Slightly Sensible - B&B Insider

Global Conversions, SMS and GhostBridging

  

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Dear Reader,

Penny for my thoughts – in 140 bytes or less?

“Conversion” is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. When you’re immersed in the business of living, conversion sometimes happens so subtly that you don’t even recognize that it seeped into your life. This makes it fun to reflect back at some recent conversions and ponder how the world changed so significantly without hardly a peep.

For example:

A new communications dialect has taken over the #1 worldwide market share of our social interactions – it’s called SMS. Pure alchemy for wireless companies who created billions from thin air. A communications media that seems to surpass only smoke signals in effectiveness - yet extracts pennies, nickels or dimes from billions of users for each message sent. But Conversion is about more than dollars. Conversion also changes the cultural and social fabric of the world – and for better or worse, text messaging qualifies in spades.

(Trivia - according to my napkin, my text message rate from AT&T is, at best, $1400 per megabyte. Alchemy!)

Many “conversions” of late are related to rapidly developing technology – specifically the communications technologies that enable people and things to communicate together. This “pervasive networking” movement is enabling a global transformation of not only productivity but social change as well.

While looking in the rearview mirror is entertaining, more intriguing is to look forward and ponder the conversions of the near future.

(The secret to first-class forecasting is to be vague enough to avoid being called out as a loon. I’ll mind my details in today’s letter.)

It doesn’t take much of an engineering IQ to recognize that conversion is required in the world of energy. Rapid growth in energy consumption is driven by global economic growth. For political and environmental reasons we’ve not brought enough meaningful new energy sources into play to prevent demand from dramatically outpacing supply. Are we doomed? I doubt it, but a conversion will be required. And like all meaningful conversions, this one will be rooted in both technology and culture because the facts dictate that we will change how we consume energy – something that most of us take so for granted that there is no longer any wonder or awe when we flick a light switch.

The average home here in Illinois consumes 728,000 Watt hours of electricity each month. In my case, a paltry $86 is relocated from my bank account each month in trade for that magical energy flow. But I also go about one week a year where I consume about 10 Watt hours of electricity with some pretty dramatic changes in behavior. A 99.99% reduction driven purely by my behaviors.

I don’t suspect that we’re all going to switch to a wilderness lifestyle –but it does set the rails on the degree of change possible, if not practical, with nothing more than changes in behaviors.

My crystal ball says that the intersection of economic growth, lack of energy supply and communications technologies will create a conversion that again combines technologies, behaviors and cultural shift. The only questions are how fast and how intrusively it will slip into the fabric of our daily lives.

Here’s a simpler conversion to consider (proceed with care, I’m about to get shamelessly commercial).

You’ve likely noticed - the conversion to wireless technologies is virtually complete. A steady diet of technology advances drove improved reliability and cost. Pervasive use of wireless in our personal lives has led to a cultural acceptance of wireless even in demanding high reliability applications.

B&B is just releasing a wireless solution for bridging Ethernet. If you’ve ever needed to connect a remote Ethernet device or wanted to connect two LANs together – I’ve got what I believe is the best solution to be had. It’s called GhostBridge.

Sure there are products out there that will solve this. GhostBridge just does it better – a lot better. The combination of 150Mbps speed, 9 mile range, and 100% point and play ease of use make GhostBridge the easiest and highest performance solution for wire replacement.

I’d love to hear your feedback on the Energy Conversion – and what other conversions do you see in your crystal ball?

Talk back in the comments below.

Happy Connections,
Mike Fahrion