John Davis

When it comes to testing on OTT devices, I still hear often that things are done manually by QA teams because of release timeline, complexity, and lack of resources. Automation is an ongoing process. Just start with automating the most mundane, repetitive test cases and add more as you go. It works, you'll see! #Suitest #OTT #TestAutomation #AutomationOverManual

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December’s Product Group London saw the group discuss Product Planning alongside inspirational insights from our Suki Sandhu, CPO, Gaming Realms. Topic of the Night: Product Planning December’s discussion explored multiple aspects of product planning – in summary: - Most teams have some kind of process in place, ranging from daily adjustments (for some) to 3, 6 and 12 months plans – we had one very detailed example of a well considered process that started with OKRs and then flowed through multiple steps and across multiple teams. - Size and age of the organisation or product was a factor – the younger or smaller the org or product, the less likely the process would be defined. - Good practices included having clear planning timelines and checkpoints to support implementation; OKRs/goals/target outcomes, a business strategy and direction to provide guidance; achieving consensus and alignment in the business; collaboration with peers and other teams, and using tools such as Aha! and PI planning to co-ordinate and streamline the process. Guest Speaker: Suki Sandhu - Great to have Suki talk about being a CPO and his experiences in the gaming industry. - Suki described his early experiences in Yell and AOL (the latter giving him his first taste of product). From here he moved onto his first gaming role at PartyGaming – a role that was enticing due to its community aspects. - He then described moving onto develop multiple product teams and games in the UK, US, Sweden, Netherlands, Gibraltar and Russia. On his journey, he’s learnt the value of working in other countries – he recommends it, if you can. - In gaming, Suki talked about approaching regulations from 2 sides: (1) thinking about the customer and ensuring they are enjoying their experiences, whilst (2) working closely with internal and industry regulators to follow guidelines and best practices. - On getting the most from your career, he suggested speaking up if you don’t believe in your strategy or the decisions that are being made; doing what you love over money and job titles – get the first right and the others will follow, and working in a consultancy to get exposure to different products and organisations. Lastly, if you happen on a conversation with Suki, ask him ‘what’s the worst that can happen?’… Happy chatting! Thank you Suki Sandhu for sharing your journey🙏. Thanks to everyone who came and engaged in the discussions 🙏. Thanks to Foolproof 🙏 for hosting us and providing the pizza and drinks. See you in Jan 2025! #tpglondon #prodmgmt #productmanagement #productplanning

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Electric cars meet electric ideas ⚡️ YOUR ideas. Develop record-breaking innovations for FIA Formula E with Google Cloud's generative AI in our London Hackathon. Sharpen your skills and innovate at the speed of AI →

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Two months ago I wrote a post about where Bachtrack.com was with the leaving Twitter/X thing and the questions we were asking ourselves to try and find our way to a decision (read that post in full here https://lnkd.in/egdtivb5). Having just spent the last two days at our thrice-annual Company Meeting, and finding ourselves in a new place post-US elections, I thought I'd check in and see how things were faring. Some interesting happenings have been spotted on the alternative platforms we chose to join alongside X: Bluesky and Threads. Initially, things were pretty quiet. We replicated our Twitter content there and saw a little bit of action, but not anything to write home about. But since the events of last Wednesday, there has been a big change, and it seems to be happening on Bluesky. Our Bluesky account has seen a 280% increase in followers in just 10 days. Our editor, Mark, the man behind our X account and who has also been posting on Bluesky for us, reports that interactions on Bluesky posts this week surpassed interactions on X for the first time. A smaller increase can be seen on Threads (7%). And we are down just short of 1% in X followers. What does this mean? It's a hunch, but personally, I think that Threads is where a "general" audience is heading, and Bluesky may be where the "niche" audience is heading. By that, I mean the community of classical music, culture, arts etc. people, which was so strong in early-mid period Twitter. Whilst this is not yet enough to mean we are ready to abandon X altogether, it's a significant trend and one we will keep our eagle eyes on. Because it raises another question: should arts and culture organisations seeking safe harbour from X choose a platform where "people like them" are hanging out? Or should they choose one where "people yet to be converted" are? I suppose that depends on the organisational aims for social media. And I'll leave that for another day! Should you fancy joining us, we are: 🦋 @bachtrack.bsky.social 🧵 @bachtrack And if you are still there: ❌ @bachtrack

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Great day in Manchester at the Future of Media event alongside Rob Smith and Elizabeth Sutton. 3 key takeaways: 1. Based on data shared by research company, Omdia, annual advertising revenue in the UK is at £32bn. Online Video contributes £13bn to this figure, vs Traditional TV (£8bn). 2. Gen-Z and Gen-Z Alpha are leaning into the gaming sector in their numbers (£6bn in advertising revenue). If these age demographics are right for your brand, their is a great opportunity to reach highly engaged new audiences when incorporated into your mix. 3. Creative and data more than ever go hand in hand. For creative to be authentic and compelling it needs to reach the right audience. The cleaner your data, the easier it is to segment and activate. #mediaplanning #innovation #community #manchester

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🧠 “PRIORITISING THE CUSTOMER PROBLEMS FIRST”, so true, so effective, we’re really reeping the benefits from this mantra. Real solutions for real problems lead to real improvements (CX) and real results (performance)! And often just the simplest of solutions🚀

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Highlights from 2024 Google I/O: Google is fully in our Gemini Era. So many exciting new announcements from Google I/O this year - I will share some of my personal highlights from now for 7 Days! #4: Project Astra - A universal AI agent that is helpful in everyday life Why this is critical? (Powered by Gemini) it has the potential to revolutionize how we interact with technology and the world around us. It aims to create a universal AI agent that is helpful in everyday life by: Enhancing productivity and efficiency: By seamlessly integrating with various devices and platforms, Project Astra could streamline tasks, automate routines, and provide personalized assistance, saving time and effort for users. Improving accessibility: Project Astra's multimodal capabilities could make technology more accessible to individuals with disabilities, allowing them to interact with devices and information in ways that were previously difficult or impossible. Augmenting human capabilities: By leveraging AI's ability to process vast amounts of information and provide real-time insights, Project Astra could enhance our understanding of the world, improve decision-making, and enable us to tackle complex problems more effectively. Enabling new experiences: Project Astra could open up new possibilities for communication, entertainment, education, and personal growth by offering immersive and interactive experiences tailored to individual needs and preferences. Driving innovation: As a cutting-edge research initiative, Project Astra could push the boundaries of AI and inspire the development of new technologies that improve our lives in unforeseen ways. Overall, Project Astra represents a significant step forward in the evolution of AI assistants, with the potential to transform our relationship with technology and make our lives easier, more productive, and more fulfilling. Read on: https://lnkd.in/gKJB3Fgp

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Everybody's buzzing about the potential Wiz acquisition by Google. It's undeniably a phenomenal success story. As I've delved into numerous online analyses of their journey by so many people, for me a few key factors stand out: - They prioritised on the last thing first, delivering the outcomes that businesses seek from such a platform. - They aligned seamlessly with enterprise workflows, moving in the right direction every step of the way. - Their steadfast dedication to user-friendliness has been a cornerstone of their strategy. In my opinion these are the top 3 principles to success for any technical product. #cybersecuriry #cnapp #Wiz #Google #Acquisition #SuccessStory #BusinessStrategy #cloudsecurity

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Several take aways from this report. 1. As streaming subscriptions necessarily raise prices, that is causing impact to consumers subscription habits - quite rightly. Getting the balance right is important, both on the cost (how much content) and price (how much revenue) so that revenue exceeds cost ultimately, because companies need to make money otherwise they are not businesses. One area where this is being felt is in the aggregator pricing - how much it costs to have the aggregator, and this is where traditional pay TV businesses are failing by still charging too much for what they contribute. 2. Cost of broadband is keenly felt, and you can see that in the markets as broadband operators increase prices as they need to maximise their revenue in the face of little or no opportunity for incremental revenues, both from their premium (faster) packages that most customers don't need, and the bad management of their key incremental revenue source - TV / Entertainment services. 3. Attributing customers using 5G instead of wireline for broadband to being their 'choice' or 'desire' is a misnomer. These are customers who are cutting into bone to reduce costs, because broadband costs in most countries less than equivalent 5G services, unless that product is a Fixed Wireless option - and that is still only competitive, with poorer speed. Speed is about 'fast enough' and sorry, 5G is not 'fast enough' in most instances as it barely gets fast enough to be classified as high speed broadband in most locales in real life. 4. Unreliable home internet is something that needs to be addressed. I see some have problems with older FTTC or HFC connectivity, rather than FTTH and that deployment progress will help remove the older more unreliable setups, but the issue is also with WiFi. Operator WiFi solutions are the issue here. Ask a professional in the industry about what they use, and more often than not you will hear the refrain 'Not what the operator provides', or higher cost, more performant Mesh solutions. There is a view that some of the success of Alt-nets in the UK is for those who provide retail based products like Eero by default, because they offer much better performance. There needs to be a step change in Operator solutions that are NOT engineered to a price. What are your thoughts on this?

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Today, we've published a new blog post on how AI-led transformation on Search is already impacting user and advertiser experiences - all backed up with fresh insights and data. https://lnkd.in/eHCcCxcw. Google's mission is "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful" and even after 25+ years; recent advances in AI help us make further progress on this truly audicios mission, and enable us help our users answer new type questions, in new ways. A good moment to remember how Larry Page predicted the future to look like back in 2000 -- 24+ years ago.

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🎉 Announcing RMBG 2.0: Setting a New Standard in Background Removal 🏆 I’m thrilled to announce the release of RMBG 2.0, our latest AI-powered background removal technology that’s now the SOTA among open-source solutions. With a 90.14% success rate across diverse image types, RMBG 2.0 sets the benchmark for quality and performance in background removal. Background removal is essential for a wide range of Visual Gen AI image modifications and editing, and RMBG 2.0 serves as a fundamental building block for seamless and efficient workflows. Whether you're creating product shots, marketing assets, or game assets, RMBG 2.0 will elevate your creative process and scale your efforts. Available on Hugging Face: - Model Card: https://go.bria.ai/4fBxK0V - Demo: https://go.bria.ai/4ep8udg For API access: - Sandbox: https://go.bria.ai/4fhfsSO - Documentation: https://go.bria.ai/40JEnu0 Kudos to Ori Liberman & Or Avioz for the great work! You can learn more about how we benchmarked and tested the model here: https://lnkd.in/e8mDUjXn I’m incredibly proud of the team for their hard work, and I can't wait to see how you all use this new capability to transform your projects. #AI #BackgroundRemoval #GenerativeAI #TechInnovation #MachineLearning #OpenSource #Ecommerce #GameDev #Automation

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I have the most Meta job in the world - and it's not at Meta! When people ask me why I joined LinkedIn, I have only one answer, because it's LinkedIn. I don't just work for LinkedIn; I use our products everyday, hiring leaders using the very tools we offer to our customers. It's the epitome of 'meta'. The best part is being 'Customer Zero'. Testing our new products firsthand and supporting our customers as they navigate their own paths to success. Today, I had the privilege of discussing how we attract, retain and develop talent through skills-based HR with over 50 of our global customers. Gone are the days of speed-hiring based solely on job descriptions and credentials. In this VUCA world, we're prioritizing the quality of hire over traditional metrics like time to fill. By doing so, we're not just filling roles; we're upskilling our entire organisation to drive long-term growth. Shoutout to Mallika Hirwani Jiajun (JJ) Lin Ju Song Eleni Garidis for inviting me along! #TalentAcquisition #CustomerZero #SkillsBasedHiring #LinkedInLife

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👀 “Should CEOs be talking about 'category creation' with CMOs as part of the hiring process?” I've known Terry Shaw at Erevena for years, and he always has insightful questions based on what he's seeing in the executive recruiting market. Recently he had a wave of CEOs who wanted to evaluate CMO candidates based on their success in establishing their past companies as a new category. ❓ He wanted to know: given my efforts around category creation (which I'll admit, were mostly failures) is this a fair topic / criteria to evaluate a potential CMO on? What was supposed to be quick chat turned into a 45-minute exploration of category creation and why it's not just a "CMO project." Luckily, we recorded our conversation and you can check it out here: https://lnkd.in/gtDQ4XWv (And spoiler alert: yes, I think category creation is a fair topic to bring up, but CEOs had better be prepared for smart marketers to evaluate how committed you are to the effort.) Thanks to Izzy Wood-Falch for wrangling our conversation into something shareable! #marketing #categorycreation

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Highlights from 2024 Google I/O: Google is fully in our Gemini Era. So many exciting new announcements from Google I/O this year - I will share some of my personal highlights from now for 7 Days! #6: PaliGemma is a family of open-source vision-language models (VLMs) developed by Google AI. It's designed to process both images and text, enabling a wide range of applications. Advancement in Multimodal AI: PaliGemma represents a significant step forward in the development of multimodal AI models, capable of understanding and generating both text and images. This opens up a wide range of possibilities for applications that require understanding the relationship between these two modalities.expand_more Versatility and Flexibility: PaliGemma is a versatile tool that can be applied to various tasks, including image captioning, visual question answering, text-to-image generation, and more. Its flexibility makes it a valuable asset for researchers and developers working on different projects.expand_more Open Source and Accessibility: The open-source nature of PaliGemma allows the wider AI community to access, modify, and build upon the model. This fosters collaboration, encourages innovation, and accelerates the development of new applications and improvements. Multilingual Support: PaliGemma's ability to process multiple languages broadens its reach and potential impact, making it useful for applications that cater to diverse linguistic communities.expand_more Fine-Tuning Capabilities: The model can be fine-tuned for specific tasks, allowing users to tailor it to their unique needs and achieve better performance in their specific applications.expand_more Potential Applications: PaliGemma has the potential to revolutionize various fields, such as: Education: Creating interactive learning materials, generating visual aids, and providing personalized feedback. Healthcare: Analyzing medical images, assisting in diagnosis, and generating patient-specific reports. Creative Industries: Generating art, designing visual content, and assisting in creative writing. Accessibility: Providing image descriptions for visually impaired individuals and assisting with text-to-speech conversion. Read on: Google Developer Blog: https://lnkd.in/gRWpMh9C Hugging Face: https://lnkd.in/gefaYShr Kaggle: https://lnkd.in/gjw2Mpcx

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Today we launch what I believe is another 'first' (I am sure people will correct me if I'm wrong though!) - AdaGPT - a free tool trained on Ada's thesis that can assess whether a pitch deck aligns with Ada's investment thesis, flag information gaps, and suggest potential improvements. This is the first product shipped by Ada's new Principal and Head of Product Michael Tefula. Anyone who knows Michael knows he is a fantastic investor, wonderful human, polymath and very curious - a real student of VC. He's always asking how can it be done better? A core value at Ada has always been about how we can rewire VC? How can we make VC a better product for founders?  Please check out the AdaGPT below and let us know what you think. And welcome Michael - lucky to have you at Ada Ventures. Matt Penneycard Diarra Smith Ed Zimmerman Charles Hudson Michelle Ashworth Marta Sjögren Xun Ning Choong Emma Richards

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Television is no longer the single main source of news for UK adults, as new research shows that online sites and apps are now as popular as TV news for the first time. TV has been considered the leading source of UK news since the 1960s, when widespread set ownership saw it overtake radio and newspapers. But recently published findings from the UK's Ofcom annual study into how UK adults access news shows that 71% of adults now do so online, compared to 70% for TV, marking a generational shift in the balance of news media. The big driving factor is the increasing use of social media for news. More than half of UK adults (52%) now use platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to access news, up from 47% in 2023. Once the dominant feature of the peoples daily news diets, the reach of TV news in the UK has gradually declined in recent years, and fell sharply from 75% to 70% last year. https://lnkd.in/eZHiC-qq

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