The Internet of Things (IoT) entails connecting physical objects to cyberspace. Clearly, in terms of tracking the location of passive objects, this is already largely a done deal. What is more interesting is when objects are active, and can be sensed and actuated. Hence we have a dynamic, and that dynamic can be remotely observed and controlled. This means that the IoT also entail embedding models of the behaviour of these physical objects in cyberspace. That's a matter for others. Here, what I am interested in is the business of trying to bootstrap the IoT. To this end, we need to create an innovative ecosystem that addresses two things: Firsty, we need to create a platform for peer-networks of users to create new ways to connect new objects, e.g. household appliances, to the Internet. To this end, we need a low cost platform to build cyberphsycical interfaces. An example might be to use the raspberry pi low cost computer, which has GPIO and can be connected to various sensors and actuators quite easily. If the physical applicance to be connected has only got a mechaninical interface then we need to enable the innovator to build and share an electro-mechanical interface. This is easily achieved by building a network if people with access to 3D printers and 3D scanners. The analogy here is with the old knitting circles. People with knitting needles would buy wool and make new clothes. If they were passive consumers of design, they would by knitting magazines (other publications would carry the designs too). Creative people would create new designs, and "upload" them by sending them in to those magazines (for a fee). In our brave new world, we have creative users who sculpt a new cyberphysical design, and build an instance (e.g. using a 3D printer plus a raspberry pi controller with WiFi to conenct to the Home Appliance Thing control network). They could then upload this new design to an Commodity Appliance Thing appstore, for others to download, print and use. A secondary appstore would hold systems for controlling home sets of appliances, and combining sets of such networks, securely, and safely. THis would also extend access to the "home" (or work, or in the car) network of things to multiple remote sites (e.g. work to home, or public transport to home, or home to car). A part of the valuechain would be a cyberphysical system verification and certification service (which could be run by several organisations, depending on the relevant legal, policy, and economic constraints bought in by safety, applcation domain considerations (e.g. green energy policy) and insurance or other business interfaces. Work on the EPSRC Horizon project (ongoing) on a "let a Million Clouds Bloom" under the Signpost name is highly relevant here as it allows for secure, flecible connectivity between disparate remote devices, but also associates the devices with users and potentially with a personal AppStore. THis enables the wider use and impact for control of consumer appliances connected via the Internet of Things. Work on the EPSRC Fresnel project (just completing) is highly relevant too, as it has delivered a platform for federating sensor (and control) networks, which incorporatess two properties, that of isolation, to provide security, and that of privacy by design, which allows for aggregation of data from sensor networks without inadvertant exposure of individuals' personal data. This allows the safe construction of more rich and complex applications to control, potentially multiple sets of things in the future IoT. ------bio----- Prof. Jon Crowcroft (FACM, FIEEE, FIET, FBCS, FREng; REF 2014 subpanel member; technical advisory boards for Telefonica Research, Technicolor,and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, h-index 48) is the Cambridge PI for the EPSRC Horizon Digital Economy project, and the EPSRC INTERNET programme grant, on mobile and cloud-based energy efficient systems. He named the Xen Virtual Machine and the Raspberry Pi. He was awarded the SIGCOMM prize fr lifetiem achievements in 2009 "for the creative ideas that he has shared so freely with so many in the commnity".