When the Rubber Meets the Sky

David Rose is at it again. He’s the CEO of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Ambient Devices and a successful serial entrepreneur. Spiral Up describes Rose’s adventures in developing and launching the Ambient Orb. His wildly successful story continues here.

First of all, if you haven’t seen the Orb, you’re in for a treat. It’s a “zen simple” and “glanceable” information device that also happens to be beautiful. When the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up, the orb glows bright green. When stock prices are falling, it looks more like Rudolph’s red nose.

Rose learned an unexpected lesson from the Orb, however: “Our technology is not just pervasive,” he says. “It is persuasive.” When people monitor their stock portfolios with the Orb, they tend to trade more often, he explains. And we know that more frequent trading generally results in poorer portfolio performance.

With that persuasive effect in mind, Rose began to look for ways the Orb could be used to promote more positive social outcomes. Today’s Ambient products can track weather, wind speed, pollen count, traffic congestion, and in some areas, the load on the energy grid. As a result, people with allergies can plan their days with a clear head, travelers can get where they are going more quickly and we can all monitor our electricity usage better. (Check out Ambient’s products at http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/products.html )

But Rose wasn’t finished. He teamed up with a company called NextBus to use the Ambient effect to encourage public transportation in San Francisco and 12 other cities which sorely need improvement in this area. NextBus puts GPS pucks on buses so people can use the Internet to find out when the, well, next bus will arrive at their favorite bus stop. Ambient has added its own distinctive twist to the idea. It is building a fill bar—the same idea as the little slider on your computer that fills up to tell you your file is saved or your document is printed—except this one stands on its end, nine feet high, at the bus stop. It fills up as the next bus nears the stop. Rose says, “You can see it from blocks away and use it to judge whether you have time to grab a cup of coffee or you have to hurry. It not only takes some of the pain out of waiting for the bus, it’s also beautiful to look at.” And by the way, it is powered completely by solar energy.

I find something quite heartening from this chapter of David Rose’s wildly successful adventure. Rose started all this with a big idea—a contrarian notion that computing should be simple and elegant rather than ever more complicated. This big idea wasn’t something he could invent or build or sell; it was a principle. Now, some “practical” people roll their eyes at big ideas, but look what Rose has accomplished with this one. His company is successfully selling pervasive, persuasive devices that customers love. More importantly, his work is making our cities a little cleaner, greener and more beautiful. That’s a powerful result.


© Jane Linder, Progress Board LLC 2007. All rights reserved.