process everywhere

What follows is a brilliantly animated video that demonstrates the technological opportunities and challenges that lie in the very near future.  As computing power continues up the curve of Moore’s Law and chips get smaller, faster, and cheaper, technology will be embedded into more and more of the products we buy.

As the video suggests, the information captured on these items will not simply be isolated to the devices themselves, but rather they will be communicable to the environment around them using wireless technology.

Think about the prevailing technology from 10 years ago. Connecting to the internet required you to plug your desktop computer into the wall. Watching video on your computer more often than not involved a DVD drive. Your cell phone was only used to make calls and had the capacity to store about 200 phone numbers. Given the advancement embodied by products, services, and technologies like the iPhone, Hulu, GPS, and WiMax, it is hard put a limit over the plausible advancements we can expect to see in the next decade. Appliances, vehicles, tools, furniture, even your clothes will all be a part of the network. The social web will evolve from people and the websites they visit to people and the items they use each day.

Just as websites do today, all of these new sources will create mountains upon mountains of data. Companies will be able to find out precisely how their products are used. They can use this information to make their products and services more effective. When morally permissible, they may also sell this information to others that can benefit. The winning companies of this new age will be the ones that can efficiently detect meaningful trends and ask targeted questions in order to reach insightful conclusions that lead to action.

As technological advancements allow managers to become less pragmatic and more scientific with their decision making, the companies that embrace this new kind of analysis and attract personnel that can effectively extract valuable action from mountains of data will be the most successful.