I went to the grocery store today to look for a cake for what would have been my grandmother’s 71st birthday.  As I was using the self-checkout, I saw something that has never failed to annoy me.  People using one of the other checkout had taken some of their items off the bagging shelf and the weight-sensitive part of the checkout had stopped.  As usual, they got annoyed at it and started yelling at the poor attendant who tried to explain that, as the instructions said, you shouldn’t remove anything from the weight-sensitive shelf until you had paid.

It occurred to me that although these people were my age, they didn’t seem to understand the cold machine logic of automata.  Even within a single generation, we are starting to see tiered technology adoption rates.  By this, I mean that just because someone is your own age, you can no longer assume that they are able to operate technology in a similar way.

One hundred years ago, you bought groceries by going to the store and telling the clerk what you wanted.  At some later point, the goods would be delivered to your house and a bill would be presented to you. Fifty years ago, in most urban areas, you paid and picked up the groceries at the same time.  Twenty five years ago, credit cards revolutionized the process by delinking the payment and the pickup.  At each of these points, the regular customers of a given store would have been familiar with the process.

However, today, as the rate of technological innovation and adoption is continually increasing.  Though there are many of us who believe we are able to “ride the wave”, an increasing number of people are falling behind.  These people form tiers of technological ability; each tier is capable and comfortable with a certain level of technology but is resistant  or incapable of moving up to the next tier.

Unlike previous eras, we do not simply have two or three tiers of users in our workforces.  We have many more than that: people who regularly use e-mail but not instant messages, people who use instant messages but not collaborative documents, people who use collaborative documents but not wikis, etc.  The progression is no longer hierarchical either.  Some user groups may be comfortable with technologies A, B, and C alone while another group is comfortable using A, C, and D alone.

Where does this path lead us?  We already see that the level of technology you are comfortable using plays a major role in your career.  However, it will start to play a role in other aspects of your life as well.  People living in cities will have to be capable of significant mental dexterity as these are the hubs of technological adoption.  There is likely to be some measure of (unintentional?) discrimination against slow adopters.  We already see some of this as banks charge higher fees to customers who do not sign-up for electronic billing only.  In one extreme view, people may “ghetto-ize” themselves by choosing to live in neighborhoods or locales with a given standard of technology.

Another alternative would be choosing an arbitrary level of technology and forcing people to use nothing below or above the range.

Perhaps the future isn’t so dark though.  Companies usually have a vested interest in reaching the widest possible customer base.  In this sense, free market capitalism could be an unexpected savior.  Since the costs of doing business rise significantly with each concurrent implementation of technology, companies will likely be increasingly resistant to adopting the newest and best forms of technology until enough of a user base has formed for those technologies.  We can see this in Microsoft’s Windows Vista; companies resist adopting this new operating system partly because they don’t want to retrain staff and rethink subsidiary technologies.

Simplicity is king… but so is utilizing the newest technology. I suspect we will see companies tiered just like users.  Some firms/industries/stores may appeal to the low-end of adopters while others will reach out to the high-end.  This means taking a hard look at the so-called “core demographic” for each firm and industry in order to determine what the appropriate level of technological adoption should be.

All these “solutions” seem to represent a braking effect on the speed of new innovations and their concomitant adoption.  Is it possible that society can adapt to an ever-increasing number of technology tiers? Or will technology adoption need to be slowed?

Ephemera: Organ donor programs often use the slogan, “The life you save may be your own.”  It turns out that these programs may have been more correct than they could have ever guessed.  Val Thomas had no brain activity for 17 hours and rigor mortis had set in.  Doctors kept her on a respirator to figure out who to donate her organs to when she suddenly woke up and started talking.  - MSNBC

A follow up to my earlier post: Microsoft has announced that it will shut down its program to scan and upload millions of books and journal articles.  The nonprofit organization that Microsoft was sponsoring to do the work is now looking for other sources of support.  This might be a sign that Microsoft intends to focus on a few core internet technologies, rather than competing with Google and others on seemingly every possible battlefield. - NYT

A few months ago Pudding Media was in the news for their ad-based phone service plan. Their basic idea is to use computers with voice-recognition software to listen in on their users phone calls in exchange for giving those users free VoIP phone service.

Once the voice-recognition software catches an important keyword, the software loads an appropriate ad to the computer’s screen. Pudding Media (founded by two brothers who previously worked for the Israeli military intelligence) plans to extend this model to mobile phones as well.

Obviously with such a technology, there are serious privacy and legal issues. Under U.S. law, phone calls may not be recorded without the knowledge of both parties. Pudding Media skirts this issue by only buffering the recording for mere seconds before erasing it. However, this may still be considered illegal recording (courts have not yet ruled on the issue.)

Aside from the moral/legal/ethical framework, the fact that such an enterprise exists shows the strength of the 2.0 model extending backwards into more traditional technologies. One of the tenets of the 2.0 model is the dynamic, two-way flow of information. Users of a service also create content for that service. This content is then turned around and offered to other users in a never-ending, turtles-all-the-way-down cycle.

The two people sharing a phone call with this new technology will constitute the “user” while the content is the ad chosen by the software for them to view. The keystone to this 2.0 story is that the company has found that people change their conversations based on the ads they are shown. Thus, the users help generate content which then influences the users as they create a second generation of content and so forth.

Semi-infinite recursion has the ability to strongly influence marketing tactics. Ads are traditionally seen as either a set-piece or a set-story. In the first group, ads simply stand alone. Most magazine ads are of this style. All the information the advertiser wants to communicate to the consumer is contained within this single piece. In a set-story, an advertiser chooses a progression of ads to lead the consumer to a certain conclusion. An example are the dying breed of highway ads where each successive billboard ads another piece of information to the story.

The set-story is less common currently because advertisers have no easy way to make sure that you start at the beginning and proceed forward in a linear manner. Obviously, with the viewer-tracking made possible in current internet models, there may be a renaissance of such advertising.

Pudding Media’s technology may lead to a third marketing method. Depending on how much influence the ads have on the conversation, we could see model where the advertiser develops several distinct storylines that lead to their object. (A story-web may be a more appropriate word than storylines.)

Set-piece ads are like a static picture. Set-story ads are like a novel. What Pudding Media may develop into is the equivalent of the choose-your-own-adventure novel.

Good fiction, particularly science fiction, is a reflection of the values and ideas we espouse in reality but set in a new context.  Annalee Newitz, with suitable drollness, notes some of the traits a good leader in this world by examining the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Spaceship Captains.

“In an attempt to undercut Goodle’s standing as the most popular guide to the Web, Microsoft announced yesterday that it was offering cash incentives for people who use the company’s often-overlooked search engine.” - Washington Post

Microsoft is really starting to embarrass itself as it attempts to enter non-core markets. Who remembers Microsoft’s Cordless Phone? Who uses a .NET passport? How many of you own a Zune? Microsoft seems to have an awful lot of also-ran products. Why does this matter? Because of brands.

Brand power is recognized as a major influence in the average customer purchase decision. A well-constructed brand conveys security, quality, value, and/or other qualities that a single product simply doesn’t have. A brand alone, even without the products, can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Microsoft understands this. Despite the hate-Microsoft bandwagon that seems to trundle round every few months, the Microsoft brand name has real power. That’s why Microsoft thinks it has the ability to march into any profitable computing-related market and claim a piece of the pie. What they don’t seem to realize is exactly how much they are risking.

Each new product Microsoft launches, whether it be a search engine, a gaming console, a phone, an authentication protocol, or MP3 player, has a launch campaign designed to use the Microsoft brand. This should help the new product gain traction with consumers thus increasing the product’s market share growth.

However, brand power is a dynamic beast. Each time a product fails to gain momentum (e.g. the phone) or encounters significant resistance (e.g. the Zune), Microsoft looks like an also-ran. The aggregate effect of browser wars, search engine wars, MP3 player wars, console wars, etc. is to slowly tarnish the Microsoft brand image. Obviously, each of these conflicts is driven by Microsoft’s brand. Equally, each of these conflicts contributes to Microsoft’s brand image.

In the eyes of consumers, Microsoft is becoming a reminder of a greedy latecomer who wants to barge into a party and then claim they threw it themselves.

Furthermore, these activities create a lot of enemies during a time when the internet is focused heavily on alliances, cooperation, and shared technologies. Other companies with new and innovative ideas don’t look to Microsoft as a collaborator or partner. Instead, they try to “Microsoft-proof” their concepts to head Goliath off at the pass.

Rather than attempt to find a battle on every front, Microsoft needs to pick a core business platform and one or two related markets. By focusing on these, Microsoft can win enough to burnish the brand and build a bridge to other markets. The hydra’s heads need to work together and go after a single target.

(Of course, there is one market where Microsoft has really succeeded in going from an also-ran to a leader. Console manufacturers have really had to cede ground to the Xbox series. Perhaps Microsoft can accelerate some of the learning in that division to its next big target?)

(People might point to Google as a similarly multi-focused entity. However, Google enters markets much earlier, either through acquisition or direct competition, and tends not to fight multiple major companies at the same time. This helps Google avoid a bullying brand message for the average consumer. It also confines itself to web technologies for the most part.)