With the maturation over the next five years of wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, 802.11a and b, and 3G, we will enter the age of the Supranet. We will create linkages where they did not exist before. What is evolving is universal communication where we have the ability to let information flow, to go untethered, across larger and larger areas. These networks will hand off and pass information about us, notify the network of our presence, transmit to us any information that awaits, and send any information from us to the new network. Though we have time here, we recommend that you have a plan in place.
Technology is important, but wisdom is more important.
In an ancient Sufi story, six young blind men examine an elephant, but each in his haste to return and report on their knowledge covers only a part of the animal. They are followed by an old man who takes the time to feel and smell and listen to the entire animal. In other words, the biggest revelation that businesses will come to is that because of the sheer numbers of technical disciplines required to run a real time enterprise, together with the stovepiped ways in which our jobs are organized, most of us will miss the big picture. Instead, we risk dependence on the blind young men - and women, who are too much in a hurry to report on their myopic view of the business. Figure out both the things to do today to be successful now, and those initiatives that must be taken today to build the platforms and processes for the business in 2003.