A SWAZM Point of View on Blockchain Usability — Three Short Examples
Not every business strategy needs blockchain implementation. Just because it’s trending doesn’t mean you should jump into using it. Any tool proves to be worthless if it’s not put to good use. The goal needs to be improving processes and operations, not the opposite.
Blockchain needs to be used as solution to a business problem. Like in its early days, it was used to help create the digital coinage, the Bitcoin, after the collapse of some of the most powerful financial institutions during the 2008 financial crisis.
Saying that blockchain is not to be trusted only because it’s strongly connected to the cryptocurrency trend that not many people understand and trust is like saying we no longer trust the Internet because hackers and malware exists in the system.
As the blockchain and the Internet are mainly facilitators of building diverse infrastructures in many industries, should at least make you want to find out more of what’s… behind the technology. In order for the technology to reach mass adoption, the language in which we describe the entire process needs to become easier to understand by regular consumers, helping individuals envision the way it can become a part of their lives.
User interface helps people adopt new technologies more easily. As with all new learning, the easier it is, the quicker it gets fixated and used with all the other components. For an emerging technology like blockchain, wallets need to be made accessible to the common user by bringing it closer to their day to day activities. And nowadays, the device we all have in our pockets is the smartphone.
Although it originated as a platform to support the creation of the digital currency Bitcoin, the underlying blockchain platform can be used in various industries that are looking to have a collaborative approach to their business’ database and internal systems. We’re going to dive deeper into blockchain usability with a few examples, but first, a few things need to be clarified about the technology itself, in order to have a better understanding of how things work behind the scenes.
Understanding the Blockchain Concept — An Easy Parallel That Helps With a Clearer View
An easy way to understand blockchain technology and decentralization is by thinking about Google Docs vs Office Suite. We used to send a Word document back and forth to exchange edits and come up with a final draft. Google Docs allows for storing the draft in the cloud and multiple editors working on it at the same time, while the document updates itself.
The blockchain is an ever growing database having millions of records stored by multiple users at the same time, anyone having the ability to edit and check the information at the same time and be in the know of what the last edits were and how they influence the main “document”.
Blockchain does not automatically mean cryptocurrency or specifically Bitcoin. As a stand-alone technology, it doesn’t necessarily involve any notion of currency. At its core it is a platform ready to sustain any app project aiming to have a shared database or operations system / workflow (it’s basically a distributed database). If your operations need space for transactions and exchange of info without your company being the intermediary for all details, you could think of using a blockchain platform to develop your next project.
“Recognizing this is usually an “aha” moment for many of us — blockchain is not just the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies — it is a technology that rewrites the fundaments of social interactions and how society and the world works. And the applications are almost limitless. From incorruptible and perfectly transparent online voting systems (allowing elections costs hundreds of times cheaper than traditional ones) to decentralized healthcare databases or personal data protection and identity management systems (allowing you to fully control or even monetize your data), blockchain will change the world in ways we cannot even predict yet.”
(Adrian Stratulat, COO Swazm)
Like all the social media apps are slowly making traditional media obsolete, so can decentralized platform options replace a single point of authorization in the future. It’s all about removing the gatekeepers and allowing direct collaboration between peers, working toward the common goal of the industry to which the project belongs to.
An Inside View of Blockchain Usability
This week we had a discussion with Adrian Stratulat, the Executive Manager for the Romanian Blockchain Association and SWAZM’s COO, talking about the place of this emerging technology in today’s business environment. His insights helped clarify the connections between usability and operational problems existing in areas such as supply management, voting technologies and building the future healthcare databases.
“As a technology, blockchain is all about cutting away unnecessary middle-men from any kind of processes, from business processes to administrative ones. Usually, those middle-men were actors that had the single role of enforcing contractual clauses in social interactions. In other words, creating trust. By willingly joining a blockchain network, actors stake or consume resources to prove their goodwill and thus trust is created in a decentralized way. “
(Adrian Stratulat, COO Swazm)
Decentralizing the Supply Chain
Being a chain of recorded transactions, the blockchain helps with quickly identifying the entire route of a purchase, and all the operations that happened from the beginning of the process until the present: company needs, budgeting, sourcing, selecting vendors, etc, all is recorded.
Centralized systems can’t offer the transparency the supply chain needs. They are difficult to verify, and the more fragmented / outsourced the systems get, the more prone to fraud they become. This becomes more apparent in multinational business models, where having operations all around the globe proves to be a real challenge, in terms of internal controls for purchases, payments and supply deliveries. There are too many people involved in order to keep track in a transparent way, paying attention to all the inputs at the same time proving to be almost impossible.
Decentralizing the Voting System
As a central part of the democracy process, voting is the more susceptible to fraud, given the multiple existing interests. The traditional mechanism happens offline, from planning to counting and centralizing the results. Many think that this is the best way to deal with the situation, but actually it is the most susceptible process of being translated to blockchain technology.
Given its nature and properties, a vote can only be recorded a single time for one person, any doubling of the individual’s choice is to be understood as electoral fraud. But here’s where the logic behind the blockchain technology comes to play, not to mention the cost efficiency of digitalizing the entire process, avoiding bureaucracy and unnecessary resource consumption.
“There is a common misconception that voting cannot be done online in a secure way. However, the introduction of blockchain technology is changing the conversation.” (Adam Ernest, CEO FollowMyVote)
The blockchain platform can be developed in such a way that it can ensure the one-time recording of a single vote for a specific candidate, with that operation being permanently recorder on the chain. As a system that cannot be modified without the compute approval of all the network’s components, an electronic vote made through this type of technology is practically impossible to manipulate or being frauded in any way.
Decentralizing the Health Registries of Tomorrow
Patient data privacy is a very sensible topic. With the growth of health registries in many countries around the world, there is an increasing need for a secure platform that allows both the space and speed able to process such a large amount of data in a secure and reliable manner.
The medical industry is susceptible to data breaches, that’s why a digital shared ledger like the blockchain technology offers the possibility of sharing patient data safely, providing multiple access points that can also help medical teams collaborate better for studies or patient care.
“For healthcare specifically, 55% of healthcare executives believe that blockchain technology will disrupt the healthcare industry.”
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