Google Glass will change the face of the enterprise

When Microsoft launched their original Surface tables it was easy see plenty of enterprise use for the device…more than simply moving photos around a pretty screen. Surface was a commercial disaster and the product is still more of a gimmick and isn’t part of to-day-business use by businesses. Sadly, Microsoft lost the plot, so let’s not look in their direction for inspiration.

I’ve thought and written about marrying up touch-enabled devices with business process tools and still feel that losing the mouse and keyboard is somewhat inevitable. Hands are infinitely more adept at manipulating an environment and objects. Making a touchscreen/ gesture-based version of a business process tool would be a natural transition from where we are today.

Tom Cruise does BPM too

In 2010 I got in touch with Schematic, the firm behind the technology shown in Minority Report. I realized that creating such a device for the enterprise, to be used in a workshop environment would have high value. If anything, it would be a fantastic for everyone if we lost the archaic ‘brown paper’ model.

I found a great connection with John Underkoffler at TED, demonstrating the very same concepts, where he lists industries that would use this kind of technology. I urge you to watch the demo all the way through and try to imagine integrating this in an enterprise context (see at the end). Great stuff.

Through the Google Looking Glass

Today’s hot stories are about Google Glass. Just how can Google Glass and augmented reality (AR) add value in the enterprise ? Taking a look at an article discussing how Glass can change advertising, it is easy to see where this is going:

….what if the ads you saw were different than the person next to you? What if, like the ads you see online, they are based on a composite sketch of you created by all the searches you’ve done and the websites you’ve visited? In other words, what if you looked up and instead of seeing an ad for something you would never buy — like women’s shoes — you saw an ad reminding you of that Amazon search you did a few days ago ?

What if you’re sitting in a call-center and instead of staring at a productivity pie-chart on a screen you pop your supervisory head above the parapet and with your Google Glass you can see each individuals performance figures in real-time ? By calling up the person in question using the voice-interface you can see their stats in a heads-up display. Without being tied to your desk, you can floor-walk at the same time and do this anywhere, anytime, without the need to carry any other interface.

Augmented Reality bites

Dr Ross Brown of QUT stated in an interview that “Augmented reality system tools for BPM would be nice as well. Imagine six sigma data overlaid on the artifacts used in a process model…all on a heads up display as you walk around the company – a “BPM Tricorder”. That was in 2011. Well before Google Glass.

Just like the article about advertising, every c0-worker will have a different view based on their own work and position in the organization, any time, any where. Go deeper and you could have enterprise social integration, with the obvious trick being to offer filters to separate the noise from relevant and actionable information.

In case of enterprise innovation, break Glass

Customer service is just one angle…healthcare is another industry where wearable tech could provide a massive boost in real-time and mobile patient informatics. What about education? What would we do with all of those ‘smart boards’ when kids are wearing augmented reality sets and receiving tailored tutoring depending on their individual needs.

Google Glass could very well be the catalyst for true mobilility and personalization in many industry sectors.

In January Google sent out invites for two separate, 2-day Glass Foundry events in San Francisco from January 28 to 29and New York from February 1 to 2 for developers, AKA ‘Glass Explorers’, which will allow them to get to know the new Mirror API and begin to develop projects for Glass. Whether any enterprise software vendors took up this offer remains to be seen but Glass will not be the only AR device to develop for in 2013, Vuzix launched their own Wrap AR headsets at CES and are planning to beat Google to the market.

Consumer devices are leading the revolution in the workplace.

I’m throwing the challenge out there, which enterprise vendor is going to take me up on it….