When the Robots Are Driving the Tractor

Last evening, as I stayed up far too late reveling in the latest Red Sox baseball club disaster, (sorry Red Sox fan - but your 'nation' has now surpassed Yankee fan for sheer obnoxiousness. You used to be able to pull off that 'lovable loser' angle pretty well, but ever since you won the World Series you have taken on this entitled and smug attitude that is really off-putting. So there.), I was skimming through a few blogs and caught this article on the Endless Innovation blog that stopped my cold:

'When Robots Run Our Nation's Farms'.

The piece is, obviously, about the development of robotic and other automated machinery to improve the speed and efficiency of many time, labor, and capital intensive farming practices. Additionally, this latest generation of agricultural robotics will also help farmers with higher-value and complex decision making. From the Endless Innovation piece:

A new generation of robot drones is revolutionizing the way we farm in America, with Kinze Manufacturing and Jaybridge Roboticsrecently announcing the first-ever robot drone tractor capable of farming without the need for a human operator. Video clips are already circulating online of the Kinze tractor, gracefully coordinating its harvest dance with other autonomous machines. Once this robot drone tractor becomes part of the agricultural mainstream, robots will decide where to plant, when to harvest and how to choose the best route for crisscrossing the farmland. Humans, except perhaps as neutral trouble-shooters, will be all but unneeded. So what does it mean when robots run our nation’s farms? 

It is a good question, and one the piece doesn't really have a good answer for, probably because these trends are still relatively new in large-scale commercial farming. But technology improving, enhancing, or replacing what was formerly human, manual labor and effort is certainly nothing new. We deal with this phenomenon every day practically in our homes and workplaces.

Last night I ordered a pizza online from a local shop, the order was automatically transmitted and printed out in the store, someone (it might have been a robot), made the pizza, and I received an email when the pizza would be ready for pickup. Since I had pre-paid online with a credit card, all I did when I arrived at the shop was tell them my name and walk away with the food. If we add in some theoretical process efficiencies in the shop, (RFID codes, automatic supply replenishment, delivery driver dispatch tools, etc.), it is pretty clear that the modern pizza shop could, like the modern farms described above, produce much more output that ever before, while employing far fewer people to do the work.

Since many of the folks reading this are involved in the development, analysis, implementation, and advocacy of the latest and most wonderful technologies that we believe will enable organizations and individuals to derive increased value, benefit, and (hopefully) profit assisted by our efforts, we'd also be wise to think about the longer-term effects of these technology-enabled improvements. What legacy to these technologies help shape and what happens to the organization left behind?

Going back to the 'robot-farmer' example - someone used to have to drive the tractor that we've now turned over to the new, unmanned system. Hopefully as a result of this breakthrough new technology, that farmer is now able to spend more time studying the markets, providing customer service, volunteering in the community, helping his kids with their homework, or heck, even getting to know his cows better.

Because that would be probably the only real and meaningful benefit of handing the keys to the tractor over to the robots. If the technology only serves to make the process more efficient, but not so efficient that the farmer needs to find another line of work to survive - well then I'd think most of us would be happy to pay a few extra cents for our tomatoes next year.

In case you are interested - below is a video of one of the 'robot driven tractors' in action - (email and RSS subscribers click through)

Have a great day!

Creative Destruction Coming Soon (or not so soon), To Your Mailbox

My suspicion is when email was invented some thirty-odd years ago I suspect its invetor didn't think to him or herself - 'Wow! This is fantastic! I imagine this will render the post office largely useless, and put hundreds of thousands of postal workers out on the street!'

Rather, once the usefulness of email began to be sensed, and it started to gain traction, eventually becoming the most incredible and powerful communications technology ever invented, its creators must have felt justifiably proud and encouraged by their brainchild. Email, and other web-powered technologies, have certainly helped to usher in the new, connected age. Email, as the first and still largest social network has enabled the type of connection, collaboration, and information sharing that would have been unfathomable only a few decades ago.

And for the better part of its trajectory as a tool, email has generally been seen as beneficial and certainly today, necessary for the successful conduct of commerce, education, and even in the Facebook age, socialization. Don't argue with me on that last point, how many of you get your Facebook notifications as email messages?

So while email has again generally been the 'killer app' of the last few decades, as I alluded to in the opening paragraph of this post, not all the changes brought about by email, (and more generally the connected, information age), have been so positive. And no, highly-paid professionals whining about the hundreds of unread messages in their Inbox is not what I'm talking about. If you're complainging about unopened emails to anyone, well then, you need to shut it. Talk to me when you have some real problems.

Like, by manner of transition, the problems soon to be encountered by potentially tens if not hundreds of thousands of US Postal Workers. Certainly you've heard about the financial troubles facing the US Postal Service? Massive deficit, declining demand for their services, and a public seemingly not all that sympathetic to their plight. As this piece on CNN.com point out, people are sending 22% fewer pieces of mail than just four years ago, and according to the author, this drop in volume is largely due to email and other forms of electronic communication replacing traditional mail.

The decrease in volume, (and for most of us customers), decline in importance of the traditional postal service is not all that surprising I guess. That's what 'progress' is after all, right? Smart men and women, (and in this modern age even kids), creating, combining, extending inventions and technologies that improve processes, create new and fantastic ways of generating value, and often, make our lives better, richer, and more fulfilling. And despite the whiny cries of spoiled adults, email has been one of those technologies. Most of us can't imagine a world without it. 

But the demise of the post office and the postal service, and the likely redundancies of many, many thousands of good people still to come at least to me is really kind of sad.

For untold millions of Americans, their connection to the world beyond their immediate neighborhoods and towns was solely facilitated by the postal service. Long before nervous parents could get an email or even a Skype call from a son or daughter away at college, or worse, off fighting in a war in some distant land, there was the letter home, and the anxious moments watching the postman approaching the door while thinking, 'Today's the day. I'm sure we'll hear something today'.

That anticipation, and the disappointment that often accompanied a delivery of nothing but bills or junk mail is largely a fading memory, (or a 'never-experienced' memory if there is such a thing), for most.

Soon, the postal service will stop Saturday delivery. Then maybe they will drop Fridays, and they'll consider raising the prices of first-class mail, and close lots of local offices and distribution centers - but some would say it is all, already too late. Email, and the nine million other ways people and organizations can communicate that usurp the postal service show no signs of loosening their collective death grip around the postal service's throat.

But it has been a pretty amazing run. For a few cents really, even still today, you can drop a card or letter in a small blue metal box, anywhere in the country, and someone in a blue uniform will pick it up for you and after some under-the-covers magic happens, someone else in a blue uniform will hand deliver it  anywhere in the United States. In just a couple of days. For just a few cents.

It is still, to me, a remarkable illustration of organization, process efficiency, and yes - even technology.

Better take advantage of it while you still can. And start explaining to Grandma how she might not to be able to send the Grandkids their Hallmark Cards with the $10 bill in them for very much longer.

Used as Delivered: Why Grandma's VCR was always blinking 12:00

One of the best features of most modern technologies, whether designed for use inside the enterprise, or for consumer or leisure time pursuits, is the flexibility, adaptability, and personalization capability of these solutions or devices.

Software programs are usually almost infinitely customizable - with a myriad of settings and options that users can manipulate and alter to suit their unique needs. Newer gadgets like smartphones and tablets are replete with their own sets of menu and option settings, and the applications and programs we load onto these devices typically come with their own options and opportunities for us the users to shape the behavior and functionality of these applications to meet our needs. Choice - and the ability to form, create, and adapt our computing and technological environments to our precise needs has never been more within our grasp.

In fact, particularly in software solutions designed for and sold to enterprise and corporate users, this ability to 'shape' or personalize the technology to meet company, work function, and even individual needs is quite often touted as one of the most attractive and beneficial features of the solution.

Certainly, enterprise software companies can't predict and thus design for all the potential differences and nuances in organizational processes, practices, and preferences; thus by building in the capability for end users to maintain some control of the operation and interface of said software solutions, they can offer the benefits of almost custom or bespoke applications, but still with the reliability, structure, and process discipline of good enterprise software.

But does all this flexibility and personalization capability in both enterprise and consumer technologies and devices really get exploited by the majority of end users to tailor their experiences, and be extension, improve the utility of these solutions and gadgets? Well chances are, not so much. Check some of the observations about software users and default settings from a study of Microsoft Word users on the User Interface Engineering blog:

We asked a ton of people to send us their settings file for Microsoft Word. At the time, MS Word stored all the settings in a file named something like config.ini, so we asked people to locate that file on their hard disk and email it to us. Several hundred folks did just that.

We then wrote a program to analyze the files, counting up how many people had changed the 150+ settings in the applications and which settings they had changed.

What we found was really interesting. Less than 5% of the users we surveyed had changed any settings at all. More than 95% had kept the settings in the exact configuration that the program installed in.

This was particularly curious because some of the program’s defaults were notable. For example, the program had a feature that would automatically save your work as edited a document, to prevent losing anything in case of a system or program failure. In the default settings for the version we analyzed, this feature was disabled. Users had to explicitly turn it on to make it work.

Of course, this mean that 95% of the users were running with autosave turned off. When we interviewed a sample of them, they all told us the same thing: They assumed Microsoft had delivered it turned off for a reason, therefore who were they to set it otherwise. “Microsoft must know what they are doing,” several of the participants told us.

I think there is some really useful advice in this little experiment with MS Word users, while building in flexibility and options and choice is certainly important in any modern software solution or new device, those of us involved in building or deploying these kinds of technologies should keep in mind it is likely only a very small minority will leverage the flexibility and personalization features we tout so stridently and spend so much time developing.

While choice, options, and freedom to adapt technology are all necessary components in the modern enterprise and consumer software age, let's not forget there is quite a lot to commend software and hardware solutions that simply work. Turn them on, activate them, answer a few questions in configuration sure - but the sooner solutions can start solving business problems and delivering positive impact to users, without asking users to morph into armchair software developers is really the hallmark of a great solution.

So I'll toss the question out to the readers - how important is flexibililty and personalization in your technologies and how important is it to you for them to simply work right away?

I want my MTV, I mean my workforce apps

MTV was in the news this week, as the venerable network of 'Video Killed the Radio Star', 'Beavis and Butt-head', and more recently 'Jersey Shore' celebrated its 30th anniversary. Over the 30-year run MTV has certainly changed its focus, direction, and strategy, and as many observers are quick to note, the network doesn't really have that much to do with music anymore as it has long since morphed into a more general entertainment property.

But even noting these changes in MTV's purpose, it was kind of surprising to me when I received an email Press Release pitch with the title - 'Latitude and MTV Networks Uncover the Meaning Behind Our Addiction to Apps', referencing the results of a recent study on mobile application usage conducted by the research firm Latitude on behalf of MTV Networks.  Since (shockingly, I know), I am old enough to remember when MTV was stil about playing bad Journey videos, I had to check out the press release and some of the study's findings about mobile application uptake and the important app value propositions - after all what workplace or HR technology solution is not making a move (or already has arrived), in the mobile and app space?  And as smartphones and tablets are taking over on the consumer side as gateways to the web, there's no doubt the same will (or is already) happening inside the enterprise.

For context here are some details on the purpose and the methodology of the study from the Latitude release:

The study investigated the underlying psychology and current behaviors surrounding app adoption, use, and abandonment for heavy app users, and ultimately uncovered top characteristics and features of a successful app. The study included a round of initial qualitative interviews, a deprivation phase (normal app users were asked to go app-free for three days), and a quantitative survey of more than 1300 app-engaged smartphone owners between the ages of 13 and 64.

So what did the study show the main benefits are of app usage and therefore are the primary drivers of longer-term adoption and reduced the chances of app 'abandonment?', (again, from the Latitude Press Release):

• Apps Create Me Moments: Apps allow intense personalization and hyper-focus, filling our idle moments with “me time” on-demand. This expectation for powerful, instantaneous “me focus” is making its way into desired in-app entertainment and ad experiences. Personal context is king!87% of participants said: “Apps let me have fun no matter where I am or what I’m doing.”

Implication for designers of 'workplace' apps: Smartphones and tablets are really personal devices, much more so than the standard-issue company PC or laptop. Apps therefore need to maintain and leverage this personalization of experience, app users like to see their apps as almost personal tools, and not just extensions of a bland or generic enterprise solution. 

• Apps Make Everyday Life Better: Apps are enhancing our day-to-day experiences directly by enabling productivity, achievement of our personal goals, and so on—and indirectly through the resulting creation of free time, improved mental well-being, opportunities for positive discovery, and more. 

Implication for designers of 'workplace' apps: Sort of obvious, but the main point of emphasis is that the enterprise apps, particularly ones that might be transaction driven, need to do more than just replicate processes typically performed on PCs in corporate systems. They need to make the experience and process better - more efficient, simpler, more enjoyable. If the staff hate the process and the tool while using it in the office, simply porting it to an iPad won't make them feel any better about it. In fact, they might rebel, wondering why they can't seem to escape from it.

• Apps Open Us to New Worlds: Whether it’s learning new languages or gazing at the stars, the possibilities seem endless as apps open people’s imaginations to the new and “magical.” As mobile technology rapidly innovates, people increasingly envision apps as complementing and transforming traditional media experiences into “something new.” 91% of participants said: “Apps expose me to new things.”

Implication for designers of 'workplace' apps: How about approaching your app strategy beyond simply taking what you have in the office and porting it to a mobile app and think about what you can deliver that is brand new? What value can you add to the employee experience that they can only get via your new app? Whether it is new learning content, a tool that mashes up data in your CRM with social web content, or simply a syndicated feed of news and events about your company or industry - consider building something brand new and exclusive to app ecosystem.

What's your take - can the designers and workforce technology experts learn from the MTV crowd?

Or perhaps a better question - will you be watching the retrurn of Beavis and Butt-head to MTV this Fall?

Socialcast: Collaboration Beyond the Enterprise

Today the enterprise collaboration solutions provider Socialcast (a VMWare company), announced a set of new features to augment and extend the capability in their already impressive collaboration solution. For readers that might not be familiar with Socialcast's solution, it primarily serves as an internal enterprise activity and interest stream, where colleagues can share status updates, links to relevant content, share files, and easily create internal groups organized along organizational or project lines. More recently, Socialcast launched a product called Reach, which gives customers the ability to easily embed and include the core collaboration platform in any number of enterprise systems like ERP, CRM, or other knowledge management platforms, thus taking 'collaboration' closer to the places and systems where the work gets done.

Today's announcement of the new capability that allows enterprises to dynamically create external collaboration groups, and that extends the collaboration platform to an organizations' partners, customers, or even social media fans and followers; is a natural extension of the Reach tool, taking the collaboration environment beyond the walled garden of the internal enterprise, to wherever and with whomever leveraging the platform makes sense.

External Group View - image provided by Socialcast

Beginning today, users of Socialcast can create dynamic groups to invite contractors or suppliers to collaborate on projects, connect more effectively with joint venture partners, or even conduct on the fly customer and follower focus group discussions by simply sharing a link to an external group on Facebook or Twitter, and invite followers to participate. It is a great piece of functionality, and one that attempts to begin to address the more flexible and fluid ways that organizations, teams, and individuals are getting work accomplished today.  

The other interesting feature that Socialcast announced today is a new organizational charting feature that not only can graphically depict the traditional organizational relationships and hierarchy (automatically generated from Active Directory or LDAP), but also can include insight into the external relationships with customers, suppliers, etc. that the organization's employees have developed over time.  This new and hybrid type of an 'extended organization chart' is a novel idea, and one that over time in many organizations could prove to be just as valuable as the traditional, internally facing org. chart.

These new features continue to strengthen Socialcast's position in the enterprise collaboration technology space, an increasingly crowded market where Socialcast competes with offerings from Yammer, Salesforce Chatter, Socialtext, and others.  Where Socialcast appears to have an edge, is in their realization and reaction to the changing ways of task and resource organization in many enterprises, the need for a collaboration solution to support much more flexible methods of collaboration beyond a separate and isolated tool, and with the ease of deployment and administration that allows the solution to take hold rapidly across and outside the enterprise.

I don't write too many 'new product announcement' type posts, because frankly, most of them are not all that interesting. But I have been a fan of the Socialcast platform for a while, have used the collaboration tool in some of my HR Technology classes, and do feel that in a crowded space that Socialcast has consistently had intelligent approaches and ideas to better enable enterprise (and beyond) forms of collaboration.

More and more, success for many organizations will be at least in part determined by how they can best manage and extract value from a disparate, diverse, and fluid ecosystem of internal and external resources, and products and solutions that can help manage and support this new framework offer organizations some clear opportunities and advantages.

You can learn more about Socialcast and today's announcement at www.socialcast.com.