This document summarizes a presentation about the Internet of Things. It discusses key concepts in the development of IoT including ubiquitous computing, spimes, machine-to-machine communication, and the industrial internet. It also examines systems theory and the interoperability of information between systems. Context and emergent properties in IoT systems are discussed. The presentation addresses challenges in understanding relationships between autonomous, self-referential systems that make up the IoT.

1. the Internet of Things
„questions concerning information and society‟
Dr. Ben van Lier CMC
Director Strategy & Innovation
NGI & IEEE
5 juni 2013, Gouda

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6. Phenomenology (Onthology)
Martin Heidegger
 The question concerning technology (1954/1977)
 „The essence of modern technology lies in Enframing‟
 “Thus the question as to how we are to arrive at a relationship to the essence of
technology, asked in this way, always comes too, late.
 But never too late comes the question as to whether we actually experience ourselves
as the ones whose activities everywhere, public and private, are challenged forth by
Enframing.
 Above all, never too late comes the question as to whether and how we actually admit
ourselves into that wherein Enframing itself comes to present” (1954/1977:24)

7. Informatics
Claude Shannon
 The mathematical theory of Communication (1948)
 “If the number of messages in the set is finite then this number or any monotonic
function of this number can be regarded as a measure of the information produced when
one message is chosen from the set”

8. Internet of Things – History
Mark Weiser
 Ubiquitous Computing (1991)
 The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves
into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistguishable from it.
Bruce Sterling
 Shaping Things (2005)
 Spimes are sustainable, enhanceable, uniquely identifiable, and made of substances that
can and will be folded back into the production stream of future spimes.
Kevin Ashton
 Internet of Things (1999)
 A system to describe where the Internet is connected to the physical world via
ubiquitous sensors.

9. Internet of Things – Machine2Machine communication
Sundmaeker c.s.
 Internet of Things (2010)
 In the context of Internet of Things a thing could be defined as a real/physical or digital/virtual
entity that exists and move in space and time and is capable of being identified either by
assigned identification numbers, names and/or location addresses
OECD
 M2M:Connecting billions of devices 2012
 Devices that are actively communicating using wired and wireless networks, that are not
computers in the traditional sense and are using the internet in some form or another (2012:7)

10. Internet of Things – Industrial Internet
Pushing the Boundaries of Minds and
Machines 2012
 The Industrial internet brings together the
advances of two transformative
evolutions: the myriad machines, facilities,
fleets and networks that arose from the
industrial revolution, and the more recent
powerful advances in computing,
information and communication systems
brought to the fore by the internet
revolution

11. Fleetmonitor
Communicatie Server
Planning
Network Centric logistics - Mobile Hubs and Smart connected containers
Geheugen Unit
Black-Box

12. Systems theory - (epistemology)
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
 General systems theory (1969)
 A system or “organized complexity” may be circumscribed by the existence of strong
interactions or interactions which are non trivial i.e. nonlinear. The methodological
problem of systems theory, therefore, is to provide for problems which, compared with
the analytical-summative ones of classical science, are of a more general nature”
(1969:19)
Gregory Bateson
 Steps to an ecology of mind (1972)
 A bit of information is definable as a difference which makes a difference. Such a
difference, as it travels and undergoes successive transformation information in a circuit,
is an elementary idea”. (1972:315)

13. Systems Theory - Interoperability of Information - I
Hybrid system Interoperable
Context
Semantics
Technology
Self-referential and autopoietic
Niklas Luhmann
 Social Systems (1995 English edition)
 “Thus the concept of systems refers to something that is in reality a system and
thereby incurs the responsibility of testing its statements against reality”. (1995:13)

14. Interoperability of Information - II
Hybrid system Hybrid system
Interoperability
“The realisation of mutual relations between two or more systems and entities in
order to use these connections to exchange and share information to further
develop activities, functionality or production”.
Context
Semantics
Technology
Context
Semantics
Technology
System
NSystems
System
NSystems

15. Interoperability of Information - III
Context
Semantics
Technology
System
NSystems
Double contingency
Context
Semantics
Technology

16. Interoperability of Information - IV
Context
Semantics
Technology
Context
Semantics
Technology
System
NSystems
System and Environment /
((digital) Space)

17. Interoperability of Information - V
Context
Semantics
Technology
Context
Semantics
Technology
System
NSystems
Information – Utterance – Understanding
Information–Utterance–Understanding
Communication and Action

18. Interoperability of Information – V
Context
Semantics
Technology
Context
Semantics
Technology
System
NSystems
Information – Utterance – Understanding
Information–Utterance–Understanding
Interpenetration
Interpenetration
Interpenetration

19. Interoperability of Information – VI
Karl Weick
 Sensemaking (1995)
 Enactment i.e. the act of assigning meaning
 Sense is generated by words that are combined into the
sentences of conversations to convey something about our
ongoing experience (1995:106)
 Because technology is a crucial part of organizations, it is
important to incorporate it into any discussion of sensemaking
(1995:114)

20. Internet of Things - Context
Paul Dourish
 Like ordinariness, context is managed
moment by moment, achieved by those
carrying out some activity together, and
relative to that activity and to the forms of
action and engagement that it entails.
(2004:25)

21. Network-centric warfare – Internet of Things
“The difficulty will therefore no longer lie in understanding each
individual, autonomous, autopoeitic and self-referential system, but in
the existence and the nature of the relationship between these systems”
van Lier & Hardjono
Systems Practice and Action Research (2011) volume 24 pg. 479-497

22. Internet of Things - Emergent properties
Andy Clarke
 Natural-Born Cyborgs (2003)
 For better or for worse (almost certainly for both), human technology symbiosis is poised to
transform our lives both as individuals and as collective groups.
 At the individual level, new transparent technologies will increasingly blur the already fuzzy
boundary between the user and her tools for thought;
 at the collective level distributed activity-sensitive software will enable us to press new
knowledge from electronic trails of use and access. (2003:165)

23. Vragen?
Dr. Ben van Lier CMC
ben.van.lier@centric.eu
http://bit.ly/Xd5SWb