Justin Owings

Systems thinker, tinkerer, and sense-maker. Leading marketing at @goCanopy

[Canopy @goCanopy]

4 in 5 now say restaurant tech influences where they eat, according to the new restaurant tech report for 2025. Also:

60% use self-service kiosks (80% have problems)
Of AI drive-thru users so far, ⅔ left satisfied
~¾ have payment issues
... ~¼ saying the tech always works

[Canopy @goCanopy]

"Being able to use Canopy's tools to help us identify subsets of systems that are experiencing certain issues. [So] whether it's their scoring device is disconnected or their software is out of date or they've been offline for X amount of time ... we can target those systems."

[Exec on the Desk @execonthedesk]

The shift to remote work will happen just like the shift to open offices happened.

The metrics will demand it.

The only question is how management will enforce remote work — a question with troubling answers.

[Exec on the Desk @execonthedesk]

The long-term reality of modern work will be remote. But how it will happen is yet to be seen.

Because the reality of how knowledge work happens now is how it will happen in the future — through applications over the Internet.

The problem is trust: When the cat's away the mice will play.

So management will either ham-handedly verify work is happening — through surveillance (the dystopian way) — or workers build and maintain trust from the ground up.

Which path will we go down?

[Canopy @goCanopy]

Which of the following sentiments about unattended technology resonate with you?

🔮 "Unattended tech like self-checkout machines at stores make me feel like I'm in a sci-fi movie, but they often fail when you're in a rush."

[Canopy @goCanopy]

Big box retail is big tech retail:

Target's point-of-sale (POS) system connects everything from registers to mobile apps to in-store kiosks. They even speed up the checkout price through offering line-busting during peak times.

But it's not all smooth sailing.

[Shishir @shishirmehrotra]

Big exciting announcement: I’m excited to share that I’ve signed the agreement for @Grammarly to acquire Coda! And I’m honored to lead the combined companies as CEO.

I share much more details on how this came about in my blog post, but as I chatted with the leaders at Grammarly, I realized that both companies have arrived at remarkably similar views of the future. One where AI will redefine every business application and workflow, reinventing productivity as we know it today into a place where humans and AI work together everywhere you get work done.

Grammarly is an amazing platform — with over 40 million daily active users, I see Grammarly as one of the world’s most ubiquitous AI assistants. We have a broad roadmap of how we’ll bring the products together.

First, we’ll be working on making Grammarly’s ubiquitous AI assistant even “smarter” and “more helpful” by adding the context of Coda Brain. And second, we’ll be working on unifying Coda Docs and the Grammarly Assistant to provide users with a flexible home for users to work. Longer term, we have much grander plans for how we’ll weave together our products to build the AI productivity platform for agents and apps.

I think it will feel like a dramatic acceleration for the Coda product and mission, helping to reach millions of users and help redefine the future of AI-driven productivity.

It’s an important milestone, a big transition for the company. I couldn’t be more excited about it!

Read more at: https://t.co/P1U4hfgkGa

[Canopy @goCanopy]

Modern retail works because of connected products — from kiosks to point-of-sale (POS) and more.

That means downtime hurts not just customers, but employees too.

Canopy's Steve Latham writes for Specialty Retailer:

[Canopy @goCanopy]

Using Canopy, OpenTech's team is able to get kiosks into the hands of customers faster — and the kiosks "just work," which is something they'd always wanted to do with their business ...

And now they can. 6/

https://t.co/9UEoP4AlCA

[Canopy @goCanopy]

Canopy and OpenTech Alliance are having a semi-technical discussion about kiosk and remote device automation.

They use RMM to save time, tickets, headache across provisioning, onboarding, reboots, and more:

The conversation drops soon — don't miss it!

https://t.co/U0LuKWJm5R

[Canopy @goCanopy]

"[Canopy] is able to then react and run a program on the PC to fix the problem before we even know it." 🎯

Robert Chiti, CEO of @OpenTechInc, recently shared with Canopy's Steve Latham how his tech support team automates remote device management for self-service kiosks and cameras at self-storage facilities.

OpenTech uses Canopy to:

✅ reset + reboot Windows PC drivers
✅ identify issues w/cameras — and then reset them
✅ monitor device temp. to understand longevity
📈 grow operations + manage more kiosks w/o adding overhead

Chiti shares how "our tech support team loves [Canopy] ... because it does a great job."

The Canopy team is honored to have OpenTech Alliance as a customer — proud to support their growth as they innovate in self-storage technology.

[Canopy @goCanopy]

Self-storage operators use connected products from OpenTech Alliance — kiosks, access control, cameras, etc. — to automate facility management.

Then, with remote monitoring + management from Canopy, OpenTech levels up managers, adding efficiency + effectiveness to the business.

[Canopy @goCanopy]

https://t.co/HbHEoQEwJO

[Justin Owings @JustOwings]

The doorman fallacy via @rorysutherland

[Canopy @goCanopy]

"The spectacular failure of self-checkout technology"

@thismademecool takes a strong perspective against self-checkout kiosks at retail stores.

Do you find Simon's argument convincing?
https://t.co/vnE8pC4OAb

P.S. Connected product teams take note of the doorman fallacy🚪💁‍♂️

[Canopy @goCanopy]

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
Remote Access
Remote Desktop
Remote Device Management (RDM)
Connected Products ...

What does it all mean!?

No double rainbow here.

Nope!

Just a Guide for Remote Device Management 👇

https://t.co/HdgTb6neuU

[Canopy @goCanopy]

.@edge_monsters asks + answers the following question in their latest blog:

"How do we get “just enough” operational telemetry from the edge without exploding costs, network impacts, and potentially drowning in useless logs and metrics?"

[Canopy @goCanopy]

1/ Canopy was founded 11 years ago — though not as Canopy but as Banyan Hills Technologies.

The idea to design a system that could monitor, manage, and automate remote device management came from an unexpected place:

A vending machine for DVDs 📀

This is that story (thread)

[Canopy @goCanopy]

Helping 20K restaurants manage front- 𝙖𝙣𝙙 back-of-house technology (POS, kitchen displays, drive thru, etc.) isn't easy.

Revel Systems made it seamless.

Here's how Revel did it:

[Greg Atkinson @GregAtkinson_jp]

A bit of digital technology, a bit of analogue technology, some manual intervention & all together quite smart - self-service smoothie machine at a 7-ELEVEN convenience store in Japan.

[Justin Owings @justinowings]

This is a story of family depression and financial despair, of becoming a D1 college athlete only to be injured, of pursuing a career on Wall St, of landing an internship at Goldman Sachs — after an unplanned phone call.

Freedom is something you take:

https://t.co/N38Vkin5FO