We creep closer and closer everyday to a time when the Internet of Things will play a predominate role in our lives. The Internet of Things—or IoT for short—is defined in a variety of ways, but the best one comes from SAP: “A world where physical objects are seamlessly integrated into the information network, and where the physical objects can become active participants in business processes. Services are available to interact with these ‘smart objects’ over the Internet, query and change their state and any information associated with them, taking into account security and privacy issues.”
In other words, it’s technology trying to make your life and job easier. Considering the job aspect, Wired recently published an interesting article addressing how IoT will change the way we work in the future. I thought I’d share a few that sound intriguing. The following quoted text comes from Puneet Pandit, founder and CEO of Glassbeam, who wrote the article for Wired.
New Jobs
“The digital age has ushered in new IT jobs that go beyond the desk and beyond the code monkey. With the rise of IoT, cloud and ‘big data’ jobs are becoming more specialized than ever. Gartner last year reported that the number of Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) is on the rise, predicting that by 2015, 25 percent of companies will have one managing their digital goals. The Data Scientist too has become an important asset for companies embracing the value of big data and analytics, and we’ll begin to see more chief data scientists, analysts and even, chief customer satisfaction officers. And probably some titles we can’t even imagine yet.”
Structuring Data
“‘Big Data’ isn’t just big…it’s huge. If leveraged well, Big Data can create new value across the business when unstructured data is converted into structured data. Analyzing data and breaking it down into meaningful intelligence and analytics can tell a richer story about customers, product behavior, market position, employee productivity and even predicted future success.”
Location Tracking
“IoT will make location tracking simpler. Currently done via phones, cars and even in hospitals, Internet-connected equipment and devices will be geographically tagged, saving valuable resources like time and money. Companies will be able to track every aspect of their business, from inventory to fulfilling orders as quickly as possible to locating and deploying field services and staff.”
Work Productivity
The rise of social has given way to a new age of communications and team collaboration. Value tools like Box, Skype and even Facebook have captured the attention of the next generation workforce. Video collaboration and imaging will take hold as millennials and digital natives rely on text messaging, FaceTime and even ‘Hangouts’ for true integrative communication at work, saving time and blurring social tools with modern collaborative work systems.”
Please check out the article for the full list, and let us know in the comments how you see IoT changing the way you work in the future.
(photo credit: Profound Whatever via photopin cc)
