Connecting Paper? Extending "the Internet of Things"

ReadWriteWeb regularly keeps us posted on "the internet of things". This is an interesting development and has even been called "web 3.0" (web 2.0 moving to devices, connect people and devices automatically, using semantic technology...).

Their post gives an overview of the news in this world. What I was wondering though is: Paper is also a thing. And knowledge workers are still using lots of paper (printed articles (for reading and reviewing), books, etc.). Could "the internet of things" be extended to the office? We could 'internet' paper. With small (printable) RFID tags, paper documents and books (or even parts of them) could be retrieved (and stored) in a transparent way.

What do you think? Could this be useful? And, does anyone know if this is already being done?

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 18, 2009 at 5:29 PM

    If paper documents are important enough to tag them, they are probably already part of some controlled environment. RFID wouldn't add much then I think?

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 18, 2009 at 6:52 PM

    There is a small group of us at Ricoh Innovations (www.rii.ricoh.com) who have been researching and pondering this very point. We've been experimenting with QR Codes (see http://icandy.ricohinnovations.com for our first public demonstration of this) to see if there are particular benefits or affordances to having intelligent paper. One thing we've learned is that the use of QR codes give us the opportunity to measure paper click-thrus -- allowing for expanding marketing and promotional analytics.

    We've also been working on the concept of hot paper - see this youtube video that describes the concept:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gv3wJNdvYA

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownFebruary 18, 2009 at 8:10 PM

    Thanks for the comments. @Twan: True, most documents have a digital source. But don't you get documents of which you don't have that source. You could scan them in, but usually that's too much work. And I regularly copy articles from magazines in the library of which I don't have the digital version. That article, with the comments in the sidelines, I usually archive somewhere.
    @ricoh: Good to hear from you and thanks for pointing to your research. At Oce some research has been done on this topic too in the past. I'll have a look at your demo's!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousFebruary 20, 2009 at 9:54 AM

    Samuel,

    I have worked on this at GR3, filed an umemo (dismissed) and build a demo (for the 'R&D opendag')...you might be able to 'doxx' it?

    Joost

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownFebruary 20, 2009 at 10:05 AM

    I know Joost, but didn't want to write too much about it. Was sure if I'm allowed to. ;-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Please leave a comment! Just log in using one of the formats and if you want me to get back to you. Otherwise comment anonymously.

Popular posts

Keep the Intranet Small

Image
This tweet by Jonathan Phillips ( @digitaljonathan ) triggered to finalize this post, that's been burning in my draft box. I've always been intrigued by how unsuccessful many intranets are. And there are all kinds of good reasons for intranet failure. One of the things that is hardly ever mentioned is: Shouldn't the intranet be smaller? Usually intranets are huge. Lots and lots of pages with lots and lots of content. With complex navigation. The intranet  evaluation surveys almost always show employees only use the news page and people finder. But still we build and maintain nice big intranets. Not only stats point to smaller intranets. There are others reasons as well. I came up with a few. If you have more, just leave a comment. Here's my list: -            user requirements: users don't require large intranet -            search/navigation: searching and navigating a small ...
Read more

Enterprise 2.0 Research

Image
There's not too much fundamental research on Enterprise 2.0. Deloitte recently published interesting research done on enterprise 2.0 implementations and their return-on-investment. In the EU research has also done as well. Study is being done for the European Commission and it was carried out by Tech4i2, IDC and Headshift. What was the goal of the study? Goals of the study To provide a clear definition of Enterprise 2.0 is, describe the market and the positioning of EU industry, also in comparison with US and Asia; To analyze the take-up of Enterprise 2.0, the organizational requirements, and the role on the transition to a knowledge based low-carbon economy; To collect evidence on its macro-economic impact, as a market opportunity for the European Software industry and as a productivity tool for European business; To identify and analyse both the direct and contextual challenges, including the need for Next Generation Access and the legal barriers; To analyse an...
Read more

Innovation in Turbulent Times

Image
I love reading articles about innovation. And every now and then you read one that is very interesting. "Innovation in Turbulent Times" by Rigby, Gruver, Allen (in HBR, June 2009) is one of them. This article takes fashion companies as an example for continuous, year-by-year innovation. And how successful fashion companies are usually led by two people: a left-brainer and a right-brainer. "If you don't have highly creative people in positions of real authority, you won't get innovation. Most companies in other industries ignore this lesson." They extend this to show that successful non-fashion companies have the same kind of leadership. And this kind of leadership is usually also characterized by a long-term relationship. I think this concept can also be extended to teams and projects as well. More often than not, people are good at one or the other: thinking up great concepts or ideas, or, making them. In teams and projects we can learn from this as...
Read more