Tomorrow, The Internet of the Machines will use prescriptive workflows to drive your business...

In the last few years, Cloud and its underlying technologies and services (SaaS, PaaS and IaaS)  has become the key technology driver behind some of the most innovate business engagements to date. In today’s world companies of all size use Cloud services to support their business objectives. The primacy of such objectives rest on the ability for companies to monitor, acquire, correlate, aggregate and analyze data from which companies derive the strategy necessary to support and meet revenue goals.

Subsequently data gathering and processing is either performed thru a network of systems or humans. In many cases humans create workflows that performs tasks and actions to deliver a business benefit. As an example, your bank may have setup overdraft protection for which when your account goes below a specific cash level it automatically receives additional funds. Unbeknown to most, the overdraft workflow may create additional activities from which would send an email acknowledging the action taken, furthermore correlated workflows may also notify a bank employee to check back with you on your account status.

As the aforesaid example shows, most workflows are created by humans; inherently progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine-To-Machine (m2m) connectivity  has setup the stage for machine to learn, decipher and derive actions or tasks thru Data Collaboration Workflow that are currently reserved for human. Microsoft latest push with chatbot shows a future for limitless m2m services without the need for web or mobile applications.
The Internet of Everything (IoE – people, process, data, and things) has accelerated a trend for which other “Entities” must now process and analyze the data to drive tasks or actions as human are faced with the daunting task of digesting and aggregating the inordinate size and speed of data. I’m sure you read every day about Big Data and its effect on business.

Such model will take us from Predictive Business Workflow to Prescriptive Business Workflow

I foresee that within 5 years, the Internet of the Machine (IoM) will collaborate on managing retail truck delivery for which the Machine will receive weather forecast data indicating “Heavy Snow Storm”, consequently the machine will check road traffic conditions and reroute products from Colorado to Nevada to a store who has low inventory after having checked online and discovered a high customer demand for those products. Such model will take us from Predictive Business Workflow to Prescriptive Business Workflow. To further my point just look at IBM recent acquisition of "The  Weather Company".
Additionally m2m Data Collaboration Workflow will become common practice and will help increase revenue while providing better cost management.

A new breed of scientists, technicians and engineers are already hard at work fulfilling such foresight but companies must also invest in defining new strategies to support the paradigm of the IoM, this would also include connectivity, architecture, infrastructure and Cloud services.

Follow me on twitter @thinkahead and let’s continue the discussion

DNA as a Service, the next frontier...

I recently celebrated 20 years in Information Technology, a lifetime for most. As I reflected on the “Achievement” including the amazing opportunities and experiences that I have had the blessing to witness, I realized that the past 20 years would pale in comparison of the next 5 years due to the world frenetic advance in terms of technological innovation.

"Life in the 21 century, especially in America gravitates around an inextricable culture of convenience"

Life in the 21 century, especially in America gravitates around an inextricable culture of convenience, such convenience draws from an ever insatiable appetite for “instant satisfaction” from which an endless list of services, devices and new technologies arises each day to help improve our lives. At present time the “Cloud” and related services like SaaS, IaaS and PaaS powers our every wants and needs, tomorrow IoT (Internet of Things), wearables and Geo-Fence services will further one ability to connect and draw additional benefits from the world social fabric.
Additional services will also come to fruition to simplify our everyday engagement. At first glance I strongly believe that DNA as a Service present itself as the primary and most obvious choice for the upcoming years. A few companies have already started the monetization of DNA as a Service, companies like 23andme offer a few basic services around the discovery of your ancestry, wellness, traits and others. Such services will quadruple in nature within the next 18 months.

At present time DNA as a Service focuses on a one-to-one knowledge. Advancement in technology brings new opportunities and therefore future innovations could center around diagnosis and recommendations, retailers or merchants may present themselves as viable consultants in the purchase of goods, products or services. As an example, one could walk into a Walgreens and instead of spending hours studying sunscreen labels one could just easily hover his hand over a scanner and get two or three product recommendations based on his DNA. How about a family dinner, have peace of mind and feel at ease knowing that your favorite restaurant provides an allergy friendly menu based on your DNA?

"human kind thirst for innovations brings us one step closer to the Inexorable truth of the use of DNA as a primary driver for services"

Obviously privacy concerns may curb the level of data one may want to share and may impact and reduce the number of future applications, reversely human kind thirst for innovations brings us one step closer to the Inexorable truth of the use of DNA as a primary driver for services.