Any type of sales team needs to have the right tools and roadmap to be successful. However, here is the catch: a technology sale—whether it is for software, connected devices, or a combination of the two—is complex and lengthier than a typical consumer product.

This is why we have cooked up a workshop for this year’s Connected World Conference that will focus on the technology sale. And this won’t be your typical session, might I add. Tim Lindner, a regular columnist for Connected World magazine, will lead the Gaming the Technology Sale workshop using role playing where volunteer participants will get a real-world sense of how the sales cycle progresses.

I invite you to join Tim for this interactive session, which will be held on Tuesday, June 11 from 3-5 p.m. Using a sales process map, participants will be challenged to either sell against competitors or choose wisely among the options as a purchaser. It will be a fun opportunity to learn everything that goes into a technology sale!

In addition, join me for a host of other events taking place at this year’s conference including the Gadget Giveaway on Monday at 5 p.m., two days of sessions and Exhibit Hall access on Tuesday and Wednesday, a live Tweet Chat on Wednesday morning, and of course the annual Value Chain Awards Gala ending the conference. I look forward to seeing you there!

Want to tweet about this article? Use hashtags #M2M #CWConf13

I guess for the driver, the answer to that question is subjective. But for an automaker like Ford, they need to come to certain decisions to this question when developing cars like the C-Max or the Fusion Energi hybrid plugin. After all, this new breed of connected/energy efficient cars gets me rethinking this whole safety/convenience/infotainment equation that we often debate about connected cars. In other words, what is the right balance to strike when it comes to the energy efficient driver?

These are fun debates to have. I guess I will hold off and ask my question directly to Ford next week at our Connected World Conference. To be more precise, I will tweet my question at Ford during our Tweet Chat with Mike Tinskey, Ford’s global director of Vehicle Electrification and Infrastructure, live from the show floor on Wednesday June 12 from 9:30-10:30 a.m. PT.

When we sat down with Ford a few months back and hatched the idea for a Tweet Chat, neither side quite knew what to expect. But as it turned out, what we created was a great interactive opportunity to answer our readers’ questions about such things as in-vehicle apps, the meaning of the term “electrification” and that ever dreaded topic of “range anxiety” among others.

As we get set to kick off the Connected World Conference next week, what we are delivering is a live and interactive way for those of you who cannot make it out to Santa Clara, yet have a Twitter account (I’m talking to you) to be a part of the action.

So sending us your questions starting at 9:30 a.m. PT, but make sure to use hashtag #FordCW. Or you simply want to sit back and enjoy the conversation use that same hashtag.

Peggy will be hosting the Tweet Chat and engaging Mike with some killer dialogue. I will be feeding them the tweets I deem most appropriate. You can call me a gate keeper of sorts. All I can say is, try and wow me with a question and you will get it answered straight from the horse’s (Ford Mustang, anyone?) mouth. But only after they answer my question first, that is.

At the center of this movement toward “smart customer service” is M2M, RFID (radio-frequency identification), NFC (near-field communication), and other connected technologies.

I believe a big driving factor for incorporating M2M into attractions is the safety aspect. For example, on a cruise ship, the combination of RFID, facial recognition, and handheld wireless devices can improve emergency response, food safety, point-of-sale transactions, and passenger service. Another case can be made for the use of RFID-enabled wristbands at theme parks for safety in case a child gets lost or separated from a parent.

However, looking beyond some of the obvious safety and emergency-response perks, another big factor driving M2M and RFID at the theme part is the ability for one attraction to separate itself from the next, providing an improved guest experience. At many theme parks, wristbands with embedded RFID already allow guests to queue for a ride without having to actually wait in a line, while also allowing for purchases without needing to carry a wallet.

Many attractions have dabbled with RFID or similar technologies to create a more personalized and interactive experience for guests. Legoland, www.legoland.com, Dollywood, www.dollywood.com, Barbie’s Dreamhouse, www.barbiedreamhouse.com, the Royal Caribbean Oasis, www.royalcaribbean.com, and South by Southwest, www.sxsw.com, are just a handful of instances. But none are gaining quite as much attention as Walt Disney, www.disney.com, and its MagicBand technology, announced earlier this year.

The MagicBand is part of MyMagic+, which uses different methods to connect all aspects of the guest experience. The MagicBand, which is worn on the wrist, allows guests to enter their resort room, buy food and merchandise, and enter theme parks and water parks. Additionally, the band provides FastPass+ access and serves as the connection to Disney’s PhotoPass. Initially, the band will be available only to select guests.

Right out of the gate, the technology is being met with opposition, particularly with concerns arising that the device could target and track young children. But parents don’t need to worry. Disney says the band does not store any personal information, but rather contains a code that securely links to an encrypted database that associates the band with the benefits a guest has purchased. Additionally, theme-park attendees opt in, meaning guests can choose if they would like to participate or not.

In addition to providing guests with a better overall experience, Disney can also improve flow, security, and other operational aspects, while reducing wait lines at rides, which will also improve the customer experience.

Here’s the rub: Disney is receiving a lot of attention—although it isn’t the first, and it certainly isn’t the only, amusement park making such moves. Just this week, Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, www.dorneypark.com, announced a new FastPay system that will allow guests to load funds on a wristband for cashless payments. Once money is linked to the wristband, customers can make purchases at gift shops, restaurants, and food carts—all without needing to carry a wallet.

Based on recent announcements and conversations with industry experts, I foresee this move toward smart customer service growing exponentially, as the entertainment and attractions industry looks to provide a higher level of service to guests. What are your thoughts? Would you use an RFID-enabled bracelet to make payments and queue for lines at amusement parks?

Interested in learning more about M2M, RFID, and other connected devices? Don’t miss this year’s Connected World Conference, June 10-13, at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

Want to tweet about this article? Use hashtags #M2M #RFID

President Obama took a monumental step in making government data open, accessible, and machine readable by default, all the while ensuring confidentiality and national security. Check out the video then go ahead and read our latest cover story from Peggy about why this is important.

Then be there Friday June 7 for the kickoff to the M2M App Challenge when representatives from the US Dept. of Energy will be on hand to present open data sets and sone guidance for how to use them.

Open data sets are made available across the board, and touch everything from education to healthcare to automotive to even weather-related information. Here are a few examples of what is currently being talked up:

Healthcare: The Dept. of Health and Human Services recently released new data on fees that hospitals charge, a major step in creating greater price transparency. In other cases, the open data sets can be used for developing new healthcare-related products and services.

Weather: Data related to weather can help feed newscasts, identify weather patterns to essentially help avert danger, or even create better information for insurance purposes.

Consumers: Private companies are using open data to fight credit card fraud; consumers are using open data to reduce energy bills; families are leveraging open data to compare healthcare options; etc.

Public Safety: A host of new apps and tools are accessing government data related to public safety to help in emergency response and planning situations. Leverage the various platforms being made available at the M2M App Challenge, such as Esri, www.esri.com, to incorporate geospatial data into emergency response efforts.

Automotive: Data made available from the Research Data Exchange provides a variety of data-related services that support the development, testing, and demonstration of multi-modal transportation mobility applications being pursued under the USDOT ITS Dynamic Mobility Applications (DMA) Program and other connected vehicle research activities.

In all, the president’s executive order is intended to help fuel new start-ups and entrepreneurs and to stimulate job growth in the United States. I love the fact that our M2M App Challenge is part of that process.

On May 6, Alex Knapp, writing for Forbes online, reported the Los Alamos team’s achievement: A functional first generation quantum network “smart card” using NQC (network-centric quantum communications) that “meets the challenging simultaneous latency and security requirements of electric grid control communications, which cannot be met without compromises using conventional cryptography …” See full copy here.

The Los Alamos team’s paper stated their achievement would benefit electricity-distribution smart grids, solving a key data transmission security issue between the smart meters at the home or office location and the central server responsible for data collection.

Smart grids at present have vulnerabilities and secure data transmission is a significant one.

Nonetheless, smart grid deployment initiatives that received funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the stimulus program) have been progressing, and the 63 funded initiative have shown initial positive results.

It is interesting that the Los Alamos team cited smart grids as logical beneficiaries of the quantum encryption “smart-card” solution, but not surprising. When seeking to commercialize technology requiring new kinds of connected devices that are applied to existing and new infrastructure (in the case of smart grids, optical networks), the volume of devices that are produced and deployed matters. Large production quantities more quickly amortize research and development costs, leading to a faster Return on Investment. This is of critical importance to the investors and companies that decide to commercialize and produce the new quantum encrypted devices.

One example that hints at the significant volume of new quantum-encrypted smart meters (and insertable “bump-in-the-wire”2 security retrofit devices) that will be required for the conversion from manually-read to automatically-read electricity usage at the home or office, Detroit Edison, one of the DOE’s 63 funded smart grid initiative participants serving 2.1 million customers, required 625,000 new smart meters to replace manual-read meters. Each of these new meters becomes a node in the Internet of Things, and these are just the meters. Extrapolating from the Detroit example, the U.S. conversion requirement will offer compelling production quantities for companies seeking entry into the smart grid market.

As Knapp noted in his Forbes report, as the price of the components of the new quantum smart card, such as the silicon photonic chips, become cheaper as production quantities increase, and additional secure network opportunities other than the smart grid arise, the next generation of devices with quantum encryption could include tablets and smartphones.

Case in point, our M2M App Challenge from 2012 when Brian Radmer, an industry solutions manager for AT&T, came in fresh off the street. He had no intention of participating in a “hackathon” yet took home one of the top prizes from the event. The key, he admitted afterwards, was the fact he got work with the deviceWISE platform from ILS Technology, which is designed with the intention of equipping “non-coders” to translate key knowlege onto the platform in order to create great things.

What was provided to Radmer was a deployment kit. The plan was to teach him, through the deployment kit and the platform, the ability to customize the platform in order to acquire data from multiple points, push that through ILS Technology’s cloud, and then customize a portal to company-specific requirements. From there he would be allowed to move that data to backoffice IT application. And he did! All rather smoothly, too.

Now it’s your turn to come in fresh and take home a prize (and even get your mug on the cover of Connected World magazine with an article written by your’s truly!) at our M2M App Challenge in Santa Clara, Calif., June 7-9.

The good news is ILS Technology is back with its cloud-based management portal. deviceWISE is an open platform giving the customer control and ownership of sensitive data. You can create apps that will positively impact energy, automotive, public safety, healthcare, and other initiatives, or even create an app that will help fix existing environmental challenges.

But if this isn’t up your alley, feel free to choose among platforms from:
-OSIsoft
-Esri
-ioBridge
-Aeris Communications

Now, take one of these platforms, add in the open sets of government data being provided to us by the Dept. of Energy (who will also be on hand to help out) and I think any “subject-matter expert” can do some killer work! And, in the process, you can consider yourself a coder–even if just for one weekend. (FYI, energy drinks and no sleep come with the territory, so make sure you come prepared to play the part!)

You can call this istallment four in my ‘M2M App Challenge: What are you waiting for?!?!’ blog series. Seriously people, the event is 24 days away … if you haven’t thought about what you are creating, it’s time to get thinking!

Here is what we have:
-M2M App Challenge, June 7-9 in Santa Clara, California

-Open government data straight from the DOE, which will also be on hand to help you make sense of it all.

-Five different M2M platforms. I’ve already told you all about OSIsoft, and Esri, and ioBridge. (ILS Technology to come tomorrow). But today it’s all about AerCloud from Aeris Communications. And it’s brand-spanking new!

You want to talk about fresh applications? Well, how about being one of the first developers to get your hands on AerCloud from Aeris Communications? The M2M App Challenge will be one of the first opportunities for developers anywhere to use the brand-new AerCloud.

This platform is based on the ETSI M2M Architecture and is built with the specific intent of being able to tie in third-party data.

So, why ETSI M2M you may ask? To provide a framework for developing services independently of the underlying network, facilitate deployment of vertical applications, and allow for the development across various industries by exposing data and information and providing services.

It sounds great for development, doesn’t it? This seemingly makes AerCloud an ideal fit for leveraging open data from the government. According to Aeris, the value of machine data grows when you have the ability to mash it up with third-party data. AerCloud is built by developers, for developers, and presents a powerful horizontal platform with limitless potential.

Here is one scenario outlined by Aeris related to helping manage energy consumption: Pulling in current and historical demand for energy based on a specific region of the country, combine it with forecasted weather data in order to create a model where the energy supply can be more agile against the predicted demand.

I had a chance to talk with Drew Johnson from Aeris and you could just hear the excitement in his voice about wanting to get AerCloud into the hands of the development community. I admire such passion, and encourage you to come out and meet him and the Aeris team June 7-9 in Santa Clara. I gurantee they get you fired up about developing on this platform!

Well, now it’s time to come see what you can create using the ioBridge platform at the 2013 M2M App Challenge. By now you know the deal:

-The event will be taking place June 7-9 in Santa Clara, Calif.
-We will have representatives from the DOE on hand to help you work with open government data they are providing
-You have the option of using one of (or a combination of) five M2M platforms

I’ve given you the skinny on both OSIsoft and Esri this week, so now let’s look at ioBridge:

This company, which tends to be a bit more hardware centric, will be providing a Connected World M2M Challenge Kit.

 This kit is based on the ioBridge Iota Wi-Fi module that enables instant cloud connectivity for anything.

To control the kit, all you need to do is send simple, RESTful API calls. This allows for Web and mobile app developers to jump right in and control or monitor something connected to the kit using Web standards. On the cloud side, ioBridge will provide channels of open data that developers can pipe into their kits.

Items on the kit include:
-12 General Purpose I/O Pins
-2 Relays
-Temperature Sensor
-Light Sensor
-Servo motor controller
-RGB multi-color LED
-Buzzer
-Buttons
-Switches
-Knobs
-Arduino Shield Header
-USB / Serial Interface

Being that ioBridge emphasizes the hardware aspect to developing, the company envisions the possibility of creating perhaps an actual physical ‘green button’ which lights up based on certain conditions that you wish to monitor (all based off of open data supplied by the US DOE).

As promised, all week I will be highlighting what you can expect from each of the five platforms we will make available at our M2M App Challenge in Santa Clara. Yesterday I told you all about OSIsoft. Today it’s Esri. I think the two go together well … more about that later.

First off, here is the deal with the M2M App Challenge. We have access to open government data (thank you, DOE) and FIVE platforms on which you can develop.

1) Access to open government data related to such things as weather patterns, fuel prices, temperature trends, vehicle data, and more. A representative from the DOE will be on hand to present you with the data. He will also have some technical experts on call to work you through all the details.

The idea is to create something that can truly make an impact in the world … help make us more energy efficient or safer on the road, etc.

2) The winner gets a cover story in our next issue. 

In hopes of helping you narrow your scope and arrive on June 7 all ready to develop that next great app that will change the world, here is some info on Esri.

Spatial information could be the key to building something inspirational. Esri Developer Network has the resources you need for building GIS (geographic information system) applications and solutions. For example, you can use ArcGIS Runtime—which leverages Windows Presentation Foundation, Java, or a variety of mobile Software Development Kits—to embed mapping and geospatial applications into existing apps or custom build new ones.

Here are some high points to consider:

•  Esri will supply ArcGIS, a platform for designing and managing solutions through the application of geographic knowledge.

•  This platform is a bit different in that it really focuses on the location aspect of a solution.

•   Users can publish maps and data to the cloud.

•   End users can then access maps, data, and apps from a variety of devices without having to install software.

•  ArcGIS is used for a number of applications, such as spatial analysis, asset management, field workforces, and operational awareness.

•  GIS integrates hardware, software, and data for using geographically referenced information in a variety of ways.

•  GIS helps to visualize trends and patterns in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts.

•  Esri says GIS technology can be integrated into any enterprise information system framework.

Or you might want to try your hand at using the platform in combination with data provided by OSIsoft to build an app to improve fuel efficiency or calculate the best route for a connected car, for example. The sky is the limit. This can be used to create any compelling custom application that integrates geospatial data and GIS capabilities.

The goal is to enable a platform for realtime GIS as well as backoffice integration between operational data management and GIS.

Ok, here is the deal. We have access to open government data (thank you, DOE) and FIVE platforms on which you can develop.

1) Access to open government data related to such things as weather patterns, fuel prices, temperature trends, vehicle data, and more. A representative from the DOE will be on hand to present you with the data. He will also have some technical experts on call to work you through all the details.

The idea is to create something that can truly make an impact in the world … help make us more energy efficient or safer on the road, etc.

2) The winner gets a cover story in our next issue. Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

Each platform promises to provide a unique way to leverage the data in order to create some meaningful apps. Over the course of the next few days I will give you a snapshot of what to expect from each of the five platforms in hopes of helping you narrow your scope–which means when you arrive on June 7 you will be all prepared to start developing that next great app that will change the world.

Today I will tell you all about OSIsoft and its PI System.

Prepare to build apps that can improve fuel efficiency or calculate the best route for a connected car at the M2M App Challenge. OSIsoft will be bringing data for automobiles through the OpenXC protocol and will supply a list of parameters. With this you will be able to take advantage of data related to field consumption rates, GPS coordinates, hard brakes, and more. As an added bonus, Esri (another App Challenge platform participant), which manages geographic information, will also be on hand, and both platforms can be leveraged simultaneously.

Jon Peterson of OSIsoft provides one example: Tracking cellphone drops. “Imagine if you had an application on your phone that was basically telling where you were and how fast you were going and where the drop out were and, of course, the time of day and things like that. You could crowdsource this whole thing and find all the holes pretty quick. Maybe a phone company would be interested in that.”

OSIsoft, in partnership with Lit San Leandro, is also bringing another interesting value proposition to this M2M App Challenge: infinite bandwidth. Want to integrate data from data.gov? You won’t be restricted by the bandwidth of a typical hotel connection at this M2M App Challenge. Optical fiber from Lit San Leandro will be run to the hotel, providing infinite bandwidth.