Patients are going to demand it. Think about it: The average car today has several dozen sensors. By the time I'm 50 or 60, I'll have a half-dozen sensors in my body. Isn't my health as important as my car? Also, insurance companies will say to patients, "If you're willing to submit to these new therapies, we'll give you a better rate."

In a certain sense, human beings are just organically expressed microcode. A lot of people will get creeped out by that, but when you look at what is happening in nanotech, infotech, and biotech, you'll see that they're all getting down to the molecular level. In each case, scientists are moving atoms around -- whether the goal is to store bits of data, to change protein expressions, or to build microsensors.

In a world like that, when is the customer in charge, and when is the device in charge?

Essentially, it's a question of how to allocate what I call "microdecision rights." The logic of automation has always been to take the human out of the loop. But there is a new kind of dynamic automation in which people can be in control when they want to be, or they can let a machine be in control. The model here is the way airplanes work today. People can delegate a network to make decisions about what food to replenish in their refrigerator, say, or what tunes to play on the radio, or else they can make those decisions on their own.

This is starting to happen in financial services, where the integration of the Web, personalization, and customer service is farthest along. You can ask to be alerted if a stock starts moving, but you can also turn off the alert and say, "If this or that parameter comes up, execute a trade."

What does all of this have to do with the way that businesses approach customers?

It's going to push companies to start thinking of customers as people who form a connected network. All kinds of products will have a network connection embedded in them. Living in a wireless world means more than pervasive computing; it means pervasive connectivity.

Companies that start thinking about their customers as a network will have an opportunity to codesign some really great products with their best customers. That's already happening. Intuit involved customers in the design of Quicken, for example, and architects can now give you a view of what a house will look like once it's built. But as we get deeper and deeper into what technology can do, companies will say to their lead users, "Here's the design environment. Let us know what you're looking for, and we'll try to do it."

Paul C. Judge (pjudge@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior editor. Contact John J. Sviokla by email (john.sviokla@diamondcluster.com).

Sidebar: Laundry Math

For millions of Europeans, a sleek Merloni appliance stands as a symbol of cool domesticity. But in offering a line of Net-enabled washing machines, Merloni isn't going after added cachet value. Rather, the Italian appliance manufacturer aims to create a new business around building tight connections with consumers.

Merloni, which introduced its digital washer in 1999, plans to roll out a new version next month that will enable the company to sell an innovative service: pay-per-use laundering. Merloni will give consumers a free machine and then charge them a fee each time they use it. The machines will monitor their own performance, track energy consumption, and chart users' laundry habits.

Digital appliances are also a crucial element of Merloni's strategy to become Europe's largest provider of household-maintenance services. Merloni's repair personnel already make about 600,000 customer visits each year in Italy alone. As those repair workers knock on doors to do preventive maintenance, they will offer comprehensive service contracts for customers' plumbing, wiring, heating, and cooling systems.

"These new businessesprovide huge potential for reacquiring contact with customers," says Fabio D'Angelantonio, 32, marketing manager of Merloni's new consumer-care business. And Merloni hopes to turn renewed connections into new profits. Says D'Angelantonio: "This could be even larger in terms of earnings than our existing product lines, because customers pay a premium for these types of services."