The Relevancy of URL's

Web addresses are slowly becoming less relevant as tech progresses on a number of fronts. As they're replaced, the systems used in their place will be more than a destination. In fact, they'll be only the beginning of the journey.
Here's what I'm talking about: If you're reading this on a Mac or a PC then right up there on the top of your browser window--possibly the biggest part of it--is the URL bar containing the address of this webpage. You probably tap site names into it a hundred times a day or so--and invariably those addresses end in ".com." These words are actually a handy code for the real IP address of a server somewhere where the webpage lives--an address which is a string of numbers. Computers love numbers. The web addresses we're all so used to are simply a people-friendly way to connect to a server and thus website, because people don't really love numbers.
Yet a change is coming, because URLs are clunky. They're basically a simple way of getting to a single destination--a webpage--and then navigating you on from there to more and bigger and more interesting things. And that's about it.
One way you may get around this matter is to use a search engine like brilyuhnt, which suggests related topics to your search query. But searches like this, while powerful, still center on the idea of a webpage as a destination--and the search keyword is a way of getting there.
Hashtags are bigger than this idea because they run through different locations instead of stopping at one. They've also got the potential to be cross-service in a way a simple URL wouldn't ever be: A "#Euro2012" hashtag on Twitter or Facebook or Google+ for example means the same thing to everyone. Clicking on a hashtag takes you to content that is dynamic, crowd-generated and--in the case of brands or other "sponsored" tags--carefully curated.
Twitter obviously thinks so. Recently it's made several changes to the way it deals with hashtags to bring them to the forefront of its social network as a way of navigating around. You may have already started to hear phrases like "look us up at hash CNN" when watching the TV. Twitter's most obvious move in this direction has been to promote its tie-up with NASCAR on a hashtag "landing page"--a front page you end up on when you click on the "#NASCAR" hashtag on a browser. Though this is just another webpage, the way you get there is very different than clicking on a URL. This is not a technicality either, it involves a very different thought process: Imagine a different situation, when you're reading an online social media conversation revolving around an earthquake--collected information from all sorts of people all over the web is tied together with a hashtag just like this. That's why brands like NASCAR are interested in this tech--the brand word itself is the gateway.
In a different way Twitter's trying to enhance its discovery powers through its search engine. It's made an effort to brush up its search powers, adding in suggested spelling corrections and a degree of smartness that works out if you're searching for similar information after a previous search query, so it can refine its suggestions. In this manner its search engine is personalized to you as a user at that moment, which is an attempt to keep you discovering feeds and Twitterers and hashtags inside Twitter that are interesting and relevant to you.
And outside the realm of services like Twitter, soon you'll notice that when the thousands of new gTLDs--terminators like .ketchup, .mormon, and .Amazon--that ICANN is in the process of enabling actually arrive, then how you think about web addresses themselves will change. Daniel Schindler, cofounder of Donuts one of the biggest applicants for gTLDs, that he expects "tremendous innovation as a result of this program...there will be incredible amount of thought about what people can do, what apps they can add to certain gTLDs." And a major part of this innovation will be as an engine for discovery--local pizza stores could aggregate under the .pizza name, perhaps resulting in you finding a new store that you've never been to before.
Meanwhile the evolution of tablet computing means there are services like Flipboard that aggregate information coming from different sources for you without you ever having to think about typing "www dot cnn dot com" into a browser. And if you still prefer to use a tablet browser, you may even know how to "pin" your favorite website to the homescreen of, say, your iPad. At that point you stop worrying about URLs altogether, and instead organize how you surf the web by working out which icon to tap on.
There's no end point to this evolution, but you can bet that one day when your kid clicks on a virtual button on their 10th generation tablet computer, opening up an array of links, tags, and curated content--none of which is labelled with anything as clunky as a URL--they'll ask you: "What's a dot com, anyway?"

Technology Improves the World

The word “technology” combines the Greek tekhne and logos, symbolizing that technology, like language, is as intrinsic to the human condition as speech. Language, though, does not stand alone; it is part of a larger cultural system. Hence the German word Technik, which denotes not only technologies themselves, but also the skills and processes surrounding them. A century ago, leading Western philosophers appreciated the promise and peril of mass industrialization technologies. 

Technik unites the scientific and mechanical dimensions of technology (determinism) with a necessary concern for its effect on humans and society (constructivism). Technik, then, is the technological quotient of civilization.

Whereas geotechnology is about power, Technik is about adaptability. We live and die by our Technik, the capacity to harness emerging technologies to improve our circumstances. How does our culture deal with the distribution of technology? Can we devise strategies to maximize the upside of technology while minimizing the downside? Instead of West vs. East and democracies vs. dictatorships, actors ranging from cities to diasporas to corporations to cloud communities will compete and collaborate to attain Technik.

Science fiction author William Gibson’s famous quip that the future is already here but unevenly distributed is the quintessential encapsulation of the fact that we differ in our stages of Technik. In a world of such diverse political forms--democracies, monarchies, authoritarian states--the “war of ideas” will never be won. Instead, we will increasingly differentiate societies on the basis not of their regime type or income, but of their capacity to harness technology. Societies that continuously upgrade their Technik will thrive.

When standards of living are so perpetually threatened by technological shifts, shouldn’t Technik be a factor in evaluating societal stability? The contrast between the U.N.’s Human Development Index and the reigning obsession with per capita GDP illustrates just how important it is to develop a more neutral, long-term-focused metric for progress. Many wealthy societies have low human-development scores (e.g., Arab petro-states), while China’s score is rising quickly even as its per capita income remains modest. We should layer on technology-focused criteria as well, such as the World Economic Forum’s Network Readiness Index , which assesses the quality of individual access, government regulation, and business investment along more than 50 indicators. Not surprisingly, Sweden, Singapore and Finland are at the top, but interestingly, technocratic China scores higher than democratic India, and India higher than Italy. Good Technik requires a combination of the attributes that deliver high human development, economic growth, political inclusiveness and technology preparedness.

Which societies display the best Technik today? Given the high proportion of Asian leadership with science, engineering and math backgrounds, and their countries’ export-led growth creating sizable surpluses, it is no surprise that first Japan, and then Korea and China, have invested so heavily in infrastructure to catch up with--and potentially surpass--the West.

Japan’s technology obsession and idiosyncratic social traits make it a fascinating case study of the early Hybrid Age. Japan already has 38 of the top 50 cities ranked by speed of Internet connection. Its resilience as a society is demonstrated by its ability to rebound from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, keeping supply chains intact and rebuilding coastal communities. More broadly, Japanese society has embraced robots to such an extent that it seems to prefer a man-machine hybrid civilization to an ethnically mixed one. Robots are increasingly employed in building homes, caring for the elderly, and even entertaining the masses--witness Hatsune Miku’s sold-out holographic concerts.

But there are costs to such a rapid embrace of robots: Males unable to meet traditional expectations become alienated and retreat into Internet addiction and virtual companionship, accelerating a decline in the birthrate. If any country becomes the first to feature human and robot citizens fruitfully co-creating a new hybrid culture, it is likely to be Japan--but it needs to make sure there are enough humans there to enjoy it.

Singapore, once a colonial swamp governed from India, is today a seamlessly efficient cosmopolitan world capital of finance and, increasingly, innovation. Indeed, the lack of natural resources has made it an innovator in the most (un)expected areas, from fuel refining to water desalination. Now its aim to capture the edge in life sciences and immersive media. Peter Schwartz likes to call Singapore “the best-run company in the world,” and indeed it is the leading role model in city-state Technik for entities from Abu Dhabi to Moscow to Kuala Lumpur. It must, however, evolve its political and educational systems to ensure that its own people are innovating in addition to all the talent it imports.

Finland, the so-called “open-source nation,” is a leading Western example of Technik. Finland’s sophisticated population has embraced the digital life and pioneered mobile technology (Nokia) and an open-source operating system (Linux). In Helsinki, mobile phones are as much for banking and street navigation as for communication. In no other country does one so strongly feel that a mobile phone is part of one’s identity. It cannot be the weather that has earned the country the second position worldwide in the United Nations World Happiness Report.

It cannot be the weather that has earned Finland the second position worldwide in the United Nations World Happiness Report.

Israel presents another example of rising Technik. Not only has it made major investments in biotechnology and other strategic sectors, but for several years its Chief Scientist gave out nonrecourse loans to more than 4,000 startups. Rwanda, Mongolia, and many other nations are seeking to copy Israel’s blueprint as the “startup nation.” Technology will long outlast the United States as Israel’s key ally.

Even a country still as overwhelmingly poor as India can elevate its Technik. Its mobile-phone penetration rate is skyrocketing, a biometric national identity card scheme is gradually delivering rights and services to hundreds of millions of previously disenfranchised citizens, digital kiosks in dusty villages are spreading access to information and education, and a sophisticated Right to Information Act requires publishing all laws on the Internet. Parts of India such as its tech hub, Bangalore, represent the leap from an agricultural to a service economy in a single generation.

The United States is home to some of the key pioneers of Technik, whose innovations help society adapt to the future--yet it struggles to keep first-mover advantage over their innovations. Semiautonomous government agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have invented technologies--from the World Wide Web to robotic exoskeletons--that eventually gained widespread application. However, the U.S. share of global R&D, like global GDP, has fallen to around 20%, and since not enough of those funds are devoted to commercialization initiatives, the United States sometimes has to buy things it invented a decade ago from competitors abroad. Fortunately for America, it is still home to most of the world’s “silicon superpowers”: IBM, Google, Cisco, Apple, Microsoft and more. Those companies’ hardware and software platforms are the foundation for almost endless innovation by diverse users worldwide, a contribution no Europeans or Asians can match. Technik is big business: Led by American ingenuity, we are entering the age of the $1 trillion corporation--and the first to cross the mark probably won’t be one of the usual suspects but a manufacturer of 3-D printers that allow anyone to turn virtual designs into physical objects.

The U.S. share of global R&D, like global GDP, has fallen to around 20%.

IBM themselves should perpetually seek to upgrade their Technik. Having spun off its hardware production divisions over the past decade, IBM now invests in artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, clean energy and devices for high-tech health care. As a globally integrated enterprise with almost 500,000 employees worldwide (including 100,000 in India alone), it is also a de facto leader in spreading Technik to other societies. For its part, Apple exhibits the clever trait of creativity with control, bringing large swaths of humanity into its exclusive orbit of products and interfaces. Its $100 billion in cash outstrips the GDP of more than 100 individual countries. Apple products are undeniably one of America’s most coveted exports.

Even companies in traditional sectors can demonstrate enormous staying power and Technik by diversifying businesses, exploring new markets and hedging risk. For example, super-major oil companies such as BP and Chevron are among the leading investors in clean energy, and Coca-Cola and McDonald’s own a growing share of the health food sector. Large players constantly “spin in” dynamic newcomers, incorporating their innovations and modifying their business models to stay on top.

The struggle to attain Technik could become the new global class struggle: those whose wages and quality of life benefit from technology versus those perpetually lagging behind prevailing standards. In the new global class struggle, there would be no clear geographic boundaries such as North and South, since the disparities of Technik exist--and could widen--both across and within nations and cities. Technik is therefore a quality we must all strive for: whether as individuals, companies, communities, cities or countries.

Disrupting Technology

Disruption is coming, and the only question is whether your firm is going to cause it or fall victim to it. Disruption is not easy--either to create or to confront. We have no illusions about that.
But in the spirit of helping established firms best serve their customers, we offer seven ways your firm could disrupt its own industry, raising the standards of customer experience and creating new opportunities for growth:
1) Totally eliminate your industry’s persistent customer pain points.
Each industry has practices that drive customers crazy.
Technology providers drive customers crazy with technical support that often requires long waits on hold and hopelessly complex interactions (“Just find the serial number on the back of your device and type that into the space provided along with your IP address and the exact wording of the error message you encountered”).
Unsurprisingly, this is the exact type of practice that causes customers to believe a company is behaving stupidly.
What practices exist in your industry that drive customers crazy? How do all companies in your industry behave stupidly? Identify these types of practices, and wipe them out.
Think: can we turn our process or perspective around, to look through the customer’s eyes as though they were the company and we were the customers?
2) Dramatically reduce complexity.
As we write this in November 2011, a company we have been tracking for some time--Simple, formerly known as BankSimple--is trying to take a machete to the insanely complex and confusing world of consumer banking.
Recognizing that banks do a pretty good job of managing money but a poor job of managing customers, Simple has been designing vastly simpler customer interfaces and tools.
Simple plans to partner with, not compete against, established banks. They’ll manage the customers while their banking partners manage the money.
The more complex the processes and practices in your industry, the greater your opportunity to gain competitive advantage by simplifying them. Yes, doing so will be very hard. But that’s the whole point; the first firm to do so gains tremendous advantages.
3) Cut prices 90 percent (or more).
Incremental change doesn’t disrupt an industry; radical change does. Radical price reductions require radical new processes and business models. Smartphones and tablets create numerous opportunities to identify these. Recently we replaced a $500 marine navigation unit with a $20 iPad app that works better.
You don’t cut prices by 90 percent through marginal improvements in existing products. You do it by asking, “What problem are we trying to solve for the customer, and how do these disruptive forces create opportunities for us to solve it in a far more efficient manner?”
4) Make stupid objects smart.
We didn’t think this one up. The race is on to make everything smart, and the dumber your products were to begin with, the greater the opportunity to make them smart.
Think of a garbage dumpster that calls central dispatch when it is full, eliminating the need for the customer to do so or your office to send a driver out unnecessarily. That same dumpster could warn the customer when it is overweight, and point out that it would be cheaper to empty it now than to further overfill it.
No offense to dogs, but their collars could alert owners when the dog wanders away, barks excessively, or jumps on the furniture.
Light bulbs could flash before they burn out. Baseballs could announce how fast they were thrown. Plants could politely request water when they are too dry, or shout out when you try to overwater them.
Take every product you sell, and make it smart…or accept the fact that you must forever more compete on price and accept low margins.
5) Teach your company to talk.
Apple's Siri personal assistant on the iPhone allows you to have a conversation with your phone. Your iPhone can now access the Internet as well as the information it stores, both understanding and responding appropriately to your statements.
Flash-forward two to five years from now. What if your company could talk to customers? We don’t mean that your employees talk on behalf on the company. We mean that a digital, computerized persona speaks on behalf of your firm.
It takes orders. It provides support. It answers questions. It upsells. It issues refunds. All of this, and more, in response to verbal requests by customers.
The toughest part of this challenge is not technical, although a few problems still need to be solved.
The tough part is knocking down the walls that separate your databases and departments. It’s deciding whose product gets cross-sold, who gets “credit” for sales, and who “owns” the customer.
Our view is simple. No one owns the customer, and you either do what’s best for the customer or you will lose him. But the real question we want to put forward is this: what happens if your competitors’ companies talk, but yours doesn’t?
6) Be utterly transparent
Think: not just no secrets, but also no spin.
The concepts of social influence and pervasive memory will make it increasingly difficult for companies to hide from dissatisfied customers, negative reviews, and faulty products.
What if your company didn’t simply try to stop hiding, but instead radically embraced the truth? How might it impact your culture to decide that your firm would be the most powerful force in your industry making certain that every speck of the truth was obvious to every customer, analyst, and reviewer?
Would it change your reward systems? Would it impact employee motivation? Might it cause changes in the kind of employees you attract and retain?
We’re pretty opinionated in this regard. The truth is coming, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But most firms won’t recognize this until it happens. Better to get far out in front while confusion reigns.
7) Make loyalty dramatically easier than disloyalty.
According to Don Clark writing in his Wall Street Journal blog, Intel executive Mooly Eden once asked an audience how many had cellphones, and then how many were married.
Then, he asked if any of the married people would be willing to hand over their phone if their spouse lost his or hers. None would. “That is my point,” said Eden. “That is personalization.” By definition, when companies act smart they are personalizing the way they interact with and serve customers. Once you start delivering personalization, you create immense opportunities to make loyalty more convenient than disloyalty:

• You can store customer preferences, and act on them.
• You can save the customer time, money, or effort--especially by eliminating repetitive tasks.
• You can provide auto-replenishment of needed supplies.
• You can monitor products remotely, and service them before they break instead of afterwards.

Think about every major purchase decision your customers face in your industry. How can you make it easier for customers to remain with your firm? Now, think even bigger. Can it be five or ten times easier? Subtlety can be lost on today’s customers.
The challenge is to make loyalty so much more convenient, so radically easy, that customers won’t even consider switching to a competitor. Ever.