14-December-2019 By Jeffrey Cooper

Ways of Thinking- An Introduction (Part 1)

I’ve been considering for some time a series of articles that follow my passion for innovation and new ideas, particularly around (but not limited to) the area of IoT. Before I publish those articles, I felt that an introduction and a framework for those ideas was needed, to put in context the thought process that went into them and how they are intended to be interpreted. There isn’t anything particularly groundbreaking in my approach other than this is my flavor of it and it tends to start out with the broad view and an endpoint before honing the details.

My background is rather diverse. My technical years started in digital and analog design, followed by software development and architecture. I started in Defense and then moved on to the Mobile industry, where I’ve spent 2/3 of my career. In the mobile industry, I’ve split my time between R&D management and Business Development, which is where I find myself today.

Shaped by these varied jobs over the years, my approach tends to be holistic, drawing on my entire background, and I look for creative approaches. I understand hardware capabilities and limitations, software and system architectures, and keep current on new technologies and extrapolate where technology will evolve.

Areas of Interest

The things I find interesting and gravitate towards are all things IOT- Internet of Things. I view this as the culmination of computing. Computing elements are distributed. Some, like smartphones, are full-fledged computing devices on their own. Others, like watches, are mini-versions of it. Less powerful, but no less important, are other things like sensors, location emitters (beacons), servers in the cloud, and so forth. The Internet of Things is simply devices to serve a specific purpose, many with just enough processing power (if any at all), to do their task. They can be low power, small, and uncomplicated much of the time. But, and this is critical, they all mesh together into a web of communications. Some of it is WiFi, some of it is BlueTooth, some Zigbee, 5G or whatever. At the end of the day, they all talk in one way or the other, to each other, whether through meshes, edge networks or the cloud as a whole. Each one brings additional data into play, and together, the data creates a context by which to interpret it.

When you have a system like this, the best way to manage it from a Human Perspective, is to hide the complexity to the User/Actor, to keep it as simple as possible. The next article in particular will detail my approach to the User Experience, or UX and various UI’s contained within it. The end goal is to create an Elegant System that is innately usable with little, to no instruction beyond the user installing the requisite apps and logging in.

Philosophy

When looking at a solution idea, I start broadly. What is it I’m trying to do? I think big and think future. All things are considered- for now. Later, I can backtrack based on feasibility.

I look at a scenario and imagine what it would be, if it were perfect. What are the players (actors) in that system? What technologies exist or might exist to give context and help interpret what is happening in a given situation? What are the limitations and what if those limitations didn’t exist?

With that view, you have what I call The Final Solution, or the Obvious Conclusion. It’s where a particular scenario will end up when every problem is solved. Once you envision this perfect scenario, then you can start to suss out what is doable sooner and what will take a while. And, it informs you of how to future-proof the solution so that when problems are solved, you can slot new elements into the solution without so much hassle.

If you just jump in and tackle the easy stuff without having this vision, you may very well end up with a rather inflexible solution that cannot adapt to known unknowns, or worse, those unknown unknowns.

Capturing The Idea

I always start with a Mind Map. It’s a visual tool I’ve grown to love. While they are essentially a glorified Outline, they are visual, like me, and help me easily visualize and fluidly update my thoughts on the fly. It also helps to clear the mind of clutter, destress, take some deep breaths, meditate for a few minutes, get out of the four walls. Ideas flow more freely when undistracted by other things.

Generally I just use them at the start, and the details very likely will evolve and change as I go through the journey. But they make a good starting point. For example, I used a Mind Map to sketch out how this article would flow:

As mentioned above, in a given scenario that you are tackling, work towards a mature solution definition. If all possible capabilities are in place, what does it look like? Assume some technologies may still not be fully developed (you can leave those out until a later date). When you know the destination, the journey to get there becomes clearer, and you have to some extent, an amount of future-proofing built into the framework.

For example, you know in the coming years that the following technologies will get better:

1. Communications- NFC, BLE, WiFi, Cellular, meshes, cellular
2. Sensors- more and more sensors will become commercially viable over time, and those existing today will get more sensitive and more accurate
3. Battery Capacity- battery capacity will improve, as will energy harvesting (currently this is still in an early stage of research) that will extend the life of batteries, if not eliminate them entirely
4. AI

As you define a system, consider points of friction. Frequently these are in they User Interface. But they can also be related to setup, calibration and maintenance. You want a system that is not fussy for the user, which means as much automation as possible. Importantly, it should not fussy for the tenant, either. As more industries become infused with technology, you don’t want everyday types of businesses to have to hire full-time IT specialists just to run the thing. It needs to be simple for all involved.

Breaking it Down

As I work backwards from the big picture, I break it into blocks that can be implemented in sequence, starting with basic capabilities first, then layering in additional elements. I consider the ROI that comes from each block. Each block helps address a particular problem or creates a particular boost or new product or service offering. Sometimes, just a few new pieces of information can have a dramatic impact on your business.

Don’t throw out data unnecessarily. Over time, the mindset of the tenants will change and adapt to understanding that more data is now available that they did not have in the past. A good system will allow for the tenant to what-if with the data to improve their business as their mindset evolves, and they discover new efficiencies, services, products or even new business models. Don’t limit yourself to system-generated data. Allow for outside datasets as well, such as weather, economic data, traffic- whatever data may be relevant to your business.

Not all information should be viewed by the users. Many data points may go into making a decision. Or a user may see some summary of a set of interactions, while the tenant is informed in ways they can make their business better, and make the lives of their users better by offering better services and products.

Consider the ownership and privacy of that data. While personal data can be used in an agreed service model with the customer, it cannot be disclosed to others without their consent. Aggregate data can be depersonalized for business intelligence. And consider the security of your system, as with more connected nodes, there are additional avenues for bad actors.

This Can Apply to Any Solution

Over the years I’ve come up with a number of scenarios, from photography to home automation to fitness. I follow this same approach, though this is the first time I have attempted to put it in writing.

While on the surface it appears to be boiling the ocean, it is meant to show the ultimate endpoint- the Obvious Conclusion, and a path towards getting there, with less onerous, more easily implementable steps to get you there. And, depending on your business and business model, you don’t have to implement all of it. What I have found is I need to be careful to pitch these as iterative and meant to be built out, not jump into the deep end and be in over your head.

In coming articles, I will go through various scenarios and explain as I go. But first, the next article will take this one step further that is specific to IOT systems: Immersive Spaces: UX In The Real World (Part 2). Stay tuned.