The Evolution of a Revolution

You’ve heard of manifest destiny. Well, I think this is it. It is time to move up to the next level and M2M (Machine to Machine) just doesn’t cut it anymore. I mean, it’s great as a technical description of what we do – we connect machines to other machines - but it just doesn’t mean anything to most people in business. For the past three years I’ve been wrestling with the issue that M2M doesn’t resonate with the majority of people who would most benefit from it – business people.

Now for engineering types and some visionaries, the simple fact that we could connect to an asset or device or machine wirelessly is enough for them to grasp that there is an opportunity waiting to be exploited. Hence the “internet of things” as described in the very recent issue of the Economist . The problem is, it describes how it works, not what it does.
So, you may ask, what do Smart Services do?

As I said in an interview with StartIT, “The premise behind Smart Services is that companies can provide innovative and differentiated offerings as part of a service offering by connecting to your products in the field and extracting insight remotely. In other words, companies can provide better service more cost effectively when you have visibility into how your products are being used in real time or near real time.

I feel that Smart Services today is very close to where the Internet was in the early 90’s. Knowledge of the Internet was growing, but very few people really had a clear idea of how Internet-enabling their business would change it. In just twelve years, not only were companies like Google and eBay created, but many existing businesses have fundamentally changed the way they do business and interact with their customer.”

And the thing is, most business folks get it. They understand services businesses, so why not make them smart? If M2M was the revolution, then Smart Services are the evolution.

To put it another way, Smart Services will be the business language that opens the door for the revolutionary capabilities of M2M technology to become a standard operating practice in mainstream markets.

Taking up the Smart Services flag was not something that was done
capriciously, but was a decision that I came to after innumerable conversations with many people, some of those most influential being John Tillotson, Steve Lundin, Michael Jarosik, Glen Allmendinger and PeggySmedley.

Ergo, SmartServicesBlog.com (the business side), M2MBlog.com (the technology side). Joining me on Smart Services Blog is Mark Vigoroso, formerly Chief Research Officer of Aberdeen, and now chief services strategist of nPhase and who will be responsible for much of the content. On M2Mblog.com David Geltner (also of nPhase) will be back in blogging mode to talking about how this stuff actually works.

As for me, I plan to bounce between SmartServicesBlog and M2MBlog while letting these two guys do the heavy lifting. However my comments will be as insightful (or not) as always.

Services of the world, unite!

- Steve Pazol