Long time, no speak

There is lots going on in the world right now.
It rained in September in Silicon Valley. And the electronics industry is beginning a new shift.
In the world of wireless where I work, lots of trends are starting to emerge.
The first is the concept of tiered networks. A network can be defined as an interconnected group or system.
Common attributes bring people together, and there is one massive network formed on top of the World Wide Web. This evolution of the telecommunications network now carries much more data than just voice. Over this, we are immersed in a world of digital content like voice calls, video conferences, email, instant messages, photos, music, and video.
The new layer of this network is the one of communities. It adds a human element to the concept, hence companies like Cisco becoming the "Human Network."
The second concept in this world of human networks is that they create value. Advertising, premium subscriptions, and other services are now running on top of this network where people can connect to one another around the world.
The third concept in this network is the ability to manage many types of content via feeds in a widget. These widgets are not blocks manufactured in the factory. Rather, these widgets are small applications that allow you to quickly access relevant data. Whether that data is personal or meant for the world, we are just now starting to see the value of being able to break things apart and host them with many services running together.
Stay tuned for more....

Networked Innovation

I spend a lot of time with the electronics industry and the people who improve our lives everyday with innovative products.
What I have come to realize is that the greatest ideas are simple ones with a single goal - to make people's lives better. Whether you are talking about Web 2.0 services, the latest home electronics products, or the ultimate mobile device, it rings true.
The concept of Networked Innovation is nothing new. As networks around us get faster and the services that are carried on it begin to increase, life is supposed to be getting easier by having these devices connect directly to network services.
Let's test the logic here. A digital camera lets you take and store pictures until you can get back to a computer, where you can email, upload, and print your pictures over a network. An iPod lets you listen to music and organize your music collection when you are on the go from a PC connected to a network. A TiVo lets you store programs to watch later, without living your life by the electronic program guide, scheduling recordings from a PC connected to the Internet. And the PC seems to be the hub of everything.
Innovation for the consumer is headed back towards the PC because it is the single thing that is connected to a network, easy to program, and can interact with a number of devices.
A new trend is emerging, allowing products to stand on their own two feet. Every device is connected to a number of networks, but each of these networks has their own set of rules.
Each set of rules is set by the people who use it, and this is the heart of the Web 2.0 trend, and will remain with us through Consumer 3.0.