IOT – latoga labs

My IoT Solution Framework

September 6, 2017 Leave a Comment

[ February 2018 Update: The IoT Scorecards add on to my IoT Solution Framework has been discontinued. Lack of time to dedicate to this endeavor and the speed at which the IoT market has been evolving makes my initial work obsolete. ]

Over the past 2 years I’ve developed a picture of what almost any IoT Solution, or IoT Application, must have as the various technology bits and pieces. I first created this IoT Solution Framework while working with potential partners as a way to set a foundation for exploring IoT partnerships and explaining where their stuff fit and where my stuff fit. Eventually, I started to use this framework to compare IoT vendors and understand where they fit in the bigger picture of the IoT market.

By IoT Vendors I’m referring to companies that are selling technology that is used to build an IoT Solution, like a smart thermostat, or a connected machine. I’m not referring to companies that are selling the smart thermostat or the connected machine, though they are building an IoT Solution which is will match some or all of my framework.

After sharing this general framework with a few people from my network, it appeared that my framework filled a gap in the IoT market. I’ve refined the framework a bit more and recorded this video presentation to be able to share it publicly. So, as a way of launching the latoga labs YouTube channel, here is my Anatomy of an IoT Solution:

I’ve taken this framework and applied it to various IoT Vendors that I’ve been talking to over the past few months. That developed into the IoT Vendor Scorecards that I have started to share in the IoT Lab. The scorecards are designed to give you a quick view of how different IoT Vendors compare based on the seven areas of my IoT Solution Framework. This is not a deep technical overview of these vendors, but a higher level abstraction that allows business and technology executives to discuss their IoT Solution within a common framework.

The 7 Areas of the latoga labs IoT Solution Framework. — The 7 Areas of the latoga labs IoT Solution Framework

The current list of IoT Vendors is just a sample based on my recent activity and I expect this list to grow (it has been highly focused on the software side of IoT to date). I’m working through a more detailed scorecard for each as my time allows. I’ll be updating the list as I publish those scorecards and post updates on the blog.

What part of the framework do you like the most? What part do you disagree with the most? What areas need further explanation? Who are the important vendors that you think are currently missing from the scorecard list? Please let me know by sharing a comment.

If you represent an IoT vendors, on my list or not, and want to chat please contact me directly.

Borrowing a line:

If you like my scorecard concept…please share them with your friends and colleagues.
If you hate my scorecard concept…please share them with your enemies and competition.

Clarifying My Vision of the IoT Journey

June 15, 2016 3 Comments

With all the customer and partner conversations I’ve had over the past few months, it’s always good to sit back and document your vision and work to clarify it over time. In that sense, here is my vision of how IoT is a Journey to a Dynamic Ecosystem:

IoT is a Journey to a Dynamic Ecosystem…What’s Your Destination?

All the IoT related discussions I’ve had starts off with one or more types of Things.

Stage 1 is always connecting that Thing to the Internet (link level initially and eventually data communication level) and then collecting data from that Thing. I’m actually a bit amazed at how many customers, in early stage projects, have no vision of what’s beyond that! They are usually focused on just the operational data that can be captured from the thing and collecting it into a big data repository of some sort. Yet so many don’t focus on the operational aspects of all these things out there…how to efficiently scale their connection to your solution, keep them all organized, and track their state within a lifecycle. Some ignore this need all together while others try to build this operational capability (taking time away from adding true value).

Stage 2 is the logical extension of Stage 1, I have all this operational data…let’s analyze and optimize! This is where a data scientist may be employed to analyze all the collected data to understand trends. If we’re talking about Industrial Internet of Things then they are looking to predict when a Thing may fail and/or optimize it’s run time state. Even for the Internet of Other Things, there is still a need to understand the state of a thing to optimize it’s usage (like turning off the Thing when outside it’s hours of usage). Being able to allow certain people or systems to send commands to a Thing over a control plane is key in order to mitigate a failure or negative consequence of a failure. And integrating with other operational data sources in real time to broaden the operational view.

Stage 3 is where most of the more advanced customer’s I’ve talked to have their visions initially set. They know they need to expose and share the data and access to their Things with others. And this is where the excitement builds for them as this is where new revenue generation models get defined…and redefined. This is also where I start to shake my head at a few “IoT Platforms” that have come along recently that claim to help solve the monetization problem of IoT.

Monetization is the secret sauce that you need to create for your IoT Solution.

Someone else can’t do this for you. The true root of the monetization challenge is being able to support dynamic ecosystem security, a method of controlling access across the entire ecosystem of people, things, and systems in a fashion where you can programmatically change the access levels. Without that that type of security model you can’t control which different groups of users have access to different aspects of a Thing and charge for the increased value that is provided.

Stage 4 is the constantly evolving stage (not calling it an end state as this journey doesn’t end) that true visionary companies and projects seem to have, one that involves sharing of their data and Thing access across multiple 3rd parties and combining it in real time with multiple 3rd party data sources. The number of different users and groups who need access to the control plane as well as the number of data sources hooked together on the data integration plane is complex and evolves with the demands of the business.

This is my view of how IoT is a Journey…where do you agree or disagree?

(and yes, there is a platform out there that allows you to build IoT Solutions to meet every stage of this journey…but that’s another post…)

Ecosystems are Key to Unlocking IoT Value

May 13, 2016 Leave a Comment

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Yesterday I spent a few hours at the Internet of Things World expo in Santa Clara, CA. One common thread that appeared again and again in conversations was how ecosystem enablement is key to unlocking the promised value of IoT.

During a conversation about IoT enabling medical devices and the types of data and actions that they need to support, the conversation quickly elevated into how that device needed to be part of a larger ecosystem. The device manufacturer (the gentleman I was talking to) needs to see low level operational data from the device in order to sell value added maintenance services to the buyer of the device. But the buyers of that device needs to be able to see all the devices they own and where they live in the device lifecycle (ready for deployment, at a hospital, at a patient’s home, being recovered from deployment, etc.). And then here are multiple levels of users of that device: The Hospital needs to be able to see data from all devices they have deployed, grant access to slices of the data collected from the device to a doctor or nurse based on who’s currently on duty or assigned to a patient; The patient also wants to have access to the information from that device to feel empowered and part of their care program. And then there is the HIPAA requirements and privacy concerns regarding the data coming from those devices, how do you support all the above use cases and ensure privacy? And then consider the security around sending commands to that device to adjust the monitoring parameters or the amount of medicine being dispensed.

And this was just one of the conversations from yesterday. Same trend happened when discussing automotive telematics system, a hospitality industry personnel optimization project, a travel industry concierge project, a manufacturing operational monitoring project, and even a consumer based mobile application for social engagement. All different vertical or industry focused solutions…same horizontal need, participating in a larger ecosystem.

Many people who start down a path to creating an IoT solution (or just IoT enabling something) don’t realize that the real value that IoT enables isn’t just around connecting and collecting data. It’s about how that device needs join a larger ecosystem of people, data, and legacy system. Real value starts to be unlocked when there are win-win-win scenarios across the entire ecosystem. And many of those scenarios won’t be visible immediately but will evolve over time.

After having hundreds of IoT conversations over the past 6 months this is the strongest recurring trend I have seen. Many times just understanding each of the groups of users who need to interact with a Thing can be a challenge, let alone all the nuances around security and different levels of data and access to the controls of a Thing. And that Thing needs to interact as part of a large ecosystem that doesn’t just include people but also other things, legacy applications, and other data source.

Are you’re IoT plans being built around Ecosystem thinking?

Are you’re technology decisions being made with Ecosystem enablement (now and for the future) in mind?

This is one of the core strengths that attracted me to joining Covisint last fall. The Covisint PaaS has three main pillars of functionality which work in an integrated fashion for ecosystem enablement:

Identity and Access Management to handle the dynamic security model that is required to enable an ecosystem and not only scale to support Millions of users and things but also handle the complex relationships that exists between all members of the ecosystem.
IOT Services to provide realtime messaging for Things and not only describe, manage, and secure the capabilities of each Thing at scale within the ecosystem but also to manage the lifecycle of each Thing as it lives within that ecosystem.
Messaging and Orchestration to not only integrate Things with legacy applications and other data sources, both internally and externally to an organization, but to also become the single integration point to open up all your legacy application and data.

Leave a comment and let me know if you agree or disagree with my observation around ecosystem thinking being key to unlocking IoT value. Let’s talk about your ecosystem…