Co-Creation as the Response to the New Challenge Posed by the Internet of Things

摘要

When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT), one can easily paint two contrasted scenarios. At one extreme lies the optimistic vision conveyed by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler in the book Abundance, with its inspiring promise of sensor-based technologies solving our most urgent planetary issues in health, agriculture and food, energy and water supply. The book has the energizing power of positivism. We all want to believe there are lush valleys ahead. At the opposite extreme lies the apocalyptic image of a failed industry, with a few scattered green islands of IoT technology across a vastly barren desert. Sadly, this pessimistic scenario is the most likely, unless we come up with a new way of developing new sensor-based ecosystems in industries with strongly entrenched players, as is the case in the health, agriculture and food, energy and water industries. Do we really think that we will get to a trillion IoT sensors if the pace of technology implementation is dictated by the incumbent healthcare providers and payers, agricultural chemical and seed companies, utilities and oil and gas conglomerates, or global water distribution companies? Right now, this is exactly what is happening, with technology companies coming hat-in-hand to large incumbents with scattered point-to-point solutions of marginal transformational value, or letting incumbents "confiscate" the potential value that data-empowered users might otherwise generate.