No, I am not talking about mythical creatures that live under bridges, I am talking about real life internet social media trolls. Now there are different levels of Trolls from the evil to the stupid and everywhere in between. Evil trolls are the ones who deliberately and with malicious intent, bully and deliberately try to hurt people online – this is often people they know – and often children trolling other children. It is a big problem and can lead to – in extreme circumstances – suicide, and certainly trauma for the victim.
That is an important subject – but not one for THIS blog.
The Trolls I am referring to here are people who comment on other people’s stuff online, and not in a good way. 99% of THESE people do NOT know the person they are insulting/swearing at/accusing of/bitching about. They just feel it is their God-given right – to say whatever they like, no matter how hurtful, derogatory or untrue.
The True Story of A Troll
It happened to a friend of mine this week. My friend Jessen had put a Facebook advert out about an event he was running (he is a business coach). I think it may have been a free event. And it had a lot of good comments on it from friends, clients and other people in his ‘tribe’.
And then there was – we will call him Mr Nasty – to protect his identity (though I don’t see why I should really). He was having a right old go at Jessen, calling him a scam artist and urging people (he didn’t know) not to “waste” their money or “be ripped off”.
Well, I don’t normally get involved in this kind of sh** of social media, but I couldn’t let this one pass without comment. So, I commented! I said that I had known Jessen for some years, that he was very genuine and not a scam artist. I pointed out that no-one was forced to attend the event and that yes, he WAS in business to make money. However, I assumed that so was Mr Nasty unless he was running a charity?
I also pointed out that since Jessen had 1500 followers on FB and Mr Nasty had 240 – it looked like what Jessen was doing was working. Of course, he naturally ignored all the relevant facts about the purpose of a business being to make money, and that he must also make money as a business owner (perhaps he doesn’t?).
So what did he do?
He went straight for the jugular – MINE! Lol.
He pointed out that one of my pages only has 400 followers so I can’t be doing very well. I felt like pointing out that 400 is still better than 240 and that my actual business page – Strategy Social Media – has 12,000 followers after 2 years and my Leading Women in Business Page has 4,500 after maybe 6 months, but I didn’t. Because – you know what? You can’t argue with an idiot. And if you DO – then who is the bigger idiot?
To be fair to Mr Nasty – there may be a reason he is SOOO opposed to anyone using the S word (SELLING). Maybe he has had a bad experience in the past where he fell for an actual scam. Probably he is not very successful in business but the story he tells himself is that “he doesn’t have to advertise” and his customers find him.
Because here’s the thing.
If he WERE very successful in business he would not begrudge or misjudge someone else who is successful. He would probably be too busy in his own world to notice, and if he did, he would think “Good On You”.
So – I choose to believe he is not a horrible, vile, spiteful person who makes no attempt to check his facts before passing his royal judgement on others. Though that IS clearly what he is (I say that tongue in cheek). I choose to believe that he needs help, sympathy and understanding. And I certainly don’t take it personally.
Don’t be Vanilla in Your Message and Your Marketing
As a good friend of mine, Andy Harrington, says – the universe is a balance. If there are people who love you, there will be others that hate you. Well, I kinda get what he means. And I have always said, the only way to have no haters is to be so vanilla that no-one feels very much about you either way.
Vanilla is a great flavour for an ice cream but not very good as a business or public persona. You have to put yourself out there. If YOU don’t have confidence in you – who the heck will? It’s the same if you don’t come across as passionate and standing for something. Or if you don’t believe your message has meaning for others and you will do whatever it takes to get it out there – who else will ?
And let me tell you – the more you do that, the more likely it is you will get a hater. Or more than 1. Of course, you will hopefully have more people who like you than don’t and you will have some right raving fans. But there is every chance you will have a Mr Nasty. So, be ready for it.
No really – I mean it – be ready for it because it WILL HAPPEN. And the first time it does it can be a real shock. You feel affronted. You want to change their mind and show them you are a nice a genuine person. And I am telling you – 9 times out of 10 you won’t be able to. Because they are NOT interested in you – even though they seem to be – having commented on your stuff.
Trolls Are Not Interested In You Personally
They are interested in only ONE thing – the sound of their own voice. Trolls have a deep need to ‘be right’ and to ‘be more clever’ than you, or anyone else they disagree with. They are not open minded, they don’t want to have a discussion, and if you engage them they will just try to ‘out clever’ you to show how amazing a person they are and how stupid you are. But YOU could be anyone to them.
They have absolutely NO interest in you. Because they are stuck in their own closed in world, with the baggage that they choose to carry around, and the only way they feel able to lift that load for a minute is by being hateful (but they of course, don’t believe they are being hateful. They believe they are right and doing the world a favour).
I will give you another example. I had a client last week who had a hater. This woman was a (fairly low level unsuccessful) blogger and she objected to my client following her for a second time, after unfollowing her. She proclaimed he was a scammer – getting people to follow and then unfollowing when she followed back. The thing that hadn’t occurred to her was – she HAD NOT followed him back and that is why he unfollowed her. She had been followed for a second time – everyone deserves a second chance right? And took exception.
Well, the vitriol! You would think he had taken an ad out in the paper calling her the worst blogger of all time, for the amount of abuse she sent out. There is no way to avoid these people unless you let them scare you into NOT going on social media. But then you are forgetting about the 1500 followers who love you (in Jessen’s case). So – who are you more bothered about 1 person with a bee in their bonnet or 1500 who think you are ace?
So, What Do You Do About Trolls?
Well you have 2 real choices (since we have ruled out getting into a “discussion” with them).
Ignore them completely (this is the most time efficient option) and block them. This is also the one that will annoy them the most – so perhaps worth doing just for that reason.
Politely reply and correct any untruths, offer to help – offline – and THEN if they don’t respond like a normal person – BLOCK them. Don’t waste another moment’s thought on them. They generally make themselves look bad with their vitriol, you don’t need to help them with that. For example – in the case of the blogger we responded – “So sorry we offended you by unfollowing, we NEVER unfollow anyone who follows us back. Can we buy you a coffee to apologise?”. In that way – our followers can see we are holding out the olive branch. This is what we would recommend.
And above all – DON’T WORRY about them. It actually means you are doing something right – you are out there, trying to grow your business and making your voice heard – and there is nothing wrong with that.
Have you experience Internet Trolls? We would love to hear what you did about it let us know on Twitter @StrategySMedia
If you want to know 10 ways you are doing social media wrong and what you can do to fix them click here
How often do you use Facebook Live in your social media marketing strategy? If you answered, “not a lot”, then you could be missing a trick!
Facebook live is a great way to get a large exposure and directly connect with your audience. Here are some creative ways you can use Facebook Live:
Take your audiences places they can’t go
News outlets report on events that most people don’t get to attend in real life so we can get a snippet of it. Facebook Live takes this to another level by allowing you to virtually be there in real time!
But how can you leverage this for your business? You can go live at your own industry event or a conference your customers/audience would be interested in. Make sure you promote your broadcast early and often to ensure people know that you will be going live and when.
It doesn’t just have to be a small snippet either: Facebook recommends longer broadcasts because they give users more chances to discover your content. You can broadcast for as long as four hours.
It’s a good idea to encourage questions in the comments and answer those questions in a Q&A session.
Team up with an influencer in your field
Co-marketing is one of a marketer’s strongest tools. By working together with another company or influencer, you can increase your exposure to potential customers.
But how do you go about doing this with Facebook Live? By identifying a key thought leader in the same or similar area as your business and featuring him or her in a Facebook Live broadcast. You want to make sure this person is good in front camera and will be entertaining for your audience. Identify a topic you want this person to speak about or demonstrate.
Ideally, the outcome of this will be mutually beneficial for both parties.
Host interviews
Interview your company’s employees, clients, or important people in your niche. Brands are all about the people that are a part of it, so let these people speak and your audience will listen! It’s a great opportunity for people to really get a feel of what your business is actually like and what its vision is on a more personal level.
Conclusion
Even though Facebook Live is now two years old (launched in 2015), people (and marketers) are still unsure how best to use it to their advantage. Hopefully, these tips will be able to help you leverage this important feature in your marketing. For more helpful tips on Social Media Marketing, follow us on Twitter @StrategySM
So the best holiday of the year is only around the corner (ho, ho, ho merrrrrrry Christmas!) and whilst this is a time for relaxation, the few weeks leading up to it can be anything but! Especially for those that work in the social media industry, as we have to make sure everything is still running smoothly, even when we are at home with a glass of mulled wine! So here are some tips for Christmas Campaigns to make life a bit easier for you:
Create Christmas themed content
This is your chance to stand out on social media and have some fun. Automate some posts to celebrate the holiday. A good idea could be to do “the 12 days of Christmas!” which includes one bit of Christmas themed content a day during the 12 days of Christmas! You could even use a tool like Canva to create some cool festive designs.
Spice up the theme on your site
Christmas campaigns are the perfect excuse to spice up your website and social media channels with some festive vibes. There are plenty of themes to pick from on sites such as WordPress that could make you website stand out above the rest.
If you have a developer handy, you could add some festivity to your homepage. You could fill the areas of your page that are normally empty with snowmen/Santa graphics to get that Christmassy feel/
Run a price promo
Don’t miss this opportunity to run a price promotion. Your customers will appreciate the savings and remember that a small discount might be all that’s needed to nudge them into buying. It’s up to you to make the offer relevant and visually compelling for Christmas. You could relate the promotional amount or offer period to the theme itself – again, 12 days of Christmas would be a good example.
Hold a contest
It’s a good idea to do this at any time of the year, but Christmas time is a perfect opportunity for a clever contest to entertain your customers and allow them to participate. A festive photo contest on your website or social media platforms, for example. Whoever takes the best holiday photo wins a free*insert product here*. You can really get creative with this one, and it’s fun for your customers, win win!
Schedule a Christmas Day message
Sending out a ‘Merry Christmas’ message from your business is a good way to show customers you care. Don’t worry though; you can still drink your mulled wine and eat your mince pies because there are some great tools like Hootsuite and Socialoomph that allow you to schedule all your content in advance!
Carry it into the New Year
Don’t just leave your social media accounts to gather dust in the period after Christmas and running up to New Years. Keep the momentum going with more festive posts and conversations! Now a lot of companies on social media DO start to gather dust during this period, so again this is another chance for you to stand out!
So there are your social media tips for the festive season. If this was helpful, follow us on twitter @StrategySMedia. Merry Christmas!
Urgh, hard work. Nobody likes hard work, but there’s no way around it: you have work to do and it must be done or you risk being fired. This blog isn’t telling you how to cheat work and do less whilst still earning the same amount, you lazy buggers (keep dreaming) It is about how to work smarter and more efficiently. Yes I am making your life easier. You’re welcome!
Prioritize
Assess everything that needs to be done. Highlight what are the most important tasks and put them at the top of your “things to do” list. Write down how long each task should accurately take and be realistic with it. Give yourself ample thinking time so you can be sure every detail is accomplished on time and accurately.
Learn to say no. Don’t be Mr Nice guy! Be realistic about what you can complete in a day. If you’re given a task where it isn’t practical you will be able to finish it that day, let that be known!
Avoid multi-tasking because you often get less done since your brain is switching back and forth between tasks. Pick one thing to work on and then put your best effort into that until it is accomplished.
Getting more done in less time
Evaluate your methods. You want them to be as efficient as possible. For example, do your work when you have no distractions surrounding you. Also, ever heard of the carb-crash? I know for a fact I work much slower in the early afternoon due to the “carb-crash,” and I work much more efficiently in the morning. (After 9:30 when I’ve consumed an efficient amount of caffeine, of course). I therefore mould my timetable around this and do the harder tasks in the morning
Look for short-cuts. No, this does not mean taking the easiest method for the sake of being lazy! For example, if you respond to numerous emails and end up answering the same questions over and over again, save your responses. When them questions come up again, cut and paste your response. Life hack. Write this down.
Don’t procrastinate. To read our blog on how to do this, click here.
Evaluate your methods. You want them to be as efficient as possible. Do your work when you have no distractions surrounding you and try to do things in one batch rather than one at a time. You want your efficiency to be maximized as much as possible.
Take care of yourself!
Rest. You should ideally be getting eight hours of sleep every night. Find out what happens when you don’t. You can certainly pull continuous 12 hour days at work, but it’s not sustainable. After a certain point, your body becomes tired and your mind wears down, leading to more frequent lapses in concentration and careless mistakes.
Take periodic breaks. Even at the office, you need to allow time for your mind to regroup and recharge. Push yourself hard for the first 50 minutes of every hour and then reward yourself with a 10 minute break.
There you have it: how to work smarter and more efficiently (without being lazy, remember!)
If you’ve been on the internet anytime recently (I’m assuming you have) you may have heard about “The Internet Of Things” and how it just might be the most exciting thing happening in the world of technology. If not, strap in… we’re about to enter the future, baby.
The Google definition of the IoT is: the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for internet connectivity, and the communication that occurs between these objects and other Internet-enabled devices and systems. Basically everything becoming part of the internet, even objects like your fridge and car.
The possibilities are endless. Whatever you are imagining about it right now… times that by 10 and you’ve still not come close to the potential of the IoT. I’ve read up on it quite a bit and I still get shocked when I find out a new advancement in the technology.
I normally like to get the personal opinion of someone I know on these things before I write about them, so I decided to ask Tech Guru, my Mum (I’m being sarcastic by the way, she has recently discovered emoticons and seems pretty content with that at the moment) what she thought about it.
This is how the conversation went down.
Mum: “For God’s sake, we’re out of milk again. I could have got some at the shops before if I had known.”
Me: “Soon, with the help of The Internet of Things, the fridge would have been able to tell you as soon as we were out of milk.”
Mum: *Stares for a long time* “The what would be able to do what?”
Me: “Internet of things. Everything will be connected up. The fridge would tell you we’re out of milk.”
Mum: *Stares even longer* “What? What have you been smoking, Tom?”
So I (tried my best to) explained to her what the IoT actually is and how it would work and all the potential it has. She laughed, “Sounds cool but a bit farfetched.” And she’s right it is cool and it does sound farfetched. But it’s not. It’s happening right now and it won’t be long before it’s just a part of normal life.
Do you ever hear people say, “What was life like before mobile phones/internet? How did we manage?” It’s going to be exactly like that.
For instance, it will be useful in preventing all kinds of mishaps, disasters and maybe even deaths. It has the power prevent car crashes, tell your doctor you’re having a heart attack…Etc Anything you’re thinking of it most likely has the potential to do. Yes, save lives! Awesome right?
But I can’t help be a bit of a negative nelly and think of the potential bad consequences it could possibly have. A funny looking fella in a red and blue suit hanging upside down off a spider web once told me that his Uncle Ben said to him: “With great power comes great responsibility.” And he was right.
Now the realist inside me can’t help but notice that some people are bad people, and these bad people would work out a way to use the IoT for… well … something bad. And maybe even on a huge scale. I haven’t got my tinfoil hat on right now so I can’t exactly tell you what, but you know it makes sense. I’m thinking wars, spies, James Bond villain type stuff, you know?
Not to mention what will happen if such a large amount of data is spewed together: These confidential bits of data can be used to affect our insurance rates, for stealing money from our bank accounts. Yikes.
Ok, enough of the scary stuff now. Do the positives outweigh the (potential) negatives? Yes they do. People are going to do these bad things anyway but the IoT has the potential to greatly benefit us in so many ways, especially businesses
What are your opinions on it? Are you a technophobe or a technobro? Let us know @StrategySMedia
You can create a buzz – Get the word out about your products and services in a way that promotes online conversation and increases engagement.
Build relationships and become more personal – (expanding on the first point) Use a variety of social media, and you’ll build relationships with customers and potential customers. Trust comes through honesty and sincerity.
Branding – It is extremely important for a small business to create a recognizable identity for your product or service. This is the way the customer perceives you, and what better way to do this than the use of social media?
It opens up the line of communication between business owner and millions of potential customers – Millions of people who could possibly become customers? You could not have this easily in the offline world. Thank you social media!
Social networking with potential clients and customers from all over the globe – With social networking sites such as Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter (among many, many others) you can hold personal conversations with each of your customers. Tell them about new products, sales and coupons, suggestions and tips – the topics are endless!
Small businesses can compete with the large companies – In the past, this was very difficult with the advertising and marketing budgets of large companies. With the right type of viral social media, you could potentially get an immense amount of traffic which keeps coming for a long time.
Online reputation management – Social Media is a good way to keep an eye on what other people are saying about your name, company, or brand online – and if any problems or complaints arise, they can be dealt with.
Social media is much cheaper than traditional marketing and advertising – Social media marketing shouldn’t cost a small business nearly as much as traditional advertising. If you do it yourself it might not cost anything at all. It will however cost you time. This is why it is a good idea to hire someone to help with the social media marketing.
Find out exactly what your customers want – Social media is amazing in so many ways, as you can see from the last 8 reasons. But, maybe one of the most amazing things about it is that you don’t have to wonder what your customers want. You want to know what they want? Just ask them!
It provides another way for potential customers to find you – If you’re not high enough in the search engines for potential customers to find you, don’t worry they can still find you through social media. Even if you’re not on the front page of Google, it doesn’t mean you can’t receive traffic.
So there you have it. All small businesses should take advantage of the benefits social media can provide you with, it’ a no-brainer!
Follow our Twitter for more tips on Social Media @StrategySMedia
OK, so this is going to be (kind of) a rant about something that’s been bugging me lately. But one that will hopefully help you out in your social media endeavours. It’s about how to use hashtags properly.
I think it’s damn near impossible to go onto social media these days and not come across a hashtag. They have become such a prominent part of tech culture these days (even being added to the Oxford English Dictionary) that pretty much everybody uses them. Which is fine. But it seems like A LOT of people don’t understand how to properly use them, or what the function of them actually is. People use hashtags because… well… because everybody else does, without giving it proper thought. #StupidPeople
The hashtag is there to help you increase engagement with people with similar interests. It makes your, s and other people’s, content discoverable. It is basically a way of categoriszing content on social media.
You should choose your hashtags carefully. Be specific. Don’t go throwing them around willy-nilly or try to be clever with them. For example if you are tweeting about food, use #food or #health or #recipe. DO NOT use something like #omgsodelicious #youshouldalltrythis #iamsuchagoodcook. If people are interested in recipes for food they WILL search for #food and #recipe. So keep it simple and specific.
You should test a hashtag out before you use it. Simply search for it in the search bar and if it is widely used then great! If not, there probably isn’t much point in using it. Some people like to overuse hashtags which comes across as quite spammy and desperate. No post ever should have more hashtags than words.
That is a big no-no.
People seem to mainly do this on Instagram. It’s not uncommon to see people using up to 30 (30?!) most of which are unrelated and pointless. Spammy and desperate is not a good look. It also seems like people use the hashtags as a description of their picture and to be ironic and funny. #Butitsreallynotthatfunny … see. They aren’t there to make you look cool or funny to your followers, they’re there to help you.
Hashtags can be really useful on Social Media, allowing you to reach a wider audience and make a good impression. (Plus they really aren’t that hard of a concept to grasp!) So – I hope this helped!
Follow us on @StrategySMedia for more helpful tips on Social Media
A valuable life skill: making the best of a bad situation.
I am a Social Media apprentice. Being an apprentice involves completing an NVQ course for college (which equals two A levels, if you were wondering.) For most people this means going into college once a week or once every two weeks to complete work for said NVQ.
Although for me, this has not been the case. I’m not going to come right out and tell you which college I am doing this apprenticeship with (I’ll give you a clue, I live in Manchester) but I will say their service and organization is diabolically and mind-bendingly terrible. How is anybody supposed to complete a course that nobody has bothered to set up?!
You see, I started this apprenticeship in December and it took until mid August for anything productive to start happening (if you could even call what happened “productive”) I was given no work for months and every time they sent a “tutor” in it was always the same outcome: they would have no work to give me and it was basically a pointless and frustrating endeavour. And I’m pretty sure these people were an accurate manifestation of the college they were representing: confused, unorganized, senseless and totally making it up as they went along.
This was aggravating to say the least, but low and behold, somebody turned up one day with some actual work for me. They amazingly had a course set up… A real actual course, with an official name and official units and a mark scheme… the whole shebang! For the first time in my life I was actually happy and eager to receive work. (This is relevant to my life after all, unlike Pythagoras theory and Trigonometry.)
“Great!” I thought. “Now I can get on with all the work that I am 8 months behind on.”
Wrong.
It turns out I have to email them (many, many times, I may add) for them to send me my next unit of work. The last time I asked for work was over three weeks ago and I still haven’t received it. I now have a years worth of a college course to complete in a very short amount of time. This is a very bad situation indeed. But instead of complaining about it (yes I know I have complained a lot here, but I’m getting to the important bit, hang on) I decided to make the best with what I’ve got.
Since the nice woman from the college gave me the official name of the course and the units I am supposed to do, I decided to Google it. You can actually see the units and some of the work online but you cannot access the file to see what the content is. But, using my initiative I realised I could kind of teach my self the content. For example, one of the units it called “Use of digital and social media in business.” So for a short while I simply researched this subject. I’m not going to have learnt all the content I need for the course by doing this, but I now have a much better idea about it and will be able to do that unit relatively easily and quickly when they finally send it to me.
This has taught me to be more independent, that you can only rely on yourself, to take everything people say with a pinch of salt, and that *Insert college name here* are a pile of *cough*cough*
Recently I also very cleverly managed to somehow break our company’s website. (Sarcasm) I have no experience with web design and coding and HTML and all that jibber-jabber so I was confused as to what I had done… or if it was in fact even something I had done (I suspect it was.) As Shaggy said: “it wasn’t me.”
The website was down for days and this was bad for the business for obvious reasons but also bad for me as it meant there was a lot of work I couldn’t get on with. To compensate for this, I took it upon myself to learn the basics of web design. I wasn’t trying to fix the website myself as that was obviously way out of my skill level, but just trying to gain a basic understanding of how websites work so in the future I could avoid this sort of problem. It’s also just a valuable and desirable skill to have; it looks good on a CV and gave me something productive to do for a couple of hours each day. Again: making the best out of a bad situation!
Obviously this is only two instances. But from now on I (and hopefully you) will apply this way of thinking to all bad situations. Nothing is as bad as it seems, and you can always learn something from it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to email the college (for the 5th time this week!)
Google glass is a type of technology that you wear like a pair of glasses which displays information in a hands free format, and what’s cooler than technology that you can wear, huh? So basically: a computer on your face.
It is currently only available to developers and certain groups of people, and the release date to the public is yet to be announced.
It is voice activated and allows you to see and interact with information. For example you could say “OK Glass, take a picture” and that’s exactly what it would do. From taking pictures to recording videos, to social networking and watching Youtube videos, the possibilities are endless.
All sounds pretty cool, right? But is there a downside?
Well, first of all I just said it was cool, but come to think of it… it’s not really. Not in the “this looks really swarve and sexy” kind of way, anyway. In all honesty they look kind of… dorky. Imagine a grown man wandering round tapping his temple and shouting commands whilst rolling his eyes up into his head. Not that swarve.
Maybe with all those amazing features, it’s worth looking like that? But with a starting price tag of £1,500 it’s unlikely that most of us normal folk will even get a chance to look that dorky.
Also, you know when you’re on the train and you see that annoying man in a suit talking really loudly on his Bluetooth headset? He has a really loud, deep voice which penetrates everyone’s eardrums. He doesn’t have to talk so loud but he WANTS you to hear how much money he has just made and he WANTS you to acknowledge the fact he wears Bluetooth. My Dad refers to them as “Bluetooth –“… actually I’m not going to say the rest because it’s kind of rude and ends in ossers. I can imagine the Google Glass wearer being like this but x 5. I’m not even sure if my Dad knows about Google Glass but if he did, he would refer to the wearers of it as “Glassholes.”
There’s also the interesting (and sad) story of the 31 year old man who became addicted to the technology in the same way that people get addicted to illicit drugs. He reported having withdrawal symptoms similar to but less severe than people being treated for alcohol addiction. He was irritable and aggressive when the wearable technology was stripped away from him and suffered anxiety until he put it back on.
He would also still involuntarily move his eyes up as if he was still clicking links and move his hand up to his head to turn the device on… when he wasn’t actually wearing it. He even reported dreaming as if he was wearing them. So not only were the glasses being detrimental to his waking reality but they were even invading his sleeping one too. Kind of scary, if you ask me.
But is this just a one off case? (I am currently imagining a load of technology zombies hanging round the Google offices: twitching, tweaking and scratching themselves and begging for their next hit).
I think people are becoming too reliant on technology anyway and depend on their Smartphones far too much (I admit I do too). And I think this would only increase if Google Glass was used widely. Imagine the laziness of it too! You don’t even have to move if you want to find something out, for crying out loud!
I think people would use it as a means of escaping reality, but whilst still interacting with it. You could look busy at your desk at work but actually be watching a Youtube video. And therein lies the problem: people would slowly retire from the real world and sink into a virtual reality. Wait… are we talking about Google Glass here, or the Matrix? But I seriously think that’s what the majority of people would do.
In my opinion it is a cool concept. But it is something I would much rather “have a go of” than something that would become a part of daily life. For now, we can leave that to the Glassholes.
The Internet Of Things sounds like the title of a sci-fi book, but is actually the next phase of the Internet – it is about machines talking to machines, and is largely going to revolve around the usefulness of embedded software and the limits of our imagination. Such is the excitement of this oncoming wave of new technology that it reminds me of the early days of Google. When at last we had a decent search engine I can remember thinking “infinite possibilities, oh what to search for?” Then sitting back and watching the cursor flash in the Google search field, trying to think big and but finding myself searching for something like ‘funny cat pictures’. I’m making this connection with the internet of things because equally, so vast are the possibilities, here I am again like a bunny in the headlights. Option paralysis if you will.
Usually at a time like this, someone comes along with a relatively simple idea that explodes onto the market and makes billions, but I’m yet to hear of anyone making dramatic life changing IoT applications yet. We’ve all heard about the fridge that can text your phone to say you are low on milk, but I’m thinking no, that’s not going to set the world alight. Something that can sense where the nearest available car parking space is? That’s more like it.
In theory I will eventually be able to have my entire existence analysed by my Things. At the end of the day when I kick off my shoes, they will send data to my virtual assistant who will be able to tell me that I “have walked over 3 miles today, but I’ve overdone my daily salt consumption by 5% again, but not to worry because my weekly grocery shopping order has readdressed this problem with low sodium products”.
Soon life will have the potential to record and present to you and the world every move you make, with sensors and monitors cutting through any comfortable denial you might have about your short comings. When someone is informed in no uncertain terms that they have smoked this many cigarettes today/this week/this year/this lifetime, which has cost them this much money, reduced the oxygen to their brains by this percentage and increased their blood pressure to these levels, then I guess there is some real potential for people using this information to significantly improve their well being. The question is how much scrutiny could you take about your own life? A question worth asking, because soon you will have many more choices with implications that will raise countless issues concerning privacy not to mention self obsession. Using your phone to remotely switch your heating on an hour before you get home on a cold winters night is just the start. What we will be looking at soon is information that will be available to show to us the exact carbon foot print you are making with your heating, how much you have gone over target and a selection of sacrifices you can make at a click of a button to rebalance it.
Before we get all flustered about the about the imminent invasion of The Internet of Things let’s take a collective and unmonitored breath of air. The here and now of the IoT is focused on industry. Manufacturing, energy, healthcare and transportation will all benefit from these new levels of connectivity. In turn this will give those involved the chance to iron out the most obvious challenges like standardisation and security. Also we will get to see those on the bleeding edge of development getting inspired and bringing to the commercial market, friendly applications that help, educate and entertain us in ways never seen before.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkCookie policy