Becoming a Thing on the Internet of Things

Becoming a thing on the Internet of Things (IOT) is like turning up the heat to boil a frog.  It happens gradually without being aware of it.  Objectively, if you are not the frog, it can measued by degrees.  There are metrics of progression.

First there must be a connection to the Internet.  That connection may vary by degrees of separation.

Second, there must be identification of a person as a thing that the Internet can recognize.  That identification may vary by degrees of accuracy.  An absolute degree of  identification accuracy depends on an absolute biometric verification of a unique individual.

Third, there must be a communication link between an identified thing on the IoT and the Internet.

These three things set up the physical "hardware" structure layer necessary for physical connection of things on the IoT.  Once that is established then software applications can be applied.

As the hardware layer of the IoT expands by extension to shorter communication distances between the sensing device and the identified (to some variable degree) person it is sensing and objects that individual is interacting with increasing data about the interaction is generated.

The holy grail of seeking information and knowledge about a thing on the IoT is total information all the time.  An individual person as a thing on the IoT is progressing daily toward becoming a thing on the IoT.  Perhaps the most important metric to measure this progess is real time data of both location and identity of any individual and the things they are interacting with.  Real time data becomes stored history.

In my next blog entry I will use the Progressive Insurance Company's Snapshot program as an example of what I have presented in this blog entryway.  It is an excellent example because it not only demonstrates how an individual has become a thing on the IoT on Snapshot physical IoT but a thing on the conceptual level of things managed on what we call the Internet but is really in the broadest terms the World Wide Web of data, information and knowledge that is the software layer existing on the hardware system.