the internet of everything is here. what it means
TRANSCRIPT
The “Internet of Everything” is Here.
What it Means.
By Steve Fawthrop
Reprinted from a blog post on LinkedIn 12/15/2014.
The Internet of Everything has progressively been weaving into discussions in business with some in the tech world now proclaiming that 2015 will mark a breakthrough in some way for the term and an understanding of implications in business and society.
I am not sure there is a magic moment or year, but it is here and everyone needs to get a better understanding of "big data" and the many sources that will feed it, as a business professional and consumer.
For consumers, what the term means and the implications of how it may affect them are still limited.
Much of the discussion about data has been related to advertising. Most of it has revolved around the issue of privacy versus targeting of advertising messages. That is because this kind of use of data hits people as the most tangible effect. They have come to recognize ads targeted or retargeted to them based on their activities on websites.
Whether they are fine with it or feel it is "creepy" that Facebook or Google seems to know too much about their personal interests is an ongoing debate. It does tip them to how much data capture is a regular part of living, at least on the Web.
The second level of awareness has been based more on breaches of protected data: classified information from the NSA, information retailers have gathered on purchase patterns along with credit card information that have been hacked, like from Target, or the more recent e-mails from Sony executives that have embarrassed them due to information being leaked publically.
Big data and what it means on a business level and, ultimately, in society goes far beyond selective headlines in the news today and is efficiently and comprehensively covered in a book I read this year and recommend. It is called:
"Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think" by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier.
The book came out the middle of 2013, so it is current, and a paperback version was released March 2014.
Data and how it is integrating into individual lives, products and business operations at the broader level is the theme of this book. The ability to effectively capture data will tremendously alter business operations and the economy.
Beyond the examples cited above, people are getting a sense of pervasive data capture on a more visible level through the use of apps, especially ones that, for example, track very particular information like your exercise routine. They are still not realizing how much is going on in the background, how information capture will grow and what that will mean. The authors explore this.
The book is 256 pages and is a straightforward read. It was highly reviewed last year, including being picked as one of the top business books by the Financial Times.
There is a link below to Amazon to provide more details, including a Q & A with the authors. They are neither for nor against data. They simply want everyone to understand where it is going. One question from the interview explains their role:
Q. Are you big data’s cheerleaders?
A. Absolutely not. We are the messengers of big data, not its evangelists. The big data age is happening, and in the book we take a look at the drivers, and big data’s likely trajectory: how it will change how we work and live. We emphasize that the fundamental shift is not in the machines that calculate data, but in the data itself and how we use it.
A related book I read this year is "Information and the Modern Corporation" by James Cortada. This is a smaller format book and only about 150 pages as part of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series. I would not quite put it into the "Big Data For Dummies" category but it is a quick historical survey of the shifting in what was IT and what "IT" will be in the future corporation so the book is much more business oriented.
It published 2011 and reference to "The Internet of Everything" only comes up once toward the end of the book and mostly in the context of his noting there is this new catchphrase that seems to be depicting the shift. It shows how quickly in tech the perspective changes.
He talks about the evolution of the "IT supply chain" of the future via data. This is much more oriented to the interest of someone in business operations.
Additional Resources
eMarketer looks at the trend of big data in advertising and marketing for 2015: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Will-Internet-of-Things-Become-Thing-Next-Year/1011652?utm_content=buffereb599&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Recent Wall Street Journal article on measuring how people are really using their time at work and the cost of inefficient meetings and emails. A new twist on the use of data capture: http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-to-stop-wasting-colleagues-time-1417562658?tesla=y
Amazon website: http://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Revolution-Transform-Think/dp/0544002695/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418589795&sr=1-1&keywords=bid+data%3A+A+revolution
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My posts on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/667794
About Me
Steve Fawthrop
714-876-7062, cell
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevefawthrop
www.google.com/+stevefawthrop
Twitter: @SteveFawthrop
I have been a sales professional in advertising and marketing as a career. This has included managing my own territories, selling with others and managing sales teams.
Some career highlights:
Seven years in sales management including five years at the Puget Sound Business Journal in Seattle growing local sales to over $5 million annually (+70%). In Seattle I worked with an in-market staff with outside territories and inside sales. In Orange County I worked with dispersed reps across the country.
Joint selling with local reps in the U.S. in the West, Midwest and Texas. I also had the unique opportunity to work with independent reps in Asia while maintaining individual revenue responsibility as part of my eight years working with USA Today. All of the work in Asia was pioneering to break new markets with my dominant focus on Japan. At one point my national territory for USA Today was nearly $7 million annual revenue.
Have opened and grown individual sales territories for regional and national accounts. This included opening the first office in Los Angeles for the Network of City Business Journals, the national sales arm of American City Business Journals.
Over the last six years I shifted more deeply into digital marketing and most recently worked on a mobile ad technology start up, moment M.
I was born and raised in Seattle and graduated from the University of Washington with a B.A. in Communications with a concentration in Advertising.
While a good portion of my professional career has been spent in California—19 years split between Los Angeles and Orange County—I returned to Seattle October 2012.
I have two children. My son, Nolan, is a 2014 graduate from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. My daughter, Hayley, is a junior at Seattle University.
As part of my personal interest and community involvement, I have been a volunteer and board member of the Friends of the Seattle Public Library since returning to Seattle. I also do some volunteer mentoring for my college fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi.