Scan Monthly No. 017July 2004 |
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Signals of Change
Enhancing Human Senses
SoC061
Technology can enhance human senses in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes that include extending the senses beyond normal human capabilities, focusing a person's senses on crucial information concerning a particular threat or danger, and restoring sensory abilities to the disabled. The most prolific domain currently for sensory enhancement lies in the arena of applying the human senses to the task of interfacing with computers and other machines, like cars.
Exploring Pricing Models
SoC062
As companies look to grow their businesses through expanding their markets to new regions around the world, they've discovered that rigid, mass-market pricing models constitute a showstopper for entry to some markets. So companies are experimenting with variable-pricing models, lend-lease arrangements, per-use fee structures, and community-access or consumer-driven distribution mechanisms.
Ethanol on the Move
SoC063
Annual U.S. fuel-ethanol production increased by 30% in 2003, in large part because of ethanol's substitution for the nonbiodegradable octane booster MTBE in gasoline. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, production could grow another 18% in 2004 to more than 3.3 billion gallons of ethanol. About 12% of U.S. gasoline is currently blended with ethanol, representing about 1% of the national gasoline market. Thus, the ethanol market has significant room to grow.
Downloading Risk to Consumers
SoC064
Most consumers have welcomed the proliferation of choices and options that has greeted them in the past decade. But benefits rarely come without a downside, and consumers are beginning to struggle with two hazards that accompany a proliferation of choices. The first involves the glut of information that consumers have to sort through in order to evaluate the options they have—which information to trust is just one of many problems associated with this hazard. The second hazard concerns risk: A certain amount of risk always accompanies meaningful choices. The right to choose a health-care plan, a retirement fund, a school for one's children, or a drug-discount plan includes the risk of choosing the wrong one.
Insights
| Overcoming E-Mail Overload | View summary |
| D04-2478 | Download this Insight |
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E-mail is immeasurably important to the contemporary enterprise. E-mail is not only indispensable for general business communication; it also has become a repository for corporate knowledge and connections. The key problem with e-mail is that developers never designed it to handle the communication load that it carries today. Having survived the spam onslaught of 2003, corporate users must now begin to think beyond spam, even beyond e-mail. Enhancements and alternatives to e-mail have the ability to lighten the workloads of individual e-mail users. This study considers some emerging enhancements and supplements to e-mail and evaluates their utility for business users. Author: Thomas M. McKenna. 8 pages. |
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| Signals of Change in Advanced User Interfaces: The Scan™ Process at Work | View summary |
| D04-2479 | Download this Insight |
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Companies can use SRI Consulting Business Intelligence's Scan TM process to uncover changes and disruptions that could pose threats to their businesses or open new opportunities. Rather than try to predict the future, which not only is impossible but can tie companies to predictions that don't pan out, Scan analysts look at data points from a wide range of sources to identify discontinuities and other unusual developments that might signal a pending change in a technology or business. By looking at developments in a wide range of domains—from politics and culture to business processes, science, and technology—Scan analyses can identify changes outside companies' usual focus that could affect their businesses. Scan can serve as an early alert system of changes in the business environment, or it can help strategists gain insights into changes that affect a specific topic. This study offers an example of the latter approach, demonstrating its use in analyzing signs of change in the area of advanced user interfaces. A look at Scan output reveals the importance of seeing advanced user interfaces as an amalgam of technological, consumer, and business issues. Not only must companies monitor the technology itself, but they must watch developments in enabling technologies, track new forms of communication, and stay alert to emerging problem areas. Author: Martin Schwirn. 20 pages. |
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| Security Issues in Pervasive Computing | View summary |
| D04-2480 | Download this Insight |
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As pervasive computing begins to proliferate, so does the need for security technologies to protect pervasive environments. The spread of digital files and digital communications has come with a price: identity theft and forgery. Hacking into wireless systems using "sniffer" devices has become very easy for individuals with a relatively small amount of information-technology expertise. When crime becomes a looming threat and businesses and consumers begin trusting wireless technology less, pervasive-computing solutions will bear the brunt of the negative image. This study examines some of the vulnerabilities of pervasive computing and the projects that aim to solve the problems. Opportunities to improve security in pervasive-computing and sensor networks will enhance the proliferation of those technologies in environments—such as military operations and corporate R&D facilities—where security compromises are unacceptable. Applications of the security will play a role in corporations' and government agencies' trusting pervasive-computing environments and therefore investing more in pervasive-computing solutions. Author: Greg Powell. 6 pages. |
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| A Learning Perspective on Customer-Focused Online Communities | View summary |
| D04-2481 | Download this Insight |
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Growing use of the Web by both businesses and consumers for a range of applications—in part driven by greater convenience (easier and better access through broadband, for instance), wider choice of Web-based applications, more and better online content, and increasing comfort with technology across all age groups—is supporting increasing use of technology for learning in industry, schools, and higher education. In industry, the application of technology in learning will continue to expand beyond internal, employee training and development to new areas. Two areas in particular are seeing growing interest: customer learning and business-partner (including channel partners and resellers) learning as a way to educate better and more easily, but also to learn from, customers and business partners in a company's value chain. This study—which SRI Consulting Business Intelligence's Learning-on-Demand program produced in collaboration with Scan™—illustrates how online communities can be used by companies producing very different types of products and serving widely different customers and markets. For example, it discusses two online communities of Cisco, a technology company that serves clients in enterprise, service-provider, and commercial markets. And it describes communities built by Communispace, a leading vendor of technology tools and services for designing and running online communities that tend to serve mostly consumer-product manufacturers. Author: Eilif Trondsen. 20 pages. |
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Calendar
Scan™ Briefings
The biannual Scan™ Briefings in which Scan staff present Scan analysis and findings in Menlo Park, California, will take place on:
- 21 October 2004 at 8:00 am
- 19 May 2005 at 8:00 am
Scan™ Abstract Meetings
Scan abstract meetings (in which SRIC-BI [now SBI] staff participate in a free-form discussion of current Scan abstracts) are open for client observation/participation on:
- 22 September 2004 at 9:00 am
- 20 October 2004 at 1:30 pm
- 26 January 2005 at 9:00 am
- 23 March 2005 at 9:00 am
- 18 May 2005 at 1:30 pm
- 20 July 2005 at 9:00 am.
Watch List
The Scan program's scanning and research processes identify areas on the periphery of your organizations's focus that constitute potential opportunities or threats. The areas that we decide bear watching go on Scan's watch list of defining forces that are transforming the business environment. Current watch-list topics include:
