Belling the Cat-Who's gonna do that?
As the 4th of 13 children, there were plenty of other things that filled our home--and luckily lots of books were among the chaos. Despite this incredible gift from my parents to us children, I'll be the first to admit that I spent far more time watching cartoons and primetime television than I ever spent reading. Occasionally I took a break from my full-time job as a TV consumer and I read from those books. Gratefully, in addition to being able to sing a myriad of 80's commercials and theme songs, I do remember a few of the things I read as well.
One of the fables that I recall is often referred to as the Council of Mice or, Belling the Cat. For those of you that may not have read the story, I've included it below:
There was once a group of mice who lived very happily feasting on the piles of crumbs that fell from the farmer's table. One day the farmer got a cat to provide him company as well as to keep the growing population of mice at bay. Very soon, individual mice began disappearing. They simply could not hear the cat coming before it was too late and they were the cat's next Fancy Feast.
One day the mice held a council to decide a course of action to stop the marauding cat. One of the mice proposed placing a bell around the neck of the cat so that all of the mice could hear the cat approach. The plan was celebrated with tremendous squeaks and applause--for surely they would hear the bell and never again be eaten!
In the midst of sharing hearty congratulations throughout the crowd, a headstrong mouse spoke up, "Who will volunteer to place the bell on the cat?" The chatter quickly quieted to a deafening stillness. Little by little different mice grumbled their excuses as to why he or she couldn't possibly do the task. In the end the council was disbanded, with the no solution and no progress. The threat of unlucky and ill-timed deaths filled the air and minds of the mice as the wondered home wondering which of them would be the next victim.
In the world of heavy equipment based SaaS, I get a lot feedback from people telling me what would be the perfect solution for their business. "If the tool could do this one thing" they might say, "then this would work!" The truth is that building those solutions are risky and may not always deliver the optimal outcome. Regardless of how great the idea may be, who is actually going to have the courage, commitment and know-how to make it a reality?
In the heavy equipment space, among other industries, there is no shortage of cats to be belled. This seems especially true in the world of Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Immersive Reality, Artificial Intelligence, internet of things (IoT) ecosystems and more. You can't look through your LinkedIn feed and not see something with these catch phrases. And why not, they are brilliant ideas that certainly work in theory! Of course beyond the theory and in practice all of these systems need a platform to work through. Some accessible human interface that provides the fast and easy automation of people AND machines for an optimal outcome.
Is it possible that in our quest for theoretical solutions that most industries have possibly ignored the glaring question of how to capture useful human-machine information? What good is an augmented reality overlay where operators are still using paper forms?
And that's part of what's so exciting about what we're accomplishing at REDLIST. I'm proud of practical solutions that we are building to actually string the bell on the cat... that is to create a platform where AR, VR, IR, IoT, AI and more can actually reside and make a difference in the behaviors and workflows of our customers. I'm especially proud of our team, that is facing with courage and optimism the daunting task of building a reliable platform that can do all of these things. It's a big undertaking, but someone has to do it. :)
And why not us?
I'd love to hear any feedback about other teams and platforms that are working to provide practical solutions for this massive cat of an opportunity. The market is huge and the opportunities to make a difference are real. How are other companies and teams making these new technologies in Heavy Equipment a reality?