I've spent the past 20 years passionately—relentlessly—chasing innovation. From the dawn of a magnificent digital universe born of the Internet, through the thrill of global conversations set ablaze by social media, to the magic of mobile's anytime-anywhere technology connecting an entire planet, I've reveled in the shock and awe of innovation.
And through each disruptive technology, I've watched executives make a critical choice: whether to transform their companies so as to build competitive advantage, or maintain their current course... and risk being among the fallen brands that fill the news headlines.
Now, as we shortly embark on 2014, we are at the threshold of yet another stunning revolution—and a unique turning point in history. Soon, for the first time, there will be more things than people connected to the Internet. From a forecast of 19 billion connected things in 2016 skyrocketing to an estimated 50 billion to 75 billion connected things by 2020.
In this coming era, the physical and digital worlds—realms that have always been separate and distinct—will collide, converge, and collaborate. Technology will breathe life into lifeless objects. Sensors will turn inanimate things into intelligent devices. And in our lifetime, over the course of but a handful of years, we will witness the static things that fill our environment spring to life all around us.
Computers will continue to be integrated into the devices we carry (like our smartphones, tablets, and phablets). Woven into the items we wear (as with Google Glass eyewear, smartwatches, and NFC-enabled rings). And embedded into the everyday objects we live alongside—the appliances in our homes, the shoes on our feet, the collars on our dogs, the pills from our pharmacies, the cars that we drive, the buildings where we work and the products in our supply chains.
Even the very notion of computers as separate things will become nonsensical... for they will very much live in all things.
But, wholly unlike the cautionary tales threaded throughout scores of sci-fi thrillers, these smart objects will not rise up and turn us into their indentured servants. On the contrary, they will give rise to systems that serve us by making our lives better, our bodies healthier, our work easier, and our brands superior.
From Smartphones... to Smart Everything
Earlier this year, I published an article series on mobile innovation. I detailed how, by wielding mobile media, marketers can innovate every facet of their marketing due to a host of sophisticated mobile tools and the ubiquity of smartphones.
But now we move from an age of smartphones... to an era of smart everything. And in this era, technology will not only change how we market our brands but also transform the core brands themselves.
I refer to this massive progression as The "Smart" Revolution: for smart is this revolution's dramatic benefit and its new best-practice. Because the goal is not a connected world—connections are but the conduit—the goal is a smarter world punctuated by smart products, smart places, smart networks, smart services, and smart solutions.
Said another way, connections make this revolution possible; but transforming static objects into smart things make this new era powerful.
To be sure, these smart capabilities are born from technological advancements—spanning machine-to-machine communications (M2M), digital sensors, and the Internet of Things (IoT). But while "The Internet of Things" refers to the connecting of things, the benefit that results from those connections is smart products and services. And where "machine-to-machine communications" refers to machines that speak to one another, the advantage that arises from that communication is smart devices.
"Smart," then, rings most true and is most apt for the coming revolution.
'The Next Big Thing' Is Going to Be Really, Really BIG