Democracy in the age of the internet…

Democracy - a form of political organization in which all people, through consensus, direct referendum, or elected representatives exercise equal control over the matters which affect their interests. 

I was reading an interesting topic of discussion on Quora around whether or not Japanese girls were still the best predictor of future trends in technology. This question made me think about an interesting trend that I see which I refer to as the democratization of technology.

For years tomorrow's trends were found in the sea of neon of the Akihabara district in Tokyo, in the hands on hyper connected young women. One example is their pioneering use of SMS or text messaging as a communication method. Today I think next big thing lies in a very different demographic however. 

What I see technology trends being driven by a traditionally Luddite demographic. Yes, baby boomers.

The Nintendo Wii as a great example rode a wave of success built off a consumer base of seniors, women and other non gamers. Every day during my subway commute I see more and more people from my parents' generation playing Angry Birds or checking their email on an iPhone as well.

Apps are what pushed the iPhone in to the mainstream. They make software available to everyone without requiring a degree in computer science. Apps do two things incredibly well. First, they eliminate the hassles associated with installing and configuring traditional software. No media to worry about, no minimum specs, they just work. The other value of an app is the ability to focus specific content for a user. They clear away all the information clutter out there on the web. My mom's experience is an interesting example. She doesn't like using Google to search for information. Even with the algorithm they use to push the most relevant searches to the top, she finds the mere existence of ten thousand other options to be a headache. 

With an app all the information clutter is swept away. A restaurant finding app as an example gives my mom the ability to focus only on the information she wants - where to eat dinner. The app has removed what intimidated her most about the internet, too much information. The statistics show that she's not the only one.

In the world of B2B I see a similar trend of democratizing technology. The big buzzword of the day in that world is "cloud computing". I won't bother trying to define cloud since many have already done this. Instead I will state that I believe the value of the cloud is in empowering the little guys of the world to compete with the big guys.

Whether you're going to Amazon to subscribe to a server farm with no capital cost, or simply using Salesforce.com to manage your sales opportunities, all these services give small businesses and startups around the world access to infrastructure and applications formerly reserved only for massive corporations who had access to massive capital, and the time to build these complex systems. Now all you need is a credit card to subscribe to whatever infrastructure or applications you need freeing you up to focus on your core competency.

I find all this quite refreshing. By making technology more accessible, and importantly as accessibility becomes the driver of innovation we have made step in an exciting new direction…

This thing feels like plastic...

I’ve been playing the guitar since I was 12 years old.  I was lucky that I have a father who’s also been playing for many years.  He has always had a nice collection of Fender and Gibson guitars, and ever since I learned how to play an open E chord, I’ve been lucky enough to be spoiled by the sound and feel of some of the best instruments.

About 10 years ago, I was young and naïve, and was sold by marketing hype on a newer better design for an electric guitar from a company called Parker.  The slick glossies that I came across had me salivating at the thought of a new and better way to play my music.  Could these things actually make me a better musician?

Alas, once I had a chance to get in to my local music store, and pulled a brand new Parker Fly off the wall, and played the first few bars of Bark at The Moon I was sadly disappointed.  To me, it felt like a piece of plastic and really added nothing to my music playing experience.  If anything these new super light guitars made my playing worse.  This clearly wasn’t making me a better musician.

This was a tremendously important lesson to me.  Innovation for the sake of innovation has little value.  The world of enterprise software is ripe with vendors making this mistake.  The latest example of this to me is Cloud Computing.  I think vendors need to take a step back and really ask themselves - Will this help organizations do things in a better or easier way?  Virtualization has been so disruptive to the world of enterprise software, that vendors are in a state of catch-up, and most are trying to make up for their deficits with more jargon.

To me vendors need to first ask more questions, and make fewer statements.

Can automation be used to help IT managers improve efficiency without sounding like outsourcing?  Can user identity be a point of access control that can be the key to leveraging shared internet resources?  I think these are the conversations that need to happen today.  How do you readers out there feel about the promises being made by cloud computing?  Are we in the midst of a large marketing exercise, or can these new technology help us all to do better business?  

I for one don’t believe anyone is in the market for another plastic guitar…