Social Machines
If you’re like me, you start to reflexively roll your eyes when you see some new, previously unmolested noun get saddled with the term “social”. We have social everything these days. And the trend doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. The reason I think, though it doesn’t lessen the annoyance factor, is that the term does convey a new type of meaning, a new way of gauging the value of something, usually in relation to something else. It’s one thing to say it’s “connected”. It’s something different (better?) when you describe it as “social”. At least, that’s the goal. If you believe Gartner, social is one of the big trends for 2012 – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/mobile-big-data-social-dominate-gartners-top-tech-trends-for-2012/60991
Lately, we’ve been using it in our battle against the antiquated term “M2M”. Maybe not surprisingly, it’s been helping. At the very least, it helps to re-orient the discussion around where we see a whole new class of applications. Traditionally, M2M applications have focused on helping organizations become more efficient. The goal was to save money and resources. The ROI was based on reducing costs. These types of applications will continue to drive a significant percentage of activity in the years ahead. But what we see happening more and more is interest in M2M-type applications that help companies *make* more money, not save it. The ROI is top-line based.
There are a couple reasons why this trend is interesting to us:
1 – The budgets for these types of projects come from marketing and sales organizations, not operations and IT. This usually equates to faster time to results.
2 – The technical skills necessary for building the apps for these types of opportunities are, in many cases, employed by the marketing department itself –> web developers. This means there is less reliance on corporate IT staff which means faster execution.
3 – Both of these factors help companies do what’s absolutely necessary these days – innovate continuously, rapidly and at low cost.
What are some examples of this type of application? Think about “social” vending machines and kiosks. Think about social rental systems – cars being a great current example. Think about social health devices. The list goes on. The point is – we’re not talking about remotely monitoring a coffee maker in a 7-Eleven to detect the need for maintenance. That’s old school M2M. The future belongs to something more interesting – social machines. And perhaps, finally, a way to incorporate their existence, and the information they hold, into our lives more seamlessly and meaningfully.
