Thus endeth the tweet

As an amazingly great sabbatical year draws to a close, I am grateful for the connections and re-connections we have made.  Visiting family and friends in the States, savouring France and enjoying the delights of Cambridge made this year so memorable. We made new friends and had 3 wonderful home exchanges, two in France and one in the US.  Looking through the photos makes us feel very fortunate indeed.

Connectivity-wise, we discovered satellite radio while driving through the Rockies and Pandora radio in friends' homes (Pandora just became legal in New Zealand--look for it in the App Store).  Spent lots of time waiting in line for service from Orange in France and enjoyed high-speed wireless at Cambridge.  Spent more time on Facebook and even got to visit their campus.  I also spent more time writing this blog than I had imagined, but enjoyed it more than expected.  I hope you've enjoyed it and/or found it useful.

What will we remember about 2012?  Smartphones taking over the world (and driving us crazy), as the PC era officially ended. The cloud capturing our data and our imagination.  And, the Pope taking to Twitter, which pretty much says it all.

From the first time zone, Happy New Year!

Best wishes,
Darl

Apocalypse now or later?

If you're reading this, the world hasn't ended.

But, that doesn't mean we should not consider the possibility.

Recently, a philosopher, a scientist and a software engineer have come together to propose a new centre at Cambridge, the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER), to address these cases – from developments in bio and nanotechnology to extreme climate change and even artificial intelligence – in which technology might pose “extinction-level” risks to our species.

Here is more, taken from the University of Cambridge website:

“At some point, this century or next, we may well be facing one of the major shifts in human history – perhaps even cosmic history – when intelligence escapes the constraints of biology,” says Huw Price, the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy and one of CSER’s three founders, speaking about the possible impact of Good’s ultra-intelligent machine, or artificial general intelligence (AGI) as we call it today.

“Nature didn’t anticipate us, and we in our turn shouldn’t take AGI for granted. We need to take seriously the possibility that there might be a ‘Pandora’s box’ moment with AGI that, if missed, could be disastrous. I don’t mean that we can predict this with certainty, no one is presently in a position to do that, but that’s the point! With so much at stake, we need to do a better job of understanding the risks of potentially catastrophic technologies.”

Price’s interest in AGI risk stems from a chance meeting with Jaan Tallinn, a former software engineer who was one of the founders of Skype, which – like Google and Facebook – has become a digital cornerstone. In recent years Tallinn has become an evangelist for the serious discussion of ethical and safety aspects of AI and AGI, and Price was intrigued by his view:

“He (Tallinn) said that in his pessimistic moments he felt he was more likely to die from an AI accident than from cancer or heart disease. I was intrigued that someone with his feet so firmly on the ground in the industry should see it as such a serious issue, and impressed by his commitment to do something about it.”

We Homo sapiens have, for Tallinn, become optimised – in the sense that we now control the future, having grabbed the reins from 4 billion years of natural evolution. Our technological progress has by and large replaced evolution as the dominant, future-shaping force.

We move faster, live longer, and can destroy at a ferocious rate. And we use our technology to do it. AI geared to specific tasks continues its rapid development – from financial trading to face recognition – and the power of computing chips doubles every two years in accordance with Moore’s law, as set out by Intel founder Gordon Moore in the same year that Good predicted the ultra-intelligence machine.

Reports and Statistics

Reports of how our world is changing.

The following reports offer 'snapshots' of how connectivity is changing our world.  Of course, some are produced by companies with a vested interest, but they nonetheless offer food for thought and should provoke thinking and dialogue about our digital future.

Technology, media and telecommunication predictions, 2013. Deloitte TMT partners.
Here are some interesting projections and predictions, like 'The PC isn't quite dead, but...' Includes videos and graphics.

Upwardly mobile: Redefining mobility in Britain, Deloitte Report on Mobile Uptake in UK, 2013
Despite high uptake of mobile devices and services (a 'revolutionary wave'), British organisations and society mobile potential is far from what it could be.  "Cultural barriers are greater than technological ones, philosophical more than financial ones."  This would never happen in your culture.

2013 Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (KPCB) Internet Use Report (Slide Show - 117 slides). Mary Meeker and Liang Wu.  Extensive and wide-reaching statistics on connectivity trends, especially mobile computing, social networking, e-commerce and consumer trends.

McKinsey Report on Social Media in China (2013)
Offers insights into the usage rates and implications of the explosion of social media usage in China.  Links to downloadable pdf.

'Connectivity is Core' - Global mobile consumer survey. Deloitte, 2012.
This survey reports trends of mobile connectivity uptake, including demographics of tablets (older buyers as much as younger), 4G mobile service uptake.  In general, mobile cellular is still the most popular internet source for smartphones and other mobile devices.

'Connected Generation' IBM Student Study 2012
Excellent, thought-provoking statistics from 'tomorrow's leaders,' presented in contrast to today's leaders, i.e., in relation to CEOs in CEO C-Suite Study below.

IBM CEO C-Suite Study, 'Leading Through Connections' (2012) Study of 1700 CEOs and public sector leaders.  'This year, they (CEOs) identified the overflow of information as on of the most important issues influencing their strategic business decisions.'  Overall, technology topped the list of senior leader concerns, including the 'sudden convergence of the digital, social and mobile spheres' (p. 6).

'Our Future World' 2012 Report of the Australian CSIRO.  
Highlights the importance of connectivity as a future research trend.  Full free pdf document available on-line.

'The Future of Digital.'  (Large) slide deck. Source: Business Intelligence (BI), 2012. Excellent update on mobile and other digital platforms, business models and trends.

Facebook 2012 Trends 
Compilation of what was hot in social media for the Year 2012.

Ganz, James (2012). 'The cloud factories: Power, pollution and the Internet' New York Times, 22 September.

Noonan, Mary and Glass, Jennifer (2012). The Hard Truth about Telecommuting. Monthly Labor Review, 135, 6.

Perlow, Leslie (2012). HBS blog: 'Breaking the Smartphone Addiction' (14 May). 
Includes statistics of success of BCG consultants implementing 'Predictable Time Off' practices.

Rainie, Lee and Fox, Susannah (2012). 'Just in time information through mobile internet connections.' Pew Internet and American Life Project, 7 May.

Cisco Connected World Report (2011). Reports views and attitudes of college students, who will become workers of the future.

Optus (Australia) 'Future of Work' Report (2011). 
Looks at trends in telecommunication, with an emphasis on mobile technology uptake.

Type 1 Disconnects - We're all a little bit third world

Though we often use terms like 'constant' and/or 'ubiquitous' connectivity to describe contemporary life, the reality is that we (all of us) sometimes encounter unplanned disconnects that are beyond our control.

Natural disasters, like Hurricane Sandy, remind us how fragile our connective infrastructure is, even in so-called developed nations.

There is a song in the Broadway musical, 'Avenue Q,' that goes, 'we're all a little bit racist.'  I often hear myself thinking that when it comes to connectivity, 'we're all a little bit third world.'  Why? Because, no matter where you live, or how advanced your personal and community infrastructure is, we are all still more or less vulnerable to disconnects.  I call these Type 1 Disconnects and they happen no matter where you live or how much money you have.

In developing nations, wireless technologies and mobile phones have circumvented the long wait for land line phones.  Type 1 Disconnects are driving the demand for more and better connective infrastructure around the world. These disconnects may last a few minutes, or may isolate us for days or longer, but we often find workarounds, that is to say we find alternative ways to re-connect with others.

Updated: Christmas Eve, 2012

Netflix goes down for nearly a day due to faults at Google's cloud computing facilities.

Updated November 2014
US falling behind on Internet speed and affordability.  See article in New York Times.

Europe begins to focus on better, not necessarily cheaper telecommunications.

"LONDON — Poor cellphone and Internet service is a fact of life in many parts of Europe.

Less than a quarter of Europeans can connect to high-speed cellphone networks, compared with about 90 percent of Americans. And broadband connections are often painstakingly sluggish.

But the prices here for these services are among the lowest in the world. Europeans spend an average of $38 for a monthly cellphone contract, about half of what Americans pay on average, according to the Groupe Speciale Mobile Association, an industry group.

Now, though, the region’s top policy makers are set to change that, giving investment and costlier services higher priorities than affordability and antitrust worries."

See article.

Type 2 Disconnects - Command and Control?

When others stand between you and the Net....

When Wall Street banks forbid their employees to use social media, clever bankers find work-arounds, i.e., using their company-issued BlackBerry for work and their personal iPhone for personal (social) applications and communication.

The Internet may be loosely controlled in some instances, but it is certainly controlled in others. Not that that is a necessarily a bad thing, but it does suggest a new questions about who, when and how much we should control connectivity.

Policies that restrict connectivity or force disconnects often fail, or create unintended consequences.  Nevertheless, there are more and more examples of corporate experiments with forced disconnects, like the BCG experiment in Leslie Perlow's book, Sleeping with Your Smartphone.

Type 3 Disconnects - Your Choice

Type 3 disconnects are the good ones, when we choose to disconnect by our own free will.

The extent to which we have 'free will' varies depending our role(s) and the situation we are in.  While we all have some choice, we are all somewhat constrained in our choices. Before the Renaissance, it was believed that God determined what would happen to us, and the notion of free will was one of the big break-throughs of the Renaissance. The sociologist Anthony Giddens describes society as an enduring tension between individual agency and social structures, i.e., the norms and social conventions that constrain our free will. For more on actor agency as an attribute of connectivity, click here.

Featured recently in the New York Times was a private school in New England that has for years offered an off-line environment, meaning no cell phones and little or no Internet access to pupils.  In the past, this was an easy policy to enforce, but the Internet is coming to town (and country), so some kids are heading off to a corner of the property where they can get a cell signal. Other kids are opting out, saying they like being disconnected from the Net, so they can connect more with things and people around them. The question the school faces is whether to uphold their tradition of being an off-line sanctuary, become mainstream, or to offer their students a choice.  To connect or not connect, that is the question.  What would you or your kids do in this situation?

When I give lectures and talks on the subject of connectivity, I encourage people to keep their mobile phones 'on.'  It's not that I like distraction, but I figure people should make their own choices about when and how to connect.

Updated 9 June: Oliver Burkeman on 'slow computing,' 'the zen of tech,' etc. in the Guardian, 10 May 2103.

See Paolo Cardini's Ted Talk on 'Mono-tasking' (short and funny).

Or, my recent comments on taking your smart phone on (summer) holidays.

Update: 21 April 2013
Tony Schwartz writes on Harvard blog about how it feels to totally disconnect.


And, returning to Henry David Thoreau (from previous post), recall his choice of living at Walden Pond.

'I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.  I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.  I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness out of it and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience...'

Future of flexible work

Staying with the telework theme, this week was the inaugural 'Telework Week' here in New Zealand and I was invited to a lunch sponsored by Cisco, vodafone and other firms promoting awareness of 'telework,' which really means flexible and mobile work practices.

Anthony Weldon, HR Director at vodafone, NZ described how the company is radically re-thinking work.  Along with an expected shift toward mobility, they also have redesigned work space to reflect new, flexible ways of working.  It is not so much that it is a perfect solution (some people still like and/or need desks), but the fact that the company is experimenting and taking its own technological advice seriously is an important step into developing new ways of working.

Geoff Lawrie, country manager of Cisco, NZ, gave an enlightening and energizing overview of some pretty impressive trends in global connectivity, much of which can be found in Cisco Connected World report.  Or, check out the short video summary of the report's key findings, which will shape the future of work.

For insightful commentary on 'millennials' (derived from the Cisco report), see Ben Stricker's blog.

Stricker's top ten findings of the 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report, with findings on the attitudes and behaviors of college students and young professionals from 14 countries:

1. One of every three college students and young employees believes the Internet is a fundamental resource for the human race – as important as air, water, food and shelter. About half believe it is “pretty close” to that level of importance.
2. More than half of the respondents said they could not live without the Internet and cite it as an “integral part of their lives.”
3. If forced to make a choice between one or the other, two of three college students wouldchoose an Internet connection instead of a car.
4. Two of five college students said the Internet is more important to them than dating, going out with friends, or listening to music; and more than one in four said saying updated on Facebook was more important than partying/dating/music/friends.
5. Two of five said they would accept a lower-paying job that had more flexibility with regard to device choice, social media access, and mobility than a higher-paying job with less flexibility.
6. More than half of college students said that if they encountered a company that banned access to social media, they would either not accept a job offer or would join and find a way to circumvent corporate policy.
7. If given the choice of either losing their purse/wallet or mobile device, more than half said they’d rather lose their wallet/purse.
8. Regarding security-related issues in the workplace, seven of every 10 employees admitted to knowingly breaking IT policies on a regular basis, and three of five believe they are not responsible for protecting corporate information and devices.
9. One in five college students admitted standing outside of retail outlets to use free wireless connections.
10. One in four experience identity theft before the age of 30, and two of five college students said they know of friends or family members who have experienced identity theft.

A colleague in Sydney also shared another recent report on the Future of Work, sponsored by Optus Australia about trends of mobile and other connective technologies looking out 3-5 years.