Living In the Programmable World

We're in Stage 1 now, synching all of our devices to make our cars, TVs, phones, microwaves, laptops, jacuzzis and refrigerators coordinate.

But it's the next stage where things are supposed to get really interesting. That's when those devices are - we are told - going to start communicating and then learning from each other.

This will make life more convenient (!), which our behavior suggests is the goal we whose attainment to which are most committed. Not that the lives of most people in developed countries are models of slavish toil. But life can always be better, so here comes the future, ready or not.

There is a wondrous element to all this. We are like the conductors of a virtuoso technological symphony, weaving the disparate elements of our lives together with software, will power and imagination. Our ability is staggering and constrained more by the limits of our imagination than by any actual barriers.

But there is, as always, a price. And it comes in the form of both intrusion and transparency. In return for the freedom and power, we must give up an unprecedented amount of personal privacy. Most people appear to believe that the trade-offs are worth it. However, most have only experienced the beneficial aspects of that trade so far. It's hard to say how they will react when the piper has to be paid. It may be more discomforting than many imagine and we can not really pretend to understand where it ends.

In the interim, however, we are learning important skills - and wisdom - about the interface of technology and humanity. Which may serve us well in the future. JL

Bill Wasik reports in Wired:

In our houses, cars, and factories, we’re surrounded by tiny, intelligent devices that capture data about how we live and what we do. Now they are beginning to talk to one another. Soon we’ll be able to choreograph them to respond to our needs, solve our problems, even save our lives.

We're All Addicts Now

Have we become a civilization of addictive personalities? How else to explain our lurching progress from one obsession to another.

Mobile phones, cupcakes, pharmaceuticals for every condition, mood and hour, fashion, celebrity and convenience.

Scientists attempt to understand our inability to function without constant texting and talking after eons of relative quiescence. Some believe that it is the nexus desire and ability that has created this situation: technology has given us the ability to see things we want and affluence has provided us with the means to believe we can have it - or them. Lots of them.

Our chemical reflexes have responded in Pavlovian fashion to stimuli exactly as their designers intended. We appear helpless in the face of unrestrained demand for our attention.

It would be comforting to assume that this is a phase and that we will grow out of it. But with the world's largest generation already well into grandparenthood, one wonders how much time is left for that deliverance to reveal itself. JL

Damian Thompson reports in Salon:

Even cupcakes and iPhones control us -- social and technological advances stimulate desires and foster addiction

Facebook's IPO: One Year Later

What a difference a year makes. Or not.

The controversy lingers over Facebook's much anticipated IPO which was launched a year ago today, but investors, not being long on nostalgia, have moved on to more substantial criticisms. Like, what have you done for me lately?

Welcome to the joys of becoming a public company.

Having suffered monumental embarrassment borne of its own hubris and the mobs' unrealistic expectations (and having successfully foisted some of the blame on the Nasdaq market which also appears to have slavishly embraced the hype, but been inadequately prepared for the boring details of making it all work), the company has striven mightily to put that unpleasantness behind it. A focus on mobile, on its raising revenues and margins, all while not gratuitously alienating the lesser beings known in other businesses by the name 'customers,' has begun to improve performance and even change perceptions.

The result, however, is still a sluggish stock price and questions about the future. To use a medical analogy, one might observe that Facebook has stanched the bleeding but not yet gotten the patient back on its feet. That is progress, however. One senses a still nascent humility and a genuine desire to prove that the widespread - particularly searing - charge of incompetence, was misplaced. The company's management has largely avoided further embarrassment, but has yet to really convince anyone they are as special as they once thought they were. JL

Sam Gustin reports in Time:

On the morning of May 18, after months, even years, of anticipation, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg rang NASDAQ’s opening bell by remote from Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park, California. And then all hell broke loose.

OTT vs SMS: Online Services Are Disrupting Mobile Phone Carriers' Messaging Binge

The initials don't matter but the monetary impact does. 

Messaging drives the mobile business model - and it is hugely profitable. Revenues of approximately $140 billion with profits to match.

For phone carriers this is the key to current survival and future opportunity. They are rolling in revenue from SMS messaging which has softened the impact of declining land line sales and actual phone conversations.

But there is now a disruptive innovation on the market and it could be a killer. The new messaging services are called OTT, which stands for over-the-top. And are they ever.

The OTTs provide instant messaging over the net that does not require wireless cell networks. Some provide the service for free and charge advertisers to send messages. Some prohibit adverting messages but offer phone carriers promotional opportunities. Some carriers are fighting but some think the best approach is to acquire the new services. Whatever the final outcome, the emergence of the OTTs reminds us that no one in any business dependent on technology and communications can afford to become complacent. JL

Business Insider reports:

A new batch of companies are providing over-the-top (OTT) messaging services — services that send instant messages over the Internet and don't depend on wireless cell networks.

The Post- Normal Age of Work

What's normal these days?

Maybe that's exactly the point. Nothing much is. Foosball, trading desks, skunk works, alliances, hierarchies, open plan, executive floors. We've gone from one size fits all to mix and match.

So post-normal could, at first blush, seem even more chaotic, even anarchic. But, as the following article explains, it is more a reflection of the reality we have created - or accepted - than some bold new vision of the future designed to take us where man has never ventured before. In fact, we're already there, we just aren't always sure what to do with what we've got.

The basic structure has become more decentralized. Contractors often outnumber employees. We manage to the project not the five year plan. Relationships are looser, if no less financially significant, but the formal bindings have usually stripped away. This means a work environment that is, by turns, more distant, but of necessity more collaborative and cooperative. We work together because we have to, but also because we want to. And if we dont, either side can move on, whether the other likes it or not.

This requires a more subtle approach to interaction if value is to be obtained. The lack of formal and familiar organizational landmarks is what makes it post-normal. We have to make them up as we go along, remembering, we hope, to keep the ones that work. Rather than 'knowing our place,' we have to accept responsibility for finding, building and nurturing it, at whatever level. This is challenging because few of us have been trained to do so, but also liberating because it gives us the freedom to experiment and figure out what's best. It wont always work - and it will always be messy - but it is the reality and if we want to prevail, we have to make it real for those around us and for ourselves. JL

Stowe Boyd reports in GigaOm:

It’s a now-prevalent notion that companies can advance by simply adding a social layer on top of existing business processes, integrating social tools with existing functional tools such as ERP, CRM, and HR solutions. The idea goes that this will make companies more social and therefore more productive. That idea isn't going to work.

Wanted: More Corporate Boards of Directors With Digital Savvy

Now, now, it isn't going to be that hard. 

Given the importance, one might even suggest, the essential, nature of technology to business survival, let alone success these days, adding directors to corporate boards who have substantial experience with the digital economy would seem as important as having lawyers, accountants, fellow CEOs and crisis managers.

But despite that seemingly obvious need and advantage, such directors are underrepresented on many Global 500 corporate boards. The reasons for this are cultural, social and experiential.

Corporate boards tend to be stocked with 'PLUs' - people like us. In other words, other corporate guys (and a few, um, 'gals') who came up through finance and marketing. Many have MBAs or engineering degrees. They also tend to be people who have already established a record of achievement over many years and, increasingly, many international assignments. They play golf, they went to many of same schools - or other schools pretty much just like them - and they share a certain outlook about business, politics, the right place to vacation and the advantages of bordeaux versus cabernet sauvignon. This is not to say that they are dumb, or superficial. That may occasionally be true, but the odds are against it: there is too much money at stake.

There may be, however, a certain insularity in the selection process. People want to serve with those who make them comfortable and CEOs want supporters, not critics, even if they are from outside the company and do not officially report to him or her.

By their very nature, tech executives, though no slouches when it comes to business and finance (or even golf and cabernet), do tend to be younger thanks to the age of their industry, have somewhat different educational and/or professional backgrounds and may not share the same world outlook. All of which should be an advantage to any pragmatic, ambitious corporation looking to capture the future. As the following article explains, that does appear to be dawning, however slowly. Overcoming social barriers if often harder than breaching professional ones. But necessity and financial opportunity - or threat - do tend to concentrate the mind, enabling the heart, in this case, to follow. JL

Joann Lublin reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Nearly every facet of corporate life has gone digital. But many public-company boards remain stuck in analog mode.

The Blame Game: Endorsements and Their Often Errant Effect

The very edge that gives some endorsers their value is what invariably creates the embarrassment for corporate sponsors.

Endorsements from rappers like L'il Wayne are not solicited because of their adherence of social norms and proprieties. So it should come as no surprise to the corporations that importune them when behavior goes awry, threatening the loyalty of one demographic segment with the style beloved of another.

Rap and hip-hop come in for more than their fair share of the blame with all of the attendant racial and class overtones. But these issues have been cropping up for centuries (Papal alliances with murderous despots etc) and with greater frequency in the modern advertising era which began in the 1920s. The question is not whether companies are surprised, but why they have not done a better job of preparing for the almost inevitable disappointments or embarrassments.

Edginess sells, but too much of it can offend. The challenge is when mainstream brands attempt to capture some of the dangerous allure that consumers find exciting. It is in that cross-over where the translation sometimes fails. Advertisers seek images consistent with what they perceive their core customer appeal to be. But they are always attempting to push the boundary a bit further so as not to appear to staid, boring or predictable. Hence the appeal of glamor, elegance and danger. So whether it is a rapper offending moral sensibilities or a movie star betraying too great a fondness for stimulants, the risk is omnipresent. Can't have the appeal without the jeopardy, whose impact is exacerbated by the social media megaphone.

Rather than hoping that nothing it will happen, it may well be more efficient and productive to assume it will, and figure out how to turn it into a lesson further confirming the company's prescience and appeal. Smart sells. JL

Jon Caramanica reports in the New York Times:

Companies already spend millions on endorsements and millions on social causes. In difficult situations, it would be more progressive to use that financial muscle to align the interests of the company, the artist and the public to raise awareness of the issues brought up.