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We’re all familiar with bio tech and nano tech, green tech and clean tech, but according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon, the newest trend will be kind tech- technology whose goal is not only to make you more productive but also to make you happy.

First, a little background: when visitors enter the main lobby of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science they are greeted by a quirky “Roboceptionist” named Marion “Tank” LeFleur who calls out “Welcome to Newell- Simon Hall, how can I help you?” But he’s not just programmed to spit out welcome messages every few minutes; he also likes to chat incessantly about anything and everything with anyone and everyone that sticks around. “Tank” is one of the first of his kind- a fully automated robotic receptionist designed to help visitors find their way around the building. Not gonna lie, he kind of reminds me of Zordon from the Power Rangers (don’t even try to pretend you didn’t watch that show)! Anyway, while “Tank” is a great experiment in human machine interaction, the real cutting edge technology has more to do with understanding the humanity of the user, say the experts.

The newest technologies seek not only to make our lives easier but also to learn from us, adapt to our lives, fill our emotional needs, compensate for our handicaps, and ultimately, “make us better people”.  It seems that for too long technological innovation has approached the problems of everyday life with a single dimensional attitude. It aims to minimize or eliminate the effort needed to get things done- and that’s it. Despite all the gains in convenience, however, the researchers at CMU seem to think we have sacrificed a broader sense of fulfillment. So they want the next wave of technology to help restore that feeling with machines that “work with us, not instead of us”.This technology, they say, can be defined as “kind”.

For example, Jodi Forlizzi, a professor at CMU, has recently developed a new product called the Hug. It is about the size of an overstuffed pillow and uses wireless technology to enable physical interaction despite physical distance. You basically squeeze the Hug on your end and it will record the motion and send a signal to someone else’s Hug so that when your counterpart holds the Hug to his or her chest it will electronically mimic your embrace. Other products that are beginning to fill this space include the Chumby, an electronic clock that also enables you to look at your favorite blogs, rock out to Internet radio stations, look at your friends’ Facebook status updates, or check today’s weather report, as well as the Ikan, a countertop digital device that I’ve written about previously that helps you keep track of your groceries, print out custom made and categorized shopping lists, etc.

Across CMU, and across the country really, researchers and scientists are enabling technology to learn our specific routines and habits, our unique likes and dislikes, and our personal tics and neurosis. And then they are using that information to try and custom design our everyday lives.

Personally, I’m not sure how much I like this new wave of technology because in all honesty, it’s kind of creepy. I don’t know how I feel about a virtual hug. And even though it’s cool, I’m not sure who would buy it. But I’ll admit that there is great potential for some true innovation in the human-computer interaction space and it’s refreshing to see that some people are aggressively tapping into it.

This blog is entirely non-political and I intend to keep it that way, but tonight I was given the opportunity to hear Kate Walsh (Addison from Grey’s Anatomy and the star of Private Practice!) speak on behalf of the Penn Democrats organization on campus, and I was both impressed and inspired. Not only is she a very beautiful woman, but she also spoke very eloquently and appropriately given the college audience. Her brief description of the various ways she’s been involved, including her work for the Obama campaign during the primaries, was surprisingly “grass roots” and she encouraged all of us to get involved in any way we can.

Okay so the lighting is strange and I’m looking at the wrong camera but you get the point. Whether we are passionate about healthcare, women’s rights, the economy, the war in Iraq, the Supreme Court, or any of the other issues that the candidates’ opinions differ on, it’s critical that we get out there, get involved, and vote! Our nation is going to face (and is already facing) some very complex challenges, and while these problems may threaten the country, they also provide an opportunity for rising generations to take action and find innovative and amazing solutions.

Consider this my token “how innovation relates to politics” entry. Now, go register if you haven’t already!

You already know how much I love lists, so here goes…

Some of these are far more feasible than others… some are straight up crazy. A couple are my own ideas and others are ideas I’ve discussed with friends or colleagues. You may find yourself laughing about, scoffing at, or even identifying with the need for some of these innovations, but regardless of how you react to the individual ideas I hope that, at the very least, you find it stimulating. In no particular order…

1)      Sensitive Thermostat: No I don’t want my thermostat to cry when it’s sad or smile when it’s happy, but rather to adjust according to bodies in the room instead of some preset temperature. Often when I’m caught up in an activity or busy thinking about something else, I’ll go several minutes without realizing I’m uncomfortable (either too hot or too cold)… plus, getting up and changing the temperature on the thermostat is a pain… especially in the middle of the night. I’m sure there is some technology out there that has the potential to use pulse/ heartbeats, or sense goose bumps/ overactive sweat glands, and adjust the temperature accordingly.

2)      Sleep Storage: We’ve all had those weeks where we just wish we could squeeze in a couple more hours of sleep. How amazing would it be to be able to capture “excess sleep” for use in “times of need”. There are all kinds of problems with this, not the least of which is that I have no idea how it would possibly be done. Plus, I can only begin to imagine all the ways this technology could be used for “evil” and the several court cases that might arise as a result. Nevertheless, it’s fun to think about!

3)      Brainshots: Speaking of sleep, I somehow I always find myself being most creative right before I go to bed. When I have an essay to write, the perfect sentences come to me right before I fall asleep but the thought flow is constantly interrupted by my efforts to commit the ideas to memory, and yet I inevitably will forget them in the morning. If there was a way to take “screenshots” of my ideas/thoughts from when I get in bed to the time I fall asleep it would be phenomenal. There are already ways to covert audio into documents, perhaps someone will figure out how to covert brainwaves too…?

4)      Virtual Fitting Rooms: Whether you’re lazy or always running short on time, trying on clothes in the fitting room of a store is annoying. Sometimes I’ll see something I like after leaving the fitting room and won’t buy it just because I’m too lazy to go back and try it on. If instead of fitting rooms stores had booths where you could scan the items you want to “try on” into a machine (much like the ones at Walmart that tell you product prices) that then also quickly scanned your body to create images of you in each piece of clothing, it’d be great. The 2.0 version of this would of course allow you to send the images to friends or family via email or a new social network to get their opinions of the outfit

I’ve broken the golden rule of only writing lists in round numbers, so there may be a part 2 at a later date. And for those of you that now think I’m insane let me share with you a quote by Arthur C. Clarke, a famous British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist who passed away earlier this year:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Have your own crazy invention ideas? Feel free to share.

Talkbiznow.com, which claims to be the world’s first comprehensive interactive business networking website (try saying that five times fast) will launch on Monday in Europe and the United States with hopes of attaining three million users within the first six months says an article in Forbes (LinkedIn has been around since 2003 and had 24 million users as of May 2008).

One potential challenge for Talkbiznow that the article mentions is the perceived (lack of) efficacy of networking websites as a business tool. While LinkedIn’s “Introduction” tool is supposed to help professionals find “important” contacts, users apparently often get requests from strangers that have no relation to their business or line of work.

Nevertheless, the fact that LinkedIn just recently received $53 million in venture capital funds highlights the demand for websites aimed at business professionals, and Talkbiznow CEO Martin Warner has made it very clear that he believes his website is far superior to LinkedIn. He wants it to be much more like Facebook, with digital tools that the “business world is craving”. Talkbiznow offers professionals the ability to hold “Webinars” (online video conferencing), send instant messages, store files directly on the website, post a blog, create a calendar, and more. “The beautiful thing is that you have a world without many entrants, and until now it’s largely been about putting business cards online,” Warner says. “We want to go a whole step further and create a space for business professionals and companies to come together and communicate to do business faster and more effectively.”

Well, he’s right about the “world without many entrants” part, but I think this may be due to the fact that one has to very careful in merging business with social networking. In addition to the features listed above, Talkbiznow also enables users to “nudge” each other, which sounds a lot like Facebook “pokes” to me. It’s weird enough to get “poked” by friends or other people you know on Facebook- I can’t imagine how awkward it might be to be “nudged” by a stranger who you intend to interact and communicate with in a professional setting. Eeeeeeeeeek.

I’d say to some extent this is just another example of the copy-cat syndrome that I’ve written about previously. Just because Facebook has been successful so far, doesn’t mean that you can take its features and turn it into a professional networking site. In fact, I think that Facebook is too cluttered and informal and that the simplicity and practicality of LinkedIn are superior for professional networking. Apparently others agree, as WebWorkerDaily ends a review of LinkedIn by writing “As long as LinkedIn never offers anything with the word “poke” or “wall”, maybe they’re on to something after all.” Only time will tell, but I think Talkbiznow is talking a lot of smack now, and may suffer a similar fate as Cuil did by talking smack about Google before it launched a few weeks ago.

Today I ate a yellow watermelon. When I closed my eyes, it tasted perfectly normal. When I opened them though, I couldn’t help but expect each bite to taste like pineapple or some other citrusy fruit.

Some changes companies make are advantageous because they are symbolic, more efficient, or an important marketing ploy.

Wal*Mart… oops I mean Walmart*… changed its logo to signify changes in the company’s policies and customer service and a revamping of the company and its reputation. I’m not saying that a simple logo change will help them accomplish all this, but I understand where they are coming from.

When Zephyrhills and Poland Springs changed the shape of their bottles it was not only more eco-friendly but also allowed them to showcase their new eco-friendly focuses. Plastic water bottles, in general, are the most anti-eco-friendly invention ever, but that’s a whole different story. Again, the change makes sense from their perspective.

When Head & Shoulders overhauled their shampoo bottles to emphasize their change from a functional consumer product to a “desirable beauty brand” the sleek new curved bottle shapes were important from a consumer awareness point of view.

When Heinz decided to sell green and purple ketchup, however, the change was unwarranted.

There was just something weird about putting green goo on my French fries (as opposed to red goo), and it seems like others felt the same way because the green and purple bottles were off the grocery store shelves as quickly as they had gotten on. This change was completely unnecessary- change for change’s sake it seems. The taste was the same, but red ketchup is a successful staple and there was no reason to tinker with that. Mass idea generation is great, but these ideas then have to be assessed from all angles before spending time and resources on them because unfortunately, all ideas are not created equal. For example, the idea to find a way to grow yellow pineapples watermelons should never have been supported.

As I’ve been chasing innovative companies into the depths of cyber space for one of my projects at Brilliont, I’ve noticed that lists are all the rage. Whether it is a list of innovative companies, a list of things entrepreneurs should or should not do, or a list of successes (or failures), lists are everyone on the internet. Having read so many lists I’ve come to some conclusions about why we are so enamored by them. Here goes…

20. In this age of news and other online content aggregators we are becoming accustomed to a new level of quality, quantity, and diversity of information that is often easier to reach with a succinct list rather than drawn out paragraphs.

19. Lists allow us to get directly to our point, without having to worry about introducing a topic or concluding (ie: they are often easier to write).

18. Lists sometimes allow us to mention several very distinct pieces of information at one time in one place without having to find concrete ways to connect them.

17. Did you know that the population of Canada is only 1/9^th that of the United States?

16. Lists make it easy for us to gauge how much content we have finished reading and how much we have left to go.

15. It is easier to retain information in list form because they cut away the trimmings.

14. Complete sentences unnecessary.

13. People tend to feel that they can skip over a few points in a list without missing the gist of the article. This means that on occasion, if we don’t really have that much to say but want to look impressive with a long list, we can string together some random verbiage for a bullet point or two and hope that no one notices.

12. I’m just writing random stuff and hoping that no one will actually read this point or even if they do they’ll be so enamored by my overall list that they won’t even notice that this sentence is entirely ineffective.

11. Or alternatively, we can throw in an entirely useless point but use a buzz word in hopes that it looks impressive to the large majority of people that will only skim the article.

10. Cars that are GREEN and save ENERGY are really great for the ENVIRONMENT and the ECO-FRIENDLY nature of our lifestyle.

9. Lists are of course, only attractive when they come in round numbers. 5, 10, 20, 100- these are good numbers for lists. They tend to imply that the author has exhausted all important points on any particular topic. On occasion this means that we find ourselves repeating content by presenting it in different words. Luckily, lists often help hide this repetition.

8. Lists can be redundant but the bullet point structure can help disguise this fact.

7. Lists tend to generate debate. They are inherently a ranking based on the writer’s opinion and understanding. It is often easier to pinpoint and extract the author’s view and support, negate, or simply discuss it.

6. Lists are fun to send to family, friends, and colleagues. We tend to be much more likely to skim through a forwarded list of “Top 10 XYZ” than to read through a long or dense article that we receive.

5. Lists make it easy to explain anything that requires steps. For example, directions and recipes are unbelievably easier to follow when described in list form.

4. People love categorization, comparison, and statistics. Since lists often claim some sort of extreme (eg. The BEST cities to live in, the TOP 10 solar energy firms, the WORST 15 movies of all time, etc) we get excited. Then we can turn around and sound particularly well read in conversation… “Well you know Bob, the PATH trains are said to be the absolute worst form of public transportation in the history of the universe because they are always late and broken and crowded…”

3. Lists make great blog posts. Enough said.

2. The numbering system of lists leads to the expectation that the last item will be particularly exciting, insightful, or eye opening- especially in the case when lists are numbered backwards.

1. Sometimes this is true. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is not.

I recently read a particularly thought provoking article by Scott Anthony, a discussion leader for the Harvard Business Blogs, that discussed whether or not large incumbent companies should even bother with innovation. I’ve written previously about Toyota and Honda and the fact that while analysts, academics, experts, and lay people alike are praising them now, in the past few decades both companies have been criticized publicly several times for pouring money into “unproven” technologies while refusing to follow the rest of the industry into large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Well, as I said before, “unproven” is what innovation is all about! Both of these companies exemplify not only how important innovation is for incumbents but also how successful the correct approach to innovation can make them.

But today I actually want to briefly give mention to a different aspect of success- one that I find is often neglected or forgotten- and that is luck. Jim McCann started out selling flowers on the side and ended up with 1-800-FLOWERS, the world’s largest florist. Ted Waitt started Gateway 2000 on his family’s cattle farm in Iowa and in less than ten years was running a billion-dollar company. What special ingredient do these and the hundreds of other famous success stories have in common? Luck. (I recommend reading about these and other successes in What’s Luck Got to Do With It?: Twelve Entrepreneurs Reveal the Secrets Behind Their Success).

Even contemporary companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon owe something to luck. It doesn’t matter whether you are starting a new business or applying to a new job, choosing classes in college or trying out for a sports team- luck plays an immensely important role in how our lives shape up. Sometimes luck just means being in the right place at the right time. There is no doubt that Honda and Toyota did years of research and spent hours understanding all kinds of models before deciding to invest so heavily in alternative energy and fuel efficient vehicles, but even they could not have known how quickly the energy crisis would arise and how pervasively the ‘green’ movement would infiltrate our nation or the world in the past few months.

Unfortunately top management doesn’t really like luck because it is, by definition, erratic and uncontrollable. So how do we then deal with it? Well, we can, to some extent, create luck- only then it goes by a different name, and that name is opportunity. The most successful people create and take opportunities wherever and whenever they can. Whether this means turning your company’s name into an everyday action verb (Google, Sergey Brin & Eric Schmidt), taking an aggressive approach to branding and style (Apple, Steve Jobs), or revolutionizing customer interaction and satisfaction (Amazon, Jeff Bezos), successful companies and successful people are always creating unique opportunities.

As Hector Berlioz said, “The luck of having talent is not enough; one must also have a talent for luck.”

Today’s Dilbert:

So classic.

It seems that too many managers don’t recognize what they do and don’t need to know about technology to be successful. It is not so much a matter of mastering the engineering behind a product as it is developing a keen sense of the emerging technological trends, assessing the length of product life cycles, and promoting technological product and process innovation from the bottom up; and then using managerial expertise to accomplish all of these goals. Most importantly, they can never be satisfied with the current situation and must always be looking for ways to further enhance the use of technology throughout the organization.

On the other hand, they can’t expect technology to fix all their problems either. It’s not the magic cure all- if it were there wouldn’t be so many unsuccessful companies today. They must first establish processes and methodologies that are aimed at achieving the organization’s overall mission and then find ways that enable the employees and company to further integrate technology into their daily tasks. A classic example is 3M whose leaders have always provided an environment that allows employees to spend up to 15% of their time on projects outside of their day-to-day work, consequently encouraging innovation from all levels of the company’s hierarchy. With this practice in place, employees develop and test new (sometimes very radical) ideas, thereby pushing technology to new extremes. Thus, the “15% rule” enables the company to expand its technological reach and use innovative, funky, technologies as a competitive advantage.

Scott Adams, you are a genius. Now if only I could convince professors to assign comics instead of 50 page articles for class.

Since I’m interning in New York this summer, I’m staying with my aunt, uncle, and cousins at their place in New Jersey and commuting daily. Not only does it save money but it’s also really nice to come home to family and good food every night. So this year for the 4^th of July we made plans to meet my parents and brother in North Carolina, at a point somewhere in between Jersey and Florida. I left work early on Thursday and we set out at around 5 PM, expecting to reach the lake house we were staying at by around 11:30. As we took off I noticed that in the car we had 3 cameras, 2 DVD players, 3 laptops, 4 iPods, and 2 video game consoles (can’t forget the Wii). More importantly we were each traveling with a cell phone (5 in total, including an oh so coveted iPhone with full internet access) and 2 GPS systems- in case one simply wasn’t enough.

As it approached 10:30 and we realized we were getting close my uncle began paying more attention to the GPS system’s instructions. For another hour or so we continued to follow its twisted directions, even though it was telling us to take odd turns and strange side roads that intuitively didn’t make sense. But hey, who cares about intuition when you have a GPS. Needless to say, by 11:30 we realized that we were not at our destination and worse, we were lost. No worries though, we figured we’d just call my parents who should have reached the lake house around 10. I pulled out my phone only to find that it was dead because I had forgotten to charge it. Oh well, with 4 other phones in the car someone was bound to have a working phone right? Wrong. It turns out there was no phone reception for about a 50 mile radius of the lake house. At this point one of the GPS systems had already forfeited and was beeping as it had “lost satellite coverage”. My cousins, uncle, and I began tinkering with the one navigation system that was left, zooming out to try to get a “general sense of where we were” and zooming in anxiously to find a familiar road. Meanwhile, my aunt starting thinking out loud, trying to figure out how we’d arrange ourselves if we had to spend the night in the car. We quickly told her to think silently to herself.

Finally, at some point we realized the GPS system was nothing but a computer. We had become so accustomed to relying on it though, that we never thought twice about ignoring gut feelings. Eventually we turned off the system (okay well we didn’t turn it off because it was still reassuring to have it around) but we did stop paying attention and instead we started thinking about where we were really trying to go. We got back on the main road, trusted our instincts (and the directions of a local gas station owner), and finally, at around 2 AM, arrived at the lake house.

For the rest of the weekend we were without phones and without the internet. I am never without a phone or the internet. When my parents went grocery shopping (to Piggly Wiggly, the only grocery store in town) they had to write down the entire shopping list before they went; they couldn’t just call us and ask us what we wanted once they got there. They had to get directions for the store before they left; they couldn’t rely on the GPS system or call us to look it up on Google Maps if they got confused. When my cousins, my brother, and I wanted to explore the town for a bit we had to tell our parents exactly when we planned on being back, since we couldn’t just call them and let them know where we were. And when we wanted to go out for dinner, we couldn’t look up restaurant reviews on cityseach.com or yelp.com- instead we had to ask the locals and take a risk.

In the end, we had an amazing time. Even though I have to admit that I am relieved to have my phone and the web back at my fingertips, I learned a lot in the past 3 days. As medical diagnostic tools, weather forecasting tools, computing abilities, communication and information technologies, etc. become more and more exact, we humans seem to become less so. We procrastinate more and more in figuring directions, building concrete plans, and making decisions, and we have become so reliant on technology that sometimes we forget that devices and gadgets can’t actually think or feel, even though it often appears that way

In this age of fantasy sports, online social networking, cyber friends, and virtual worlds, it seems that sometimes we have to get lost to find our way back to reality.

At a trial when judges have to decide whether sexually explicit material should be considered obscene there is no simple formula they can apply to reach an answer. Instead they are asked to use a “local yardstick” and decide whether or not the material violates community standards. In the trial of a pornographic website operator taking place in Santa Rosa County (Florida), however, the defense plans to use the Internet to change that. Mr. Lawrence Walters, the defense attorney, plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade jurors that community members’ “interests” are pretty broad. For example, he plans to show that residents of Pensacola, Florida are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon” and so the sexual material distributed by his client is not outside the norm.

Of course, this makes no sense for several reasons. Firstly, if a small number of users are behind the majority of this volume then the data is completely useless. Plus the search data may not be at all relevant because the volume of Internet searches is not necessarily an indication of a community’s values anyways. Just because someone’s doing it, it doesn’t make it right. How many times have you heard that one before?

More interesting, though, is how telling this is of the value of data collected by internet companies like Google both from a commercial standpoint as well as a porthole into the thoughts/desires of users. As opposed to showing the range of explicit magazines, movies, and websites available for consumption, the defense is trying to show both availability and interest (using Google Trends which allows users to compare trends in a given area). Chris Hanson, a staff lawyer for the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union, noted that this tactic underscores the power of the Internet to reveal personal preferences- something that raises concerns about the collection of personal information. “That’s why a lot of people are nervous about Google or Yahoo having all this data,” he said.

We’ve all been told time and time again to be careful what we post on social networking site profiles or anywhere on the internet for that matter, but I don’t think we usually consider the kind of data that might be collected based simply on our search queries- text entries that we feel are completely temporary and not really saved anywhere. Reminds me of Spiderman… “With great power, comes great responsibility”… I just don’t know if that applies to us every day internet users or to the internet behemoths like Google. Are we really responsible for how our searches might be used to misrepresent the community as a whole? I don’t really have an answer right now, but I’m interested to see how the trial pans out in the next couple of weeks.