Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Apple.... that was bleh!

OK so I still want a finger print reading iPhone but that was signalled ages ago!!

And even if you HAD announced the watch, which I'm still waiting for, it would have been bleh like.

Mostly because you have lost your capacity to surprise and delight.

So here are the things you can do to delight me...

Give me full control of my things
Help me know when I am losing control
Help me build my Personal Data Store and give me control over it
Share with me the value that others can get from accessing parts of my personal data store
Make it easy for me to connect new data sources to my Personal Data Store
How can I capture the data from my Weather Station and my Photovoltaic Array?

OK so I am disgruntled, as I used to look forwards to your announcements, this time I didn't even bother to watch. I just checked the news to see if I was right. I was.


Sigh!


Monday, September 09, 2013

Thinking about Things...

I suspect we need to define a set of Commandments for Things, before we and they get out of hand. Asimov started us of lower down Maslows Hierarchy, but  there are som many more things I would like to know if I were a thing. Wait a minute I am a Thing. OK so I mean the gadgety Things per the Internet of Things.

From a Things perspective should it be Uniquely Identified, should it know it's owner, should it be somehow immutably associated with it's owner? There are so many things to think about as Things start to emulate Thinking. Should things know what they do, and how to measure what they do? Can thinking things be owned? Do things have rights? Is owning a thing some sort of digital slavery, we can very quickly get into rather esoteric worlds, but if we stay firmly on Terra Firma, what do I want from the things associated with me. Assuming the Four Laws of Robotics apply

  1) I want to be able to uniquely identify my Things
  2) I want my things to be able to recognise me
  3) I want fealty and loyalty from my Things, these two cover a myriad of sub commandments.
  4) I want my Things to declare when they cannot be trusted
  5) I want my Things to

  • know what they do
  • know how to measure what they do
  • know how well they are doing it
  6) I want my Things to take on the burden of managing my Things
  7) I want my Things to anticipate my needs
  8) I want my Things to be able to collaborate with my other Things to better meet my needs
  9) I want my Things to be able to collaborate with my community's Things to better meet our needs
10) I want all Things to join together for the benefit of Humanity, ..... or do I?

This harder than I thought it would be, so I sat and thought about my current challenge
My Aercus Weather Station is still not reporting our local weather to the Wunderground. Which Thing Commandments apply to this situation?
1) Yep (well nearly as the Weather Station doesn't know its Identity, my Raspberry Pi and the Wunderground does know it as IGUILDFO2 !)
2) Nope, though the Connecting Thing, the Raspberry-Pi sort of does User Name Pi Password Raspberry. Ok so it doesn't! Must change the Default User ID and Password  See 6)
3) Nope; No Fealty and No Loyalty yet identified
4) Nope, Not a chance yet.... I really did think at one stage this week that someone had taken over the keyboard of the Raspberry Pi
5) a) Sort of Yep b) sort of Yep, c) Absolutely Nope
6) Nope, not at all, as can be seen by the fact that the Weather Station is not yet connected to the Internet
7) Nope, in my dreams
8) Nope, only if I do all the connecting , and I am still failing to get that done.
9) & 10) are currently both pipe dreams....

So the Weather Station Things is not yet really following the CoTs

Friday, September 06, 2013

Unification: yes... Convergence: yes... but...

Converge on me..., Unify my control.

Don't converge on you, or unify your control.

Consumersation of Agency is about putting the end customer back in control.

Those that get that will win back the trust of their customers.

Back in days of your the concept of service was clear, the entity providing the service was the "servant" to the recipient. Agency was NOT in the hands of the service provider. IT & the Internet in it's early stages has allowed the distortion of the concept of service. Often delivered by Service Providers, a term that in itself signals the self importance of the providers, they clearly didn't like servant!

The signs of rebalancing are clear, those service providers that think that they can remain in control of their "users", are likely to quickly find that the Millenials think differently. Earlier generations did not have the skills to wrest back control, the Millenials do! Think about it "Users" that most horrendous of epithets that was the most powerful signal of the distortion of the "Service" model, is also found in the word of Illegal drugs. Millenials do not think of themselves as Users, they see themselves as being in control, the agents of their own destiny. 

Make sure you own companies Consumer Agency Strategy is clear, you can start with how your Customers chose to identify themselves to you.... Do you still force them to use your ID and password?