A picture paints a thousand words

I struggle with where to start when talking about the impact of computing on peoples lives. There have been a few stand out moments in my life where as an early adopter I have sat there thinking to myself OMFG this is going to change e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g!

One of those moments was at Big Data London (BDL) 2023. After having FOMO following the event on LinkedIn I went to see what all the fuss was about and find out who the competition was for my fledgling little training business called ivity.

Amongst the hype (of which there was a more than a sprinkle) there were some stands really showcasing the power of computing combined with technology. Despite BDL being a lead generation and networking event for big players with eye watering marketing budgets, a lot of people were there to learn and see what was new. What the data folk like to do - I have found - is argue about whose approach is best and hark on about the fundamentals of data engineering and how the success of it belongs to different technological approaches. I was convinced then and remain convinced to this day that tech products are only as good as the data inside it which is owned by the non-techies who feed the machine.

With the days of scraping data from the internet behind us, and decent data now secured behind privacy settings and regulated by GDPR I hadn't predicted having any wow moments at Big Data London '23.

I was wrong. On three stands I had wow moments where I was left thinking 'this is a step change'.

The first one was a vendor who was drawing in people with one simple conversation starter. This image (pictured below) was created with a 15 word prompt. Do you think you could guess it?

I voiced my 15 word prompt and the guy said enter the competition and come back at 3pm. I've got a feeling you might win it. I did not enter it but it was at that moment that I realised that the creation of decent imagery was no longer in the hands of the creatives that could create it but in the hands of of people who can write a concise prompt to a computer.

Another wow moment came investigating what was amusing people at a stand creating a long queue. This stand was noisy and buzzing with marketing peops zapping lanyards so that people could participate in their sensor game. This is how their lead generation worked. You wear a head sensor that records your thinking and whilst you concentrate it measures your brain activity and pours you a pint. The lady briefed the gentleman in front of me. You have to focus intensively, on anything, but something! The more you concentrate the higher you score and the longer you are in the game the more you liquid flows into your cup. Now the participant in front of me gave me a head start because they asked the question 'what should I concentrate on? The lady suggested that he could look at the screw on the beer tap and really focus on it. I thought to myself, what brain activity can you muster up focusing on a screw. And then I watched him struggle. That is when I picked my subject to concentrate on and when I got my turn, I made it onto the leader-board because I had sussed out how the system worked and picked a subject that I could get my brain popping off.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/5f1d33_91709639954442a3b76da16e2c158f28/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Sensor data is an incredible source of data. There are sensors popping up everywhere in all kinds of things measuring stuff that humans have never been able to observe and measure fast enough. This is really cool even if most applications so far have been incredibly scary 'big brother is watching you' applications. For research and conservation, sensors are big win.

There were many stands that left an impact at BDL '23 and there was a lot of merchandise given away for swag bagging especially t-shirts. One company had really showcased the impact of technology on their t-shirt give away. On their stand you could write your signature onto a tablet and an embroidery machine was embroidering the signature straight onto a their merch. Not in Shein low quality, hardly stitched kind of way but in high quality that you see on top brands.

This memory share was prompted by the new sign at the Spinners Rest in Manchester which has caused controversy recently because the sign above the door, which celebrates a bygone age of industry in Manchester, was created by an AI. If industrial change powered by technology interests you, you might like my recent blog about the Spinning Jenny : here

Jen x