“Tomorrow successful product designers will understand that their creations can never again exist in isolation. They will need to survive on a network. They must switch effortlessly between serving end users and developers equally well. They will need to deeply internalize that their products are nothing but data. But with this challenge comes an unprecedented opportunity to radically alter the very definition of what a product is, as well as the value that it can provide to the world. Pip Coburn, author of the book The Change Function, argues that people today feel naked without data. That is, we have become so used to having a universe of information in our pocket/purse/bag in the form of a mobile phone that when we are without it, we feel vulnerable, unprepared, or even disrobed. The fascinating thing about this is that the idea makes sense only if you think about it terms of online data. In reality, you’re surrounded by information and data 24/7; you have been since you were born. It’s information made available through your five senses (and sometimes your sixth’s that sense of intuition we all have and that’s especially strong in mothers). But for some reason, that type of data is boring to a lot of people at least for the moment. On the other hand, the data available via LinkedIn, Twitter, or Yelp is far more interesting (for now). Elevating social machines to the level of social peers can and will change this; these social machines will become both conduit and catalyst” (from Semmelhack, “Social Machines”, 2013).
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