May 21, 2018
The next big thing is here even if it is hard to see. It’s Internet again, this time with the real world added to people and organisations already in place. That process is often called Internet of Things – IoT where the “T” refers to the physical world. And this time the impact on society, organisations and people will be even bigger than what Internet had last time since the real world most often is missing from the processes we try to digitalise today. The stock exchanges went through its digital transformation years ago since documents traded was digitalised, brokers on the floor was replaced by systems and money flows freely in cyber space. The remaining connection to the real world includes the companies themselves and some individuals still trading as well as the distance between the computers with the trading systems and the robot trader agents.
We started digitalise in the fifties but it is only when a process is fully digital the benefits appear. And most processes touch the real world why IoT is required to complete most of the digital transformation. When a process is digital, end to end, we can harvest, but more importantly we can add turbo functionality like artificial intelligence, robotics and computer vision to them and make many times better gains in speed, cost, efficiency and quality. The impact of that can easily be a drastic change in an entire industry (like when selling books left the book store era) and will for sure eliminate a lot of white and blue-collar jobs.
We are just in the beginning of this fundamental change of rules and games which probably will go on for the next 20 years or so. And who the winners will be on the other side is hard to tell but I believe there are some things that will characterise the good candidates:
• Entrepreneurs with open minds, good ideas and fantastic ability to execute together with the resources needed can build from a clean piece of paper and skip all legacy related challenges. Most will fail but some of the winners will absolutely come from this category either on their own but more often as part of a bigger organisation. Timing, people and resources are the key issues for them to master.
• Financial muscles enables clever investments and some of the winners will be clever and lucky enough to buy themselves a winner’s position. Timing, people and resources are the key issues for them to master.
•
Some organisations of today will master this entire race – yes it’s like 10 marathon races back to back and even if you are in the lead after race number eight you can easily fail completely. Think Netscape… Ability to change is always a matter of people and processes. A winner in this long race will have to secure solid processes and a well unified and motivated team throughout the entire race even though the distance and where the goal is remain unclear. Constantly changing processes and people during the race, in worst case even bringing in external leaders and people, will not create the ability required. No, a well working team with solid leadership and the core competences over time can make it. Such team can react to news, changes, threats and opportunities in a much better way than others. And they will learn while going thus know things others don’t know. Systematic innovation is an organisational ability required to tackle very complex challenges. Motivation, inspiration, engagement, care, love, trust, health, experience, ethics, well-being and fighting spirit are things that will be found in the companies that made the digital transformation successfully. And they will have strong brands with attributes that todays youngsters will appreciate.
Established organisations who want to master the digital transformation well has to start their journey immediately and rapidly get beyond strategies, plans, innovation managers, Powerpoint and Excel. Among the first things I suggest needs to be in place are very strong support from executive management, activities to inspire, engage and include staff, rapid prototyping capabilities in place and establishment of new relationships with a host of new companies and people who each master something that might be of great importance onwards.
It is already difficult for companies to master their own domains these days and with challenges coming from everywhere, a much wider view is required. And even more challenging: the golden rule of “asking the customers” – the outside-in approach – becomes obsolete when technology provides completely new opportunities. Like when internet came last time we’re now entering yet another era where inside-out is the name of the game.
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AI, Computer Vision, Corporate Innovation, Digital Transformation, IoT, Robots, Self-learning systems, User Interaction | Tagged: Digital Transformation | 
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Posted by magnusmelander
December 17, 2016
I never miss an opportunity to make the point that Security and Privacy are the two big challenges for IoT, and that privacy is the bigger one. Security problems can be fixed since we accept apologies and forget rapidly. Was it billions of accounts Yahoo? Privacy issues are different since it is about trust and without a proper architecture no service can cope with new requirements on privacy.
Most people respond along the lines of “I have nothing to hide” or “that’s the way people are these days”. But people living in countries where they don’t trust the government have a completely different point of view. In most western countries we have quite tough policies about what you can ask people in interviews for employment. But given the data available to employers today (provided from users by signature!) combined with data analytics, they already know much more than you can imagine, so they don’t need to ask.
This is the naive era and it will come to an end, soon! Your personal data is yours and you should only give it away if you think it is a good idea! And many organisations are equally naive today! Critical data has to be kept safe! Web services for IPR management might not be a good idea for example. At least not unless you know where the servers (and their backups) are.
The only architecture I know of today which can support future requirements on privacy, is that users own their data and opt in to share it. I’m working with Springworks in the automotive industry today. In our company, enabling mobile operators to connect cars, the owners of the cars own the data generated in the car and they opt in to insurance companies, road side assistance companies etc to get some of their data. Car manufacturers typically argue that they own the data.
Here is a good example of what will drive new requirements on privacy – a report from Democratic Media on how wearables are used to collect and sell health data. Is this something we want? I don’t think so. Consumers and enterprises will raise new requirements, and governments will follow with legislation. Proper architectures for privacy and trusted partners will be kings.
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1 Comment | Healthcare, IoT, Privacy, Safety and Security, User Interaction, wearables | Tagged: Privacy, Springworks, trust, Yahoo | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
July 17, 2016
The telecom industry got a head start in the early days of IoT aka M2M. Ericsson took the lead with the 50B connected devices mantra which translated well into an obvious role for huge operators with millions of connected users and massive investments in wireless networks. And it went without saying that the obvious providers of technology and solutions would be the telecom vendors already in the family. This was a clever and well executed plan by primarily Ericsson since the operators were looking for the next massive growth opportunity after having connected most people and given them data buckets. Operators went for it with one primary caveat – we will not only provide connectivity.
Now, only few years later IoT has gone from a connectivity focused baby to a data centric young adult. IoT is only a new phase of Internet – we’re adding things to people and businesses already connected – which explains the speed of development. From a usage point of view, Internet including IoT and the enabled services and solutions will remain customer focused and very fragmented and the operators will continue working hard to figure out their role beyond connectivity.
Here’s what I would do. The two major challenges for IoT are security and privacy. The smaller one is security since we are used to repair and plug holes as we go, and since we tend to have a very short memory. But privacy is really challenging since nobody knows how the requirements will develop over time. When your data is out you can never get it back why any service will need a solid privacy architecture to cope with future requirements without having to rebuild from scratch. The user must own his or her data and decide who should get hold of it.
But privacy is not only a technical issue why we need trusted partners to help us manage our data. Today most of us trust serious banks to manage our financial data as an example. Our trusted partner needs big muscles to force and enforce proper agreements and obviously have to walk the talk themselves. Operators already manage a lot of our private data and provided they do that well, this is a great position to build the trusted partner role on. The trusted partner role can also be required to build and orchestrate a fair and robust sub-eco system in a specific market like smart homes or connected cars.
So why is privacy of importance anyway? Today most users of internet applications sign up without even reading the agreements. One often hear “I’ve nothing to hide” as the key argument to avoid the hassles of reading and thinking. But with today’s capabilities in data analytics, all digital traces and information we leave behind can quite easily be used to picture an individual, understand how a product is designed, see patterns, understand security procedures and arrangements and so on. In the wrong hands this can be really bad and this type of information is already very useful for burglars to know when people are away and industrial espionage for example. A small example of what could, technically, be in use today is recruiters knowing without asking that a female candidate is pregnant, don’t exercise or have a heart problem.
I am absolutely convinced neither consumers nor policymakers will let this development continue as today. And this is where I believe operators with a relevant brand can find their role in IoT beyond connectivity. A role which will be increasingly important and valuable as far out as I can see. Two good examples of operators I see moving in this direction today are Telefonica and Telia Company (see FAQ 6 and 7).
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Posted by magnusmelander
October 23, 2015
IoT, IoE, M2M or whatever we call it has three primary deliverables: sustainability, security and efficiency. Each of these are massively important in all organisations. And like if that wasn’t enough, they are almost always interlinked – a more secure solution is often more efficient and saves a little of our planet for example. So what’s stopping all of us from running after these benefits? It actually takes quite a lot to get there but done correctly it’s almost always worth the effort. A simplistic description of what it takes could look like this:
• understand the current business well enough to see what issues or opportunities to work on
• time and mandate to work on them
• a couple of ideas on what to do
• simplistic understanding of what’s in the toolbox today
• prototyping and user testing over and over and over again
• make a business case, plan or something like that
• guts to bet on it
• development and proof of concept testing
• pilot testing
• focus on processes and people
• roll-out
Prototyping with user testing is probably the single most important part since without a clear view of exactly what to do, what users want and so on, the projects most often become very expensive failures. And up until recently it was very complicated and expensive to make working hardware prototypes. But today we have a range of affordable fantastic devices for prototyping like iBeacons and TI sensortags. And together with developer tools like Evothings Studio a working prototype is only hours or maybe a day or two away from real life tests on mobiles and pads. Further more, it is too abstract for normal human beings to visualise what adding IoT to something will allow us to do. We need to try it out to understand.It is my experience that most organisations are stumbling on other things than technology when trying to figure out how to utilise IoT in their business. At the same time adding IoT for the right things and at the right time will be game changers across industries. The countries who can enable citizens to do a fair share of what the healthcare system is doing for them today (like the banks did) will make massive gains in efficiency. The manufacturer of fridges who figure out how to provide them as a service to their customers will change the game, increase predictability and help save the planet. Avanti!
None of these things are even close to rocket science, most of them have been done many times before and very few have anything to do with technology in general or IoT in specific. The thing that we are less used to is to actually connect the things physically. It’s about hardware and hardware is challenging by definition – ask the next VC you come across. Design for manufacturing, mechanics, design, labour cost, DOA, electronics, material, tools, power, freight, etc are typical things we need to be on top of. And that require quite many people to be involved.
PS. Don’t forget that the key difference between when we connected people and organisations to the Internet and now when we connect things, is that ignorance will not be an acceptable excuse.
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Posted by magnusmelander
January 7, 2015
Smart Homes is a much talked about opportunity for IoT. It has what it takes to attract a lot of companies and people including those owning, managing, visiting and living or working in them. And beyond that also companies selling products and services for them. And the concept of smart homes is fluffy enough to include the three big deliverables of IoT: sustainability, safety and efficiency, as well as things like economy, comfort, fashion and entertainment.
We all know that a specific solution for every single task or device isn’t good enough. So the approach to make a remote controller for the toaster, one for the fridge and one for the kitchen fan (I actually saw a dedicated remote controller for the fan in Italy and I’m still thinking about the use-case) will not make the job. And we also know that “this is THE network for the SmartHome” approach isn’t taking us there since we already have a lot of different infrastructure and networks in houses and we have a number of different more or less technical requirements on them.
The combination of these two insights makes it hard to come up with Smart Home solutions that will capture large parts of the market, especially if we leave aside new buildings where one can start from scratch. I suggest something like a cluster approach to the challenge where we try to combine infrastructure, applications and tools to provide attractive solutions for larger parts of the Smart Home challenges. Let me give you a couple of examples what that could look like:
- The ultimate Media solution which uses IP networks to stream content easily and flexibly to and from devices and services (bring the best from Sonos, AirPlay, Spotify, Netflix, etc). Once installed you could add, change and remove hardware and software components easily.
- A really secure managed infrastructure with a tough SLA for applications and services that require an infrastructure to really trust. Applications could be alarms, door locking systems, smoke detectors and other things you are ready to pay extra for if the service is guaranteed.
- A kitchen app that interact with all your favourite Internet services for cooking and shopping, your kitchen appliances regardless of brand (or not?) and maybe energy monitoring and advice relating to the kitchen.
I have concluded that we will have at least three networks in our homes: an unmanaged Wi-Fi network which is already there, a managed very secure network with top-notch quality of service and a more generic but still managed network for things like home appliances. WAN solutions will generally speaking be too expensive and will just complement the LANs the way they always had. But some devices connected directly to a mobile network and/or narrow band WAN infrastructure like Sigfox will most certainly be part of the solutions.
One of the most interesting projects I’m currently involved in is a joint effort between a number of Swedish real estate owners and members of our alliance for Swedish IoT entrepreneurs (SMSE) with real estate focus. The request from the real estate owners was “a secure, robust and open service platform for multi-dwelling buildings” which they can install now, keep for years and have app developers to start bringing innovation to tenants, owners and maintenance staff.
We’re working with several technologies and one of the most interesting one is the well established Internet chat protocol XMPP since it provides a promising open architecture to deal with data integrity and privacy issues. We have already pulled together the bits and pieces required to run our first hackathon creating mobile apps on building automation systems talking XMPP. I’m looking forward to the next few months of this project which hopefully include a major hackathon demonstrating the power of this approach.
59.368609
18.125660
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Posted by magnusmelander
October 16, 2014
IoT is hotter than ever! Gartner just placed IoT at Peak of Inflated Expectations in their Hype Curve and forecast 5-10 years until the Plateau of Productivity. But our baby is growing much faster than anything else we have seen before and I stick to my previous view that our baby will be grown up, but still young, 2016 after only three years as teenager. Good enough technology and infrastructure are in place since a couple of years and when organizations started to go from Powerpoint and thinking to trials and pilots we reached the teens. Four things have been missing to leave the teens behind: solid participation from the IT players, a hot M&A market, active and seriously engaged enterprises and efficient easy-to-use prototyping tools for users of IoT. All these things are starting to happen now which is one of the reasons why I dare to challenge Gartner on their projection. But there is another aspect of IoT which is underestimated: how the value is created.
In most cases we build something and when it’s done we start harvest. And if customers like what we built it takes off. It might take a couple of years at least to plan, develop and start produce, then we start market and after another year or so it might take off. That explains Gartner’s 5-10 years to Plateau of Productivity, if one ever gets there. But IoT applications deliver value when the information created is distributed to an IT system, shows up in an app, makes an alarm go off somewhere or change a road sign. Initially all IoT applications had to be created end to end – from sensor to terminal – which made them expensive to make and maintain. But now we can leverage existing networks, platforms, tools, terminals and applications making it much cheaper and quicker. So far we have seen this primarily in the consumer market where a connected sensor providing data to an app has been good enough. In enterprises data management and delivery is more complicated and changes in processes and business models takes time, but they are getting there. When they do, the operational value (cheaper, faster, etc) will be obvious and the strategic value (brand, innovation, employer attractiveness, etc) will be visible in the horizon. One only has to look at what
GE is doing with Industrial Internet to understand that the impact will be massive.
Everyone promoting the story about billions of connected devices delivering data to impressive Big Data systems creating trillions of $ benefits clearly put IoT at the peak of inflated expectations. But all hard-working organizations and entrepreneurs working on industry or company specific IoT applications, well-integrated and cleverly implemented, are changing the world very fast. These efforts will start pay off soon putting competitors who haven’t started yet in a very difficult situation similar to when the frequent flyer program happened or Richard Fosbury jumped 2.24 at the Olympic Games in Maxico City 1968 using a “redicolous” new technique.
The only major difference between when we connected people and businesses to the Internet and when we connect things is that ignorance will not be an acceptable excuse this time. Beyond some clever start-ups the winners will be organizations who best understand when and how to improve their business using IoT solutions.
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1 Comment | Business Models, IoE, IoT, M2M, Tools and platforms, User Interaction | Tagged: Business model, efficiency, Fosbury, Fosbury-flop, Gartner, GE, hype, Hype curve, Internet of Everything, IoE, IoT, M2M, operational value, safety, security, smartphone, strategic value, sustainability | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
September 11, 2014
History repeats itself. Social robots have appeared in books and movies for years and always felt far out. But all of a sudden they say hello to you! I participated in a panel at Digital Health Days in Stockholm and one of the speakers was a blue Giraff with the avatar of their CEO Stephen von Rump, present in Saint Lewis, Missouri. They have been developing their social robot focusing on home care. It can sit, stand, talk, nod, move etc, and in our case it was Stephen’s face and voice talking to us. In their concept the Giraff becomes the gateway for all sensors and devices needed in a particular home as well as for all service providers involved including family and friends. Today the price for a Giraff is in the ball park of 10K$ but Stephen mentioned there is more to be done on the hardware.
In May I met Francesca Iannibelli, COO at
Hands company, who presented their cute social robot Adam. She gave a great presentation and left me with a feeling that they will deliver well.
Philip’s iCat,
eMuu,
KASPAR,
Furhat,
Leonardo,
Maggie,
Tico,
Anthropos,
PROBO, the stair climbing
ARTI and
Double are other examples of social robots.
It is easy to just reject the idea of using social robots but given the huge global challenge to provide desired care given the resources available I am convinced careful and clever use of social robots is one of the core components of care 2.0. Needless to say I’m glad we have
Robotdalen here in Sweden!
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1 Comment | Healthcare, IoE, IoT, M2M, User Interaction | Tagged: Adam, Anthropos, Arti, Double, eMuu, Furhat, giraff, iCat, Internet of Everything, Internet of Things, IoT, Kaspar, Leonardo, Maggie, Probo, social robots, Tico, usability, User interaction | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
July 31, 2014
Less is more! A young team in Sweden, Shortcut Labs, are developing a small really useful generic BLE-connected button called flic which you can program to do almost anything with your smartphone. OK? Well, there are three ways to use it: click, double-click and keep pressed. And so what? It’s easily programmable. And what should I use it for? A remote trigger to take photos with your smartphone. Call home from your car with a single click on a button. Turn on Spotify and one of your three favorite playlists on your MC. Tell your family where you are walking if you don’t feel hundred percent safe. Start Siri. And so on.
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Posted by magnusmelander
April 14, 2014
Companies have moved manufacturing of things to developing countries since many years. The reasons have primarily been competitiveness and profitability and the results of this are well-known and documented. Focus on software and the Internet made knowledge of making and marketing touchable products, things, scarce in countries like Sweden. It’s not that we are lacking ideas or can’t make a nice design but manufacturing, service and communication of products need to be closely integrated for superb results. Great ideas and designs are gradually taken down towards “normal” for every consultant, advisor, middle-man, controller and purchaser that gets involved. Huge cost-efficient factories only manufacture huge quantities and cost consciousness efficiently replace odd designs and components to those easier to manufacture and cheaper to buy. Most of this is obviously very good since we don’t want a world with only guordiously designed and incredibly expensive things! But take a look at things around you and you will see a lot of “global look and feel” in neutral colors and with rounded corners. Smartphones are really good examples – a huge, growing, rapidly changing and innovative market with youngsters showing the way should produce some sexy products but they all look more or less the same.
But the pendulum is swinging back again! There are many reasons why we will start to see much more things being designed and built “at home” onwards. Let me give you a couple:
– democratization of development is enabled by cheap and easy to use components like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, iBeacons, Sensor tags, easy to use cost efficient tools like Evothings Studio and powerful smartphones and pads everywhere.
– methods and approaches like open source, crowd sourcing and crowd funding gives new opportunities for entrepreneurs
– 3D printing is happening right now and creates new ideas and ways of working
– Internet of Things makes a lot of people wanting to build their connected thing, at least the prototypes
– Technologies like Bluetooth Low Energy and Sigfox makes it possible to build tiny connected products with battery life of 4-5 years
– Human beings love smashing design
– It is often easier to get reasonable pay for things than software or services alone
– Creative processes require rapid response. Iterative prototyping och testing is key these days.
Nest is a good example of what is coming,
Panono as well. Last week I participated in a great IoT Sweden meet-up with two fantastic presentations from
Humans since 1982 and
Teenage Engineering. David Cox walked us through how Humans since 1982 built their famous and fascinating clocks of clocks starting from animations and Jesper Kouthoofd guided us through yet another fantastic project: the development of the OP-1 synthesizer. Both speakers work in innovative and creative teams with all possible profiles and backgrounds, they obviously love what they do and they make wonder. I had a smile on my face the entire evening since these two cases made me understand that making things is back now.
Let me also take this opportunity to share a wonderful piece from the Q&A where someone asked David Cox about connectivity and David responded that “we design our clocks to last for 50 years”. Reality bites!
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Posted by magnusmelander
March 27, 2014
Last night I participated in my first hackaton. It was arranged by Evothings who has developed an open source tool which includes libraries and API:s for connected devices like Arduino, Rasperry Pi, sensor tags, iBeacons and Philips LED-lamps and provides the ability of speedy development of IoT apps for IOS, Android and Windows Mobile. We were around 30 men (M2M unfortunately still means Men to Men) who got a 15 minute introduction, free pizza and a great experience. After two hours of playing with Evothings Studio, smartphones and some connected devices we had a “show-and-tell” session where the participants shared their experience and results.
Even though I’m quite well aware of what can be done in the field of IoT I was blown away to see how easy it was to put things together into a working prototype. Two young participants demonstrated how they controlled a small cannon from their smart phone, aiming and shooting. In two hours without having seen Evothings Studio before. My colleague came with an idea to extend their offering to retailers using iBeacons and I believe these two hours gave him what he needed to make the first prototype for a pilot test with a client.
I think this is very important to realize: not only is the Internet of Everything being built here and now with massive impact on industries, individuals and society. It takes minimal programming skills, little time and almost no money to develop a working prototype and see what happens. The democratization of IoT development tools together with modern phenomena like crowd-funding, crowd-sourcing and open API:s brings immense change. For sure.
EIT ICT Idea Challenge is a competition for start-ups in EU launched at CeBit some weeks ago. It includes eight different categories, each with 40K/25K/15K€ prices, and the IoT category is managed from Sweden. Before last night I thought that maybe 100 participants per category would be realistic. But after yesterdays experience I could easily see thousands of participants per category!
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Posted by magnusmelander
connectcompute 