The futuristic notion of personal robots doing manual work, obeying verbal commands and defending property never anticipated that people’s actions, routines and interests could be digitally captured and that the resulting information would be used to control a person’s objects, communications and surroundings.

2012 is the beginning of the “data is the robot” age.

Personal data exchanged between people and devices combined with meta data observing data exchanges, personal movements, transactions and transaction attributes over time has spawned freely from disparate sources and systems for years. In 2012 and 2013, what appeared to be chaotic and random information exchanges will become categorized and arranged by individual, then by personae then by nanosegment (tightly defined customer/person segments defined by location, life stage, behavior & need history, environment, devices and channels in a time sequence context). This information will be used regularly to: determine how devices operate on a person’s behalf, recommend actions (food choices, medicines, care, navigation, investments, career, social) and continuously monitor and refine recommended actions and projected outcomes on the end user’s behalf (either the customer or the company – see Good Big Brother, Bad Big Brother Essay)

sample # 7. Real Fake, Fake Real - Fake intimacy at a massive scale

In 2012, “fake” is a tremendous spring of innovation also the cause of enormous financial losses and general distrust of digital transactions and ecommerce (see prediction number 8 for how long distrust will last).

2012 will see many milestones achieved in digitalization as data bits are assembled to extend real world capabilities using virtual world constructs. The definition of a product (hard product) and a service will be blurred more than ever as new combinations of ordering, subscribing, enhancing and experiencing goods transforms – look at the number of Youtube views for people ‘unboxing’ a product – people watching a video of someone opening a new product and sharing their experience – as a hint to where shared experiences and blurred reality (who really makes these videos? Are they all authentic? Should you call your agency and create an authentic opening of your products packaging video?)

Joseph Pine’s and Kim Korn’s Infinite Possibility discusses virtual and real world fusion get it here  http://amzn.to/rJznb5 . 

Companies will strive to create differentiated experiences in business to business too as more sales people, product ambassador’s, guru’s are featured in video’s, demonstrations, pod casts, simulcasts and co-casts (watch as a virtual assistant assessable your service by walking through a set of configuration questions and commands – now imagine this ‘service’ co-managing your product use on an ongoing, continuous basis.

Customers will require ‘enhanced’ experiences to continue their stimulation and attention related to your product and service while fending off competitors. You must stay engaged with your customers to occupy their time and box-out (basketball term) you competitors and distractions.

It is worthwhile to for executive management to evaluating experience monetization strategy by asking “what would Google do?” to add “what would Disney do?”

On the extremely dark side, consumers and companies will be defrauded at unprecedented scale in 2012 due to the low cost of creating extremely realistic, if not mirrored or fully replicated, ecommerce and direct marketing scams. Virtual identities replicated in mass numbers will be used to defraud companies in various industries but particularly those that have achieved early efficiencies in electronic transaction processing. Individuals will be deceived by hybrid companies using a mix of real business practices and identity stealing, profiling infiltrating schemes. Government, police and judicial systems will continue to be inadequately prepared, skilled, staffed and empowered.