In the 80s and 90s it was all about the number of gadgets you had. The video camera, a Walkman, DSLR, a VCR, then a CD player, and a computer. There are some funny pictures of all the devices we used to have, the one below is legendary.

Then we went through a phase of consolidation, which started long ago, when we started bringing together the radio with the cassette player, the all-in-one sound system that would play anything, and then went further on, when agenda and contact manager capabilities started to get integrated into the phone with the appearance of the Treo and many of the Nokia devices.

Fast forward to today, now everything is an app, running on a single smartphone platform, so we are good now, right? We achieved convergence nirvana!

Yes, until we are barreling down the highway and about to reach an intersection, and someone is calling us right at that moment and we miss which exit is, it is 165A or B?; or when we are trying to shoot a video (or even worse, a time-lapse), but we want to entertain ourselves at the same time and our phone is hooked on shooting that video; or when we have been on Zoom calls all day on our phone, and we have no way of getting to Doordash for ordering lunch while we are at it.

I know, it doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it can be really annoying. The standard answer would be to take some of these functions and offload them to purpose-built devices, but the issue is that the use-cases are infinite and they change all the time, and we don’t want to end up with a bunch of gadgets anyway.

Some of the things we address them if we have several devices at hand, like phone+laptop, phone+smartwatch, etc.

But more and more, it seems that the answer is to have two general-purpose devices when we can, and be able to switch their function as needed. Have we had enough convergence? Is it time to unbundle?

When new technologies are introduced, there is a sense of awe that -honestly- inspires me. The wonder of discovering what “this thing can do” and imagining how your life be in the future is something be worth seeking out. I mean, heck, there are people would even stand in line around the block FOR A WHOLE NIGHT to get their hands on a new piece of technology. I am not quite that type of person, but I can relate.

But that effect of the shiny new object slowly fades away as we use the technology more and more. And then, nobody wonders on and about it anymore. It becomes a part of our life and using it feels second nature.

That’s actually one of the ways we know that a technology is ready for adoption and that it is here to stay.

I recently watched a video of a conference back from 2015, where the speaker was trying to make a point and showed a video of the experience of sitting in a self-driving car, going through a closed test course, no other vehicles, no pedestrians. The passenger is screaming, swearing, amazed, but freaking out at the same time.

Now, compare that with my still recent experience on a self-driving robo-taxi in Phoenix, AZ. A ride through a real city environment, with tons of other cars sharing the same road, pedestrians, the whole thing; and with all that, a smooth, easy experience.

These things are here. They are ready. The only thing keeping them in the garage is the lawyers.

I don’t think there is a more popular buzzword today than “Metaverse”. So if we let other people smarter than me define it, I particularly like Karina Nobbs’, which goes like: “a persistent, live digital universe that affords individuals a sense of agency, social presence, and shared spatial awareness, along with the ability to participate in an extensive virtual economy with profound societal impact.”

But what is it good for?

So far, most demonstrations or concepts don’t transcend beyond what it looks like an amazing graphics game, but one that is quite boring. In essence, most concepts apply current thinking to a 3D, virtual tool, without really offering much more than meeting IRL (in real life), but without the need to go through traffic. That’s not good enough for me as a business proposition.

Let’s be fair, I think we don’t know what we don’t know. We can probably trace a parallel with the Internet, where it’s formal definition goes like “a global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite to communicate between networks and devices”. It is a great technical definition, but it doesn’t say anything about Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Netflix, Zoom, or for that matter, Tinder.

So here are a few use cases (probably not very imaginative) that I find useful:

SEE-THROUGH BUILDINGS

Every building had a blueprint at some point. Structural, mechanic, electric. All the pipes and fittings and the HVAC are somewhere documented. So every time there is the need to make a change, find a pipe (and this could be either for remodel purposes, or maybe because the fire department is looking for the main cutoff valve for a floor), the field crew could slap on the goggles and just look behind the dry wall, and even three or four floors down.

VIRTUAL FITTING ROOM

How many times have your online clothes or shoes ordering turn out a total #FAIL ? What if you could digitize yourself, and provided that the manufacturer does the same; you could try on the clothes in the metaverse? No more “a tad tight”. Retailers could actually save $$$s by preventing lots of returns.

PRODUCT & ACCESSORIES DEMO

Sometimes, we have to find X, that fits Y. For example, a carrying case. This is a very similar scenario to the one above, except that now you would be comparing the digitized versions of two different products, provided by two different vendors.

WASTELESS PROTOTYPING

If you have ever prototyped something, you know that rarely you get what you envision on the first try. That, goes to the recycle bin. So if you have a Digital Twin of the manufacturing process, now you could run the whole set of instructions through it and inspect the outcome in the metaverse. Once you got it right, manufacture the actual piece. It’s like having a “Debug Run” for manufacturing, and in a world where 3-D printed stuff will be more common, every item becomes a prototype.

TRAINING

The immersive experience that the metaverse promises makes it a great candidate to offer training scenarios in a safe environment. But this becomes even more interesting when we take into account that artificial intelligence systems based on deep learning, have to be trained as well. What if the data set for training is not available? A simulated scenario may be the best we can do.

REHEARSAL STUDIO

Musicians, when they play together, they not only listen to each other. There are nods, and eyebrows raised, and the occasional rock-out. Practicing at a distance, in the metaverse can be a game changer for musician collaboration, provided we can solve the latency issue reasonably.

What other non-gaming use cases can you come up with?

Well, this is fascinating. I don’t even know how I missed it so far.

Google has been working behind the scene on the next generation of their Google Glasses. With all the technology involved, it is ironic to hear how much the design of the glasses has been praised. They are using regular frames, so people no longer stand out wearing them.

The glasses come with a ton more computing power and one of the test applications cannot be more impressive. Not exactly clear how it works, but by watching someone talking in a foreign language, it translates on the spot. Check out the promotional video they have made to show the possibilities.

Do you think these will make the experience of learning to speak another language a thing of the past? Or o you think that it will make available for everyone the experience of being multi-lingual?

An API is one of those words that us “tech bros” (can I say “tech sis”?) just throw around mindlessly, with disregard of the huge idea behind it. It stands for “Application Programming Interface’ and the formal definition of an API goes as:

API 
n. a set of functions and procedures allowing the creation of applications that access the features or data of an operating system, application, or other service. 

But that’s not that helpful, especially if we are referring to an “open” API. Until recently, most of our computer systems have been closed boxes. We had to open the box to feed stuff into it, “things” would happen inside, and then the box would open and give us the results. An open API is like having a small hole on the side of the box where we can pass pieces of paper with messages written on them.

Ok, so that’s cool. What’s the big deal? Couldn’t we just open the box and pass the piece of paper? Well, imagine now that we place two boxes side by side. To make them work together, in the first scenario, we would have to open the box, feed it, wait, open the box again, take stuff out, open the second box, …etc. Under the second scenario, there may be a way to align the holes on both boxes, and have them pass on pieces of paper among them.

So that’s what open APIs have done for computers. It has allowed individual apps, built to do specific purposes, to stay contained, specialized, but at the same time communicate among them and take care of increasingly complex processes. When your Amazon Echo allows you to turn your lights on and off, is thanks to an API. The Alexa folks did not have to develop the software to communicate and control the lights, and the lighting folks didn’t have to bother with voice recognition or with developing Alexa’s sometimes quirky character. Separate, but works together.

So enough of that.

What would be the scenario if we could put in place something analogous for businesses? Today, most businesses function as our sealed cardboard boxes. There is no way to fluidly issue commands from one to the other.

Granted, in some very specific situations, two independent companies engage in more fluid operations, but not before going through a complicated arrangement of contracts that impossibly attempt to outline all the “what ifs” and some equally complicated integrations like EDI systems. There’s got to be a better way, after all the original EDI was developed in the 1960s.

Part of the issue is that in an information system’s API, everything that is exchanged is contained in the API. In the real world, not so much. Money usually doesn’t follow automatically through the same path than supplies, instructions, etc. Today’s blockchain and smart contract technologies offer the opportunity to tie it all together.

Make no mistake, the fluidity that today’s supply chains have achieved is remarkable. Even in the face of this quasi-disaster that has made supply chain a breakfast-table term. But developing new technologies in these lines can, not only make current operations among juggernauts more efficient, but it can make possible to incorporate smaller, specialized manufacturers or service providers into the chain, and even make it possible to orchestrate these relationships dynamically.

I know, my head is spinning too.

Some time ago, I was listening to a Fresh Air episode about the global supply chain and while hearing about the extreme complexity of properly orchestrating trans-shipment and to efficiently store each container, it came to mind how this could be used to explain two of the fundamental transport protocols that make the Internet work. If you are in this business, you know what I am talking about, but even if you’re not, you have probably heard about them.

The first one, TCP, makes a lot of sense for one of the first important applications of the Internet: file transfer.

Everything that travels through the Internet, is obviously digitized, but then is also separated into smaller pieces, called packets. These are transmitted, one at a time (and sometimes in parallel), to the destination. This means that packets have to be reassembled once they are received. But packets sometimes get “lost”, either because they are never received, or because there are errors in them. TCP “knows”, and because of that, packets are re-transmitted and the file is reassembled completely. You may imagine that in a noisy network, it can take quite some time to put everything together in the correct order, because of constant retransmission.

This is similar to what happens at ports, where multi-container shipments have to be transferred from one vessel to another, even when they are not necessarily loaded close to one another and in order on either ship.

UDP is different. UDP doesn’t care that much about lost packets. If they are lost, they are lost. But there is one thing that UDP cares much for: timing. That’s why UDP is used for your Zoom calls, and well, anything that includes streaming. When packets are lost, well, they are lost, and voice comes through garbled, but still somewhat in time.

Going back to our container analogy, for shipments that are not being transshipped, the objective is to offload everything as fast as possible. No matter in which order.

The analogies abound, but one big difference is in where the “routing” intelligence resides. At the port, there are complicated arrangements of shipping manifests that I don’t fully understand. On the network, each packet “knows where it is going”.

Will there be a future where shipping containers will enroute themselves to the proper vessel or warehouse and where we could apply these techniques to physical containers? To some extent, the future is here. There are airports, and logistics distribution centers that are already doing some version of this. But imagine leveraging everything that we have learned about TCP/IP networks, the way errors are handled, the metadata, taps, BGP to re-route if something fails (like a crane).

Perhaps we could also use it ourselves, and identify when to operate in one way or another. There are times when “crossing all our t’s and dotting our i’s” is important, others, when time is of the essence. How are you feeling today? More UDP than TCP? Or the other way around?

Digital Transformation is not just about using new technologies in a company’s operations, but also about adapting their business model and processes, changing their culture, operating models and management thinking. It is all about removing complexity.

And if you are a Digital Transformation agent, you must act as any fearless leader. Just like our heroes seek danger, and run towards the enemy, you must seek out complexity and run towards it.

The technology and the resources that we can harness in this new age are different and greater, but the concept of the change agent has been around for a while, we called it differently though, “total quality” or “reengineering”. And just like then, it may be a heroic feat that needs to be backed by senior leadership, and just like then it may be highly unpopular with those affected by changes.

Be relentless, but also be compassionate and understanding.

This is quite a nerdy one.

One of the things used quite a lot in cryptography, is what are called “non invertible functions”. These are mathematical functions that by operating on something they give you a result, but the inverse function either doesn’t exist, or its output is undefined (meaning that is not unique). Non-invertible functions are used -for example- to encrypt passwords. Before storing a password, you can encrypt it, and if the function utilized is a non-invertible, it would be impossible to know what the password is, the only thing that can be done, is to run the function on the password someone has entered, and check if it matches what it’s in storage.

It is part of what makes passwords secure.

Many of the concepts utilized in cybersecurity come from ages-old concepts and techniques adapted to the modern technology.

That’s how we got “man in the middle”, “bastion”, and -believe it or not- two-factor authentication. Remember the stories about King Arthur or some other powerful being going undercover and then showing a tattoo and a passphrase? What do you think that was about?

So this got me thinking on non-invertible functions outside of these complex mathematical functions. Most of the functions we learn through school are all invertible, making algebra possible. You know, sum has subtraction, sine has arc-sine, etc., so I was hard pressed, except, I was looking in all the wrong places.

It looks like in real life -actually- non-invertible functions are more common than the other type. The typical one is when you recognize that “it is pretty hard to put the toothpaste back into the tube”. When you burn something, it is pretty hard to undo that from the ashes. How could we use this property for other purposes?

People are often drawn to buying a new accessory, running shoes, electronics and other things when they feel like they need a change in their life. Buying a new accessory can be a great way to motivate oneself. It can be a good way to celebrate reaching a goal, or it could simply be the next step in an ongoing goal. That’s why some people buy new accessories when they are feeling unmotivated and need to get back on track.

Getting the right accessory or “tool” can also make you “look the part” and to get you started on your journey of “becoming”.

But buying a new accessory can also be a distraction. You may need to learn how to use it or figure out how to make the best use of it, and a major disadvantage is that you will have to spend time and effort figuring out how your new tool works, which can take away from the main goals you are trying to achieve.

Besides getting the right and best tools, you also need to gain the skills, create the processes, and maybe even the habit and identity.

Something similar happens in business. Many organizations insist on starting a transformational journey by buying into a new system or toolset. This can be a risk because it is not always clear how it will work in their environment and with their already existing processes, organizational structure and culture. Organizations should first understand these well and only then think about which tools will help them achieve that goal.

There is one caveat though.

Organizations that don’t have mature processes can sometimes benefit from platforms that have been built around best practices in order to step up their game and see better results.

Some platforms such as Customer Relationship Management, Marketing Automation, and Customer Success Management offer, out-of-the-box, the appropriate templates to manage a process. They may also provide automation with little human intervention, especially low-level tasks as automatic notifications and time-based alerts. Well built systems may also allow for integrations with other tools, addressing client-specific needs.

So:

Understand your process first, then migrate to a system, then automate.

and, if you have to, find a system that has a process that makes sense to you out of the box and that will be easier to adopt.

I am sort of ok with Chatbots, you know, the ones that now popup on websites. Especially if they are really good and provide me with the information that I need.

Basically, this would be a chatbot that passes the “Turing test”. If you don’t know exactly what that means, it is that “a human being should be unable to distinguish the machine from another human being by using the replies to questions put to both”.

But lately, there is something that has been ticking me off. Sometimes it happens that I just cannot get the answers I need from the chatbot, no matter how I phrase my questions. Then, frustrated, I do the equivalent of “press zero”, and I ask to be transferred to a human. A few times, it has happened, that they insist they are human.

So wait a minute, are you really a human that cannot answer the question that I am asking and you keep repeating the same rehearsed answer? Or are you just a machine that is programmed to lie? I would assume it’s the later. But then, Why insist that it’s human? What’s the purpose? Are they just messing with me to see how I react?

Programming a machine to lie is to deceive customers, and that’s bad. But you know what would be sad? A human that doesn’t pass the Turing test!