordano, serves as Senior Counsel for Privacy & Compliance at Spirion, an advisor in rapid identification and protection of sensitive data - focused on multinational data protection and its intersection with technology.

In this episode, Scott and Bruce discuss:

• Privacy and security, which are often mistakenly conflated.
• Why you need to bring your lawyer in well before the data collection “cake is baked”.
• The liability differences between a data collecting consumer product and a data collecting business product.
• How to think through the data sharing contract for your newly digitally transformed product or service.
• Privacy laws you should be concerned with if you gather consumer data.
• Why you need to develop a data sharing contract your customer signs before using your digital product or service.
• Why caps and indemnifications are your data sharing contract’s best friends.

Related links you may find useful:

• Season 2: Episodes and show notes
• Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
• Season 1: Episodes and show notes
• Season 1 book: IoT Inc
• Training: Smart digital transformation certification

Our guest, Peter Orban, is the founder of XR Solutions, a producer of immersive and wearable computing. Originally a Mad Man he traded his advertising career for another creative profession a decade ago – to be a startup founder and business developer.

In this episode, Peter and Bruce discuss:

• The definition of extended reality (XR), which includes sensory tech along the continuum of, assisted reality, augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR).
• The breakdown of the three main tech components of XR and how they work.
• Use cases of how extended reality creates value.
• The cost and time needed to implement an XR solution.
• Case studies to tie everything together and to quantify the value generated.

Related links you may find useful:

• Season 2: Episodes and show notes
• Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
• Season 1: Episodes and show notes
• Season 1 book: IoT Inc
• Training: Smart digital transformation certification

Our guest, Paulo Lopes, is an experienced business development executive in the IoT industry and is currently a senior marketing manager at Haltian.  Haltian is a Gartner Cool Vendor that provides global IoT solutions focused on smart offices specializing in the employee experience.

In this episode Paulo and Bruce discuss:

• Although most/all workspace optimization efforts to date have been made in production/manufacturing workspaces, there is a large opportunity in improving white-color workspaces – especially in the era of Covid.
• How to digitally transform the white-collar workspace to improve employee efficiency and efficacy.
• The technology used to transform an office into a smart office.
• The digital transformation cost items associated with making an office smart and the value created.
• A case study quantifying the costs and value of the Smart office.

Related links you may find useful:

• Season 2: Episodes and show notes
• Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
• Season 1: Episodes and show notes
• Season 1 book: IoT Inc
• Training: Smart digital transformation certification

Our guest, Jurgo Praden, is CEO of Thinnect, and has two decades of experience as an IoT researcher, a CTO and now as a CEO. His previous company, Defendec, produced a wireless border patrol product that’s currently protecting over 30 countries.

In this episode, Jurgo and Bruce discuss:

• The meaning of, and the growing importance of, mist computing – a term coined by Jurgo.
• The tech of mist computing - part of the distributed compute surface that includes the fog (gateways and other devices in the OT network) and the cloud.
• The commercial importance, of ease of installation and scalability, and the tech behind it.
• Thinnect’s Temp-Sense overlay sensing network service for food safety, the price and value created, and revenue model deployed.
• Restaurant and supermarket case studies to tie tech and value creation together.

Related links you may find useful:

• Season 2: Episodes and show notes
• Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
• Season 1: Episodes and show notes
• Season 1 book: IoT Inc
• Training: Smart digital transformation certification

Our guest, Loren Shade, is Vice President of Marketing at Allegro Software where he directs their IoT product and business strategy, backed by his 30+ years of experience working with embedded systems in the defense, medical, industrial and consumer sectors.

In this episode Loren and Bruce discuss:

• The tech of embedded systems and some best practices associated with implementing cybersecurity in digital transformation.
• The IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act 2020 and why compliance is important to any company going through a digital transformation, not only those selling to the US government.
• How the risk and liability associated with non-compliance and not incorporating, “security by design” can lower enterprise value.

This show is brought to you by DIGITAL OPERATING PARTNERS

Related links you may find useful:

• Season 2: Episodes and show notes
• Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
• Season 1: Episodes and show notes
• Season 1 book: IoT Inc
• Training: Smart digital transformation certification

Our guest, Tim Raven, is Managing Director and leads Worximity’s US practice. He is an operations, finance, and digital manufacturing expert with over 25 years of experience working with privately held and sponsor-owned mid-market consumer and industrial product manufacturers.

In this episode Tim and Bruce discuss the first phase of transforming a factory into a smart factory: applying a sensor overlay network to pull data off brownfield machines and equipment.  We then outline how to quantify the value created by relating the KPI of OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) to EBITDA, along with it’s associated costs to come up with the ROTI (return on technology investment) – core to the investment thesis.  Then we tie it together with a smart food packaging plant case study.

This show is brought to you by DIGITAL OPERATING PARTNERS

Related links you may find useful:

• Season 2: Episodes and show notes
• Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
• Season 1: Episodes and show notes
• Season 1 book: IoT Inc
• Training: Smart digital transformation certification

Listen to this trailer/overview with Bruce Sinclair to learn about the upcoming season of the podcast, now named, The Private Equity Digital Transformation Show.  New episodes starting February 26.

This talk show is about the next big thing in value creation.  It is for fund managers and corporate leadership investigating digital transformation for their companies, and for service providers, subject matter experts and vendors wanting to broaden their digital skills.  Although the show’s focused on value creation in the context of private equity, it’s sector agnostic and can get pretty geeky, digging into IoT, data science (analytics & AI) and other high technology. At a high level, the show is about how to frame the digital investment thesis and how to execute it.

Season 1 of this show was produced for corporate leadership and more generally covered the tech, business and strategy of digital transformation through the lens of IoT – the foundation of all high-tech digital transformations.  Season 2 of this show expands its audience to include private capital investors and considers digital transformation from a more disciplined value creation and investment perspective.  Season 2 can be considered as an application of season 1 for private equity, while continuing to be useful to corporate leadership.

This show is brought to you by DIGITAL OPERATING PARTNERS

Related links you may find useful:

• Season 1; Episodes and show notes
• Season 2: Episodes and show notes
• Season 1 book: IoT Inc
• Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
• Training: Digital transformation certification

The “IoT Platform” is such an overloaded term that its meaning has been lost. Chipset manufacturers, sensor manufacturers, software vendors, consortia and system integrators all have their own definitions. But if you come at it from enough angles eventually a form takes shape and you realize it means what you want it to mean and what is important is not its definition but the context in which it’s used. In this episode of the IoT Business Show, Dr. Sean Lorenz and I go through the elusive IoT platform and why the business problem is always the place to start.

Read the rest of the show analysis notes including the transcripts at: https://www.iot-inc.com/amorphous-iot-platform-definition-podcast/

This show is brought to you by DIGITAL OPERATING PARTNERS

Related links you may find useful:

• Season 1: Episodes and show notes
• Season 1 book: IoT Inc
• Season 2: Episodes and show notes
• Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner
• Training: Digital transformation certification