Category: Internet of Things

I don't have anything for or against Minnesota, but why would this little known state come up twice in a few days? This merits a little examining.

Earlier this week a friend of mine who lived in Minneapolis in the early 90s was telling me that upon her recent visit there she was amazed at the vibrant community living there. Is that why in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, 78.2% of eligible Minnesotans voted – the highest percentage of any U.S. state – versus the national average of 61.7%? I guess this could be a relevant factoid in a US presidential election year.

Then, I discovered that the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and Seoul National University have recently released a study on the use of three things that are squarely on my radar: smartphones, social networks, and "things" (in this case packages using RFID). And, if that wasn't enough to catch your attention, there's also a "green" component to this study. According to this article on the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment's web site:

The study used spatial and agent-based models to investigate the potential environmental benefits of enlisting social networks and smartphones to help deliver packages. While sensitive to how often trusted and willing friends can be found in close proximity to both the package and the recipient within a day, results indicate that very small degrees of network engagement can lead to very large efficiency gains.

Compared to a typical home delivery route, greenhouse gas emissions reductions from a socially networked pickup system were projected to range from 45 percent to 98 percent, depending on the social connectedness of the recipients and the willingness of individuals in their social networks to participate. System-wide benefits could be significantly lower under assumptions of less than 100% market adoption, however. In fact, the study points out that many of the gains might be nullified in the short term as fewer home truck deliveries make existing delivery systems less efficient. But, “with only 1-2% of the network leveraged for delivery, average delivery distances are improved over conventional delivery alone – even under conditions of very small market penetration,” the study concluded.

“What is important is that sharing be allowed in the system, not how many ultimately choose to share time or resources,” says study co-author Timothy Smith, director of IonE’s NorthStar Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise. “We find that providing the relatively few really inefficient actors in the network the opportunity to seek the help of many better positioned actors can radically improve performance.” This is particularly relevant today, Smith says, as online retailers such as Amazon begin introducing delivery pickup lockers in grocery, convenience and drug stores.

Perhaps there is, indeed, a natural link between voter participation and social networking for your local package delivery: if a citizen is more involved in the well being of the community and wants to vote, perhaps the same person will also be open to making small detours for the purpose of delivering a package and protecting the environment.

I suspect that the speakers about NFC and RFID at the upcoming IoT Zurich meetup event will be touching on this topic of citizens using their smartphones with near field communications, but probably not for the same applications. 

I often get asked to define a Spime. The definition is simple “Space + Time” but the implications are deeper than most people have time to think about. That’s one reason that Wranglers are needed. But the fundamental attribute of a spime is that it is hyperconnected and it is doing something with its connections. By documenting or publishing where it was made, by whom, where it has traveled, or how long it has been “on” (or another attribute that can be detected by the object), our objects are developing memory. Ironically, for humans, being hyperconnected may work differently. 

In a series on the Read Write Web portal, Alicia Eler is exploring the hyperconnected life. The first piece she posted, How Hyperconnectivity Effects Young People, summarizes the results of a study on American Millennials and consequences of having an “always on” life. The Pew’s study of the impacts of always being connected to the Internet on the brains of youth is both qualitative and quantitative. Well worth a scan if not more of your time. Here are a few of the highlights I found particularly relevant:

• relying on the Internet as our “external brain,” saves room in our “wet brains” for different kinds of thinking (no surprise here). 55% of those surveyed believe that the always on youth will have positive impacts on the world as a result of finding information more quickly and thinking in less structured ways, “thinking out of the box.” 42% of those surveyed feared the result would be negative.
• always being connected tends to build a desire for instant gratification (no surprise here), and the increased chances of making “quick, shallow choices.”
• Education reform is much needed to meet the requirements of these “new” and hyperconnected and mobile students. This really dovetails well with the outcomes of the Mobile Youth Congress held last week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The iStudent Initiative suggests that learning should be more self-directed and the classroom will be where students report what they’ve learned.

Then, in a second post entitled, Introducing Your Hyperconnected Online-Offline Identity, Alicia explored the subject of fragmented identity. The premise is that our identities are fractured because we can be different people in different places and in response to those around us who are different (home, business, sports, entertainment/hobbies).

“The real self is saddled somewhere in the overlap between these three circles. These ideas of the self apply in both an online and offline context. This abstraction, explains ScepticGeek, may come at least partially from Carl Rogers.

“Online, we battle with the same conflicts, plus a few other quirks. We are a Facebook identity (or two), a Twitter account, a LinkedIn oh-so-professional account and maybe even Google+ (plus search your world, no less). Each online identity is in and of itself an identity. Maintaining them is hard, often times treacherous work. We must slog through the Internet-addled identity quagmire.”

In another paradox, I think that when “things” are connected, even via a social network such as facebook, we (humans) truly have the opportunity to know the objects or places better, with a richer and deeper understanding because we think there’s more information, less subjective and more quantitative data on which we can base our opinions.

I wonder if there will also be ways for Spimes to have different personae, to project themselves in unique ways to different audiences. Perhaps it will be simpler because inanimate objects don’t have the need or desire to reconcile all their identities in the “self.” But it will always remain the responsibility of the wrangler to manage those identities. Job security is what I call that!