Smart TVs Are Not Disruptive

Smart TV has not fulfilled the promise of disruption of the early hype.  Why?  Some say it is a problem with the interface - it is too complex and awkward.  The interface involves at least the following items: the layout of information on the screen, the interaction device, such as a keyboard, remote control, mouse, etc.  Using such interaction devices from 10 feet away is a problem in itself.  Newer devices are including voice recognition and control.  This in principle should solve the interface problem.  Some devices provide control from your iPad (or, generically, your tablet).  This also solves a lot of the interface problems.

But, is the interface really the problem? What can you do with a smart TV that you cannot already do with your dumb TV, or your computer sitting at your desktop?  It appears at present that the reason there is no disruption created by smart TVs is that they are just incremental extensions of the trend in TV ecosystems.  They integrate internet with cable capability.  Certainly, in the future, cable may lose to Internet access for all that it provides, but this is just a different way of delivering the same stuff.  In fact, Internet access often comes on the same cable that the cable company provide for you TV.  So, what's the difference?

For disruption to occur, we really need to identify another trend that when it interacts with the TV ecosystem trend one can do something you could not do before.  Tablets were introduced about the same time as smart TVs, and tablets have so disrupted the desktop PC market that they threaten to become the PC of choice.  The two trends of mobility and PC systems allowed this disruption to occur.  No one is going to carry around a 50 inch smart TV to accomplish what you can do with an iPad.

Social Media for Corporate Use now has tools

Item 3 from the CSC 2008 predictions is the following:

"3. Social power is enabling businesses to solve problems faster and more effectively using corporate social networks to find people and expertise quickly."

 Social media today is both good and bad for those that use it.  For small businesses in the retail business, a recent post (6 Sep 2012) in Social Media Today (http://socialmediatoday.com/ariherzog/820046/90-percent-small-business-use-social-media} indicates that 90% use social media to reach customers.  

But the use of social media by businesses to conduct business has greater dangers in the open environments that most social media present themselves.  LinkedIn allows a company to control group access so that a company can limit access to employees only. But for other social media this is not always possible.

A new company just started up in MA called Scrambls.  Scrambles encrypts data in the corporate network before it leaves the network to move to the social media.  Only those individuals invited to see the tweets, dropbox files, Facebook postings, etc., can unencrypt the postings.  This tool gives corporations a means for their employees to collaborate via social media sites.

This concept will gain wider consensus as more corporations move to the cloud.

New Media Disruption - Crossing of Trends

In 2008 CSC posted 10 areas of potentially disruptive technologies.  The first one is the following:

"1. New media is breaking down traditional big media, giving voice to millions of individuals and unleashing new talent and creativity. Related to this, viral video and new media channels such as blogs offer businesses a radical new way to bring their messages to the market, changing distribution just as profoundly as the Internet redefined the brochure."

The most notable example of this is the growth of YouTube videos.  One can find almost anything you want on YouTube - someone will have made a video about it.  If you want help on how to solve a particular puzzle in a video game, such as Assassin's Creed,  you can find a video that will walk you through the solution.  If you want to see the latest trailer of a new movie, go to YouTube.  If you need to get some training in project management on a particular topic, YouTube has it.  An it is all free.

But, this disruptive technology only became available as the trends of personal video composing and the Internet used as a publication media joined to make this new media what it has become. 

My point is that disruptions occur when trends intersect, allowing a new development that could not occur by itself.

Is Gamification a tool for you?

A previous prediction from 2008 was that "Virtual and physical reality are blending to form a new reality. In this augmented reality, work will seem more like a game, workplace experimentation will increase, and super-collaborative skills will become paramount in the workforce."

Some recent development is proving that including game components in work processes does indeed increase productivity and enjoyment.  Happy workers are 30-35% more productive that unhappy workers.  The book by Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter, "How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business" talks about the 6 Levels of how to include Gamification in your business processes.

Why do games work?  The basic idea is that there are components in games that motivate a wide variety of people, and motivation is what you want your employees to have.  some are motivated by the reward, some by being at the top of the list, some just because it is fund to do, regardless of whether they win or lose.  In today diverse workplace we need to have multiple tools at our disposal to motivate the vast diversity of employees.  Gamification may be a tool to consider.

Disruption by clouds is cloudy

Well, it has been a while, hasn't it.  I do find it interesting that future disruptive technologies mentioned in my Oct 2008 blog are still developing.  Some have come a long way and I will talk about those.  Today I want to mention number 8: Cloud computing is replacing the world’s data centers.

Well, is it or isn't it?  Data Center consolidation is certainly moving forward rapidly in the government area as this action has large potential costs savings to the various agencies, especially those agencies that have grown to mammoth size through congressional mergers of agencies; Homeland Security comes to mind here.

But we don't see as much movement to the cloud yet.  There are some agencies starting to move in this direction and GSA is making an effort to provide a contract vehicle that would allow government agencies to acquire cloud services.  But, security in an open cloud environment is still an open question.  Private clouds developed by the larger agencies may be able to solve that problem, but at the expense of acquiring and maintaining all the equipment necessary for such a large enterprise effort, reducing the savings potential.  

The issue of security is the major drag on open cloud computing.  Concerns about where your data is, e.g., is it in China today, and maybe Russia tomorrow?  People are addressing these issues through geo-restrictions and data encryption, but cloud providers are not generally providing these technologies as part of their cheaper offerings.

Future disruptive technologies

CSC recently provided a listing of what they think will be disruptive technologies. We will look at each of these in future blogs, but for now I provide the list here:

1. New media is breaking down traditional big media, giving voice to millions of individuals and unleashing new talent and creativity. Related to this, viral video and new media channels such as blogs offer businesses a radical new way to bring their messages to the market, changing distribution just as profoundly as the Internet redefined the brochure.

2. Virtual and physical reality are blending to form a new reality. In this augmented reality, work will seem more like a game, workplace experimentation will increase, and super-collaborative skills will become paramount in the workforce.

3. Social power is enabling businesses to solve problems faster and more effectively using corporate social networks to find people and expertise quickly.

4. Information transparency is unleashing new applications and innovations that break down information stovepipes and bring deeper visibility to transactions, processes, people and assets. Such transparency, though not without privacy concerns, yields a more enlightened view from being able to gather, integrate and analyze information from disparate, previously “locked up” sources.

5. The Internet is making traditional TV and AM/FM radio obsolete. Software defined- and cognitive radio will enable new devices that can negotiate the air waves on-the-fly as needed.

6. 3D printing will enable anyone to print out toys, parts, designs and more from the Web.

7. Molecular computing will lead to breakthroughs in biomedicine: researchers have already developed a molecular computer that uses enzymes to perform calculations from within the human body.

8. Cloud computing is replacing the world’s data centers.

9. Semantics will make information more meaningful (digitally), make applications more interoperable, and offer innovative ways for businesses to expand their services to the world.

10. The Web will evolve towards a reasoning engine, making decisions for us as well as predictions and recommendations that enhance our own decision-making.

Technology Trends

I rediscovered an old article I had written back in 1986 and thought I would post it here. It is very similar to my first post and consists of four points.

1. Technology is not and should not be an end in itself, but should be used as an enabler to accomplish more effectively the business one is in. Technology trends that coincide with and support business trends have the best opportunity for success.

One example of this is CASE tools. CASE tools were the technology trend setter at some time in the past. Today one does not hear much about CASE tools. Why? Because the useful tools have been adopted by businesses as the more effective way to do business, hence, they have become "main stream".

Another example to watch today is JAVA and related technologies. JAVA by itself is nice, but how it will be used to make business more effective will determine its future. JAVA is just an instantiation of the underlying technology trend towards componentized software. Componentized software will have a big impact upon business as it allows one to move away from single vendor dependence towards a rapidly advancing innovative entrepreneurial development of software components which will be "plug and play."

Which brings up the next point.

2. Individual technology items are just point-in-time instantiations of an underlying technology trend. It is the trend that is important, not today's implementation of a point on that trend. By identifying and understanding the underlying trends, one can get ahead of the curve and be a leader in deploying technology enabled solutions. But, by focusing on individual expressions of the underlying trend, one is forced to compete on a "me too" basis and also suffer the possibility of choosing the wrong implementation of the technology trend.

Which leads to the third point.

3. Technology trends are build upon historical events. A certain technological infrastructure must be in place for advancement to occur. The trend we see today in communications called the World Wide Web is built upon the foundation put in place by Arpa back in the late 70s and 80s. One cannot only go backward in tracing this trend, but even in the 80s, one could move forward into the future and extrapolate where, based on various assumptions, the technology would go. The real problem is not the direction, but the speed with which certain trends develop. And this is where companies who do not try to understand underlying trends but focus on individual applications of that trend may loose out. Many companies today are scrambling to understand JAVA and the WWW. Historically, companies such as Railroads did not understand the technology trend leading to competitive forms of transportation. They thought they were in the railroad business, not understanding the technology trend which would have led them to understand that they were in the transportation business. Banks today are struggling to understand how the technology will reshape their business. The question to ask is, are they in the banking business, or some other business that the technology will enable?

Which leads to my final point.

4. The merging or crossing of trend lines leads to unexpected concepts which often make orders of magnitude leaps of productivity possible. Examples are the merging of high speed communication technology with distributed systems technology. This merger of technology trends has led to distributed client/server systems based on WWW browsers for common front-end systems tied to heterogeneous back-end systems deployed around the world. This would have been difficult to plan and deploy on its own, as global companies can testify. Today it is common place in the WWW.

Summary: By focusing on underlying technology trends in multiple disciplines one has the best chance of surviving in today’s competitive environment. Through the understanding of these underlying technology trends, one can pick and choose or develop the instantiation of those trends which give the best competitive advantage to the business at that point in time.