Will successful Wearable Technology be 'Invisible' ?

Wearable technology is one of the latest fad in the consumer electronics world these days and everyone is contemplating how it'll change the way we consume and interact with data. 

From rumors of Apple iWatch  to speculations on Google Glass, anyone even remotely associated with technology is watching this space very closely.

If so called 'wearable technology' is sounding too geeky, I guess Bluetooth headset would ring a bell. No doubt what we are talking here is far more advanced but these headsets would be one of the primitive versions of WT that every one of us has used and could relate to.

And if Google Glass doesn't sound too familiar, am sure you'd remember this.

Even though there is a long way to go before these devices will go mainstream people have already started renouncing them due to various privacy and security reasons. Some plainly find them funny. 

Which isn't new, like Gandhi said, 

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. "

I still remember the how camera phones were considered to be a huge dent in privacy. They were banned in gyms, which included names like Gold’s, and scandalous MMSes took the concerns to a new high. But later on, the benefits outshined nuisances and now smartphones are a dent in balance-sheet of companies that relied solely on cameras.

For that matter even when Bluetooth headsets were launched, people wearing them were ridiculed, but they brought a significant improvement in productivity by freeing up one hand. And that means a lot, when you have just two.

Although am extremely bullish on the future of wearable technology but for it to really go mainstream, it has to be 'invisible'. As we all so fond of buzzwords, I prefer calling it 'Invisible Technology'. 

Take Google Glass for an example. There is not doubt about the paradigm shift it’ll bring in the way we live, but it looks like 'Pager' of 2020, that might die even before it's born.  Apart from being impracticable to wear it all the time even at a cost of looking stupid or wannabe, I might not want to give up my RayBan for it.

Again taking a clue from MI, how about building something like this.

I understand that there might be greater privacy concerns but I think in order to take the next leap, wearable technology has to be invisible. Something that we don’t have to wear additionally, something that won’t be visible to others. It’ll be a part of things that we wear normally. Something wont make us look like a Glasshole.

What say?

Why everyone should build a mobile site

We humans are extremely interesting creatures, and I never miss a chance to study how our behavior changes with the change in our surroundings.
 
Here I am going to tell you one of such examples.

In Delhi, summer and power cuts go hand in hand. They not only help government to manage the shortage of electricity in the city but are also the sole reason behind flourishing industry of inverter batteries in that region.

Powercuts are part of the daily routine for a Delhiite but did you ever notice the change in our behavior during power cuts?

The very first thing we do as soon as the main power goes is it to switch off all the unnecessary lights and fans. Infact we do the reverse, we only keep those lights on that are absolutely necessary.

It's a little funny, because we do not mind wasting electricity for which we are paying through our nose but try to conserve the battery.

It kind of reminds me of our lab days, where we used to study the difference in results by changing one variable of the experiment while keeping all the others as constant.

In this case, it's the same family who keeps the light of the storeroom and exhaust fan in the bathroom on, just like that. Same house same, appliances, nothing else changed, but they are now sitting in one room under a single light and fan.

So what causes this sudden change in behavior?

Yes it’s a no brainer, when we know the resources are limited we use them wisely.

It's not that we don't know that we should save electricity, but we don’t care until we are in the situation when the supply is actually limited.

The same goes for web designs.

We all know that we need to give the best experience to the user, but while designing for desktops we don't face too many constraints hence most of the time we are not challenged enough to make the best use of it of the ones that are available.

It's only when you start designing for mobile, you get switched to the inverter mode. It gives you a chance to take a fresh look at the hundred of features that you've added to your website while chasing your pipeline fanatically over the time. And then you ponder that is that light in the storeroom actually required being switched-on all the time?

And trust me, then you'll have soooo many #ThatEnlighteningMoment, when you'll say WTF, why the hell didn't I think of it before.

Designing for mobile teaches you so many things that desktop could never do. Because only then you realise the importance for every pixel and actually think out-of-the-box for solving user problems.

A simple thing like having no space to waste for long help texts makes you rethink the obvious to make that idiot proof designs. It takes intuitive designs to the next level where you spend hours and days to just find that perfect picture that is literally worth a thousand words.

So even if you are still not convinced that mobile web is the next big thing in the Internet, designing for mobile will definitely make desktop site users a lot happier than ever before

What say, are you ready to try the inverter mode?

Internet Entrepreneurship Workshop (19th June, 2010)

Another weekend, and another interesting gathering to discuss a new topic on the Internet.  I am not sure if “workshop” was the right word for it but organizers made sure that the sessions were very interactive.

It was called "Internet Entrepreneurship Workshop” and was organized by “Peer Power” in association with “Wirefoot”.

Again, I knew that am not planning to turn into an entrepreneur in a near future but I always wanted to know what it takes to be one.  And imagine I paid to attend to this one. But thanks to Akhil who offered me some discount :)
 

As per the organizers “The workshop was aimed at giving a crash course on how to build a successful internet system for your organizational/business needs.”

And the Panel of speakers included:
 

R. Sundar, CEO, Times Business Solutions Ltd.
Topic: Key Note

Ankur Dinesh Garg, CMD, Wirefoot India Technology Ltd.
Topic: Billion Dollar Idea

Alok Mittal, Managing Director, Canaan India
Topic: Fundas of Funding

Manish Vij, Co-founder, Quasar, Tyroo and Zoomtra
Topic: Startup Marketing 

Pawan Gadia, Vice President, Ferns 'N' Petals
Topic: Building Brick by Brick
 

Manish Pathak,  Co-Founder, Papam
Topic: Brand Building

Sumit Goyal, Promoter, PlanForMe
Topic: Real Life Startup Story

Jatin Mahindra, Founder, InternetMafia
Topic: You are the Man! How the power of you can make it all happen

I must acknowledge that the organizers made sure that the participants get an exposure to almost all the elements required for being an internet entrepreneur. Here are a few things they can probably add in the next workshops:
-    Legal Considerations for starting a new business
-    What financial documents need to be prepared
-    How can open source  technology help

Overall an enriched experience, just one thing I would like to add/suggest. One of the most important qualities of an entrepreneur is not only to learn from mistakes but to accept them as well.
 

If they wouldn’t have mentioned that the spelling mistake on the backdrop was deliberate, some of us wouldn’t have even noticed. Because if it was done intentionally then it should have been done on all the branding material. I think it was only after Satrajit tweeted it, that they noticed :)

Anyways, such things always happen, and we were not there to gaze at the backdrop.
 

Great work done guys.

The event was also live tweeted by Readit India, and can be followed by #peerpower.

I will add my details on what speakers said soon :)

The Power of DEFAULT

I don't know how many times we as a consumer have thought of this seven letter word "DEFAULT". It may be several meanings, but to me it means the "predefined settings done for the user for the ease of his use"

There are two school of thoughts. One says that let the user decide what he wants because every individual is unique. Some of the popular buzz words like customisation, atomisation, even web2.0 etc talk about this. The range of examples for this can vary from tailored clothes to a customised car designed by Bentley.

The other school of thought says; make the task of consumer simple by giving him predefined products. Some of the scholars believe that we should give everyone what satisfies the need of more than 80% of the consumers. And I don't think I need to quote any example for this.

I always believe that every individual is like a rational number, divisible only by itself. Thus customisation is the mantra to follow. But the question to answer is, up to what extent?

Now coming back to the online world (where we belong ), there have been several attempts to customise the services so that they can satisfy most of the users. But the fight is to increase the number of people who fall in this "most" category.

Some websites have identified this fact have started giving features like create your own homepage, your own search, online avatars, choice of colours, designs, etc etc etc And some have gone a step further and have added "MY" to every section of their site to make user feel more possessive about his account. This may sound funny but have worked for these sites.

But still, we can not ignore the fact that still most of the users in countries like ours are not so advanced and may not be ready for all this customisations. And we have to save his time also. And lot of options may confuse him. There is another way of saying all this "we know what is good for him".

So when it is us who decide on the behalf of the user, then is becomes all the more important to analyse that what should be those default settings. It has been observed that 8 out of 10 users use the default settings provided to him and 6 out of them were not even aware of that there are options also to select. I don't think we need more numbers to prove the "power of default"

Thus many internet companies are experimenting with different setting to make the processes quicker. Some are trying to make the settings more and more intelligent for better usability, some try to manipulate the setting as to hide their weaknesses and some do a trade-off as per their own convenience. Quoting a very simple example of keyword based search, many websites do a lot of research for creating robust algorithms and improving the relevance of the search results, some (especially the one who have limited size of the database) simply search on "any of the words" just to throw more results. Finally, some prefer staying in between relevance & their own convenience, and search on "all the words"

Many of the websites have also used (or we may call it misused) this power to for their own benefits. So let's not talk about taking acceptance for sending promotional mailers, downloading adwares and various other agreements of which the user may never thought of. If because of increasing awareness and stricter cyber law they are not able to do that, they use another magic word "Recommended" (which I think is the only word that has over-powered the "default") new to the option they want the users to select and it is done.

No matter how we use (or misuse) this power of default, but it has surely become very important ingredient in designing effective web services.