iot - Servant of Chaos

Your Input Requested: IoT Design Manifesto

You know that an industry is starting to get serious about business standards and models when it starts to corral people. And the Internet of Things (IoT) industry is no different.

When Elizabeth Eisenstein investigated the invention of the printing press, she identified five impacts of new media:

Experts coming under pressure from new voices who are early adopters of new technology
New organisations emerging to deal with the social, cultural and political changes
There is a struggle to revise the social and legal norms — especially in relation to intellectual property — and the concepts of identity and community are transformed
New forms of language come into being
Educators are pressured to prepare their students for the newly emerging world.

And with the IoT Design Manifesto, we’re now seeing a line in the sand. Initially drafted by a team of design professionals, the aim is to draw feedback from the community of professionals involved in the IoT field. You can sign the manifesto, download or simply read and share. But the question is – what’s missing? What can be strengthened? And perhaps most interesting of all – where to next; which of the five impacts will you work or collaborate on?

The manifesto thus far:

We don’t believe the hype
We design useful things
We aim for the win-win-win
We keep everyone and every thing secure
We build and promote a culture of privacy
We are deliberate about what data we collect
We make the parties associated with an IoT product explicit
We empower users to be the masters of their own domain
We design things for their lifetime
In the end, we are human beings.

Social: The Present is Mobile. The Future is Wearable

Conferences, Digital Strategy, Disruptive Technology, Social Business, Social Learning, Social Media

There was a time when the battle for social media was simply one of recognition. For some time, brands and businesses held out. Restricting firewall access to social networks. Directing marketing spend to broadcast. Ignoring the trending shift to digital across a range of categories – from marketing to HR, supply chain to finance.

Now, this pent up force has been loosed and it is transforming the way that we work, why we work and how we work faster than we could have anticipated. As a result, we are seeing disruption almost everywhere we look:

Who – this is not just about “digital natives” or “digital immigrants”. We now have no choice but to adopt a “digital nomad” perspective. We need to move with the digital times, building and refining skills, networks, and connections. It’s touching every one of us in profound ways.
What – we used to be able to cordon off “home” and “work”. These days, there is only what Nina Simosko calls a life continuum. What we consider work is no longer restricted to what we do and is becoming more closely aligned to “what and who we are”. This is having an enormous impact on the nature of work, the workplace and what it means to have “purposeful work”.
Where – the disruption began at home, in our palms and quickly spread through the networks. But as we know, culture eats location, and that means our “where of working” is infinitely more mobile, flexible and time-shifted. This is challenging workplace structure, services and cohesion.
Why – We are paid to work but businesses continue to struggle with motivation, morale, and engagement. As our Baby Boomer generations retire, we will be left with a massive experience and capability gap within our organisations. To attract the best talent, we’ll need a much better understanding of the needs and expectations of our employees.
How – this is where the most obvious disruption and transformation is taking place. The “tools of our trades” are increasingly digital, data driven and mobile.

Kate Carruthers brings this together elegantly in this presentation made at the recent CeBIT conference in Sydney. She makes the point that we need to keep looking towards the horizon – for while the present of social is mobile. The future is wearable and the internet of things. And that future is not far away. In fact, it’s already in your pocket.

Social and mobile for business from Kate Carruthers

Forget the Internet of Things. Think the “Internet of Me”

Internet of Me

It’s easy to get excited about devices – about the latest, newest and shiniest phone, band, tablet or watch. It’s also cool to think about how internet enabling our other devices makes our lives better, more efficient or simpler. Internet enabled TVs for example, play in this space. Same with internet-connected refrigerators, light bulbs, or air conditioning. They come with cool names like Nest or Emberlight and sit under the ever expanding category of “internet of things”.

And there is more. Way more. There are scales like Withings that connect to your home wifi to upload your weight and BMI ratings. There are wireless speaker systems like Sonos that pipe streamed music into the location of your choice. There are voice activated home automation systems, barbeques and crockpots that cook on command and even deadbolts that keep your home secure yet know when you approach.

But they are all distractions.

Because it’s not really about the internet of things. It’s the “internet of me”.

Just as the size of mobile phones have collapsed while their power has increased, the same will occur with digital sensors. Just look at the mCube accelerometer that’s only one millimetre across. Accelerometers are the technology that measure movement and vibration. If you have a mobile phone, you have an accelerometer. They are the things that detect that you are picking up the phone, walking or driving (or moving etc) up a hill or down it. They are used in your car to trigger air bags in a car crash – and there are hundreds of other uses.

But the most interesting thing about this latest, small version is what it means for technology – it allows it to disappear. Just think, no one wants to wear Google Glasses because they are ugly, clunky in interface and intrusive in a social environment. It’s as if no one in the Googleplex thought for a moment about the social use of technology (surprise, surprise, they’re all technologists) – and by “social” it is about the three important social outcomes explained by Tara Hunt – does this get me made, laid or paid?

And at the heart of this focus is one thing. Me.

It’s time we forgot the “internet of things” and started thinking the “internet of me”. And then, maybe, we just might (not) see these technologies turning up in a fabric nearby.

And that’s when it will all get very interesting.