Conversation Means Back to the Future

All technology is in the communications business -- the tools you use can also compute, yet their main purpose is to deliver data to applications. As Geoffrey Moore posted in the beginning of this year from Davos, the shifting power equation from computing systems that communicate to communication systems that compute means

For communications vendors—including companies like Cisco, Motorola, AT&T, and Akamai—the opportunity is to smarten their pipes. This entails a migration of value creation into the network, achieved by computing more and more on the data it carries while it is carrying it.  All forms of behavioral targeting, real-time transaction resolutions, and the like call out for this shift.

For computing vendors—including IBM, HP, Dell, EMC, Oracle, and SAP—the opportunity is in the opposite direction: to reframe their offers to accentuate their role in a communications system. This means redesigning the PC, its peripherals, the database, the applications, the storage architecture, the middleware stack, and a portion of the server base to shift from automating transactions to feed systems of record (people in service to computers) to enabling interactions to drive relationships of value (computers in service to people).

In other words, people who are fluent in communication rise to the top in a connected world. This concept reminds me of what Nassim Nicholas Taleb says in his article for Forbes.com -- you cannot predict who will change the world

The technologies that run the world today (like the Internet, the computer and the laser) are not used in the way intended by those who invented them.

It is high time to recognize that we humans are far better at doing than understanding, and better at tinkering than inventing.

Give someone something like this post to read and she will be able to poke holes into it. It's the luckiest post that gets the attention, randomly -- right place, right time; just like it's the lucky technology that gets the funding and buzz. Conversation has a role in that.

There is a random quality to the way our brain attaches itself to the tinkering of an idea and the different use of an object than the one it was designed for. Have you ever watched children at play? Their stories are so much more concrete and practical and at the same time fantastic than can ever be arranged on purpose. They make it up as they go along.

And so do we in conversation, where we flow with insights and thoughts depending on who is there. It kind of makes me wish we could all arrange meetings to be quick conversations where we get to the point fast, then we spend the rest of the time taking those insights into action, tinkering with them. We may not be able to predict who will change the world, but we can expose our ideas and selves to the environment where the tinkering is going on -- and hopefully, we will do some of the changing for ourselves. The future surely does not look like the way we imagined, instead it looks a lot more similar to where we came from.

[tip of the hat to Bruno Giussani for the always connected links. Image of window on the world by zakgollop, Flickr.]

Comments

[Karen Hegmann]

Valeria

Sci-fi author William Gibson once said that "The future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed."

If that's true, then we can imply a few things: 1) the technology needed to hold conversations is already here 2) not everyone has access to the conversation (due to geography and/or economic factors) and 3) people who have the means to access the technology may still not "get it" and fail to participate in the conversation because they are still tinkering with the idea (a factor of human nature and behaviour).

All technology IS communications, but we still need the human side to complete the equation.

[mvellandi]

Successfully marketed/sold tech is communications. The quality of the tools and their relative need, want, desire in the marketplace often irrelevant in the short-term. If the communications is strong, all will be well. If it's a bit weak, we could think 'Pobre Cita! Great product needs better comm.'

This is a force that transcends time and product/services. At least that's the impression I get from reading Joe Vitale, et al.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Karen -- there are so many angles I was tempted to follow on this post ;-) What I liked about the concept is that we now have natives -- people used to taking all of these tools as communications media. The access is important, and one of the reasons why I love the Negroponte project. Not getting it is a human condition, not a technology adoption issue. I was worried about Twitter cutting into my blogging time... I have more ideas and make more connections now than I did two weeks ago.

@Mario -- Don't know Joe Vitale et al, would you mind sharing links?

[David Armano]

"There is a random quality to the way our brain attaches itself to the tinkering of an idea and the different use of an object than the one it was designed for. Have you ever watched children at play?"

How true. This is one of the reasons I liked Twitter from the start—it's a very playful medium. I know it's a different topic, but how have you been liking it so far?

[Valeria Maltoni]

I think of it as accidental innovators. The best ideas always come from a completely new angle, where you were not looking on purpose. And Twitter exposes you to this kind of unfiltered, raw information.

[Carolyn Ann]

The network is the computer... Oh, wait: didn't someone already say that?

(I'm ignoring the Twitter stuff. I've made my views on the concept abundantly clear...)

The pipe is getting smarter: I'm just not sure it's ready to do the job of the processing units. To me, as an old(er) networking guy, I can't help but think that when someone says that the pipe needs to be smarter, they should mean something a little different to their words. (Hang with me... I'll get the to point, eventually.)

I can devise a myriad of different routing systems - none have proven themselves better than simple Spanning Tree. It ensures that a communication path exists between device "A" and device "B". It doesn't care (at an abstract level) what those devices are. To make such a path smarter you'd have to... Re-define the definition of "path". Which might present a few more difficulties than might be supposed. (Grammar, apparently, presents a few more difficulties than I'm prepared to deal with, right now... Sorry!)

I have a feeling some might [sic...] think I'm being pedantic: but I'm not. Really! When Jonathan Schwatrz presumed that the network, etc, he assumed that the wire would stay the same: the difference would be in how the nodes-capable-of-doing-things would be utilized. Hence, a Cray supercomputer could act as a filter for an ancient IBM PS/2. (Don't laugh: I set up such a situation in 1993.)

When Geoffrey Moore supposes that the wire itself will become "intelligent", most think he's simply taking Schwartz's idea to a natural conclusion. He isn't. He's implying a radical shift in the way communications actually works: he's presuming a leap into the quantum world. Maybe. I doubt it, somehow.

We're a wee while away from true quantum communications - the wire becomes meaningless - but Schwartz's "network/computer" thing is still in play. And in that context, Moore's statement becomes a poor re-iteration of the idea.

His other ideas - re-architecting the PC, etc aren't really original. Intel has been doing that for some time; the OS, however... A significant re-architecting there would be a benefit. (And no, I'm not merely confining myself to MS Windows. I include Mac OS X and - particularly - Linux.)

Intelligent routing of messages - the trend the industry is going in - is already here. It's been here for a bit; the problem isn't the routing of messages, it's wires. Many network admins would love to provide multiple path systems; management balks at the dollars, typically. (The OS vendors, again, don't exactly help. Neither do the network theoreticians.)

I think Mr Moore makes the mistake of confusing two disparate communication systems. The first, the electrons flowing across a wire, or the photons for a Wi-Fi connection, necessarily employ a different principle to the communications required of marketing, advertising and the like.

As you say, Valeria, the more things appear to change: the more they stay the same!

Carolyn Ann

PS If Mr Moore is thinking along the lines that, as a simple and dimly-conceived example, the routing devices responsible for getting a requested web-page to you, will go fetch, say, the top few links, based on some algorithm - then he's confusing what the wire is, as opposed to what the computing elements do.

I completely disagree with his assertion that humans are better at doing than understanding. He might be, but woe betide him if he ever met a decent philosopher. And that's not to mention a half-decent theologian! I can't help but wonder what he'd make of Derrida...

I've just gone through my response, and your post, Valeria - with a mind to removing it (I really don't want to be your resident curmudgeon!). The thing that irritates me most is Moore's assumption that we're better at doing. I see no evidence for that assumption. What I perceive is someone who's not spent much time in the academic world, where the emphasis is on understanding. I can think of a half-dozen examples that support Moore's supposition, and I can think of even more counters. Basically what he's saying is something that he (thinks his audience) wants to hear. Which is different to actual understanding of the problems of technical communications. For example: why introduce the topic of the PC to something that has no bearing on it? A distraction? A side-thought? I don't know. It bears so little relevance - except in the mind of someone who can't differentiate the topics.

And I really don't want to be your resident curmudgeon. Even if I seem to moving into that position. A very public: Apology.
/CA

[Valeria Maltoni]

This is very useful for me, Carolyn Ann, so keep them coming! We're in agreement on philosophy. Although I am not a technical person, as a user I can still see the validity of your points.

The space and format of blogs keeps things flexible -- a long and thoughtful comment does not take more space as there is plenty of space to ago around ;-)