Ben Nunney

So the ‘internet of things’ isn’t a new concept, but it’s getting more and more interesting as time goes on. It’s come a long way in the past 22 years – humbly beginning with the original Trojan Room Coffee Camera that not holds the record for the first ‘thing’ connected to the internet but it also pre-dates the world-wide web itself.

Never heard of it? Try Googling for ‘first webcam’ and you’ll find the potted history and a few photos. The idea was simple: the computer scientists at Cambridge University wanted fresh coffee, and didn’t want to waste a trip to the pot they all shared if it was going to be empty.

So they hooked up a camera to a server, wrote some code (including the x window viewer, pictured left) and the rest is history – the first sensor, albiet a digital one, on the web doing something useful. Well, useful if you wanted a cup of coffee and happened to be a researcher at Cambridge University. We’ve all been there.

But this is 2013 – and the UK (nay – the world) has been invaded by Starbucks. Coffee machine use is on the decline. The ‘Internet of Things’, however, is just getting started.

When I started working at Twilio I saw a cool video of an SMS or phone-call-activated snow machine set up in London – you called the number, it played ‘let it snow’ down the phone to you, and the snow machine started up. The power of the internet, and some clever software – hidden from the average joe – as it does cool stuff and makes something physical happen.

My house has its own such geekery. Already, my lighting is ‘connected’ – not only can I control it with the switches (which are cool and futuristic looking) but I can control it from an app, via the internet. Getting home late? A few lines of code, and I can have the lights on in the hallway and kitchen as soon as my GPS enabled smartphone detects when I’m almost there.

But where next? This whole ‘Internet of Things’ business excites me. Back when networks first started taking over the world and IP addresses were plentiful, people were amazed at how many Personal Computer devices were getting connected to this globally connected network – and the same is now happening with devices. Real life things all talking to each other and available to you.

Personally, I’m going to start closer to home. Literally. I’ve got the lighting done – what next? Heating control, perhaps – or maybe an automated breakfast robot like the one from Back to the Future III?

Things are starting to get interesting.

A few years ago I gave a keynote about the infiltration of social media into mainstream society. At the time ‘social’ was fairly new and the ‘internet of things’ was just technology fanboy’s wet dream – but it was clear that the social web was going to change things for a lot of people, not just the nerd herd.

In the years that have followed, I’ve tried to stay close to the front of the pack when it comes to digital social networking – whether it was maintaining an active twitter account, falling in-and-out of love with Foursquare, or trying just about every network that came along and later died.

A lot has changed in the past eight years.

When I first joined Twitter, I had to pitch it every time someone asked why I was staring intently at my phone screen. I had to really work hard to sell the value of connecting to online communities like Facebook or LinkedIn. It was almost anti-social to be social, the very act of taking a few seconds to post a photo to the twittersphere or update my Facebook friends when something cool was going on was frowned on by polite society.

Now? Most of my family relies on Facebook to keep in touch. People find huge value in connecting to a global network like Twitter. Foursquare helps the average consumer stay loyal to brands and get rewarded for doing so. No longer social outcasts – we find ourselves immersed in a world where people break the news, start a revolution, and speak up for what they believe in.

So what’s next?

I heard Robert Scoble talk this week about the world of data in which we now live. There are so many ways in which we can now create and consume information – whether it’s the sensors we all carry around with us or the many networks we find ourselves a part of. He talked of the need for good filters so that we can navigate this brave new world.

This really hit home when I tried out Google Glass. Sure, it’s a proof of concept right now – but it’s not hard to imagine where things are heading. Will we go from the cyborg-esque device that fit clumsily over my glasses  to a sleek, wearable computer system? Will every single worktop, table, window and wall become a screen that we can interact with?

The home computer was once described as a ‘fad’. SMS messaging? Fad. The Internet, smartphones, lolcats? You guessed it.

Wearable computing is new. It’s different. It’s divisive. But a fad?

Growing up as the nerd that I was (ok – fine – still am) the word ‘disruptor’ took my mind straight to Kronos. As I got older and (arguably) a little less of a hardcore trekker I came to love and loathe this often overused word. Every other elevator pitch I heard started with “we’re disrupting the xyzzy space” and went on to give little more context than ‘something a bit different to how it is already done’.

It’s tough to cut through the mass of people without a strategy, product, or plan – but now and then I see something really different. Something special, game changing, and new.

This is disruption. Something that people – who, let’s face it, don’t readily accept change – stop what they’re doing and get behind. I’ve seen a lot of that in my first week at Twilio, but also from time to time out there in the big wide world of tech journalism and start-up tweets something catches my eye, like this video earlier from Simple.

I first bought into the idea of an online bank years ago when Smile first launched in the UK – but taking the really quite boring and often stressful business of managing your money, and looking at it from a storytelling point of view?

It screams disruption to me.

Look at what you’re doing, building, creating. Are you taking something that we all just ‘put up’ with, and turning it into something new? Are you changing the world?

We are. I am. And I challenge you all to get disrupting too.

I’ve just finished the first week in my new digs. I’ve moved from a role I enjoyed at a pretty huge company to an unbelievably exciting one somewhere a lot smaller – but after five days with my new team I can safely say that I’m on the ‘Road to Awesome’. See what I did there, with the picture and everything?

In my first week at Twilio I’ve learned that developers are even more brilliant than ever. Seeing the projects that people are using out API for has really blown me away – from trying to cure and prevent disease to making it snow in East London – the combination of imagination, inspiration and sheer genius of European developers is stunning.

Far from the stereotype of ‘Hipsters‘, I’ve also met some really fantastic people in and around Twilio and other London start-ups. I’ve barely scratched the surface – but being around so many people who are driven, focussed, and have great stories to tell is a learning experience you don’t get elsewhere.

Last but not least, food. Seriously. Where has Shoreditch been all my life? I’ve discovered more tiny bistros and small food carts this week than I had done in the past year – a diversity of lunch options if ever there was.

Please, sir. Can I have some more?

In my time at Microsoft I’ve been part of two major OS releases, worked as we launched new mobile and cloud platforms, travelled tens of thousands of miles, and worked with some truly outstanding people. To quote every presentation I’ve ever given, it’s been “awesome”.

Five years, three job titles, and several million gallons of caffeinated beverages later, it’s time for a change of direction – and as such I am leaving Microsoft on Friday 12^th April to start an exciting new adventure at cloud communications start-up Twilio.

AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE

I’m leaving a company and a team who are doing great things. I’ve always been a fan of Microsoft’s core values and, certainly in the UK, their intense desire to help people do amazing things. To all of the people I’ve worked with – the thousands of students and developers I’ve met at events and workshops, customers I’ve served, and colleagues I’ve changed the world with – thank you.

I’ve enjoyed every minute of the past half-a-decade as a ‘Microsoftie’ and I leave with a lot of love for the Big Blue Monster.

THE WORLD HAS CHANGED

In the past few years, everything has changed. The entire landscape of the industry has been turned on its head several dozen times, and one thing is clear – it’s our time to shine. In a world where peoples lives are so intertwined with technology, it’s the ‘software people’ who have the power to make us laugh, cry, and unlock the power of the devices in our pockets.

Put simply, developers rule the world.

My new role as a marketing guy at Twilio gives me the chance to do what I’ve always done – help people do awesome things with technology – but take it further than I ever have before. I’ll be working to grow one of the most exciting cloud services I’ve encountered in recent years within Europe, helping people to do amazing and innovative things, and joining their already great efforts to bring a streak of philanthropy and community mindedness to a start-up at the very heart of both  London and San Francisco.

I can’t wait to get started – and I look forward to sharing it with you all. As always, you can follow me on Twitter, add me on Skype, and check back here where I’m sure I’ll have lots to say!

I’m looking for a new ‘buzz word’ to use in presentations and blog posts – but for now I’ll simply finish with this:

You are all awesome.

I bang on about how important it is to get kids into code – whether it’s through my work with Young Rewired State, the talks I go and give at schools and colleges, or the community work I do. It’s a fundamental life skill, and one that puts young people ahead of the curve. More and more people have been getting vocal about the importance of this issue – and now, a bumper list of modern-day superheros have come together to create this awesome short film.

Know a teacher or a parent? Know a software engineer? Know a young person or student? Show this to them. Let’s change the world.

I ended a three-and-a-half year long relationship this morning… with a social network.

I’d been a big fan of location-based networks from the first time I saw one. As an early adopter of Brightkite, I checked in all over the globe on my travels as a student and freelancer. I evolved as it did – going from dumb phone to smart phone, from text-message check ins to the mobile web.

Foursquare did so much to improve on the concept by gamifying it – adding points, leader boards  and check-ins. We started our journey together on a warm August morning in 2010.

This morning, I ended it.

And you know what? It’s a lot harder to break up with a social network than I ever thought it would be.

It’s not even foursquare’s fault – it has always been and remains to be an excellent service with some first-rate apps. The title of this post is accurate. My reasons were personal. It’s all me, and it was time to leave.

But we’d built up quite a history together – mayorships of places I’ll likely never visit again, badges to show off cool things I’d travelled for, even lists that help me discover places I’d never have seen if it wasn’t for our special relationship.

Unlike Facebook – which gives you 30 days to re-activate your account should you want to take it back (unless it breaks up with you first), with Foursquare there’s no going back. Once you hit that confirm button, it’s all over. Forever.

Since that point at about 10am this morning, I’ve experienced something akin to the 5 stages of grief. I went into denial that I’d even done it, got angry that it was over, contemplated bargaining with Foursquare to get my account back (I didn’t think “my cat knows my password and did it” was that believable), and even got down about all the history I’d lost.

But finally I hit acceptance. I closed my account for a reason, and that reason hadn’t changed. When I started to really think about it, it struck me just how dependant on social networks we’ve all become.

Seth Godin once said that “social networks are a basic human need revealed online”, and my experience today has shown me how true that really is.

And so it’s time for me to go and deal with this breakup in the same way I’d deal with any other – by inhaling a few gallons of Ben & Jerry’s and working my way through every episode of Firefly.

I’ve not quite got my head around Reddit yet. People have tried to show me how to use it – and I never get past looking at the images posted in /aww – which just shows how easily distracted by pictures of cute cats I really get.

But when I heard that Bill Gates was doing an AMA – otherwise known as Ask Me Anything – on the site, I got a little bit fanboy and started thinking up what questions to ask him.

What do you ask a guy like Bill? What motivates him to do all that charity work? How it feels to have that much money? Why he ever agreed to green-light Microsoft Bob?

I gave up in the end, and watched with interest as he answered so many really imaginative and interesting questions. It was only after he logged off that I remembered that one question that I had promised myself I’d ask him should I ever have the chance: “I wrote you a letter when I was 8 and you never replied. Did it get lost in the post?”

Maybe next time, eh?

I’m racking up the miles – which really makes me wish that trains in the UK had a similar point-per-mile scheme to airlines, as I’m sure I’d be eligible for some kind of tacky free gift by now. So, this week…

• • I’ve been running Windows Phone Camps across the UK
  • I’ve been looking at lots of cool Windows 8 content ahead of the upcoming Consumer Preview
  • Our mid-year review process has drawn to a close.

What has all of this galavanting taught me?

• You get a better reaction from people trying to email you while you’re away if you have a funnier automated email response.
• Train journeys can be amazing if you plan your time well – and lousy if you try to sleep through them.
• There’s so much value in a face-to-face conversation when you compare it with a chat online. The internet is great – but I’d love to meet everyone I engage with online face-to-face just once. It adds so much.

Tune in next time…

A week of sun, sea, and sub-zero temperatures. Lots of miles in travel, and lots of awesome things…

• I spent Thursday and Friday in Newcastle and Middlesbrough talking about the Imagine Cup and inspiring students to enter.
• I fell down the stairs at the start of the week, breaking my coccyx and injuring my back. Nil Point.
• Mid Year Review continues at Microsoft
• I’ve spent a chunk of time working on a few proof of concepts for Windows Phone

I did learn quite a bit from all of this…

• Concentrate. Even when you’re walking down the stairs. One distraction could lead to a massive amount of pain.
• When you get prescribed pain killers that say “do not operate machinery”, it’s safe to say any code you write after taking them will need to be re-written.
• The North East of England is packed with brilliant, passionate developers and students who want to change the world. I’m excited for Imagine Cup!
• It’s good to look back at the past six months and list of achievements and improvements.

Bring on the next week!