| As a regular citizen, you should consider the following: E-mail PDA. If you do not already have a digital "data" wireless device, get one. Being able to access e-mail (and Web pages, scant as they may be right now) is a critical tool in staying connected. Ignore the worry of being "too connected." You can control how often and when you glance to see whether you have new e-mail or text messages. You will likely discover that being able to lightly keep up with e-mail wherever you are is a stress reliever. No longer will you be running to your home computer the moment you come in the door. As people learn that you receive e-mail wherever you are, they will call you less often, which will save you time. You will have phone numbers and soccer field directions and correspondences at your fingertips no matter where you are. You will be able to stay closer in touch with your children, who will naturally choose to communicate this way. Work@home. If you have not done so already, speak with your employer about working some hours at home. Perhaps you can avoid rush-hour traffic entirely by working 10 to 2. Or work Mondays and Fridays at home like some major companies are doing today. Remind your manager of increased "work" time due to less travel and that you're willing to take customer calls at odd hours. If necessary, ask your employer to pay for your cell phone and/or home office phone and subscribe to a cell e-mail service along with a newer device to better handle text messaging. If you choose to work offsite more, you must back fill with requisite technology to smooth out the overall operation. Get your kids a text/cell device. Get your kids and spouse all on the same wireless plan, which hopefully offers free cell-to-cell calls. The cost for an additional line from most carriers is incredibly low, and most offer free cell-to-cell air time on the same plan. Staying closely connected to your kids and spouse is of paramount importance in the new world. Problems can arise faster than ever before, and the consequences can be higher than in the past. Do you really want to be less connected to your family members? Consider getting one of the new text-only devices for your kids, which is not only cheaper but more in sync with efficient information exchange in a less-interruptive fashion. Get your doctors to send SMS and e-mail reminders. Ask your doctors whether they have considered using electronic reminders. At a minimum, they should be able to send e-mail notification of appointments. (If you have an e-mail-capable PDA, that is all you will need.) It is in their interest (as well as yours), but they may be far enough behind the connected curve to not know that such capabilities are easily provided by their Internet provider. Get your doctors to move to electronic records and get access. Ask your doctors whether they are using electronic records now. If they are not, you should be insistent that they move toward an electronic record-keeping system soon. If they are, ask whether you can have access to your and your family member's records. If you do get access, be sure to archive and save any records you have access to. Consider home video-surveillance devices. Wireless IP cameras are quite inexpensive and likely you have at least one stationary computer in your house. Hooking up a wireless surveillance system is not very difficult. It does not have to be a "spy"-type camera hiding behind a bookshelf. It can be a simple device trained on a back entryway or a staircase to the bedroom. If there was ever a break-in or theft, the value of such data could be enormous. Furthermore, it is not a bad idea to be able to glance at your PDA while at a restaurant and be able to see that your house is not burning.
As an employer, you should consider the following: Instant messaging. If you are not insisting that all your employees run an instant messaging application at all times, you are missing out on one of the biggest productivity tools created in the past two decades. Beyond productivity, IM brings back a sense of community to your workers, and they will more happily "log on" in the evenings and off hours because, unlike e-mail, they can see who else is on and have an interactive correspondence. They will be more productive on conference calls, and, in general, command and control will have fewer barriers and more expediency throughout your organization (as we saw even in military operations). Groupware. Similarly, if your company is not exploiting the newer groupware technologies, it is missing out on a huge productivity boost. Many companies run applications such as Lotus Notes or use Web servers to share materials. Although that is fine, it is a far cry from the more modern tools that allow highly secure and rapid setup that spans customers and partners easily. Groove is one such application that we used to create this book. Imagine producing a 100,000-word book in full collaboration with a partner and never actually meeting in person (to discuss the book, that is). This entire book was done through virtual office collaboration software as well as a constant stream of e-mails and IMs and text messages. As an employer, any projects you have going with partner companies or customers should consider using groupware tools for document exchange and efficient information and project sharing. Work@home. Work@home is good for companies and employers alike. Put aside the annual savings of no (or limited) office space; in the new world, flexibility will be the key attractor to successful businesses. The big challenge, as an employer, is successfully navigating these flexible waters. As an employer, do not be afraid to worry about how to successfully manage this new work force. There are agencies and consultants that can help manage the control anxiety and provide tips on successful remote management tactics.It is not without concern. Flexibility could be abused by the remote work force, and astute managers will stay very close to their remote employees...virtually, of course.
As a factory owner, you should consider the following: Open up. First and foremost, relax, and open up your business systems. Allow your value chain to tie deeply into your systems and require a corresponding relationship yourself. Use tools that provide the right level of encryption and security, but be very open-minded to a new self-serve and automated-fulfillment mentality. Barriers and checkpoints will only slow your business down. We have grown through decades of business barriers that we do not even recognize because to us they are normal boundaries, much like lanes on a highway. Now, imagine no lanes. Are you ready to manage this new flexibility? Beware, your competitors might be. Turn upside down. Manufacturing business in the developed nations will return, but only to those that are able to forget about 10 percent improvements. Business managers who are able to see the 100 percent or 500 percent improvement methods will allow major manufacturing businesses to return to the developed nations. Why? Because the primary reason for offshoring is labor costs, and when we eliminate or reduce the majority of labor costs (through automation and advanced tools), we can once again manufacture locally. The big win in local manufacturing: meeting the new breed of customer expectations for customization and rapid delivery (which simply cannot be adequately achieved if manufactured 12,000 miles away). Turn your operations upside down. Do not think inventory, think wireless, RFID, humanless business tie-ins, GPS on transport equipment and containers, and continuous contact to all principals of the value chain. Pioneer, and ye shall reap the rewards. Video. Consider exploiting the power of video-controlled production. Wireless intelligent video-processing systems have come a long way and can reduce labor costs while improving speed and, most importantly, quality. Furthermore, there is significant historical value in accumulated images, somewhat similar to Massachusetts General accumulating decades' worth of radiological data. You may able to mine your own manufacturing-image data. At a minimum, you should be able to achieve automation and real-time control, hopefully to the extent that you can increase the amount of manufacturing done in the developed nations (to allow for faster time-to-customer and more customizations). Wireless video can also be used simply to allow for better two-way visual links between people on a manufacturing line and the storeroom or management offices. In the past, setting up CCTV links was expensive and cumbersome; today, it is trivial and trivial to rearrange. Bring the manufacturing people and operation closer together via video. RFID. To what extent are you currently using RFID? What are your plans going forward? Not having a plan and being in manufacturing is like ignoring the automobile and staying with a horse-drawn carriage. Tracking in-process and finished goods from end to end and throughout the value chain is of paramount importance going forward. Wireless sensing technology such as RFID allows for more efficient tracking (than bar code wanding). Even if your products will not carry RFID tags for a few years, you can begin by tagging your mobile equipment such as forklifts, pallets, large containers, and so forth. Improve your business systems to absorb this new data and associate it to products in process and transit. The data will not only cut down on shrinkage, it will be an open window to efficiency improvements teased out of the accumulated data. Wireless. Wireless technology is not just about allowing computers and laptops to be able to communicate with your corporate infrastructure. A great many other wireless devices can be inexpensively tied into your production facility. We saw how GM was using "easily movable" wireless buttons on assembly lines to simply notify forklift trucks of the need for more materials. The new world is all about rapid reconfiguration and providing signals, and communications without wires can greatly improve reconfiguration time. Step back and see your whole manufacturing operation as a highly flexible invisibly connected set of people and machines.
As a retail owner, you should consider the following: RFID. RFID tags are forthcoming on products as well as crates and packages. Are you currently gearing up for this change? RFID will notably help cut down on shrinkage, which is a clear concern to every retailer. As importantly, however, it will increase sales by better shelf-inventory management. Start thinking of other creative uses of RFID-tagged goods beyond the obvious of instant-checkout and shrinkage-related uses. There will be an enormous amount of data spewing out of these tags ready to be mined by the curious retailershopping patterns (which products are selected before others), time in the basket or cart, frequency of withdrawals from the cart, to name just a few. Video tracking. As you learned in Chapter 10, "Connecting to Retail," we are at the very beginning phases of passively monitoring our shoppers through the use of video-surveillance systems. Video cameras, now wireless, are affordable and can be deployed in large numbers to perfectly cover a retail location. New software will emerge that helps not just count but also track customers, which will provide invaluable data for the retailer. Customization. Going forward, the convenience and 24-hour nature of the Web will continue to threaten many physical retail establishments. Extreme service, including detailed customizations of products, will help retain customers (both for physical and virtual stores). We are seeing a customer base that wants some control and differentiation over the products they buy and at the same time are not looking to pay a premium or experience a delay. Successful retailers (and manufacturers) will exploit real-time technologies and business integration to better produce custom products. Similarly, physical stores will have to grow in services and entertainment to draw people away from the Web and into their store.
As a doctor, you should consider the following: Electronic records. If you have not already moved to electronic patient records, do so quickly. Work with consortiums and medical groups to drive standards and commonality. Strive to provide XML-based exports of records and allow patients access to the records themselves. The values in so doing are both higher efficiency/convenience but also far better patient care as a result of more accurate patient histories and better doctor-to-doctor patient hand-offs. Calendaring. Missed appointments are not just aggravating but incredibly expensive, for both doctors and the patients alike. In the new world, we are squeezed to an unprecedented degree for near-perfect utilization of time. We simply cannot afford schedule and calendar boo boos (for either party). The good news is that our patients are more "connected" than ever before (because of wireless cellular devices mostly), and thus, we should be able to have rapid bidirectional schedule communication conversations (hopefully nonvoice). Similarly, patients have a need to self-schedule and reschedule, but need the doctors to provide convenient access to their calendars. As an industry, doctors should come together and drive standards so that patients do not have to relearn each doctor's own tools and technology for something as basic as making an appointment. Amass data. Amassing patient data will allow yourself and various researchers to gather insight from a growing body of medical information. These new insights will lead to better diagnosis, more expediency, and higher confidence in prescribed treatments. As a civilization, the more accumulated data on our medical conditions and treatments, the better our chances for higher survival and quality of life. It begins with accumulating data in readily reusable form and then the application of analytical tools to that data.
We could go on and on throughout every vertical segment we examined in the course of this book. Many of the themes repeat over and over again: Exploit wireless, exploit RFID, exploit GPS, use XML everywhere possible, amass data, cross data streams for higher insight, provide customers/patrons with higher participation, and so forth. Many suggestions are obvious, but the bigger values will come from a further step back and reexamining your overall operation (or life situation) with a fresh perspective about how these new exciting technologies can be combined for some impressive benefits. |
