Social Machines: How to Develop Connected Products That Change Customers' Lives

Chapter 5

Overview

I decided to write this book because I became convinced that there is a sea change coming that will have an enormous impact on just about every aspect our lives. It is a deeply positive change that will allow us to live happier and healthier. It will help us make better decisions. We will use natural resources more efficiently and take care of Mother Nature in the process. It will help us build better businesses that more accurately address the real needs of people everywhere. All this will happen because we will start to get much smarter about interacting with all the physical objects in our daily lives. We will develop products that don’t sit in isolation but live on networks, with us. As Sean Parker’s character in the movie The Social Network famously said, “First we lived in villages, then we lived in cities, and now we are going to live on the Internet.” Guess what? We won’t be alone there. Billions of machines will be joining the community too, and our world will improve because our information will improve.

Let me give you one simple reason why: feedback loops. Both humans and machines use them to rapidly coordinate with one another and improve whatever task is being undertaken—driving a car, flying a plane, or controlling the temperature of a house. In the June 2011 issue of Wired magazine, author Thomas Goetz describes them well:

“The basic premise is simple. Provide people with information about their actions in real time (or something close to it), ...