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Watson’s impending win is terrifying.

By 2021, it will mean the end of most call centers. Why have a mass of people with high school or some college education answering questions from customers in a manner that is less professional and less accurate than a always calm, always polite, easy to understand machine? But the implications go much further than how you interact with your bank, or rebook a flight. Here are some other ideas and questions:

• What is the implication for developing countries such as India, that have literally millions of people employed handling the annoyed minutiae and complaints from customers of large companies?
• If Watson can match any voice, imagine the power of a political campaign that let’s you call the candidate and discuss issues with the computerized avatar.   Or vice-versa.   What if all dialing out bound is done by a robot that could interact, argue and even convince people.
• What if “dialing-for-dollars” sales engines are able to seamlessly carry on the first part of a conversation with a potential client in a voice that exactly matches the voice of the actual account manager?
• Will police use Watson powered community robots to question witnesses and canvas neighborhoods after a crime?
• Will hospitals replace basic triage functions with a Nurse Watson?
• What does this mean for the level of education that people must achieve before they can contribute something that can’t be automated and therefore something that earns a decent wage?   Do we all have to go back and get a PhD?

5 years ago, I started blogging while working at E&Y. Most of my posts where about how companies could use Web 2.0 tools like Blogs and Wikis to better share information.

I have just heard that E&Y is finally implementing a system.

It’s good to be a head of the curve. It’s not so good to be 5 years ahead of the curve. 2 weeks is better – certainly more profitable.

Football stops too often and for too long. Today, they get 40 seconds after the whistle to get another play off.

Why? Mainly so big fat linemen can catch their breath. And a few ads can be shown. The big fat guys are dangerous to themselves and to each other. Their body type leads to style of play is all about power and not enough about agility, speed and and grace. It leads to violent neck breaking injuries.

By 2021, that is going to change. And the change is going to be because TV ads stop working and instead, the entertainment business that is NFL will need to keep their audiences engaged for the whole game. Why will the ads change? If you have spent a while enjoying Hulu – going back to regular TV where a 35 minute show takes 1 hour is amazingly annoying. By 2021, the old ad model will be dead. Interactive and social games around the live event will instead engage the audience in much better, much more targetted brand awareness experiences. For example, a real time betting app based on points over # of yards or whether a QB Sack will happen. The prize is a car or a case of beer. You pick what you want to play for.

So, to keep the audience locked in, the NFL will have to keep the action going on the field. And they will want to do it to reduce injuries because one of these guys with a broken neck is eventually going to sue a team into bankruptcy.

Finally, the coaches will embrace it. What?! That’s right. Just look at the success of Chip Kelly era leading the mighty Oregon Ducks. Oregon’s trick is simple – they run plays faster than any team out there. As a result, they wear down the opposition, often winning in the last few minutes of a game.

Note:Getting rolling with blogging again has proved harder than I had hoped. But, this is going to be a first in a series of ideas about the mid-term future.

After a long break, it is now time to start blogging again.   Why?  Partially it is inspiration.   Much has to do with the fact that Joyent is growing large enough to be of interest to a broad audience.   You can also thank (or blame) some of the Enterprise Irregulars for inspiring me to get back into it.

As a simple first post, I thought I would include a description of what I am up to now.   To do that, I created this little video: