my inner child...
Now I suppose there have been bots like this before. But SmarterChild is actually pretty damn nifty really. Heck for gettin movie times alone its a great little tool. It can also tell you the meaning of words, translate phrases for you and get ya weather info and heck plan yer day with the bot.
Add him/her/it to yer buddies list in instant messagner and yer all set. Just start talkin to him. I've set up some events in him to remind me on during the week and have already one hilarious conversation with him. I'm suprised how much he knew about ole Troy already. Troy doesn't trust anyone ya know. EGO that is.. :P
For what this little bot can do I'm reccomending the other sidekick2 users in the firm add him as well. I bet with an SDK you could develop some handy additional features as well. I could see expense report/monitoring, supply monitoring, stock reminders, ebay reminders, and more.
I know I know, we have email already, and heck we can use chat with a person etc. But what is it about IM that makes it different than email and other forms of communication. Well first of all its thin client, no spam, assured p2p connection, i mean its connected, email isnt really connected, you have a process involved there. I could tell SmarterChild the results of a test in another country, tell him via chat, and he could send all the data to a server and it could be processed by the time i get back.
Scenario 1:
Product research in Tokyo. We're peoples homes asking questions and talking about various kinds of prefered lunch meat. We talk, collage, take pictures, etc. Typically at the end of this 1 to 2 hr session, we leave, take our data, go to the next visit etc. At the end of the evening we may send the data back to base, but usually we don't. Why? Cause the folks that need to work that data are all in the field already. Now SmarterChild doesnt really get me anything over someone vpn'ing in and putting the data on the network. But remember thats just data sitting there, no ones acting on it yet. And getting in via vpn and what not and moving a file over etc does take a certain amount of given setups, like one yer connected to a lan/wifi connection etc. What if the minute you walk outa the home and in the taxi you tell SmarterChild some of yer results. Yer trying to get to a topline summary really. Its early in the research and you want to start analyzing and coming up with some inital pattern analysis for the client. So maybe thats it. SmarterChild isnt the end analysis tool, but you program him with the backend knowlege that yer going to seven countries etc and start giving it various bits of info and it starts helping you create a summary or top line that you then use as an advantage when you get back. The minute you get back in the states and the real data crunch begins you have a leg up cause you've consulted with yer SmartAnalyzer in the field. That'd be awesome. And you did it all via yer phone.
Heck you don't even need to wait till you get back really. SmartDataFieldAnalyzerBoy can inform you / the client / on what's happening. The client can even interact with the agent and give new directives or questions, limited amount. Again I could see the devils advocate saying "you got email". Well thats true to an extent. But does the medium of IM make it easier. Again thin client, chat driven UI, does that make it easier for me to digest, the "gist of it". The agent can then spew his data to a server and other programs act on it from there.
Scenario 2:
Homework for focus groups. Every now and then and more so recently theres been an urge to get focus group particpants more in sync with whats about to occur in a focus group. Like we want to get folks into what were about to talk about so their mind is thinking about it. For example in one study on tire buying we had people bring in recent recipets on tires that had bought from the year or past years, in another study we asked people to fill out jounrals on yard work what they had to do, what was difficult, another study people filled out surveys online to tell us about their programming abilities and what they used for help, all of these pre-initatives could be done in some way, or with assistance via the agent. The recruiter asks users to add the agent and the agent then interviews the subjects, or allows them to fill out info, the agent pro-actively talks to them thru out the week, getting them ready for the focus group. The agent knows whos supposed to be in or not, and only talks to those with the proper name/account/pass info to get into him.
Again its the aspect of IM and how it differs as a communication medium vs email or phone. I think our recruiter would love it if we had this agent. Sure there will always be the need for the personal touch, this isnt to replace that, the agent is to speed up a process, or help achive a process currently under fire. We should just try it out really. This kind of stuff isn't going away really. I remember the service for the phone, you call and ask for movie info and it tells you etc. Advises you where to eat etc. Problem with that service initally was cost for one, and then the "here i am talking to a pc out loud", talking to a pc in IM isnt nearly as outworldly visible. That and you dont have to stand there and say over and over a word that the pc doesnt understand on the other end.
A little more indepth search on the net and theres a whole slew of these things out there with probably three or so worth while. Depends on what you want. I want a SDK and get some custom applications set in motion. Some folks comment on SmarterChild's viral potential, I agree. He or she that is gonna keep makin waves and folks stumble on it. Its already making a wave thru the blogosphere. Course then theres other bots as well.
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Still playing with 43 things and delicious, getting more and more into this wired aspect of the living blogosphere ie we all connected space.