5 (five) things you need to know about the internet of things, introduces a way of thinking and understanding of what it is and some critical thinking as to why it may just transform the world.

1.    Smart Everything

The internet of things is happening at a crazy speed and quite simply everything is getting smart. We are getting smart houses with smart flat screens, smart light bulbs, smart music, we drive around in smart cars, we use smart phones and we are buying smart watches. But it does not stop there we are wearing smart clothing that has been marketed to us using smart social media.

2.    The Music Analogy

Thank you to my friend Joe At the center of smart is software and software is amazing, if you think of innovation imagine the innovation around the piano versus the innovation in music. The analogy is that smart devices are like piano’s and the music is the software that runs on them. The piano was first created by Bartolomea Cristofori[1] the work was genius check out Donsok Shin playing Presto e fugato from Sonata in G minor on the earliest know piano.

Now Donsok Shin does and amazing job and quite frankly so does the piano, my point is that physical things innovate slowly. Now consider innovation in Music it is fast moving, dynamic and incredibly personal. We have entire new genres of music develop in years and the personal taste ranges from pop to classical. Music also brings together different devices in a wonderful way.

Using the Music analogy we can see that the physical devices are needed and we will slowly innovate and change them, but the software will bring about a transformation in how the smart devices work in the world.

3.    Mobility

The IoT moves around with us, it changes how we interact with the world continuously. The smartphone is a critical part of how we interact with the IoT. From the simple example of changing the lighting to your preferences to the complex of assisting us with social interactions the IoT is mobile. What is more profound is that that is it is mobile in that we carry it AND it is mobile in that it is everywhere. In the IoT people are swimming in an ocean of smart devices that adjusts nearly every piece of machinery we interact with.

4.    Realtime

In the smart work of IoT driven devices everything is realtime, the interaction is realtime, the devices are realtime the data streams are realtime and the social media is realtime. The consequence of this realtime world is that businesses that are realtime and produce the right interactions will win over the people acting on yesterday’s data. Consider the example of business intelligence tools, in the past it was good enough to see the data yesterday to play out the actions. Now the business needs all the data in realtime in a form that is useful.

5.    Internet of Systems (IoS)

Underneath the IoT is the internet of computer systems IoS, these are the computer systems that tie it all together. Look at the example of the home thermostat controller, purchased by google for 3.2 billion dollars, requires a connection to the internet to install and the company talks about how it plans (and is) using the data streams. So as we think about the IoT also think about the IoS and how the data streams from these systems to make the music of the internet of things truly beautiful.

(Image from Teradata)

[1] https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/89.4.1219