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Back With A Mission
I am back after taking a sabbatical from this blog for a while. Looking at the date on my last post, I can't believe it has only been about three months, although it seems like much longer (and in blog time that may as well be forever).
The reason I took some time off (only from the blog that is) was that I didn't particularly like the direction the blog was going in nor was I happy with the projects I was working on. The two major problems as I saw it were:
- While I enjoy writing and blogging, I have always been more of an architect by nature as well as career (systems and software), and after some introspection realized I really wanted to be building something, and that should be where my entrepreneurial energy goes vs. primarily being an analyst/blogger.
- Although I had a good idea of the technical space that was a match for my background and interests, my focus was in the wrong place.
In my time away from this blog I have been working on my picobuzz web app at picobuzz.com. I've also been exploring Twitter and other social media and networking sites and apps. I've never been much for things like chat, IM and texting in the past, but I am particularly fond of Twitter and the people active on there.
There was a method to this jumping around: while I was off doing some soul-searching on what new direction I wanted to take with my entrepreneurship, I have been gaining some valuable experience on buliding a Web 2.0 app (picobuzz.com). Also, I have been getting a meaningful (not superficial) pulse on social networking, or at least those aspects I might be interested in.
All of this has helped me figure out my new focus. I will still be actively maintaining picobuzz (because it is a rush seeing what the Twitterverse is buzzing about). However, I am also going to be starting work on my new focus: Ubiquitous Computing, also known as "UbiComp". In retrospect, this is more of an evolution for me rather than a revolution. I already have a background in many of the related technical aspects like wireless communication, bluetooth and distributed computing. I was in the ballpark with my prior blogging focus on proximity marketing. Yet, I was close but still so far. The reasons:
- Proximity marketing is too often like a solution in search of a problem. There are some interesting applications and businesses doing work in this area but they are for the most part niche applications.
- There are issues related to privacy and intrusion that bothered me about proximity marketing.
- Even though I was aware of the work in Ubiquitous Computing, Pervasive Computing and similar domains, I had trouble seeing the mass appeal and value proposition for the average person. I am not far off the mark in thinking this--there have academic efforts and conferences on this for several years now but most people, even technical, are unaware of this field. And this is a field which could have mind-blowing ramifications.
In closing (for now), I am happy to say that I have come up with some new ideas for exploring and (hopefully) advancing the field of Ubicomp. I will be starting work on these ideas immediately and sharing my thoughts on this blog in the upcoming weeks.
rk
