Back in 2005, I got my first "smart" phone- a Palm Treo 650. Wow, was it ever cool to be able to surf the web and read email on my phone. Unfortunately, the Treo as an actual phone was pretty poor- I had traded in the ability to have a good phone conversation in exchange for a revolutionary (for its time) data device.
About 2 years later, I replaced the aging Treo with a Samsung Blackjack. The Blackjack improved upon my awful mobile phone experience (I could actually make and receive calls!) and improved upon my data experience with 3G network speeds.
Following the Blackjack, I got a Blackberry Bold. The screen was the real improvement, which led to a richer browser experience, but I still had some frustrations around audio calls.
I finally joined the iPhone community in the last year as my Bold got long in the tooth. Typing on the touch screen for me is still a mixed experience, although I am used to it now, and the display, applications, data speed and audio phone experience all come together in a strong consumer device.
So why will cloud computing be like your smartphone experience? You'll start out in the "Treo" phase: there will be some initial joy as you first experience cloud- new ways of solving problems based on new capabilities(Wow! I can surf the web on my phone!). But, there will be some tradeoffs (...I like to surf but the phone experience is terrible...) and a learning curve.
As you sort out what cloud means to your business, you'll look to take the next step into the "BlackJack" phase: Do you optimise for cost? performance? resiliency? Some areas of your business may be able to immediately realise the benefits of cloud computing, and other areas may take some real work.
After giving cloud a try (the "Treo" phase) and experimenting with what works (the "Blackjack phase"), you'll have an idea of how cloud truly impacts your business- the "Blackberry phase". Your cloud implementations, be they public, private, or hybrid, will have reached a level of functional maturity.
Just when you think you've mastered the game, there will be opportunity for both optimization and disruption- the "iPhone" phase. This is the revolution not evolution phase, from plateau to hockey stick, where your cloud implementation offers more business advantage than you had planned for, or perhaps even thought possible.
Ultimately cloud computing is changing at an ever accelerating pace, and could be a two steps forward, one step back experience. However, five years from now, cloud computing will be like a smartphone. Ubiquitious.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Friday, February 5, 2010
Why Your Company needs Data Management Policies
Ok, so the use case for twitter as an effective tool for an extended dialog on the cost of enterprise disk, data management policies, and the upside of tape as a cheaper data retention medium was soundly disproved last night by me and my new good friends Phil Phil and the mysterious Techmute. Techmute apparently also has good taste in beer, but before I veer off on a complete tangent, lets focus in on data management policies and why they are important for your business.
Every non-IT business person would have you believe that any data they have every created has infinite value for all time. Because there is a perception that disk is cheap (it is, but storage management is not, at least not at an enterprise level) and every data center is a vast empty hall just waiting for more storage delivery (its not- common challenges of space, power and cooling abound in every company I've spoken to on the topic), we have created a society of data pack rats.
No one I know cleans up old data at any time for any reason. That marketing presentation from 2002? It might be good for a laugh, or to compare your powerpoint skills of today to where they are now, but that presentation has no business value. In fact, that presentation has either zero business value or even negative business value- it is occupying storage that could be used for something that is positively affecting your business, or perhaps it even has certain inaccuracies that could present a legal liability for your company (something about promises or capabilities not delivered, perhaps?). Data in your ERP system showing purchasing trends from 10 years ago belong in the Smithsonian, not as a valid business decision making information.
So what is the fundamental issue? The cost of disk decreases 20-25% per year. Most businesses' data is growing 40-60% per year. Your infrastructure team that supports storage is fighting a losing battle. There are technologies at hand to help- thin provisioning, data deduplication, archive and purge strategies, or even data subsetting. The solutions I am describing are a bit complex at this point, I admit, and possible topics for future blog entries.
Storage can be the single biggest line item for capital spend for companies.Take all those individual elements- the physical (storage, tape, optical, etc), and the logical elements (thin provisioning, data dedup, data subsetting, etc) and wrap them all together and what you start to construct is a framework for data management policy.
Keep in mind this is an opinion and not legal advice- your company's legal department should be able to guide you on what kind of data needs to be retained for how long. In essence, you need to work with your business partners and your company's legal department to identify what kinds of data you have, who owns that data (not IT) and what the company strategy is for data retention. Will you keep everything on disk so it is easily accessible? There is a significant cost to that. Will you introduce ILM (information lifecycle management) that determines how data moves from fast, expensive storage to cheap, slow storage to tape? Will you go to tape at all? Tape is one reason why the service is called backup, and not recovery. What is the likelihood that if you need that tape in 7 years for a legal review that you will even have a tape library or software that can read it? Will you include in your strategy the ability to move off old tape to new tape and keep compability/integrity with your now current backup solution? With that advent of cheap SATA disk and CDP (continous data protection) technologies, never going to tape at all is becoming a more and more viable option.
What is defining a data management policy worth to your business? If you could cut your storage and backup related infrastructure costs by 10%? 25%? 50%?, would it be worth investing the time in data management? The alternative is unrestrained growth and continuously chasing expansion of data center footprint and hoping that disk sizes continue to increase at a much greater rate than their weight, power consumption and cooling needs.
What are your companies data management policies or strategies? Can your company afford not to have a data management strategy?
Saturday, January 30, 2010
What Keeps You Blogging?
I have not been real faithful to this new (to me) art of blogging in the past ten days, and its now readily apparent to me why the most interesting bloggers write daily. By making a daily blog part of the routine, it provides a more consistent experience for the blogger and his audience. I need to thank Daniel Pink for introducing me to Csikszentmihalyi's concept of "flow"- I've not read it yet, but it is on my list. I have a sneaking suspicion that bloggers write because there is a great deal of satisfaction to be had while you are "in flow", and self expression through blogging might just be one gateway for writers to enter flow.
I thought about titling this entry, "Change is Hard", "The Joy of Blogging" or even "Struggles of a New Blogger". There are so many topics to tee up in my head, its almost as if there is a cacophony of voices straining for their turn at expression. A lot of my "pre-blog" reading seems to focus on consistency of voice/topic. I think that kind of singularity of focus does not come close to expressing the totality of who we are. I am a husband, a father, a dog person, a basketball fan, an amateur wine and beer aficionado, and I certainly have work/industry opinions I'd like to share as well.
Perhaps this consistency can express itself as a matter of tone, or perspective, rather than a narrow slice of our interests?
I realise as a "new blogger" its a lot to ask, but I am hopeful that both new and experienced bloggers alike will take a few short moments to share in the dialog about their struggles, or how they broke through and found their voice.
What keeps you blogging?
I thought about titling this entry, "Change is Hard", "The Joy of Blogging" or even "Struggles of a New Blogger". There are so many topics to tee up in my head, its almost as if there is a cacophony of voices straining for their turn at expression. A lot of my "pre-blog" reading seems to focus on consistency of voice/topic. I think that kind of singularity of focus does not come close to expressing the totality of who we are. I am a husband, a father, a dog person, a basketball fan, an amateur wine and beer aficionado, and I certainly have work/industry opinions I'd like to share as well.
Perhaps this consistency can express itself as a matter of tone, or perspective, rather than a narrow slice of our interests?
I realise as a "new blogger" its a lot to ask, but I am hopeful that both new and experienced bloggers alike will take a few short moments to share in the dialog about their struggles, or how they broke through and found their voice.
What keeps you blogging?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
How I participate in Social Networks
Inspired by a Google Wave related blog by Chris Brogan, I thought I would jot down some thoughts about how I participate in social networks and suggest a framework for describing collaboration preferences.
Facebook - Friends and Family
Twitter - Life, the Universe and Everything. Overstated for sure, but Twitter is a great modern radio station of ideas, and it offers a huge variety of perspectives from people I might never meet (but would certainly like to) on topics of interest. As much as I enjoy reading my twitter stream, I try to answer questions and pose questions of my own in hopes of generating some 140 character interactive dialog. I'm also using twitter to try to generate some longer (than 140 characters anyway) discussions in this blog.
Blog - Still working out my blog brand, but certainly where I'd like to share ideas and interact with a thoughtful participative audience on topics of mutual interest.
LinkedIn - Home of the resume. I do have friends and family on LinkedIn, but to contrast with Facebook, this is where I connect with business colleagues.
Yammer is a tricky one. I do have a Yammer account, but it is not owned by my company and there are policies about what can be shared on Yammer as a result. However, it is a great place to hear what is going on inside the company from an individual view and has been a good place to make some connections and have some rich dialogs.
There are a lot of other collaborative technologies to consider, such as email, instant messaging, phone, videoconferencing (telepresence!) and the start of it all, face to face communication.
Where do all these social networking tools fit in with collaboration? Well, thanks to phone clients and TweetDeck, I keep an eye on my twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook feeds multiple times a day. Its still not natural to me to update my twitter feed as often as I see others I follow, and I am also beginning to dabble with FourSquare a bit. The real key to all these tools is to not lose sight of the core idea, which is adding value to the conversation. I mentioned earlier that twitter was a great radio station of ideas- an area of focus for me is continuing to listen while increasing what I broadcast.
What about Google Wave? For me, Google Wave is a bit of a challenge. I see a huge amount of potential, but like email, IM, twitter, Facebook, etc, the value of Google Wave is directly related to how many people you know that are using Google Wave. Today, the value of Google Wave is limited based on a limited number of people I know using Wave. However, this to me is a good illustration of how social media networks are actually enhanced by participating in multiple mediums- reading Chris Brogan tweet and blog about the value he is seeing today in Google Wave gives me hope that once Wave reaches critical mass it will offer value to a wider audience.
One area that I think would certainly enhance all our interactions would be a "Myers Briggs" type description of personal collaboration preferences. I'd label this descriptor as the Collaboration Preference Matrix Profile, or CPMP. :-)
For me it would certainly be:
1) Face to Face
2) Telepresence / Videoconference
3) Phone
4) Instant Messaging - only for urgent / important conversations!
5) Online Social Media tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Wave, Yammer, Foursquare, Gowalla - big category!)
6) E-mail - only for asynchronous communications
I am sure that I could expand the list, but this makes my CPMP- FVPISE.
I'd make a guess that a "typical" CPMP might look more like EIPFVS- more and more it seems that people are reliant on e-mail and IM, and seem to avoid engaging directly with others in person or via voice or video. When you can't be face to face, video (whether via IM, Webex or other tools) is so much more engaging than voice alone, but there seems to be a reluctance to turn on the webcam. If the majority of communication is non-verbal, you and your collaborators stand to gain so much more by sharing your video as the opportunity to be misinterpreted is dramatically reduced.
Over time, as we see voice and video continue to converge, phone and video will shrink CPMP from P/V to just "V". Social network experience will continue to expand, resulting in a "typical" CPMP shift to ESIFV.
I'd like to expand my thoughts on email as an asynchronous collaboration medium. The world would be a much better place if everyone would take a deep breath and abandon the assumption that 2 seconds after you've hit send on an email that all your recipients have read and absorbed all the content you've just sent. I'd highly recommend reading Timothy Ferris' book The Four Hour Work Week for his perspective on email alone. I'm still trying to break bad email habits, but I find it a great aspirational goal to only check email once a day, and not first thing in the morning.
How do you participate in social networks? Do you have a particular strategy or approach that is working well for you? What's your CPMP?
Facebook - Friends and Family
Twitter - Life, the Universe and Everything. Overstated for sure, but Twitter is a great modern radio station of ideas, and it offers a huge variety of perspectives from people I might never meet (but would certainly like to) on topics of interest. As much as I enjoy reading my twitter stream, I try to answer questions and pose questions of my own in hopes of generating some 140 character interactive dialog. I'm also using twitter to try to generate some longer (than 140 characters anyway) discussions in this blog.
Blog - Still working out my blog brand, but certainly where I'd like to share ideas and interact with a thoughtful participative audience on topics of mutual interest.
LinkedIn - Home of the resume. I do have friends and family on LinkedIn, but to contrast with Facebook, this is where I connect with business colleagues.
Yammer is a tricky one. I do have a Yammer account, but it is not owned by my company and there are policies about what can be shared on Yammer as a result. However, it is a great place to hear what is going on inside the company from an individual view and has been a good place to make some connections and have some rich dialogs.
There are a lot of other collaborative technologies to consider, such as email, instant messaging, phone, videoconferencing (telepresence!) and the start of it all, face to face communication.
Where do all these social networking tools fit in with collaboration? Well, thanks to phone clients and TweetDeck, I keep an eye on my twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook feeds multiple times a day. Its still not natural to me to update my twitter feed as often as I see others I follow, and I am also beginning to dabble with FourSquare a bit. The real key to all these tools is to not lose sight of the core idea, which is adding value to the conversation. I mentioned earlier that twitter was a great radio station of ideas- an area of focus for me is continuing to listen while increasing what I broadcast.
What about Google Wave? For me, Google Wave is a bit of a challenge. I see a huge amount of potential, but like email, IM, twitter, Facebook, etc, the value of Google Wave is directly related to how many people you know that are using Google Wave. Today, the value of Google Wave is limited based on a limited number of people I know using Wave. However, this to me is a good illustration of how social media networks are actually enhanced by participating in multiple mediums- reading Chris Brogan tweet and blog about the value he is seeing today in Google Wave gives me hope that once Wave reaches critical mass it will offer value to a wider audience.
One area that I think would certainly enhance all our interactions would be a "Myers Briggs" type description of personal collaboration preferences. I'd label this descriptor as the Collaboration Preference Matrix Profile, or CPMP. :-)
For me it would certainly be:
1) Face to Face
2) Telepresence / Videoconference
3) Phone
4) Instant Messaging - only for urgent / important conversations!
5) Online Social Media tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Wave, Yammer, Foursquare, Gowalla - big category!)
6) E-mail - only for asynchronous communications
I am sure that I could expand the list, but this makes my CPMP- FVPISE.
I'd make a guess that a "typical" CPMP might look more like EIPFVS- more and more it seems that people are reliant on e-mail and IM, and seem to avoid engaging directly with others in person or via voice or video. When you can't be face to face, video (whether via IM, Webex or other tools) is so much more engaging than voice alone, but there seems to be a reluctance to turn on the webcam. If the majority of communication is non-verbal, you and your collaborators stand to gain so much more by sharing your video as the opportunity to be misinterpreted is dramatically reduced.
Over time, as we see voice and video continue to converge, phone and video will shrink CPMP from P/V to just "V". Social network experience will continue to expand, resulting in a "typical" CPMP shift to ESIFV.
I'd like to expand my thoughts on email as an asynchronous collaboration medium. The world would be a much better place if everyone would take a deep breath and abandon the assumption that 2 seconds after you've hit send on an email that all your recipients have read and absorbed all the content you've just sent. I'd highly recommend reading Timothy Ferris' book The Four Hour Work Week for his perspective on email alone. I'm still trying to break bad email habits, but I find it a great aspirational goal to only check email once a day, and not first thing in the morning.
How do you participate in social networks? Do you have a particular strategy or approach that is working well for you? What's your CPMP?
Monday, January 18, 2010
The intersection of auto and personal technology
Automotive interior design is now a powerful market differentiator and a compelling part of our driving experience. The recent announcements about Ford enabling wifi, and social media services (twitter, etc) in their new product lines got me thinking about what technology I want in my car. I have a great car, an Audi, and the lease is due in the near future. The one flaw in my Audi is the iPod "integration". Audi's idea at the time I leased my car was to leverage the ipod as a second CD changer- disks 7-11 being the first 5 playlists on the iPod and disk 12 being the entire song list. This is a completely cumbersome and inefficient way to listen to music. Audi is recognized as a thought leader in automotive design, so it is a surprise that Audi failed to understand how poor this ipod interface is. My understanding is that the ipod integration in newer Audis may be more user friendly. Auto manufacturers have continued to evolve their product line in such a way that outside of significant expense, there is no practical way to customise your vehicle's interior. Look at most new car dashboards and center consoles. Don't like your factory audio system? How many people today are going to rip out the factory stereo and replace it with an Alpine? Not many of us are getting invitations to "Pimp My Ride".
While far from authoritative, a quick google search indicates that the average cost of a new car checks in around $29k, and the average time an American owns his or her car is about 6 years. An undated JD Power survey suggests the average length of cellphone ownership is less than 18 months. This difference in time of ownership is the crux of the entire problem- do we as consumers want to trust an absurdly change resistant automotive industry keep pace with the rail gun acceleration of changing personal technology?
This brings me to the title conundrum- the intersection of auto and personal technology. Let's take GPS navigation as one example. You can buy a respectable brand name GPS receiver (like an entry level Garmin Nuvi) for around $100 from Amazon. A base trim Honda Fit costs around $15k, and in order to get a navigation system, the MSRP swells to around $19k - an over 25% price increase, and a real dollar cost increase of $4k. Now, absolutely, the navigation system itself does not cause the sole price increase, but in the Fit, you cannot get an integrated navigation system any other way. For sake of illustration, lets assume that navigation system is $1500 of the difference between the base and top level trim cost. Navigation on a Lexus IS is a $2500 option, and $2100 for a BMW 3 series, so $1500 seems like a reasonable assumption for our Honda Fit example.
Even if you break your toys all the time and you have a frightful habit of misplacing gadgets , you could afford to replace your non-integrated entry level GPS 15 times over six years. As a side benefit of being a butterfingered and forgetful person, you would take advantage of trickle down technology where the GPS system of 6 months ago has now decreased in price and you get better feature/functionality for your money, not to mention the fact that the money you kept in your pocket should earn you some interest, to boot.
Are there some advantages to integration? Yes, of course! In the case of a navigation system, you get a larger screen, possibly some other bells and whistles like Bluetooth phone integration, and speech recognition. All these features would be found on more expensive standalone GPS receivers, but still be significantly cheaper than the assumed initial cost of the integrated car GPS.
Take another example outside the automotive industry. Whether desktop or laptop, 6 years is now a long time to own a computer. Even if you bought a state of the art PC, at some point, you run out of memory and CPU cycles, hard drive space, or even compatibility to run the latest operating system from your vendor of choice. To deliver internet based services in your car, auto manufacturers essentially have to install a PC equivalent somewhere in your vehicle. Will this PC be user servicable? User upgradable? User replaceable? Will you have to drive your car to the dealer for operating system upgrades and patches? Will the car be smart enough not to do an upgrade while you are driving if it interfaces with safety systems? Will your car ever need a reboot? What if your car gets a virus?*
[*side note: yes, there are cars running MS Windows already, and have been for years- notably BMWs with iDrive, and Ford's SYNC among others. Some of these questions are indeed tongue in cheek.]
What this integration of personal technology in your car will lead to is technology lock in. This is clearly an advantage for the manufacturer, and a disadvantage for the consumer as technology obsolescence sets in. Do auto manufacturers think technology lock in is what consumers want?
I see three potential solutions to the issue (aside from the obvious " keep the technology out of my car!" answer). The first is an answer that will reinforce current American consumer habits - leasing. If you lease a car for 3 years, you keep yourself within the range of your technology being current and non-frustrating. Going back to the Honda Fit, that $1500 navigation system adds around $42/month to your lease. Honda's website suggests the monthly lease is $395/month, so the navigation system is about 11% of that monthly cost. Which is more appealing- a $42/month cost hidden in your monthly car payment for three years or an up front top of the line $500 GPS? Or a basic GPS and $400 to save or spend elsewhere? The base Fit with automatic transmission is an estimated $320/month lease, so spending $100 on a non-integrated GPS will save you $75/month (probably enough to pay your monthly gasoline bill) or $2700 over the 3 year lease.
The second, better answer is an option that auto manufacturers would resist. Modularity, or at least upgradable technology would allow consumers to buy the car they want and keep feature current with changing technology. After all, how many people can afford (or would want to) buy new cars at the same rate as cellphones, GPS receivers, or PCs? Would you pay an extra car payment a year for the automotive equivalent of software or hardware upgrades to enable new features?
The third, possibly ultimate answer that builds on modular, upgradable technology and is a win for both consumer and manufacturer would be to have the services available to the car but kept outside the car itself. Yes, I found a way to integrate "cloud services" into a discussion around cars (apologies to my colleagues in the server, storage, networking and virtualisation arenas!). The right way to integrate personal technology into a car would be to leverage a platform that would enable the services you want to be available, and give you options to stay current. There are similar models in existence today- think Nintendo Wii updates, networked Blu-Ray players, Sony's PS3, or even the Roku box that streams content from Netflix and Amazon. This platform can also represent an ongoing revenue stream for the automotive manufacturers, much like a subscription to OnStar does for GM today.
Automotive design engineers, I want my music (including my ipod or mp3 player of choice) to easily integrate with my car, or have a user friendly delivery mechanism. Other technologies that could lead to distractions (WiFi, social media access, etc) should have a "drive time" lock out, or be configured in such a way that the services are available to passengers but not the driver- there is a really cool dashboard screen in the 2010 Land Rover that shows different information to the driver and front seat passenger based on viewing angle- that is some cool technology.
Check out http://www.automotive-access.com/two-images-on-one-screen-using-parallax-by-land-rover/
What do you think about the intersection of automotive and personal technology?
While far from authoritative, a quick google search indicates that the average cost of a new car checks in around $29k, and the average time an American owns his or her car is about 6 years. An undated JD Power survey suggests the average length of cellphone ownership is less than 18 months. This difference in time of ownership is the crux of the entire problem- do we as consumers want to trust an absurdly change resistant automotive industry keep pace with the rail gun acceleration of changing personal technology?
This brings me to the title conundrum- the intersection of auto and personal technology. Let's take GPS navigation as one example. You can buy a respectable brand name GPS receiver (like an entry level Garmin Nuvi) for around $100 from Amazon. A base trim Honda Fit costs around $15k, and in order to get a navigation system, the MSRP swells to around $19k - an over 25% price increase, and a real dollar cost increase of $4k. Now, absolutely, the navigation system itself does not cause the sole price increase, but in the Fit, you cannot get an integrated navigation system any other way. For sake of illustration, lets assume that navigation system is $1500 of the difference between the base and top level trim cost. Navigation on a Lexus IS is a $2500 option, and $2100 for a BMW 3 series, so $1500 seems like a reasonable assumption for our Honda Fit example.
Even if you break your toys all the time and you have a frightful habit of misplacing gadgets , you could afford to replace your non-integrated entry level GPS 15 times over six years. As a side benefit of being a butterfingered and forgetful person, you would take advantage of trickle down technology where the GPS system of 6 months ago has now decreased in price and you get better feature/functionality for your money, not to mention the fact that the money you kept in your pocket should earn you some interest, to boot.
Are there some advantages to integration? Yes, of course! In the case of a navigation system, you get a larger screen, possibly some other bells and whistles like Bluetooth phone integration, and speech recognition. All these features would be found on more expensive standalone GPS receivers, but still be significantly cheaper than the assumed initial cost of the integrated car GPS.
Take another example outside the automotive industry. Whether desktop or laptop, 6 years is now a long time to own a computer. Even if you bought a state of the art PC, at some point, you run out of memory and CPU cycles, hard drive space, or even compatibility to run the latest operating system from your vendor of choice. To deliver internet based services in your car, auto manufacturers essentially have to install a PC equivalent somewhere in your vehicle. Will this PC be user servicable? User upgradable? User replaceable? Will you have to drive your car to the dealer for operating system upgrades and patches? Will the car be smart enough not to do an upgrade while you are driving if it interfaces with safety systems? Will your car ever need a reboot? What if your car gets a virus?*
[*side note: yes, there are cars running MS Windows already, and have been for years- notably BMWs with iDrive, and Ford's SYNC among others. Some of these questions are indeed tongue in cheek.]
What this integration of personal technology in your car will lead to is technology lock in. This is clearly an advantage for the manufacturer, and a disadvantage for the consumer as technology obsolescence sets in. Do auto manufacturers think technology lock in is what consumers want?
I see three potential solutions to the issue (aside from the obvious " keep the technology out of my car!" answer). The first is an answer that will reinforce current American consumer habits - leasing. If you lease a car for 3 years, you keep yourself within the range of your technology being current and non-frustrating. Going back to the Honda Fit, that $1500 navigation system adds around $42/month to your lease. Honda's website suggests the monthly lease is $395/month, so the navigation system is about 11% of that monthly cost. Which is more appealing- a $42/month cost hidden in your monthly car payment for three years or an up front top of the line $500 GPS? Or a basic GPS and $400 to save or spend elsewhere? The base Fit with automatic transmission is an estimated $320/month lease, so spending $100 on a non-integrated GPS will save you $75/month (probably enough to pay your monthly gasoline bill) or $2700 over the 3 year lease.
The second, better answer is an option that auto manufacturers would resist. Modularity, or at least upgradable technology would allow consumers to buy the car they want and keep feature current with changing technology. After all, how many people can afford (or would want to) buy new cars at the same rate as cellphones, GPS receivers, or PCs? Would you pay an extra car payment a year for the automotive equivalent of software or hardware upgrades to enable new features?
The third, possibly ultimate answer that builds on modular, upgradable technology and is a win for both consumer and manufacturer would be to have the services available to the car but kept outside the car itself. Yes, I found a way to integrate "cloud services" into a discussion around cars (apologies to my colleagues in the server, storage, networking and virtualisation arenas!). The right way to integrate personal technology into a car would be to leverage a platform that would enable the services you want to be available, and give you options to stay current. There are similar models in existence today- think Nintendo Wii updates, networked Blu-Ray players, Sony's PS3, or even the Roku box that streams content from Netflix and Amazon. This platform can also represent an ongoing revenue stream for the automotive manufacturers, much like a subscription to OnStar does for GM today.
Automotive design engineers, I want my music (including my ipod or mp3 player of choice) to easily integrate with my car, or have a user friendly delivery mechanism. Other technologies that could lead to distractions (WiFi, social media access, etc) should have a "drive time" lock out, or be configured in such a way that the services are available to passengers but not the driver- there is a really cool dashboard screen in the 2010 Land Rover that shows different information to the driver and front seat passenger based on viewing angle- that is some cool technology.
Check out http://www.automotive-access.com/two-images-on-one-screen-using-parallax-by-land-rover/
What do you think about the intersection of automotive and personal technology?
Friday, January 8, 2010
A first ever blog, and a tribute to a brave man
While I don't expect that this will be a typical post for me, it has been a challenging week. I learned yesterday morning that one of my team members passed away after a multi-year battle with cancer. I am choosing to talk about him as my first blog post in hopes that in some small way this might honour his memory.
If you have ever known someone in your life who was the eternal optimist, this is how I would describe my teammate, Tom Pitka. Tom never had an unkind word for anyone, was always smiling, and never once complained about the hand life had dealt him. Tom represented the best of what humanity has to offer, and what we should all aspire to be as human beings- someone who sees the best in everyone, and lived his life to the fullest, taking advantage of every opportunity both in his work and personal life to have a positive impact on those around him.
I cannot take credit for the content below, but the amount of emails I received honouring Tom I think help capture the man he was and the positive influence he had on his community. I share just a couple:
He was a kind and gentle person person who always had a smile on his face and kind words to say about others. Tom made the most of his time spent here on the planet and will be missed by those who knew him over the years.
Tom was one of the kindest, most thoughtful, and gentle persons I have known. He was also one of the most courageous. What a fighter. Of the many lessons life has taught me, one of the most important to me is, Who we are can be defined by the manner in which we face adversity. Tom should be a lesson to us all in how to live with faith, courage, and dignity.
Closing thought:
Tom is an inspiration to me in terms of how I want to live my life, how I would like to treat others, and my life is all the richer for having known him.
If you have ever known someone in your life who was the eternal optimist, this is how I would describe my teammate, Tom Pitka. Tom never had an unkind word for anyone, was always smiling, and never once complained about the hand life had dealt him. Tom represented the best of what humanity has to offer, and what we should all aspire to be as human beings- someone who sees the best in everyone, and lived his life to the fullest, taking advantage of every opportunity both in his work and personal life to have a positive impact on those around him.
I cannot take credit for the content below, but the amount of emails I received honouring Tom I think help capture the man he was and the positive influence he had on his community. I share just a couple:
He was a kind and gentle person person who always had a smile on his face and kind words to say about others. Tom made the most of his time spent here on the planet and will be missed by those who knew him over the years.
Tom was one of the kindest, most thoughtful, and gentle persons I have known. He was also one of the most courageous. What a fighter. Of the many lessons life has taught me, one of the most important to me is, Who we are can be defined by the manner in which we face adversity. Tom should be a lesson to us all in how to live with faith, courage, and dignity.
Closing thought:
Tom is an inspiration to me in terms of how I want to live my life, how I would like to treat others, and my life is all the richer for having known him.
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