Dortmund, Germany (dpa) – You’ve probably heard of the IQ as a measurement of a person’s intelligence. Well, how about your eQ – or electronic intelligence quotient?
German tennis star Boris Becker revealed that he possessed “electronic intelligence” when he recently released his own web site, at www.sportgate.de. Now the term is beginning to be bandied about with increasing frequency.
IBM’s Dietmar Wendt, vice president for the memory solutions division of the giant computer firm, was one of the first to describe eQ. “An ATM, an information touch screen, or a computer – they all demand a certain understanding of electronics,” says Wendt in his book “Success with eQ.”
Wendt maintains that today a high eQ can provide one with a competitive edge over colleagues and competitors. It can also be the deciding factor in professional success or failure, the researcher adds. In the future, one’s eQ may even be essential for mastering everyday tasks.
An “intelligent house” recently opened by the home appliance manufacturer Electrolux on a Swedish island near Stockholm, Sweden, points to that future. It is one of the first intelligent houses for sale in Europe.
The doors of the house, for example, are controlled by fingerprint readers. Control is centralized in the “Screenfridge”: a multimedia refrigerator. It lets users send and receive e-mail and video messages. The device also offers radio and TV functionality.
When the owner leaves the house, he or she can check a terminal at the door to see whether the stove is off or whether the refrigerator is closed properly.
While all of this sounds very practical, experts point out that these complex electronic systems become a problem if the owner doesn’t know how to use them properly.
“The main demand this technology needs to meet is ease of use, especially for the elderly,” says Ulrich Gartner, spokesperson with European electronics maker Electrolux.
Senior citizens are an important target group. “They have more financial power, aren’t quite as mobile anymore, and are grateful if they don’t need to run every shopping errand themselves,” says Gartner. The refrigerator may soon be able to order groceries automatically, for example, when milk runs out. A service will be set up to deliver the groceries to the home.
The “Delphi-Study 2014,” conducted by German-based Munich Circle, an association for communication research, indicates that these technologies will soon become ubiquitous.
The study polled some 400 international decision makers from several industries. Three of four polled believed that remote control of household appliances would be a standard feature of homes after 2009. Every second respondent expects communication devices and household appliances to be linked wirelessly.
Wendt offers a formula for determining one’s eQ: eQ=IQ+EQ+X. In other words, a person’s electronic intelligence quotient is the sum of the intelligence quotient (IQ), which also includes logical reasoning capabilities; emotional intelligence (EQ), which describes emotional and social competencies; and, factor X, which – according to Wendt – represents creativity in using technology and the capability to think and work in a networked way.
How one acquires a high eQ is not known. But, according to Dietmar Wendt, the factor X does not require graduating with honors. Wendt says he frequently encounters colleagues who obviously have a high eQ but did not follow traditional educational routes.
“That includes university students who never finished their degrees,” says Wendt, “or people who basically founded their own company by accident,’ bringing to fruition their apparently crazy ideas.”
