From Robots To Sensors: Looking Ahead To The Next Big Era

In a CRN Industry Hall Of Fame keynote address at Interop Las Vegas 2007, Saffo said that as the Information Age transforms into the Media Age, personalization will continue to provide opportunities and entire lines of business in the near term that are not even on the drawing board.

"The shift from information to media, mass to personal, plus sensors is in the process of affecting a much deeper transformation in the economy," the Stanford University professor said. "How could a sensor possibly be a media device and be a market opportunity? One possibility is, if you're like Nike, the sensor is an accelerometer, you put that into the shoe that you're selling. Your running shoes talk to your iPod and, as you're running, the iPod takes all the data on your running activity. If you slow down, the iPod switches to rousing inspirational music."

And then you -- and a entirely new business opportunity -- take off, he added.

Saffo brought his forecasting and expertise to Interop, where he delivered a CRN Industry Hall of Fame keynote address that provided a sneak peak at what innovation may provide as information, media and technology continue their break-neck convergence. The event and keynote took pace at the annual Interop conference at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas.

Saffo said the "hallway conversations" during Interop may be focusing on the latest issues in the news, but they may miss the bigger picture of what innovation may provide as information, media and technology continue their breakneck convergence

"What's the next hot thing? Is it wireless, or Web 2.0 or Web 2.5? Is it collaboration? I don't think it's any of those things," Saffo said. "Those things are artifacts of a much bigger and deeper shift. ... The danger is that you're standing on the whale, fishing for minnows, and there may be some much bigger opportunities to come out of this.

"You may be standing at ground zero," he said.

Besides teaching at Stanford, Saffo is on a research sabbatical from the Institute for the Future, and he was the founding chairman of the Samsung Science Board. A graduate of Harvard, Cambridge and Stanford, Saffo is a Forum Fellow to the World Economic Forum.

In talking about the sweeping pace of change, Saffo pointed to how technology with tepid success can reach new heights through personalization and different applications in the culture. As an example, he cited the robotics technology in the Roomba automatic carpet cleaner and how it has become so hip and enjoyed that owners carry them on visits to friends' homes to show them off like a pet or a child.

Saffo also highlighted how the open nature of the Second Life virtual reality community has sparked creativity, new intellectual property and entire -- and real -- commercial ventures that build, design and sell virtual "real estate" for real cash. What's more, Second Life is flourishing where other proprietary and closed virtual communities failed, he noted.

"In this new world, open wins over closed every single time," Saffo said.