Our decisions today are determining how technology will change our societies and important decisions such as where technology will be loosely or tightly coupled determine the possibilities at hand. There is no doubt today’s rapid integration of the physical and digital world is starting to fundamentally change many aspects of our lives and businesses.  As a society, we want greater sustainability and less waste, less climate impact, more mobile and personalized services and greater inclusion. These are some of the promises of issues we can tackle with the internet of things. The World Economic Forum has labelled this as the Fourth Industrial Revolution and I think they are onto something.

History teaches us that embracing industrial revolutions propels economies forward, creating new opportunities to improve society and grow innovation. New companies are born, incumbents are revitalized, new services emerge, the quality of life improves and new job employment opportunities are born. Exciting times and we are all a part of it!

Bringing it to life

Here are some views on how this may come to life in the future, as I see it:

• A world of smart connected things (for example a coffee maker or refrigerator) where the item will be free, or nominal cost, and people will pay for value adding services throughout the life of that thing, enabling constant innovation and updating of services.
• A world where environmental monitoring will help detect and prevent environmental disasters before they can occur through smart environmental monitoring systems.
• A world where smart farming will be commonplace, where the farming experience meets modern digital technology to deliver the food the world needs to feed a burgeoning population.
• A world where smart cities will provide better return on tax payments through a whole host of new services.
• A world where doctors and many other professions will be helped by data coming from smart devices to do their jobs more efficiently and better than today.
• A world where “disconnected” devices will not exist and “smart and connected” will be the norm. A time when smart is defined by the value of the services enabled by the data it is creating not just if it is connected to the network and dong something with data.

The convergence of the physical and digital worlds is underway. Technology is increasingly becoming a core driver of how our society functions redefining the landscape we are living and working in. Organizations and governments must adapt to leverage this shifting landscape for the benefit of everyone.

Over the next few articles we will explore three important areas which are critical to success moving forwards:

• Collaboration and learning – how to stay on top of the evolving trends for the good of your organization.
• The technology backbone of IoT – what’s needed from a platform point of view and how to think about it.
• Getting your enterprise ready – bringing your employees along and next steps.

The technologies that enable IoT empower people, organizations and governments to empower themselves so that they can realize promise of the fourth industrial revolution. All that is needed is a desire to embrace the opportunity and change the world.

In the next post I will focus on the cultural and people factors that impact the adoption and success of a new strategy. Thanks for reading!

Originally published on the Microsoft European News Center here.