Timely Advice

When it comes to life in general, there are two schools of thought.

Some will tell you to live for the moment. Look no further than right now and savor it.

Others will tell you to live your life today in preparation for tomorrow.

Today is just a passing thing.

And tomorrow never comes.

But every action you take today will have an impact on your tomorrow.

You cannot see your future today because you have not taken the steps yet that get you to tomorrow.

So we set goals. Objectives. And we plan.

We plan for tomorrow. But when tomorrow gets here, it is always today. There’s another tomorrow to plan for. And we spend that today planning for the next tomorrow.

But technology, it seems changes everything. So far it has changed how we communicate, how we learn, how we are informed. And how we travel.

Technology is not done yet. It’s just begun. And much of what we have today was dreamt up in science fiction a hundred years ago.

So what’s next?

A time machine? One that takes you back in history, and forward into the future? So many stories have been written and movies made about time travel, that well, given our drive to make these science fiction dreams come true, it just seems inevitable. Impossible just doesn’t exist anymore.

But as I sit and ponder this for even a moment, it becomes clear to me that if we were to build a time machine, one that takes you forward in time, that machine would use totally different calculations than one that would take you back in time.

To travel back in time would simply be to retrace the steps that we have already taken. Kind of redundant, don’t you think? So the bigger opportunity would be to invent one that takes you ahead in time, to the unknown.

To move forward in time, you would not simply pick a date and wait to be surprised at where you land. No, it would be more like the navigation system in your car. You pick a destination, and the system tells you step by step how to get there.

My car has a cheaper version of the GPS. It does not show me the route I am about to take, but it simply points me down the next road. I blindly follow the female automated device. And voila … I reach my destination.

So in the future, time machines may very well have the same types of features and models, based on price range.

If it were to be possible to set your time machine future destination and then to be at that spot instantaneously, you would then look back at the history of the steps that were taken, and you would see what you did to achieve your goal.

If you were to type in a destination of a wealthy future, once you arrived, you may find yourself sitting in a jail cell, waiting for your trial.

“How did I get here?” you would ask. And you would look at the travel log, and see that you did despicable things. And you would say “this is not the future I hoped for”. So you would use your one phone call to call the customer service desk of future travel device.

“How may I help you?” would answer the voice on the other side.

“It appears that your device has landed me in jail, awaiting trial for fraud.”

“What destination did you enter into the user interface?” the voice would ask.

“Wealth”.

“Oh. Yes. Did you read the instruction manual?”

“I tried, but it was a little too quantum physical for my understanding”, you would reply. “I just wanted to test it out and see how it worked”.

“So you jumped right into the “Wealth” option then?”

“Yes", 

"Did you select a route?"

"Uh .. no".

"Well, the default value is 'fastest route possible', and you didn't take the time to go through the options to teach it about you as a person. You really should have read the instructions".

"How can I undo this?”

“You can use the ‘back-in-time’ feature”.

“I only bought the future traveling model. I couldn’t afford the back in time feature”.

“Oh, I see. Well, Mr. Brill, I see here that you did accept our end user agreement”.

“Yes, I clicked on the ‘accept’ button. Who has time to read all of that legal mumbo jumbo?”

“And you didn’t read the user manual either then?”

“No, I told you that”.

“Well, I am very sorry, but you are where you are because of your own actions”.

“Look, if you don’t fix this, I will sue you for every penny your company has!”

“But you already waived us of any liability for the use of our product when you clicked the ‘accept’ button on the end user agreement”.

“Can I buy the ‘back in time’ model now?”

“Will you be paying in cash?” asks the customer service representative.

“Well, no, I do not have any cash on me and they have taken all my personal belongings, so I don’t have my wallet, but apparently I am quite wealthy. Surely you can accept my credit?”

“Mr. Brill, you are on trial for defrauding everyone you know and love. Why would I accept your credit? Besides, it says here in our records that all of your accounts are now frozen”.

“So I am screwed?”

“You did it to yourself Mr. Brill”, says the customer service representative, with a deep sigh, likely because they have answered this same type of call a thousand times before.

“Is there anything else I can help you with today, Mr. Brill?”

Later, at the trial, the lawyer approaches the bench to speak to the judge.

“Your Honor, it appears that Mr. Brill was just testing his new time travel device”.

“Let me guess. It was a Fabco Time-Forward 3000” replies the elderly judge, peering down over his bifocals impatiently at the lawyer.

“And this fellow bought his device before the Federal Government shut them down for reckless endangerment to the public …”

“Yes Your Honor”.

“And he didn’t read the user manual”.

“That’s what he said”.

“And he clicked ‘accept’ on the end user agreement …”

A deep sigh from the lawyer. “Yup”.

“And he can’t afford to now purchase the “Back-in-Time” model …”

The lawyer hung his head. “All of his accounts are frozen. I am doing this pro-bono.”

“So in fact, he did all the things he is accused of”.

“Uhhh … yes, it’s all documented in his Time-Forward 3000 history log.”

“And all these people sitting in this court room should just forgive him, it was all a big dumb mistake made by an impatient idiot too lazy to read the instructions?”

“Well … yes …?”

“Guilty”, and the judge slams down the gavel. “Next Case!”

It’s just a matter of time before this technology is invented, and just a little more time until a company like FabCo develops a means to deploy it to the masses. In all of its models, with various options available at affordable and not-so-affordable prices.

And when this time comes, my advice to you is read the user manual. And understand the end user agreement before you hit accept.

And pay the extra thousand dollars for the Back-in-Time feature.

I did.

The Technology Revolution Is Just Beginning

I have been involved in Information Technology long before it was called IT.

It used to be called Computer Science. Then Data Processing. Then it was called MIS, and then simply IS, and now it’s IT.

In the day … all those years ago … a student first learned COBOL on main frame computers and then BASIC for personal computers. PCs then evolved year after year to become as powerful as mainframe computers – and slowly but steadily the personal computers stepped up to become servers – filling the roles that mainframes filled in the backend of most IT departments.

Then came handheld devices – and the Internet.

I remember very clearly sitting in a meeting with my development team in the early 1990s discussing what we could do with these little handheld PDAs that were showing up. They could connect to the new Wi-Fi technology of the day – and they had very simple web browsers that could display simplified web pages laid out using a scaled down version of HTML referred to as WEP.

At that time, we – like most any IT shop in the world did – had tons of useful information on our back end mainframe – and these new PDAs combined with Wi-Fi and the ability to retrieve data from the simple web services we would have to invent on the mainframes and send it to such devices to open up a whole new world of opportunities for us.

“What exactly do you want this PDA to do?” asked one young programmer on my staff.

“I want this thing to be as valuable as Mr. Spock’s Tricorder”, I replied to my team of geeks who immediately understood what I meant. “I want the business person using this PDA to simply retrieve data while they are standing anywhere on the company grounds – not just at their desk. I want them to search their customer databases and their inventory and their shipping logs while talking with a customer on a showroom floor – or at a service desk in a shop – or a shipping dock at the back of the property – without having to run to their desk and print a report”.

And so we set forth creating simple web applications for this tiny PDA browsers to retrieve customer purchasing history and inventory status lookups. And they worked great to prove the concept.

“Just wait until they hook a cell phone up to these things”, I prophesized. “It will change everything”.

Two decades later we have smart phones. And we have tablets.

But we haven’t quite gotten as far yet as I wanted us to twenty years ago.

After I finished my diatribe … I continued my rant to describe the rest of my wants from those primitive PDAs …

“I want a guy to be able to walk into a meeting with only one of these things – no pads of paper – and record what he needs to know in that meeting and store it on the back end of the company’s data systems so that he can reuse those notes without having to type them all back in when he returns to his desk. And I want that guy to look up answers to questions while sitting in that meeting so that the meeting could move forward acting on those answers instead of being stymied by replies like “I’ll find out and get back to you with that …”

I took a breath at the whiteboard where my boxes with arrows described in my own personal hieroglyphics scribed in the same black and red dry erase ink that stained my finger tips as I rethought where those arrows pointed.

“I want a sales person sitting at a bar, or a table in a restaurant to not have to write on a bar napkin – writing down the specs of a customer’s needs – or writing down prices on the back of a business card – I want this person to be able to close the deal while dessert is being served ... or the third pint is being poured at the bar”.

We aren’t there yet.

These tablet and PDAs are great for looking at data that already exists – but they are not that great yet at allowing a person to enter content. It can be done – but it’s still clumsy – little keys on a phone – or little virtual keyboards that are still clumsy for typing … the input still requires a keyboard.

The question is where the limitation lies … in the smart phone or tablet? Or is the deficiency in the applications that we use on those little devices?

I contend that both are to blame. We need better input methods – and applications that more smartly interpret your intentions and needs.

These are the avenues that we have to continue to explore looking to make these tasks I describe to be even simpler to use – as easy as writing on a bar napkin.

But time will bear out the solutions to these needs, and both the applications and the devices they run on will of course continue to evolve to get simpler – more efficient – and more natural.

It’s inevitable.

But one thing is clear … given the tremendous response and acceptance of the iPad and the clones that look and work like it … the tablet will replace the common person’s personal computer or laptop in the next five years ... Not simply compliment it like it does today.

Why would the common person buy a PC or a Laptop when a tablet is cheaper and does everything the common person needs?

And still we must recognize that we are still in the primitive infancy of the information age. We are still in the steam engine days.

Even simpler devices and interfaces will come – embedded in the glasses or clothing that we wear with a projected version of a LCD screen displayed on the surfaces we interact with every day – like the desk you sit at or the wall , or even the back or front of your hand.

And the application designers will get smarter – deriving better means to allow you to enter data rather than typing – maybe by simply taking pictures or translating speech – images and sound translated to data that can be stored and reused later – like how Google returns you a list of answers to the question you type into a box.

The customer will be as empowered as the employee who is trying to service them.

Imagine standing in a car dealership and wondering what other cars are comparable to the model you are looking at on the showroom floor – and being presented immediately with pictures or video of other models by other manufacturers with the options available for each … and the prices … so you can compare quietly without the salesperson’s knowledge you are doing so.

It’s all coming. You can see positive signs in the gaming s systems like the Wii motion controllers and the xBox U-Kinnect interfaces that use body movements as input.

It’s all very exciting to this old computer geek who wished for this to happen twenty years ago.

We are getting so much closer.

But we aren’t quite there yet.

Maybe in another twenty years.

Optimistic About This Era Of Integration

A new day.

A new year.

A new decade.

A time for optimism – even though the pessimists will tell you we are doomed.

Some will tell you this is just another rising of the sun this morning. Just another rotation of the planet Earth on its tilted axis. They will tell you that the sun comes up every day – so don't get too excited about this sunrise.

Perhaps.

I see this morning as a great excuse for a milestone. A great place to put a landmark in time. A great opportunity to revisit our goals, evaluate our progress, and forecast our next course.

A great time indeed.

If you think about the progress in technology that we have made in the last ten years – then think now about the opportunities for we will encounter to extend that progress. By two or tenfold – the degree is up to us.

Here is a sample of what I mean – my predictions for what the next ten years may come to bear:

The past decade saw a complete transformation in how we communicate. The local phone call has been replaced for the most part by the text message. And the ability to keep in touch has been enhanced by social media forums like Facebook and Twitter. The next ten years will see this function become more and more convenient – ubiquitous – integrated into our lives – as cell phones continue their metamorphosis into mini communication computers allowing us to always be connected with those that we care about even though we are far apart. To create this next level of togetherness – video communications will be enhanced so that we will feel like we are right next to each other as we toil through the tediousness of our days.

As well, these little devices we currently call cell phones will continue to evolve to provide applications to assist us in every manner of our day to day lives – to do banking – to do shopping – to answer all of our questions – and to help us see opportunities we may not otherwise see.

The past decade showed us a transformation in the way television is made available to us. We saw the advances in Cable and Satellite technology – high definition broadcasts over the air. As well we saw new Internet services like YouTube reshape our definition of entertainment.

No longer does one have to be reliant of a massive communication enterprise like a television network, film studio, a recording company or a newspaper, or publishing house to accept your talents. Those that are motivated can now self produce and self publish – at very little expense – to get your message out.

Like I'm doing here.

But right now we are in the "wild-west" days of the reshaping of these mediums. Over the next decade we will see the ability of these means of expression to become much more simple. And much more available.

And much more structured.

In ten years it is likely that YouTube will be only one of a dozen or more such services – in much the way the major television networks and film studios evolved into the incredible amount of cable TV stations available today.

Likely it will be ten years from today – that the TV in your living room is no longer simply a TV – although we will likely still call it a television. It will provide you with the Internet as well, now expanding its use beyond just a medium to sit and watch – but now to interact with – to share with – and to communicate and express yourself with.

The television will no longer be your window to look outside to the world from your living room, but will also allow the world to look inside to appreciate you.

Right now, our devices are bound by cables – by independent devices like cameras and camcorders needing to be hooked into by a wire to your personal computer so you can download your pictures to your hard drive and then find a special program that will take your pictures and video burn them to a CD or copy them to a memory card that can be inserted in another device to be played and appreciated – like a DVD player connected to a TV (by wires) or a stereo system in your home or car or in your pocket.

Wires.

But over the last decade we have seen tremendous inroads made by wireless communication protocols like WiFi and Bluetooth. These fundamental foundations will be built upon over the next ten years to redesign these multiple layers of products so that they instinctively talk easier to each other. For example – as you will pull your car into the laneway – it will detect your home's wireless network – and start communicating with it. Information from the car will be shared with information from home – not only synching trivial things like music and video stored in the cars entertainment system with the home entertainment system – but also news of the day – global, local, and even personal. It will synch calendar schedules and grocery lists and such detail that will be of use the next time the car is to be driven.

It's really not so far-fetched. And people will appreciate the necessity of such data transfers as they start to make their lives easier.

At the workplace – the tools you will use to perform your duties will be made simpler – and even more portable. You will become more accessible than even the texts and emails on your Blackberry or iPhone – with greater access to decision making data you won't have to gather and compile before you leave your desk.

In fact the office desk – or workstation that so many of us now feel ourselves confined to may become less and less as we find ourselves collaborating in groups more and more. Team collaboration will evolve into collective thinking and decision making.

It won't be perfected in ten years – but we will be moving in that direction as decisively as we are moving into the more mobile direction of connectivity now.

The argument against this movement currently is security. It will continue to be so in the next ten years. And rightly so as the threat of identity theft and the security of corporate information is very much a valid concern. But as in the past – these concerns will continue to be met by enterprising ingenuity that answers each and every niche concern with a product or a process that solves the problem momentarily for a fee – such as the anti-virus and security system providers of today.

In short – security concerns will continue to be the checks and balances that ensure each solution is well thought out – but likely those lessons will be learned at the expense of those who adapt each new phase of integration early in the cycle of development.

Leadership will continue to be redefined as leaders coordinate collaborations to determine direction – not simply dictate direction.

As I see it, this is the path we are currently on. The direction the flow of progress is taking us. The momentum seems to be behind connected collaboration – and the integration of all components that can play a part in it. Be it your car talking sharing data with your home PC – which is also talking to your TV; or be it your role in a team as a collaborator – or leading a team of collaborators – in the exercise of collective thinking.

This is the way things seem to be moving now. And I see nothing ahead to yet to stop or curtail this period of integration.

This era of integration.