Dear Member of the Radio-Frequency ID Industry, Congratulations on your hard-charging technological revolution! Back in 1999, the notion of radio transmitters small and cheap enough to sprinkle throughout the universe of consumer products was only a dream. Today, it's an economic savior. The twin Godzillas of the US economy - the Defense Department and Wal-Mart - plan to use your little wonders to track their enormous inventories. As makers and users of RFID gear, you're putting unprecedented horsepower behind the wheels of commerce.
With the capacity to label 296 individual objects, you're well on your way to giving everything that matters its own unique ID and IP address. It won't be long before the Internet is joined by what MIT has christened an Internet of Things - a network of self-identifying artifacts that brings radical improvements in industrial efficiency and productivity. Rapid, accurate deliveries! Less rot, counterfeiting, shoplifting, and misplaced inventory! Businesses will face fewer risks, and consumers will get cheaper, more up-to-date, better-targeted products. A logistical paradise on Earth!
But as the RFID volcano covers the planet with a fine ash, there's bound to be other, less salutary fallout. People get a heavy dose of future shock when they discover that nerdy sorcerers beyond their ken can treat them like cattle or Wal-Mart inventory. Remember Philips' doomed effort to install RFIDs in US passports? Newspapers pointed out that such a document would effectively cry out to terrorists, "Potential kidnap victim at 12 o'clock!" The Feds backed off overnight.
The lesson: You've got to get ahead of the perception curve. If you don't deal with the public-relations aspects of the technology increasingly known as "arfid," you risk ending up as demonized as your colleagues in nuclear power and GMOs. That's not to say you'll go away - those two industries didn't - but who needs decades of relentless grief? Let me suggest a few standards of techno-hygiene that will help you smell like roses when the ordure hits the fan.
Frame the debate. If you operate in an advanced liberal democracy where you might get sued, boycotted, or throttled in the stock market, you'd better start spinning. Don't meekly refer to your products as radio-frequency ID transponders, or even tags. Your opponents sling much catchier terms, like spy chips and terrorist beacons. You'd better think up a user-friendly name before some real comedian calls your tags "Mal-Warts."
Don't be evil. There are reasons why omniscient Google is beloved while omnipotent Microsoft is hated and feared. It's all about being part of a network of mutually respected players, rather than a giant Maypole where a geek clique keeps everyone else tethered to the ribbons. Build an arfid panopticon for the convenience of cops and spooks, and you can expect a swift and violent Orange Revolution. Approach the market as one group of stakeholders among many and you'll make lots of friends.
Leave kids alone. US schoolchildren are not your inventory. Hang tags around the necks of young children, and they will chew the chips out of their plastic cards while their parents accuse you of installing the mark of the beast on their progeny. Don't believe me? Take a look at the circus that erupted at Brittan Elementary School in Sutter, California (see "Tagging Kids Like Cattle," Posts, issue 13.06).
Invent the household arfid. There's no such thing as a nuclear populist because there's no such thing as a home nuclear plant. Likewise, GMOs can't beat a bad rap because genetic recombination is too intricate for hobbyists. Both industries are seen as fearsome, remote, and alien. By contrast, PCs succeeded and the Internet boomed because they let techies, users groups, and, eventually, everybody take part in the game.
That's where the Arfid Shopping Wand comes in. The idea is a handheld device that would let consumers interface with the world of arfids. A sweep of the wand would help people search, shop, comment, and blog by matching off-the-shelf products with metadata immediately and intuitively. Give people tools like this and you'll get the popular support you need.
Bottom line: You RFID paladins are forging a real revolution, and you'd better be ready for the consequences. This isn't going to be a clever industrial advance made by a silent cabal of experts, as barcodes were 30 years ago. Whatever Scrooge-like acts you commit through the new supply chain will drag you down, like the chains of Joseph Marley. When everybody's linked in a rattling, clanking Internet of Things, it's going to take extra effort to avoid whiplash.
Email bruces@well.comPOSTS
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