This message will self-destruct

Writing for the New York Times, Jenna Wortham suggests that snapchat, an app currently associated with, among other things, teenage sexting may in fact herald a more widely useful feature of messaging, i.e., vanishing after the message is received.  See full NY Times article.  While this seems radically unique, it is basically what our mental image of impromptu messages should be - quickly delivered and quickly discarded.

Years ago, working with a global IT consulting firm, I discovered that instant messaging (IM), which was relatively new, was very popular with employees in this high-tech firm because they believed that, unlike email, the messages were not recorded on company servers.  In reality, most message applications are more like 'email lite,' meaning they are backed up on memory drives and stored for a long time.  But the perception of invisibility to others was appealing then, just as it is now with apps like snapchat.

Interestingly, and somewhat uniquely, now-you-see-it, now-you-don't messaging could be considered a hybrid form of connectivity, that is a Type 3 disconnect for the sender (they control the connection) and Type 2 disconnect for the receiver (the connection is controlled by others).

Smartphones, silly users

In a recent Harvard Business Review blog, 'Smartphones, silly people,' Daniel Gulati provides some great commentary on mobile connectivity and suggests that smartphones are not so much the issue as the bad habits we form around them.

Gulati notes:

'First, we don't remember anything anymore. Research shows that we're increasingly outsourcing our personal memory banks to Google and other search engines, effectively wiping our own brains of easily accessible information. But as the growth of apps per device skyrockets and user interfaces simplify, we're relying on more cognitive crutches than ever. Can't recall the name of your coworker? Don't worry; their LinkedIn profile is just a few taps away. Forgotten the name of that Japanese restaurant down the street? Yelp it up! Look for our memory gaps to grow as we train our brains to recall where information is located, rather than remembering the information itself.

Second, we waste time preserving optionality. As the global smartphone user base surpasses 1 billion, more of us are caught in a terrifying, mobile version of the responsiveness trap. As one young entrepreneur remarked, "It's gotten so ridiculous...I spend more time trading Facebook messages about where to meet, who to invite, and what to talk about than actually sitting in meetings themselves." ...

Finally, we get stuck in the infinite notification loop. As we accumulate newer and more apps, the competition for our limited attention intensifies. As a result, developers are aggressivelybombarding our screens with dozens of daily push notifications in the hope of pulling us back into their individual app. These digital nudges aren't costless — they tax our attention. Psychologists argue that we're all cognitive misers, able to focus effectively on a few key tasks per day. ...

He concludes, 

'As smartphone technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, we can't fool ourselves into thinking that our lives will automatically benefit. Instead of passively falling into costly behavioral traps, actively manage your mobile matters. If you're reading this, you probably own a smartphone. Now, ensure your smartphone doesn't own you.'

Relatedly, Steve Lohr writes in the New York Times recently that 'big data' should not override the uniquely human capacity for intuition and tacit understanding.  See article.

These articles remind us that, when it comes to technology and people, we, the people, make the difference.

For an academic summary of why and how technological 'determinism' is 'well and truly dead.' see Paul Leonardi and Steve Barley's article, link in Reading Corner.

Virtual You in Virtual U

As I head back into the classroom next week, I ran across a few interesting stories on virtuality and education.

First, the popularity of Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOCs) continues to grow, but there are some doubts about what sustainable business models will evolve with these educational initiatives.  One reason to believe that the 'Virtual U' is here to stay is the fact that credible institutions (big brands) in education (Harvard, Stanford, Duke, etc.) and popular, successful professors have taken to this new forum for learning.

Update: 26 January, Thomas Friedman revisits the 'revolution' MOOCs are having on higher education in his NY Times column.

On the other end of the spectrum, traditional classrooms are still coming to grips with the influence of digital media in and around the face-to-face learning environment.  Consider the experiment by the Information Technology and Education Group at Weber State University where Luke Fernandez, Scott Rogers and Susan J. Matt gave students assignments and moderated their Internet connections, i.e., some could browse as much as they liked and others had no Internet access.

The results were striking in that, while students acknowledged the disruptive aspect of Internet connectivity, they nonetheless felt that humans can still be in full control of machines (e.g., computers). This confirms what most organizational scientists believe, that technological determinism is 'dead,' and that human free will (agency) lives. It also runs counter to the concerns around smartphones making us crazy.  In fact, despite the experiment making students more conscious of the disruptions of IT, the majority still want to own a smartphone.

Maybe its a generational thing?  And, maybe it helps explain the attraction of MOOCs described above. Or, notwithstanding generational differences, higher connectivity levels are rapidly becoming the 'new normal,' and individual humans will find their own response to those norms.

It will explore this topic more in future posts.

Here is an excerpt from an article by Luke Fernandez, Scott Rogers and Susan J. Matt published in Educause Review.

We proposed turning our campus testing centers into "concentration labs" for writing where instructors could moderate student access to the Internet. For some assignments, access would be unlimited, while for others it would be limited and for still others it would be entirely denied. The idea was that the concentration lab would force students to experience how technology was affecting their writing. In the classroom, we would explore related questions: How are contemporary thinkers responding to the Internet's effect on our culture? How did earlier generations respond to new communication networks such as the telegraph, the phone, and television? Did their experiences anticipate ours?

Early on, we gave our students a survey. Most admitted to being distracted by the Internet. More than 60 percent sympathized with the statement, "Modern technologies interrupt me too often." As one student explained,

"I wrote while texting on my cell phone and occasionally clicking around on the Internet, reading a Wikipedia article or checking an RSS feed. I found myself easily distracted, not very motivated to finish the essay, even though it had a rapidly approaching deadline. Completion only came when I forced myself to intensely focus on the essay, not allowing myself to be distracted by the attractive lure of Internet connectivity."

Although students clearly perceived the interruptive potential of technology, they were unwilling to modify their behavior. Indeed, despite their acknowledgement that much technology is distracting, more than 50 percent agreed with the statement, "If money wasn't an issue, I'd buy a smartphone." They felt confident that resisting modern technology's many temptations was merely a matter of willpower.

To shake that faith, we assigned texts that described how the Internet was rewiring our brains. To our surprise, rather than challenging their sense of control, these readings seemed to enhance it. By learning where the dangers lurked, students felt they could better avoid them. One student explained:

"I do acknowledge that now, more than ever, we must be responsible for our own ability to focus. In a world that is increasingly distracted, I feel that the primary distinction between those who are distracted by the Internet and those who are cognizant and purposeful with their Internet use is simply that we need to be aware that above anyone else, we as individuals are in control of our Internet usage. We are the rulers and moderators of our connectivity, and we alone can assert our dominance [over] it."

Another observed:

"I recognize more how my life has been shaped by technology. I like recognizing that I am being shaped by it but that I have the power to change it if I want."

For the full article follow this link.

Co-creating value with connectivity

I've been in Berkeley for a few days and meeting up with my colleague, Dr. Christoph Breidbach at University of California, Merced.  Christoph has just published, with Ananth Srinivasan and myself, a ground-breaking article on connectivity and IT-enabled value creation.  It is based on Christoph's study of how consultants encounter and overcome connective gaps as they work together with their clients using various media.  Christoph is now working with Professor Paul Maglio on 'big data' projects from a service science perspective.

I also recently spent a week skiing in Colorado, where I encountered an example of what the service science folks call 'value co-creation.'  Or, at least it shows how technical connectivity creates data, which can become a valuable aspect of the user experience.

When you purchase an Epic Ski Pass, you get an RFID (radio frequency identity) card, which allows you to ski  the Colorado resorts of Arapahoe Basin, Keystone, Vail and Beaver Creek.  But that is not all the plastic card does.  First of all, you keep it in your pocket, instead of dangling outside your coat.  And, when the friendly staff wave a wand over your parka, they know your name and greet you as if they know you.  They may also see other things about you, like the type of pass you have purchased and possibly other aspects, like where you live, but I'm not sure.  So, their access to your data changes the interaction experience you get on the mountain.

But, wait, there's more.  Download the EpicMix app and you find that every lift ride you've taken is registered, giving you summary statistics of you ski day, comparing it to yesterday's performance, and so on. Around the mountain, you will also find photographers who happily take your photo, which will appear...you guessed it...on the EpicMix app and website.  (You call also get great tag-along reports from an app called Ski Tracks.)

My experience on the mountain reminded me of the service science notion of 'value co-creation,' whereby the IT application and the data it captures is, in and of itself, not that 'valuable.'  It really only becomes useful or 'cool' when I play along, i.e., smiling back when greeted by name, posing for a photo, and logging into the app or website as a means of extending, recording, and celebrating my day on the slopes.  If I do nothing, the data are there, but not fully utilized, which is the sort of problem the big data analysts are working on.

The question this raises however is how does one 'escape' to the mountains in a world of embedded connectivity?  And, what happens to our data--photos, names, ski runs, etc--once we leave the mountain?  It was a great trip.  I am just curious when and where it all ends.

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.