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November 26, 2004

Bits vs Atoms 1.0: Thinking with new boxes

I avoid using cliches like "think out the box" for a number of reasons, but invariably in describing what I do I end up having to use that term. Same goes for "best practice".

A box, whether it be a mental construct, industry position, or world view based on mental models and assumptions gets to be a pretty safe place. In fact most of the 'boxes' we find ourselves in are of our own making.

I prefer to use the term new box thinking because I try to provide teams with a sense of security from which they can base their new thinking habits from. Being outside of a box is daunting, and most people feel intellectually naked.

In June I got to attend the Smart Card Society conference (thanks Obie) and one of the speakers was from the Reserve Bank. The essence of their talk was the fact that allowing Smart Cards to act as wallets for more than one service (eg. parking meters) was illegal in terms of the Banks Act, as the only people allowed to be third party payment providers were the banks and the Postbank. So they came to tell us that they're busy reviewing the framework to allow for SmartCard wallets to take off.

So that got me thinking...always a dangerous thing :)

And this is part of a bigger area of research that I'm doing around the battle between bits and atoms.

I live in Cape Town and we have parking meters that operate on ADO smartcards. But as I mentioned about you can only load cash to buy parking. What will be interesting to see is the evolution of this model. ADO/City of Cape Town have infrastructure on the ground - terminals in selected stores, parking bay units, parking marshalls on the ground.

Once the SARB's framework is in place, this will mean that ADO cards will be allowed buy other stuff eg. vending machine merchandise, bus/train tickets, hey whatever. If I need to top-up my card I can either go into a store and do it over the counter, or, and here's the interesting point, I can ask the parking marshall to do it via one of the parking terminals.

These terminals become de facto ATMs. I'm not saying that the volumes will be huge (yet), but it is in making connections like this that new opportunities emerge. And I'm not talking less about ADO coming up with the innovations, but rather the parking marshalls who will invariably come up with interesting business/service opportunities.

It is at the user interface that new ideas or gaps emerge. I wonder if the banks are developing new boxes to think from?

Posted by sdehaast at November 26, 2004 4:20 PM Posted to food for thought