virg is our coinage for the convergence of four big technologies energy
technologies information technologies building technologies and vehicle
technologies and how they're starting to come together to converge the mash-up in
ways that it's going to have a profound effect on businesses on the products and
services they sell on the business models in which they operate and and on
the way that that they actually conduct business right so these four
technologies are coming together and we think about the last convergence that we
had it was around computers telephones media and commerce right we all carry
around that now some of your checking and checking on it at this very moment
we know how that's changed things we know how that's changed how we
communicate how we get around how we get entertainment how we conduct business
how we date how we do just about everything and and those are fairly fast
turnaround relatively low capital intensive kinds of products and
technologies now we're talking about energy technologies huge you know not
just energy plants but distributed energy and and the grid around which
that's connected we're talking about the entire IT world from from wireless
communications to GPS and in cloud computing and broadband building
technologies everything involved with with the new way buildings are becoming
not just greener but smarter and the amount of information that they're
generating and transportation technologies on how that's starting to
change where it's not just standalone vehicles but very much an interconnected
world this is going to be significant and this is not science fiction so we're
already seeing this on the energy front we're beginning to see how energy has
become a two-way interactive product and service where
everything is becoming smarter and more connected and able to have a two-way
conversation with the mainframe if you will which is the utility the power
plant and as a result how we can monitor and optimize energy and make it more
available in the way that it needs to be available at the time it needs to be
available more efficiently than ever before the IT world is extremely you
know is we don't think you have to talk about it here in San Francisco about how
that's transforming things but I think what's significant is this Internet of
Things this interconnected world where it's not just computers and phones
anymore but everything everything in this building potentially can be
addressable can have an IP address can be connected via wireless technology or
sensors and and monitored optimized and control so the lights the air
conditioning system this microphone the refrigeration unit in the kitchen or the
air conditioning system and and and everything around it in the parking lot
and on the street connected to it you know they start to to be smarter and
addressable and and and of course that goes to the built environment where
we're starting to see this incredible amount of interconnectivity in smart
buildings and the amount of data coming out of building so this matchup of IT
and buildings where you now have a connected building that literally can
have tens of thousands of sensors and be creating hundreds of thousands or even
millions of data points in the course of a day a week a month and what you do or
what you get to do when you have that kind of data what gets to happen when
you can monitor buildings at that level of scrutiny that level of granularity
what did you get to do what you can control things when you can optimize
things when you can predict things when you can know where people are going to
be even before they get there and and what does that get to do to the ability
to make that building not more just efficient but more productive and more
comfortable at a fraction of the cost of operations without a lot more
capital-intensive pneus in creating it and transportation a car going down a
smart roadway which is a roadway embedded with some kinds of intelligent
systems in the not very distant future is going to have five different data
streams going on at once it can be vehicle to roadway it's electric vehicle
it'll be vehicle to grid be vehicle to cloud which is the entertainment system
or lots of other data coming into the car be vehicle the driver does the basic
dashboard of the things we're now getting except in a much more robust way
and vehicle to vehicle which is going to allow vehicles to travel more safely at
closer range at higher speed reducing congestion improving safety sometimes
autonomously which means without even driver interaction we have a good friend
called Larry burns who was a former head of R&D at GM he told me a few years ago
he said my daughter just turned 17 and for the first time I'm getting to see
what 17 year olds do when they drive right so they doing this and they're
doing this and they're doing this and they're doing this and they're doing
this and who knows what else he said I've come to conclude that driving is
the distraction
right and that's you know that's a nice quip but the implications of that are
profound what do you get to do how do you think about designing cars and
vehicles in a world where driving is the distraction that's an incredible problem
statement so you put all this together and there are some fundamental questions
that come out of this fundamentally exciting questions that become the basis
of all the work that's going to be done by startups and by very very big
companies from utilities the car companies building companies of course
everyone involved with any kind of IT what are the opportunities here in a
world of convergence now what are the threats to the way you operate now how
does this change how you do business how do you not become you know Barnes and
Noble and Blockbuster and all the others that have no longer relevant how do you
need to rethink even the business model of what you're selling and how you're
selling it and is it really a sales kind of thing is it about ownership anymore
about some other kind of business model who you who are you partners who should
you be playing with I mean verge is a convergence of technologies but it's
also a convergence of players because now you have IT companies in the energy
business and energy companies in the IT business and car companies that are very
much around the built environment and and and and on and on now who do you
partner with and what ways you partner and who are the non-traditional partners
that you start to look at when you think about this and not in consequentially
what are the jobs and careers that you all need to have and the skill sets in a
world of convergent but that you need to be looking for as you grow your
companies as you hire as you look at the next generation of employees how does
that think how do you think about who those are what did you order your job
prospects how do you look at your careers five ten years from now vergès
not science fiction all of these technologies exist all of these things
are happening now they're either at the pilot stage or commercial stage some
we're in the world a lot of them are happening right here we're going to be
seeing this in many ways in many forms it's one of the most exciting things we
see going on because it's really about the convergence of clean green and smart
and ultimately when we think about what we all do from a sustainability
perspective this should ultimately be about those three things so verge is the
most exciting thing we see going on out there