M+M: The Revolution Continues

Our annual GE Minds + Machines conference marks the pace of the digital industrial revolution. Last week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, #GEMM17 brought together over 4000 representatives of a broad range of industries. CEOs, heads of sales and marketing, software engineers and data scientists exchanged views (and business cards) in the halls and debated everything from sector-specific technical issues to the broader social and economic impact of new technologies.

I took away four calls to action:

1. Keep track of the Industrial Internet applications in your field, because they are growing fast. Dedicated sessions highlighted the digital transformation of Transportation (led by my colleague JP Soltesz), of Mining, Aviation, Power, Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, and more. Each session went deep into the weeds of new technical solutions to improve efficiency.

2. To keep up, you need to find the right partners and collaborate. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stage with John Flannery to celebrate the GE-Microsoft partnership launched by Satya Nadella and Jeff Immelt this summer, bringing GE’s Predix platform onto Microsoft’s Azure Cloud for industrial businesses. A week earlier, GE announced a partnership with Apple to deploy Predix on iPhones and iPads. No matter how big you are, no matter how smart you are — you cannot succeed alone.

3. You need to figure out how to attract and develop the right talent, and how to adapt your management practices and corporate culture. And you need to figure it out now. The more radical the innovation, the deeper the adjustment companies must go through to reap the benefits. The sessions on up-skilling technologies and how to change the corporate culture attracted great interest. My favorites: Eric Ries’ Startup Way; and Kim Chase’s advice on how to bridge the digital-industrial skills gap.

4. Channel your frustration into more investment: At last year’s M+M, Jeff Immelt noted that “productivity stinks”. One year later… it still stinks. It’s frustrating for companies, for workers, for the economy as a whole. Some academics have concluded that digital innovation cannot lift living standards. Don’t believe them. Invest. Because as these digital-innovations scale, they will boost productivity, and you want to be at the head of that trend.

The revolution continues. Jeff Immelt and Beth Comstock sparked and developed the digital-industrial vision; John Flannery re-affirmed that GE is “all in” in digital — GE will remain at the forefront of this revolution. This was my last M+M on the GE side, but it will not be my last: I hope to see you there next year!