I was reading the press release from last week’s Gartner Symposium in Florida.  Although I do not agree with the timing of the events they predict, two of them are of distinct interest to me given my own areas of research in marketing automation and IoT infrastructure.

First point:  All of the enabled objects (IoT) will require service and maintenance.  Well, they do now already require service and maintenance, but with the “phone home” ability of connectivity and some level of intelligence, the down time of objects can be significantly reduced.  This will be helpful given our reliance on said objects will increase as a function of their intelligence.

It is likely that an unique service industry will develop in and around IoT objects, and those who provide service to infrastructures will need to add knowledge about internet enabled devices to their portfolio.  Real time automation again rears its head, so those with skills in simulation and utility management will benefit.

Second point: A certain percent of business content will be authored by machines.  [To be frank, given the poor writing skills of many of the millennials I teach, this can only be a good thing. 😉 ]   Seriously, there are many items that can be automated in terms of corporate communication.  I would agree that business reports can become automated and their contents more automatically disseminated. And preferably NOT in terms of increasing the volume of email!

I have to say I like their point 5, and agree with the statement: “Smart building components cannot be considered independently, but must be viewed as part of the larger organizational security process. Products must be built to offer acceptable levels of protection and hooks for integration into security monitoring and management systems.” It is clear that holistically a smarter workplace must be greater than the sum of its parts.   Integration and baking security into the workplace is a necessity for protection of corporate capital.