Some years back I was in Australia. As we went around the city, I couldn’t help but notice BYO written in front of most of the restaurants. It’s the shortened version of Bring Your Own Bottle of wine or beer. These days, we hear a lot about BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device. In corporate world, it means the employees can bring their own phone, tablet or laptop to work, and get it integrated to the corporate IT infrastructure.

Some years back, I had written that an innovation moves from researchers to corporates and eventually to consumers. The adoption of computers, the adoption of communication technologies are all examples of that. The culmination and the fusion of this phenomenon is the smart phone - a device that can compute and communicate.

What if the BYOD is taken to the consumer space? It would mean the restaurants who displayed BYOB, would then also display BYOD. Consumers can use their devices to access the restaurant computing infrastructure - to browse menu, to place orders, to pay the cheque, and to provide feedback. It’s would be similar stories when they go to a super market, or to a library, or even to pick up their kids from school.

BYOD is a powerful concept when it reaches to the consumer space. Keep watching for the innovations that spring up in this space.