In the course of discussions the question was asked “Is their Good Technology and Bad Technology?”. I thought this was an odd question and paused momentarily. Now perhaps it was the fact that I had recently gone through the increasingly security conscious immigration process past all those pistol-packing officials (seriously has an immigration officer ever pulled their weapon and threatened, let alone shot, a prospective immigrant because they had filled in the wrong box on the form?!), but I was reminded of the unshakeable mantra of the National Rifle Association here in the United States – “Guns don’t kill people!”.  Now call me a timid Brit, but my natural aversion to firearms always induces my silent response to this claim “…. but they sure make it a lot easier”.

The same I fear is true of technology. Like guns, technology has no morals, murderous intent or values – it is just stuff. There is no good technology or bad technology but there does appear to be an awful lot of bad implementation! Good technology applied badly usually ends up with the technology getting the blame, usually because it cannot answer back!

Like Darwinian Evolution the good implementations survive, bad ones decay. As Anthropologist and Intel research fellow Genevieve Bell told me some time back – “Technology succeeds when it meets a need that people care about!”. If the technology deployment doesn’t meet a need – it is doomed to extinction. If it doesn’t do anything that people care about, it is equally doomed. Think about that the next time you get seduced by the flashy new toys from the technology sector. Find the need. Find the people who care – and you will succeed!

After attending the giant Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for the past couple of years a more rigorous application of prudence in travelling expenses means my feet get a rest this year!  I’ll simply let my fingers do the walking (Hey! that sounds like a good marketing tagline for an information source!).  I will miss the buzz and the sense of actually being there, but I also feel that (despite the strident market messages from the organisers to the contrary) such mammoth geek-fests have probably passed their peak. Remember Comdex?  The next few days will be spent immersed in blogs, web trawling and chatting with the Gartner analysts who are on site (and didn’t have so far to travel) to see what has caught other people’s eyes and try to make sense of it away from the objectivity sapping environment that is Vegas during CES (objective analysis is tough when all you can think about is your feet!).

But back to form factors and tablets. What we are are seeing here is a continuation of the long tail decline of the mouse, keyboard and screen (no pun intended). Touch screens are everywhere (although I am stunned by the prospects of Sony’s giant 24 inch version), driven onwards by the growing ubiquity of multi-touch on our portable devices. Devices in this category are going to continue to challenge the dominance of the conventional mouse and keyboard – if only we can get our heads around the fundamental question “but what is it good for?”. The answer to that is equally simple “we will find out in due course!”. The road to innovation is rarely defined by the constrained thinking of the existing product lines. It is a bit like those amazing catalogues of kitchen and household gadgets – full of stuff you didn’t even know existed and yet now you find that they have become a “must have”! We will find out what tablets are good for, and in a few years time, with the benefit of hindsight, will wonder how we missed it for all those years. Tablets, surface computers, gaming stations, free air inertial controllers – the human computer interface is changing whether you like it or not.

But back to tablets. What we have seen so far is merely posturing and skirmishing. Everyone knows that the only one that matters is whatever emerges from Cupertino in due course. Of course we all know that Apple isn’t producing a tablet computer (well at least not officially). But you don’t need to be Einstein to realise that if anyone can break the deadlock of “what is it actually good for?” then Apple probably can. They don’t develop new products, they redefine social behaviour around technology with engaging user-experiences. Mind you, they have had their share of failures, but recent form has been pretty solid so if I was a competitor that is not the outcome that I would be relying on.

Maybe we will find out later this month, or maybe not. In the meantime, lots more fun, gadgets and gizmos from Las Vegas to pass the time!

I was at CeBIT in Hannover last week. Apart from the fact that my feet very rapidly reminded me of why, in the past, I resolved never to go again, it was an interesting experience.  I was moderating a panel on the business value of Virtual Worlds (more of which in a later post) but had the opportunity to work my way round some of the stands looking for interesting new developments. I didn’t find a lot I have to admit.

What I did find was a half empty hall devoted to “Green IT” (maybe NOT being there was the greenest strategy!) and another hall simply overflowing with cooling devices for CPUs. Water cooling, forced air cooling, you name it they had it.  It seems that when it comes to “sweating your assets” CPUs are having a hard time of it these days. I’m not sure what this contrasting set of exhibits says about the state of the industry today, but it seems we still cannot get enough horsepower.

There are news reports this morning that Microsoft is looking to acquire the Israeli startup 3DV Systems, makers of the Z-cam depth sensing camera. Whilst their interest may initially be in the gaming space to support the X-box, expect to see this technology moving into broader applications in the coming months. This field is full of startups, many in stealth mode, and this will not be the last acquisition we see in 2009. As I said at the start of the year – 3D is going to be BIG!

“So the question I have for you” he said, leaning back in his chair with the start of a wry smile on his face, “is this – we’ve done all this stuff for our Gen Y workforce – But what has Gen Y ever done for me?”.  Shades of Monty Python and the Romans!! It is a difficult question to answer, because many of the usual benefits about innovation and morale, recruitment and retention, productivity and collaboration are all difficult to measure, there is lots of soft benefits, but not a lot to wave at the CFO come budget time.

Now clearly, since actions speak louder than words, he believed that what he had done was necessary or it would never have happened, but the current conditions often require us to go back and measure and document the benefits. “What has Gen Y ever done for us?” is a very good question and I would welcome your answers (on a digital postcard please!). And don’t bother to mention the roads, or the sewage system – I’ve already got that on the list!

One of the benefits of travelling is that you get to read a lot – and on a flight down to Melbourne (where the weather, mercifully, has returned to something a little more normal) I read avery thought provoking article in Wired regarding the use of geosocial applications (applications which automatically provide information about your location). The writer, Mathew Honan provides a good summary of the benefits but, for the first time in my experience, also drives home the dangers of revealing too much about where you are – like where you are NOT (the negative space thing). For example, tell the world you are going on a trip (and even provide proof of how far you have got) and announce to the world that your house is now empty, time for a little burglary perhaps?

Sure, a smart hacker can gain this information from your cellular carrier, but should we really make it that simple, especially as the law enforcement authorities expect an increase in “acquisitive crime” during economic downturns?

This article might just make you more cautious about revealing too much!

Now this might seem an obvious thing to say, but judging from the questions I get asked, it is worth saying again, and again, and again!  First understand what you are trying to achieve, who is going to use the environment, from where and for what purpose. Understand what you mean by success, and how you are going to measure it. Understand your capabilities (in a technical sense) and those of your users. Understand the likely scale and growth of your requirements – is it a short term trial or a long term deployment that will grow and (hopefully) grow and grow?

Then, and only then, are you ready to start looking at technology platforms.  Choose a platform too early and, since most of us find it tough to admit we made a mistake, you will end up trying to push a square peg into a round hole – with all too predictable results.  Apart from anything else, the market is still evolving at a fairly rapid pace, with new products coming out of beta and existing products becoming more stable and scaleable all the time.

Do yourself a favour – leave the technology decision till last!

Two examples to illustrate this. My children frequently use YouTube in the way that most of us oldies use Google – as a search engine to find a video to show them how to do something rather than a (text-based) description. The requests can be as diverse as the steps for a new dance move or instructions on how to put a watermark on an image in Photoshop. The combination of millions of people being able to create video “tutorials”, upload and publish them, with huge online storage and a service that allows users to search for them (and all for free) is a powerful and compelling of what technology can do.

The second example combines the power of images and the social community that develops around a big event. Photosynth was developed by Microsoft Labs and made available some time ago. It stitches together multiple images to create a panoramic, almost 3D view of a scene but it does it automatically. The recent inauguration provided a wonderful example of what it can do. Literally thousands of people who were in Washington DC on the day have uploaded their pictures from wherever they were and Photosynth has created an incredible panoramic image that perfectly captures the “moment” in a way that a single individual, taking photos from a single vantage point, would never have been able to. A perfect combination of images and an “on the day” community to capture a moment in history with a powerful image that owes everything to technology.

This was organised and hosted by CNN and MSNBC. Check it out.

So nestling in my inbox this morning was the usual crop of emails from various colleagues with a growing number ending in the rather lame disclaimer “Sent from my wireless device, please excuse the typos”.

I’m afraid that just sums up my feelings about these devices – they are clearly unfit for the purpose if you have to excuse your inability to type correctly on every message. What is often even more hilarious (although it could be totally catastrophic) is when the so-called “smart” device (who says it’s smart? what is it’s IQ? where are the qualifications?) kindly takes it upon itself to complete the word it thought you were trying to type and you don’t notice in your hurry to get to the next critical phase of your day! I have had some howlers in the past – feel free to contribute!