The next step in virtual work - part Robot, part Segway, part iPad

I am a little late to the party on this, (apparently this launched back in August), but since we are getting pretty deep into the holiday season and there is the slight chance that you, dear reader, have not yet determined what type of gift to bestow upon your favorite blogger, (that's me, by the way), I had to call your attention to the Double, probably one of the coolest, awesome, and most potential-filled workplace tools I have seen this year.

The Double is a kind of 'teleprescence on a budget' tool - part robot, part Segway, and part iPad - the clever device allows a remote colleague to 'drive' an iPad topped wheeled robot around the office, 'see' and be seen via a video conferencing application running on the iPad, and participate virtually in meetings, snack breaks, and probably even hallway chair races.

Check out the embedded video below to see the Double in action, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through)

I told you that was awesome.

Some details on how the Double manages to be so cool: It uses a dual-wheel base, enabling the robot to navigate corners and make its way around rooms and other workplace facilities. It is controlled via any other iOS device, or through a web interface, which lets you travel throughout the environment, decide which height at which to place its iPad 'head', and of course, to converse with anyone (I suppose including other people's Doubles) in the room.

So while you probably want to drop what you are doing and order one of these beauties for me straight away, sadly the initial run of Doubles is sold out, according to their website. But fear not, the next batch will be shipping in early 2013 at a price of $1,999.

Don't worry, I will let you slide with the gift being late, it is really the thought that counts anyway!

The Lewis Turning Point

I was reading a few pieces over the weekend on the increasing industrial 'robotization' happening in of all places, China. I think for lots of us, our familiarity with Chinese manufacturing processes comes mainly from the recent series of well-publicized articles about Foxconn and their massive manufacturing complexes staffed with what seems like armies of low-to-medium skilled and cheap, (at least relatively cheap) labor.

We know, or we think we know, the Chinese manufacturing advantage, particularly for high-tech manufacturing. While more nimble and adaptive supply chains are certiainly a large part of the story, there is no doubt that the seemingly endless supply of inexpensive human labor has driven significant advantage for the Chinese firms in the last few decades.

But as this piece (and others) point out, demographic trends and economic factors in China are impacting this traditional labor supply and cost advantage, (simply put, China is running shorter of the right kind of laborers, and the current ones are generally demanding higher wages). As the below chart from Credit Suisse illustrates, the supply of the typical Chinese manufacturing worker is decreasing dramatically:

 

What's the big deal? Well perhaps for your organization, unless you are in a high-tech manufacturing company, maybe this situation in China, and the reactions taken by high-tech firms, (more robots, flight to even cheaper labor cost countries, etc.), might not be relevant at all. But one of the pieces on the labor market in China referred to an economic principle called The Lewis Turning Point, that I had never heard of, but I think might have relevance to any number of the so-called 'hard-to-fill' jobs that many talent professionals continue to wrestle with.

The Lewis Turning Point essentially says this - once a developing economy runs out of affordable and accessible labor, wages will naturally increase, and subsequent technological development and increased efficiency is necessary for investors to continue to realize capital accumulation and ongoing profits.

The Lewis Turning Point suggests that once easy labor runs out, that firms have to do more to continue to be successful - automate, increase wages, diversify, chase more inexpensive labor in new locations - or some combination thereof.

Obviously such a broad-based economic theory can't account for or offer specific remedies for the practical 'can't find anyone for this job' conundrums your organization might be dealing with today, but the 'turning point' does reinforce what perhaps deep down you know is true but don't want to admit publicly. Namely, if you truly have a hard, seemingly impossible to fill position in your organization, in order to make any progress it is quite likely you need to start thinking differently. 

Just like how the massive industrial behemoths in China have realized that their labor supply is contracting and increased robotization is their path forward, once you hit the turning point it is either adapt or die, or at least slowly but surely begin to wither.

Could a robot do your job?

I've run about a gazillion posts on this site over the last few years about the increasing encroachment of automated technologies and the continual forward progression of smarter and smarter robots that are relentlessly replacing human workers in all manner of capacities and in more and varied industries.

Robots and robotic technology and their growing presence in the workplace are no longer new or even novel subjects. But still, even when I know I have read hundreds of these kinds of pieces, and written more than my share of similar, every month or so a new and detailed examination of the new era of robotics at work gives me pause, and smacks me across the mug as a kind of reminder that while we like to talk about some vague concept called 'The future of work' as some kind of nirvana of social, mobile, and virtual collection of random and fantastic collaborations, that really this 'future' has just as much a chance to look grim, dystopic, and (mostly) lacking in actual people.

Do yourself a favor and take some time to read 'Skilled Work, Without the Worker' from the New York Times. The longish piece written by John Markoff does a thorough job presenting examples of the ever-growing application of robot technology in the workplace, particularly in areas and in functions where robots had previously feared to tread, like in distribution centers and even in sportswriting.

If you don't have the time or are not as inclined as I to read yet another 'robots are taking our jobs' piece I will save you some time with three paragraphs that will give you the flavor of the article, and hopefully make you stop for a moment or two to think about your role, your company, and the real 'future of work' our children will inherit"

Take the cavernous solar-panel factory run by Flextronics in Milpitas, south of San Francisco. A large banner proudly proclaims “Bringing Jobs & Manufacturing Back to California!” (Right now China makes a large share of the solar panels used in this country and is automating its own industry.)

Yet in the state-of-the-art plant, where the assembly line runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there are robots everywhere and few human workers. All of the heavy lifting and almost all of the precise work is done by robots that string together solar cells and seal them under glass. The human workers do things like trimming excess material, threading wires and screwing a handful of fasteners into a simple frame for each panel.

Such advances in manufacturing are also beginning to transform other sectors that employ millions of workers around the world. One is distribution, where robots that zoom at the speed of the world’s fastest sprinters can store, retrieve and pack goods for shipment far more efficiently than people. Robots could soon replace workers at companies like C & S Wholesale Grocers, the nation’s largest grocery distributor, which has already deployed robot technology.

Sure, you can read pieces like this, or read posts like many of the ones I have done over the years about this topic and think - 'That's interesting, but I don't have to worry about that. I'm a knowledge worker,  I'm a leader. No robot can do my job.'

Maybe so. Maybe no one robot can do your entire job as it is constituted today. But probably some element of any job could be fully automated, and who is to say that a more flexible approach to both role definition coupled with we know will be the continuous improvement and advancement of robot technology would change the way your organization looks at all kinds of jobs, including the ones held by smarty-pants knowledge workers like you.

So if the question is really 'Could a robot do your job?', it is increasingly looking like there are only two possible answers. 'Yes' and 'Not yet.'

We do serve your kind in here: The Robot-Only Workplace

In the classic 'Cantina' scene from the first Star Wars film, the barkeep barks a testy 'We don't serve their kind in here' to our hero Luke Skywalker, instructing him that he has to leave his trusty droids R2D2 and C3PO outside, as they were not welcome in the bar. Luke complies, as the unwelcome presence of the droids would have certainly added to the trouble he was about to find in the Cantina, which culminated in the legendary and controversial Han Solo - Greedo altercation.

But this post is not about Star Wars or Droids, it is to highlight yet another interesting development in what some see as an inexorable march towards total robot domination of work and workplaces. Since the economic and manufacturing capability value play for the basic application of robot technologies for work can no longer be argued, the next set of questions are more about the future.  What will the next stage of robot-work and as we will see in the example below, robot-workplaces look like? That's correct, not just robots at work, or robots replacing some of the work that people used to do, but could we see one day entire workplaces, (factories, warehouses, maybe farms), where humans only enter and engage to swap out broken or failed components, or possibly as the clean-up crew to salvage parts once a particular solution or capability is no longer needed.

Seem crazy? Well, some technical leaders at none other than social-networking leader Facebook are already thinking about this, envisioning the Data Center of the future, (you know where all the hardware sits that makes up 'The Cloud'), might be one where we hardly ever see an actual person. From a recent piece on ZDNet:

"I've always envisioned what could we do with a datacentre if humans never needed to go into the datacentre," (Facebook VP of Hardware Design) Frank Frankovsky says. "What would a datacentre look like if it wasn't classified as a working space? What if it looked more like a Costco warehouse?"

(Facebook) hopes its ability to manage its infrastructure mostly via software could cut the amount of time people spend on the IT floor of the datacentre — eventually, it might be possible to have no one there at all, Frankovsky says. This holds a number of intriguing possibilities for datacentres.

If people did not need to go into a datacentre, then you could deploy devices floor to ceiling and run them at a much higher heat, allowing the processors inside them to perform more efficiently, Frankovsky says.

Looking further ahead, the datacentre could be treated as a "degrade and replace" model, Frankovsky says. "Essentially, you fill up a datacentre, put it into production and weld the door shut." If a company did this, it would only need to send someone into the facility every six months to perform processor upgrade and swap out failed storage, he says.

Realistically, or perhaps unrealistically depending on your general level of pessimism/optimism, the kinds of robotic, computer, and server technology changes needed to support this kind of 'no humans inside' data center is perhaps a decade away, maybe less. But there seems to be little doubt that increased robot and automated technology and less human interaction with the technology in these workplaces is likely. If you have a 10-year old kid that you have any influence over, I recommend having him/her start preparing for a a future where 'gets along well with robots' is going to be a key professional competency.

Let's just hope when the skeleton crew of people show up at the door of the data center to perform their twice-a-year inspections and maintenance that the robot in charge will be a little more friendly to the people than the Cantina bartender was to R2 and C3PO.

Happy Monday!

Robot Toys and Team Building

Note : From this point forward, I make no more apologies for posting about robots, sports, Jeff Van Gundy, nor any more empty promises to refrain or limit such posts. There, I feel better.

Check out the video below, (email and RSS subscribers will have to click through), a demonstration of a new kind of robot-themed toy called Cubelets from Modrobotics. Cubelets are a modular robot building system, where each cube possesses different features and capabilities, and once combined, form a simple, functioning robot.

Really neat idea right, and how about the spokesperson?

Beyond being a clever idea for a flexible and adaptive building toy system, I think the design of the cubes themselves into three distinct archetypes - 'Action', 'Sense', and 'Think', also demonstrate a pretty insightful understanding of team dynamics, and more specifically, what kinds of diverse capabilities that have to be assembled and unified to some extent to achieve successful outcomes. 

'Action' cubes do things and focus on outputs and come with names like 'Drive', 'Rotate', and 'Flashlight'

'Sense' cubes pay attention to things and focus on inputs, with names like 'Temperature', 'Brightness', and 'Distance'

Finally, 'Think' cubes perform simple logic functions like 'Maximum' and 'Passive'.

If you check out the demonstration video, and can pay attention despite the lederhosen-wearing demo dude, you will see that the cube types are easily assembled to create simple toy robots. The key feature being that at least one cube of each type is needed to make a functioning robot. Adding more cubes, and varying their position and orientation allows the users to create more subtle and sophisticated toys, but the basic elements of 'Action', 'Sense', and 'Think', influence the outcomes.

Remember, Action cubes do things, Sense cubes pay attention to things, and Think cubes do the math and handle the complex technical stuff. Thinking, doing, and processing the technology - the three important kinds of skills you need in any project I think.

Oh wait, there is one more skill type I forgot, and there doesn't seem to be a Cube for - 'Creativity' or 'Insight' - essentially coming up with the right ideas in the first place, deciding what needs to be done, and the best way to do it. Figuring out if the robot should even be built in the first place. In the Cubelet toy set, there doesn't seem to be a cube that can do that.

Because that's your job. For now anyway. 

Until the robots figure out how to do that one too.