How to intellivate* your products and services ?
*(intellivate= intelligence + elevate)
Most business people are puzzled. This often happens when we are at the crest of an “old economy “S” curve ” and entering into the next ‘yet-to-be recognized “ and yet-to-be defined “S” curve of growth. Business and consumers see that the current industrial economy is crumbling ( The auto sector, the Recession / Depression, collapse of the consumer economy linked to China etc) and are asking themselves –what’s next? The information economy is mature and IT experts are also wondering-where do we go from here? People have speculated: will it be biotech? nanotech? They are all right, but these are just sub-economies of the larger overarching one. The common denominator is that they all contribute one new unique, never-seen-before factor-smarts or intelligence, hence the Smart Economy.
Most consumers and companies don’t recognize that we are already well into the next, new smart economy --it’s still well below the radar screen of most entrepreneurs and incumbent corporations.
Why? The reasons are simple. It’s not a single “poster” technology like the computer was in the 1970 and 1980, which we can touch, type or hold in our laps. The Smart Economy is a cluster of new enabling technologies and novel capabilities, that can be mixed and matched like recipe ingredients or combined, like different color Lego blocks. The other reason why it’s invisible to most people so far is because it’s happening at three levels-not just at the bulk macro level, but at the micro and nano levels, which we can’t see, feel, taste or hear.
How do I know if I have a smart technology? Most of the products and services on store shelves and in our home cupboards are still dumb or benign. I.e. they don’t possess any internally embedded smarts or intelligence. (well maybe with the exception of some RFID embedded packaging )
The process of adding intelligence to a product has no defining term, so I’ve had to invent one- combining the words intelligence and elevate -you get intellivate. The acting of embedding or elevating intelligence, transforming an object or service from from benign to smart.
Explore this emerging “smart technology” discipline a bit and the first thing you notice is that you can’t paint all products and services with the same “smart” brush. There are different levels of intelligence. I’ve developed and have been using the following framework when I do Smart Technology Briefings or keynote speeches at conferences and workshops.
Here’s my shortened Lite List which I first presented in 2006 at the World Futures Society
Levels of Smart Technologies (Lite List)
Intelligence Level (1) Adapting: Modifying Behavior to Fit the Environment
Intelligence Level (2) Sensing & Responding: Bringing Awareness to Everyday Things
Intelligence Level (3) Inferring: Drawing Conclusions from Rules and Observations
Intelligence Level (4) Learning: Using Experience to Improve Performance
Intelligence Level (5) Anticipating: Thinking and Reasoning about What to Do Next
Intelligence Level (6) Self-Organizing:Self-generating and self-sustaining at the cellular or nano-technology level
Since then the list has evolved into more sub-levels and categories of novel new-to-the world capabilities which includes objects, systems or environments (OSE's) that are context-aware, dynamic, active, interactive, reactive, proactive, assistive, adaptive, automated, sentient, perceptual, cognitive, autonomic and/or thinking. Intellivation or embedding intelligence could be applied to various targets including smart objects or things, smart services, smart systems, smart networks and smart environments. And eventually a "smart planet".
This will require a new breed of product and service development. If fact, a new breed of thinkers. A "Smart Renaissance". Designers working with engineers, working with biologists, working with business grads. A whole new service industry could spring from this emerging need. The Koreans, Chinese and Japanese may have a cultural advantage here-since they are accustom to looking at life from a more holistic perspective. For westerners it may be a stretch to get away from the long established silos of expertise, that still hampers business and academia and constrains the development of truely novel ideas and concepts. It may require a new language or terminology, a new culture and an new integegrated school system, which doesn't exist yet today..
Stay tune for Part 2) Evolving your products and services along the Smart Technology Evolution Scale
For more information on the emerging Smart Economy and how to create opportunities for your products or services, contact me for a Smart Technology Briefing for your executives and staff.
© 2005-2009 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©
Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy " The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !! To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page
Comments