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Here's what an iPad looked like in 1994

Peter Kafka finds a a prediction from 1994 that is unusually accurate:

Tablets will be a whole new class of computer. They’ll weigh under two pounds. They’ll be totally portable. They’ll have a clarity of screen display comparable to ink on paper. They’ll be able to blend text, audio, and graphics together. And they’ll be a part of our daily lives around the turn of the century. We may still use the computer to create information, but we’ll use the tablet to interact with information, reading, watching, listening.

Really not too far off the iPad is it. Kind of reminds me of a famous quote by Alan Kay that I saw on a model recently: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

[Peter Kafka, All Things D]

 

The state of the internet operating system

Tim O'Reilly has posted what could prove to be a landmark post on 'The state of the internet operating system'.

'Ask yourself for a moment, what is the operating system of a Google or Bing search? What is the operating system of a mobile phone call? What is the operating system of maps and directions on your phone? What is the operating system of a tweet?'

It's a huge post, and will take a couple of reads to digest. There's a lot of relevance here for intranets too; Business-wide operating systems and platforms that pull together a mass of applications which users can (and should) take for granted, and are comfortable using. It's terminology and a vision that resonates quite strongly for me.

People-based intranets and the future of intranet design

James has published his latest 'Future intranet principles' post, and this one focuses on 'putting people at the centre of intranets':

"Up to this point, the central focus of intranets has been content. How to write it, how to publish it, how to maintain it and keep it up to date. This matches the intranet’s role as a publishing platform, and an internal website.

Intranets in 2015 will put people at the centre, supported by content, tools and collaboration"

This concept, 'people at the centre' or, understanding that 'information is socially situated' as James Dellow describes it, has huge potential for intranets. Some organisations are starting to do this already, including some we're working with right now and one notable winner in the 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards (I hinted at this in a post just before we unveiled the winners, and some great points were left in the comments section).

On that point, below I've republished my editorial column from the 2009 Awards report, focusing on 'people-based intranets'. Several months on, I stand by everything in here, especially the last sentence. What do you think about this concept?

Like those in previous years, this year’s Award entries show that it’s possible to design a powerful, effective intranet that will do what’s expected of it, and do it well, while providing collaboration tools, conversational spaces, filtered and targeted communication, efficient, money-saving applications and more. This year we’ve even seen a number of intranets with striking visual designs that compare favourably with the latest trends on the Web. That’s some progress. But where are we heading?

Underpinning several entries this year is a sense of something significant happening at the leading edge of intranet design: people as the focus, and the very essence and foundation of the intranet.

This year’s entry from IDEO demonstrates just how important people are to an organisation. IDEO’s people are its intranet. Remove them from the equation and the site would be no more. That’s in contrast to the vast majority of intranets, where the ‘staff directory’ is just one, albeit usually the most popular, application.

Instead, and as the IDEO team suggest: ‘Build pointers to people. Rather than attempt to capture everything someone knows in a database with the hope that others will tap that database, we strive to identify the key bits of information that help one understand who someone is in terms of expertise and experience, so that person can best be leveraged.’

This is a compelling concept that has massive potential for intranets and intranet teams. When designing an intranet, don’t just make it user-centred, make it user-based: search for a product and you’re presented with the product owner(s) and their related contact details pages, blogs, feeds and FAQs and the latest processes specific to their products and services.

For the individual staff members, their information is drafted straight from the organisation’s HR systems and automatically kept up to date, while presented in the same rich interface and design as all other systems, actions and processes.

Staff directories, collaboration, social tools and personalisation feature throughout the 2009 Awards. But fundamentally changing the focus of intranets and starting with people, and building on social tools from the very beginning as opposed to adding them as features... that will be one of the most important intranet developments ever.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2010

Happy new year to all readers of this blog and beyond, I hope you had a chance for some fun, rest and relaxation over the Christmas/holiday period and New year too. I spent a fantastic couple of weeks in Queensland, the bulk of which was up at the idyllic beach resort of Noosa, where the weather was stunning for much of the time. The two weeks off gave me a lot of time to rest, recuperate, reflect on the highs and lows of the year that was (I think I came out just about even), and think about the year ahead and its first few months.

In terms of work:

Step Two: I'm aiming to putting my foot on the accelerator with my work. 2009, was a huge year for me in terms of intranet projects, the 2009 intranet innovation awards and a whole lot more. I worked with and spoke to a lot of great people, learnt a huge amount, and was constantly reminded that there's infinitely more to learn. As a consultancy, we're looking forward to many projects and products in the pipeline, one of which I'll talk about later today, and further developments in the field of...

Intranets: In various posts, my Step Two colleagues and I capped off 2009 with some tentative eyes looking forward. Where are intranets heading? Will they still be called intranets? What will future intranets do? I'm looking forward to lots more discussion and further development on these questions and more, with anyone who's interested. Drop me a line on email (contacts), Skype or Twitter or any other of the links on the first-right column.

There's also set to be a continuation and growth of the intranet strategy, redesign and CMS work we focus on, with several very interesting projects lined up for the start of the year and one client's brand new intranet launch that I'm really looking forward to seeing go live this March.

In terms of other things:

Goodbye 'news': as much as I love being 'topical' (as one of the things my friends call me), I've decided to trial the quitting all 'news' aside from work-related fields, tech journals/blogs, premiership soccer, basketball and a few other interests.

Why? Well, it depresses me, to be 100% honest - both in terms of content and quality, and I don't feel like I'm any better off for reading all the trash that comes out of the majority of mainstream media. Time may prove different and, of course, I'm sure I'll still read links and research that come my way, that come through via channels such as Twitter, and will no doubt pick up on any crisis that occurs. But, as of today, BBC news, the Financial Times, Sydney Morning Herald etc. have been stripped from my RSS reader and browser bookmarks. They're miserable, distracting, often full of second-hand information, and really not worth the effort or time any more, and it's pretty nice to say 'adios'.

Anticipating the Apple Tablet: The evidence is overwhelming, in late January we will see a new, big, tablet-style device from Apple and it might well be called iSlate (although iHope not – it's about as awkward as 'MacBook' was upon launch).

Will it be as big a hit as their little tablet they released in 2007? I hope so, and by that I mean I hope it's as wonderful and beautiful to use as the iPhone is. I still remember when I got my unlocked, 2G iPhone delivered from America at vast expense. Taking the lid off the box and seeing this super-sleek, black and silver device was just the beginning of a relationship that now means any other phone really struggles to even get consideration, let alone become a viable purchase.

More on interfaces: With the iSlate and what could potentially smash the bar for more computer-oriented, touch-based user-interfaces, I'm going to continue learning as much as I can about user interface and experience design. As written last year (see lower half of this post), and put nicely in a further Shane Morris presentation in late December '09, this is 'the age of user experience'. It's growing into the most exciting area of technology development and something that's of real interest and relevance to me both in terms of work and play.

So, that's enough just to kick off 2010, but undoubtedly there's plenty more to come. I'm hoping it will be a great year. How about you?

Future intranet scenarios: starting a new job

Building on discussions around the future of intranets (People-based intranets, ubiquitous access), James has posted the first Future scenario, describing the first day at work for new employee, 'Sarah'. Here's an extract:

Sarah's email inbox has a message from Morris, the intranet. Hmm, “Welcome to the business Sarah!”, it seems even the intranet is friendly. Firing up “Morris”, Sarah spends a little time familiarising herself with the system she’s expecting to spend a fair bit of time in.

Part of Morris displays the standard corporate links and tools, but the right-hand half of the page seems to be just for her. There’s a prominent box linking her to an induction package, including a few get-up-to-speed videos, some recorded by other staff members.

This is thought-provoking stuff, with the ideas of people, social networks and integrated systems right at the very forefront. Read the full scenario over at the Step Two blog.

More on the future of intranets

James is thinking about the future of intranets, and has begun putting shape around some of the possibilities:

From this point on, I’m going to be doing a lot of talking about the future, in addition to [Step Two's] normal discussions. The culmination will be a keynote presentation in Denmark at the IntraTeam conference, March 2-4.

I’ve learned that creating new ideas and methodologies is not a purely intellectual activity, it’s a conversation. It’s more about finding ways of communicating ideas, than the insights themselves. So I need your help.

James's first principle of the future is 'ubiquitous access' to the intranet, or whatever it may be called in the future. What do you think? Head over to ColumnTwo to leave your thoughts.

Microsoft's vision of the future

For every serious, far-thinking Microsoft video:

<p><a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&showPlaylist=true&from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a></p>

There's a fairly decent parody in response:

[via Damian]