The IoT, Data and Great Expectations

The Internet of things (IoT) has the potential to touch every aspect of our lives: from our bodies to our communities to our work places to a fully connected world. It also promises to improve our well-being, raise our quality of life, increase productivity and foster better cooperation and collaboration. In 2020, there will be $8.9 trillion in IoT-related revenues, IDC estimates. As we have seen many times before, however, promising technologies stay at the potential stage for a long time if more attention is paid to the technology than to the experience of the people actually using it.
Call it the “Principle of Great Expectations”” the greater the hype or estimated market size, the higher the likelihood of a rapid proliferation of products that are “tragically pathetic.” Products are often developed simply because certain technologies have become available, without a lot of thought given to why users need them or how to make them delightful to use. Take, for example, one of today’s most successful product categories: the tablet. The first product in this category, the GRiDPad, was introduced in September 1989. It was followed by other unsuccessful attempts to crack the tablet market, including the Apple Newton, in 1993, and the enterprise-oriented Microsoft Tablet PC, in 2002. It wasn’t until 2010, when Apple introduced the iPad, that the tablet became a successful mainstream product, appealing to both consumers and business users.