The truly networked world we still can’t quite grasp

This post is on behalf of the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya

As the world races to connect, share, interact, and learn, new pathways are opening up for value to be created along the way. Parallel to these connections happening, the lines between information, people, and things are blurring. I am increasingly hearing real world stories about man-machine, and machine-machine interactions happening on social networks. Machines are communicating with us, and vice versa.

In addition to machines, sensors are being embedded in animals and humans for monitoring and tracking. They provide valuable feedback and analysis on health conditions and location. From this, senior military officials, cattle ranchers, and research scientists can better understand the condition of those in their care. If you couple these trends with the rapid decline of the physical size of a micro-processor, and forecast where that will be in just a few years, we’ll essentially be able to embed processors just about anywhere.

Google glass likely becomes a midway or introductory step towards the rapid growth of more tightly coupled human and technology integration.

The ability to measure nearly anything and build intelligent algorithms that sense, analyze, and respond in real time in any setting has significant implications for corporations, non-profit organizations, governments, the individuals that interact with them, and arguably every institution in existence today.

I believe the era ahead of us contains more surprises than we are expecting. The ability for people to harness the capabilities of the next generation of technological progress is also being democratized. In a networked world that evens the playing field for more of the world than it ever has will significantly increase competition, and co-opetition, and will ultimately lead to the creation and advance of what I’ve termed the Am-Hoc Value Chain. The trends will ultimately converge to create an integrated artificial intelligence enabled network that senses and responds to stated or anticipated customer needs with optimized solutions in real time across a tightly integrated and distributed network of manufacturers, distributors, raw materials suppliers, gathering data from sources deemed unfathomable today like shipping routes, weather patterns, currency exchange rates, and market conditions.

The construction of these next generation networks contains thousands of unknowns and will require a tremendous amount of effort. I look forward to collaborating with you along the journey.

This post is on behalf of the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya