Conferences

Friday, February 12, 2010

Knovel Blogs

People at a conference The Knovel Blogs at are all about sharing ideas on engineering information and productivity. You can find things as diverse as an interview with a weatherman to the history of the space shuttle. If you are an engineer or have an interest in engineering, Knovel is a fun place to visit.

Neil Schulman, Editor in Chief at Knovel Blogs recently interviewed me about the 16th Annual Genesys Partners Venture Dinner -- Gen XVI-- which was held at the Union League Club in New York. The event attracted more than 100 venture capitalists, investors, journalists, entrepreneurs, and industry executives. A summary of the after-dinner comments I made can be found here. Neil's interview follows and adds some additional perspective to what I had to say at Genesys. K Exchange is the name of the Knovel Blogs.

Neil Schulman: John is a former Vice President of Internet Technology with IBM, and currently serves as president of Attitude LLC. John is also the author of Net Attitude, an essential primer on e-business strategies. John has served on Knovel's Board of Directors since 1992.

K Exchange: First off thank you for agreeing to interview with us. To start with, I have to get your impressions on the topic-of-the moment, the Apple iPad. To me, it seems way more evolutionary compared to the then-revolutionary iPhone. By extension, is the iPad just a larger version of the iPod Touch but with more bells and whistles? Will this device ultimately mean anything?

John Patrick: I am quite enthusiastic about the iPad and can't wait to get my hands on one. Some people are saying the iPad is just a big iPhone. Yes! I can't wait and it is much more than an iPhone. It has applications galore. On day one it will run 140,000 iPhone applications plus significant upgrades to calendar, contacts, mapping, and email. I see the iPad lightening the load in briefcases when travelling. It will also take up a lot less space on the kitchen counter and while resting there in the new iPad case it will double as a picture viewer. (See complete review by John on his blog at http://www.patrickweb.com/weblog/archives/2010_01_31.php#Amazon and the iPad)

KX: In conjunction with that, do you see mobile devices becoming more important? Or do the limitations of 3G/4G speeds and device memory mean people will be relying more heavily on computers for the time being?

JP: Mobile is taking over. There are hundreds of millions of PC's. There are billions of mobile phones. Today most of them are "dumb" but soon most of them will be "smart". Most people in the world will access the Internet from their mobile device. The PC will become less and less relevant, accelerated by the iPad and the flood of tablet competitors who will follow.

KX: You mentioned in your blog the massive disparity between public WiFi in the US and overseas. Does the possibility of widely available WiFi (or WiGig, as you posited for the near future) make the question moot, and suggest that netbooks will be preferable to mobile devices?

JP: WiFi is growing all over the world. The netbook is just an inexpensive Windows PC. The only thing it has going for it is price. Do we really need another Windows PC? There is no innovation in netbooks.

KX: Switching gears, you also believe that social networking is going to be crucial to collaboration in the future. Are you talking about public social networks? Or about private intra-company or intra-industry networks?

JP: Both. All of the above. The days of just "plain" content are over. People expect to be able to compare notes on things. Inside or outside the firewall. The number one source that people use to pick a doctor or a hospital is not a website per se, it is asking their friends and family. Social networking is a tool to do that. In a corporate sense, the most valuable source of information on a topic may be somebody down the hall but again, social networks is a tool to reach them.

Collaboration is not new but the social networks provide enhanced tools to make collaboration work. It goes deeper than writing on someone's wall. Specialized tools are emerging such as Kindling to make social networking concepts into serious business tools. The largest source of content is user generated content. That is part of social networking too.

KX: Along those lines, we have statistics from Outsell that suggest that while 40% of engineers are on Facebook, only 4% are on Twitter. An interesting fact that may make more sense when you consider the recent stats suggesting that Twitter's growth is stagnating. Why do you think Facebook's adoption has been so much stronger among the engineering community?

JP: They are totally different types of social networking tools. Facebook is a people oriented way to establish a presence and connect with friends or colleagues. It is frictionless to achieve. Twitter is more of a protocol -- a way to send a message or "tweet". Twitter as a company may or may not survive but the concept of sending short messages and following companies or people is a fundamental and new "channel" on the Internet.

KX: Finally, I want to end on the question you asked to finish your post: "will we trust the internet?" You were talking in terms of security, but the question brings up an interesting point, do people inherently mistrust information that comes from the Internet? Obviously Wikipedia is a flawed source, but does a company like Knovel have to fight the impression of being an Internet company rather than an information provider?

JP: The Internet is the communications network. It will be a constant battle against those who want to disrupt it, but I am optimistic that the good guys will stay on top. I don't think people inherently distrust the Internet -- perhaps to the contrary. It is no different than a book. How do you know a book is accurate? The key is to test veracity through cross-checking just like doing any basic research. Knovel has a huge opportunity to leverage the Internet as the delivery mechanism to make engineers more productive. In the long run it will be important to use technology to provide digital signatures and authentication of data.

John's post on Genesys XYI can be found at http://www.patrickweb.com/weblog/archives/2010_01_26.php#Genesys XVI.

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Conferences, Gadgets, Internet Technology, Media February 12, 2010 10:10 AM

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Genesys XVI

People at a conference The 16th Annual Genesys Partners Venture Dinner -- Gen XVI-- Monday night at the Union League Club in New York attracted more than 100 venture capitalists, investors, journalists, entrepreneurs, and industry executives. As always, Jim Kollegger -- CEO of Genesys Partners and one of the pioneers of the information industry -- was an elegant master of ceremonies. He introduced the various sponsors, next day panelists for the SIIA Conference, several startup CEO's, and a few of us who have been around the block a few times, each to make some comments.

Like a broken record, I offered the normal upbeat view of the future of the Internet but prefaced my remarks by asserting that we are only 5% of the way there. In other words, of all the things that could be done on the Internet that would save us time and make our lives better, only 5% of them are there. It may sound low but consider retail e-commerce. Although there has been continuous and steady growth of retail e-commerce it still represents just 3.5% of total retail (as of the end of October). Why isn't it 25% or more? Much written about that here at patrickWeb but the short version is that there are still a lot of lame web sites. "Click here for the location of our nearest dealer where you can visit or call to buy the product you just found" or "Click here to download this form and fax it to us". And of course there are the ubiquitous clipboards at doctor offices where we take a pen and provide a lot of information information that they already have.

I described one man's view of the evolution of the Internet including the seven characteristics below. This parsed way of looking at the Internet has served me well for quite a few years. The things going on under each area continuously change and Jim asks me once a year to do a thumbnail sketch of my latest thinking.

Fast
Broadband in the U.S. is not a pretty story compared to other parts of the world. The problem is that there are too many lobbyists and the FCC is a political organization. The new FCC head is a very smart guy with venture and business experience. He totally gets it. The only problem is that AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon have more lawyers than he does. Meanwhile France is racing at full speed to offer 100 megabit access and WiFi throughout the country. Thanks to the telco lobby, many states have banned the offering of WiFi by municipal entities.

Always On

WiFi is part of the fabric of the world. The big shift is streaming of data -- not just tweets, but data from *things*. Bridges, toll booths, traffic lights and sensors, buildings, cars, and health monitoring devices attached to people. Hospital physicians will be able s will soon be adjusting the drip rate on infusion pumps in the hospital from their office based on real-time data from the patient. The WiFi infusion pumps enable hospital administrators to know where the pumps are (they never have enough of them) and which ones need maintenance. WiMax continues to struggle. Some believe it will replace WiFi. My bet is on WiFi and in a two years or less we will have WiGig -- gigabit wireless.

Everywhere
Cloud computing has become the mainstay for me and for millions. Whether it is gmail or MobileMe the convenience and reliability of the clouds is compelling. The next big wave is enterprise cloud computing. Virtualization is making enterprise servers more scalable, reliable, and efficient than ever. AJAX is enabling applications to run in any browser on any kind of computer including mobile. Especially mobile. There are hundreds of millions of PC's but there are billions of mobile devices. Today most of them are dumb. In a few years most of them will be smart. Opera sofware is enabling even the dumb phones to have web access.

Natural
Social networking may not be a business model in and unto itself but it has become fundamental to all aspects of our economy and society. Integration of social networking with a full range of web applications will evolve to become the primary means of collaboration. The emerging issue is that many people are a bit liberal with sharing their every movement -- what they are eating, listening to, where they are headed, their current latitude and longitude, and where they slept last night. They are not thinking that some day they may run for office or interview for a job.

Intelligent
The Semantic Web is the next big turn of the crank but the crank is moving slowly. Most web pages have links but do not have context. In other words the words on the page do not necessarily mean anything -- but they could. If a web page said "Join us for a concert by The Eagles at Kimmel Center in Philadelphia next Tuesday" that set of words could have a lot of context. Clicking on it could add the concert to your calendar, knowing what "next Tuesday" means. It would also know exactly where the Kimmel Center is and that The Eagles is a performing group that performs a particular genre and your music player would receive a list of suggestions of music they have recorded or links to live concerts under way at the moment. This is the tip of the iceberg. The semantic web will lead us to a point where most of the interactions of web pages will be between computers not between computers and people. The biggest growth of intelligence is occurring in the field of analytics. Exabytes of data are being stored. Analytics will enable businesses to make sense of it, model their business and continuously adapt to what is going on.

Easy
Technology isn't the easiest thing at times. There are many dimensions to "easy" but one good example is the Nintendo Wii. At a local senior center, members find the Wii to be their exercise coach. It is not just for kids! The iPhone has shown how easy it can be to get applications on a handheld computer. Amazon has done the same with the Kindle. Apple may do it again with a rumored tablet. Most companies still don't get the idea that the Internet is about power to the people. If you can't make it simple, people won't buy it.

Trusted
This is the big one. Will we trust the Internet? Security technology is available to achieve much higher levels of security than presently deployed both at enterprise and consumer levels. The bigger issue will be privacy. Banks have our personal information and they are using it. Healthcare insurers have more information about our health than our doctors do. Nevertheless, there is much to be optimistic about when it comes to electronic medical records. Maybe 5% of doctors and hospitals use them but this will likely rise fast and the result will be better care, better outcomes, and fewer errors. And, fewer clipboards.

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Conferences, Internet Technology, Media January 26, 2010 01:10 PM

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Supernova 2009

Ppeople at a conference Commercial Air travel is not a barrel of fun these days but leaving home at 4:30 in the morning enabled me to get an early flight and a smooth trip to San Francisco. The return trip two days later was a different story. Airlines can't control the weather and occasional maintenance issues are to be expected, but the frustrating part is the lack of good communications on the ground at the airports and the lack of integrated systems resulting in getting different information -- kiosk, overhead displays, ticket counter, at the gate, airline lounges -- for the same flight. The maintenance issue was fixed quickly but the "paperwork" to get approval for takeoff required a couple of hours. Most of us have similar stories -- there are a number of my airline stories here in the blog.

This was the eighth year for the Supernova conference -- run by Kevin Werbach who is a leading expert on the business, policy, and social implications of emerging Internet and communications technologies. Kevin has a good track record of anticipating key trends along the path to the Network Age. Supernova attracts CEOs, bloggers, entrepreneurs, academics, practitioners, visionaries, policy experts and industry thought leaders. Like all conferences, the best part is catching up with friends and colleagues and comparing points of view.

There are a couple of unique things about Supernova. It is the only conference that connects with one of the world's foremost business schools -- the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The other unique feature is how "connected" the attendees can become with the speakers and each other. Supernova offers a live video stream, a twitter feed, and live blogging to enable attendees and remote participants from all over the world -- there were 200+ people from numerous countries in San Francisco this year -- to all jump into the conversation.

It is very difficult to summarize what I learned at Supernova. Every year it is mind expanding. I feel fortunate to be there and participate in the dialogue and stay somewhat on the edge of what is evolving. The mobile Internet continues to gain momentum -- seemed that everyone there had an iPhone. Last year I reported that social computing was mushrooming. Not sure what word describes the current status -- maybe all-consuming. There are serious discussions going on in the development community about how (not whether) to standardize identity, authorization, and applications across the various social networks in some sensible way. Privacy has always been an issue but as storage cost approaches zero, everything we say or do will be saved. Twitter is the tip of the iceberg. The telecommunications operators continue to consolidate and continue to offer poor customer service and a lack of choice.

Kevin kicked things off at the Mission Bay Conference Center (UCSF Campus) with his view of the "changing world". The afternoon panels focused on how pervasive connectivity is altering everything from our social interactions to our cities and how the infrastructure of the Internet is quietly being transformed. The rise of cloud computing and broadband applications are shifting the landscape for both network operators and service providers. Anil Dash talked about how networking is beginning to make government more efficient and collaborative. Peter Gruber talked about the turmoil in the motion picture industry where it is becoming harder to predict what consumers will want. Avatar -- to be released in a couple of weeks -- cost $350 million to produce while Paranormal Activity is said to have cost $11,000. Which one will make more money? Chris Anderson, of Wired, talked about how a clever designer can use three-D software at home to design a physical object and then "manufacture" it on a $750 three-D printer in the basement.

Day two was at the Wharton San Francisco Campus. During the Opening Plenary Session, JP Rangaswami, John Hagel, Umair Haque, and Ellen Levy talked about the financial crisis and whether it is a permanent discontinuity in market economics or just a temporary bump in the road? The consensus was that the current recovery is temporary and there are big problems ahead. John Hagel cited that big business has had a steady decline in return on assets for decades and there is no sign that it will reverse. Not a pretty picture. I am more optimistic than any of the panelists.

Another interesting panel was about whether "There is a Media Business?". Their consensus was that the world doesn't need newspapers, record labels, and TV broadcasters as we know them but it does need journalism and distribution mechanisms for quality entertainment and information. The focus of the discussion was whether innovative new forms of online media will replace what is lost as traditional industries collapse? Most of us would say yes.

My friend and moderator Tim O'Reilly moderated a discussion about "Going with the Flow". We are moving from a world of web pages to a rich and continuous stream of information. Emails replaced by tweets. A web page about train schedules replaced by real-time data on where the trains are at the moment. Reading a review of something replaced by tweets of where someone is having a meal and what music they are listening too. For some, all of this is too much, even for some techies. One thing I can say for sure. The trend to more and more information about everything and everybody is not going to reverse any time soon. Hopefully kids will learn that posting things about their social activities today may prevent them getting a job or getting elected in the future. There is a lot of room for some common sense.

The panel about telecommunications was really good. Paul DeSa from the FCC gave a glimmer of hope. The FCC really wants to maintain an open Internet, deploy broadband throughout the country, and keep competition going to increase innovation. As I have written here many times, I am convinced that Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T do not share any vision that might reduce their monopoly power and profitability. I am all for profitability but only in a competitive marketplace. The lack of adequate competition is why prices are high, contracts lock us in, Internet speeds are exaggerated, and customer service is poor. I am not in favor of expanded government but in the area of telecommunications the government is our only hope in the short run. Looking forward to Supernova in 2010.

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Conferences, Internet Technology, Media, Mobile, Public Policy, iPhone December 6, 2009 01:30 PM

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Back to DACS - 2009

Presentation On December 7th, the Danbury Area Computer Society will hold it's monthly meeting and it will be my honor to give a talk (at 7:45PM) about The Future of the Internet. (This will be the eighteenth year in a row that I have done this). The meeting will be open to the public and will take place in the auditorium at Danbury Hospital. The talk will be an update on how the next generation of the Internet is unfolding and how it will affect our personal and professional lives. I will discuss recent developments that are fueling the rapid evolution of the Internet and enabling more than a billion people to experience a Net that is fast, always on, everywhere, natural, intelligent, easy, and trusted. The potential for information technology to improve healthcare will also be discussed. There is a Program Preview by Jim Scheef on the DACS homepage.

Conferences, Internet Technology November 22, 2009 04:04 PM

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

DEMOfall in San Diego - 2009

Gadget There was a short overnight in Telluride with some friends and then on to San Diego for DEMOfall. Demo continues to be my favorite conference -- the semi-annual event attracted nearly 600 attendees. The Demo conference allows entrepreneurs to show off new gadgets, software, hardware and business ideas and enables the press, analysts, investors, and technology enthusiasts to assess what they see. Companies like IBM scout for potential acquisitions. The product introductions that take place reveal key technology trends over the coming 12 to 18 months. This year there were 70 companies showing their latest and greatest -- each getting six minutes on stage to tell their story. Chris Shipley, executive producer of Demo and Chairman and CEO of Guidewire Group, screens the companies and introduces them to the audience. After the main tent sessions the attendees get to visit with the companies in the "Demo Tent".

There isn't time to visit all of companies so I try to be selective -- I visited 25 of the companies this time. Some of the ones I found interesting follow. They are in no particular order.

Local Dirt says they want to be "Everyone's place to buy, sell, and find local food". They have created an e-commerce platform to enable grocery stores or consumer groups to buy from local farmers and farmer markets. Locally grown food is the fastest growing segment of the food business and Local Dirt got a lot of interest.

CallSpark! aims to replace the phone icon in your iPhone with their. The enhancement is that if you want to call Fedex or Marriott or Hertz, CallSpark! finds the number for you even though it is not in your iPhone contact list. Basically, CallSpark! virtually expands your contact list to find people or businesses. I look forward to trying it out when it is on the App Store.

DOTGO enables you to use your mobile phone to quickly, easily, and reliably access any web site -- to read the news, check a train schedule, or track a package by simply sending a text message. For example you could send a text to DOTCOM (368266) and put Coca Cola in the body of the message. DOTGO would have a marketing agreement with Coca Cola that would enable them to respond with information to you such as a link to go to a special offer.

Keen has a really slick commerce program to automate the small printers of the world. Every deal with a local printer? The one is this area does everything manually -- preferably by phone but also fax. No email! Keen takes a broad view of the processes involved and has a comprehensive solution to streamline the process of getting things printed.

Fusebox is a collaborative system that does it all. Instant messaging, annotating or tagging movies with friends, and have online meetings. Take a look.

Gogrok is in this space too. They say they are going to make on-line collaboration easier and more interactive so that people can understand each other completely via the Internet. I found it interesting but suspect it will have trouble getting traction.

Intelius has a "People Search" which they claim is a great way to find and reconnect with family, old friends, relatives -- just about anyone! People Search reports include phone numbers, address history, ages, birth dates, household members, home value, income and more. They promoted it as a date check. Frightening!

Cazoodle is a specialized search engine for buying things. It not only finds things but also organizes the various features and options so you can make a good choice and get a good price.

Digsby integrates instant messaging, email, and social networks into one easy to use application. That is their goal. I did not find very intuitive but it was defintely clever. The idea is to make it easy to write something and place it as a tweet and a Facebook post in a few mouse clicks.

Radioweave says they are the "second century of radio" and they have a system that creates a custom broadcasting "channel". They say that In traditional radio, you tune in to a single channel until you are bored and then you change channels.

This is just a sample. They were all interesting. Statistically, of the seventy companies at Demo probably a half-dozen will survive. Some will get purchased and become a feature in another company's offering. Some will run out of money and move on to another idea. Entrepreneurs never stop.

Conferences, Gadgets, Internet Technology October 13, 2009 01:24 PM

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Knovel Interview

Prior to the Special Libraries Association convention at the Washington Convention Center in June there was an interview aranged by Knovel Corporation. The video was used on displays around the convention center and then made it's way to the Knovel Blog. The conference closed with a panel will be moderated by TV newscaster Judy Woodruff. The panelists were Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Robyn Meredith, and yours truly. In the video interview I tried to set the stage a bit and also cover a few things I suspected Judy would not ask about.

Conferences, Internet Technology, Media September 12, 2009 11:34 AM

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Wired Disruptions

Wires I am late in sharing about various activities of the past two weeks. The activities used up the time for blogging! Exiting the train at Grand Central last Monday morning was followed by a nice walk down Madison Avenue to the magnificent Pierpont Morgan Library to attend the WIRED Business Conference: Disruptive By Design.

It was a superb day, featuring interviews and highlights from WIRED editor in chief, Chris Anderson as well as an impressive group of speakers including Jeff Bezos, Jeff Immelt, Shai Agassi, Elon Musk and Vivek Kundra, the newly named CIO of the United States. Alll of the content is available at wired.com.

The speakers were excellent with the exception of Scott Thompson, President of PayPal who was doing a non-stop pitch for how great his company is. All the other speakers shared their vision for the future of various technologies and business strategies and in particular talked about how disruption can be a problem or an opportunity depending on how you approach it. Jeff Bezos, always the consummate visionary talked about how electronic books will disrupt traditional publishing business models. When I see small children carrying 50 pounds of books in their backpack it seems so obvious that an e-book -- which weighs less than a half-pound can hold all of their textbooks -- is going to prevail. Jeff said that books have "had a nice 500 year run". Critics say that the market is limited for devices which can only do one thing, like enable you to read a book. Jeff said "what could be more important than reading". He believes a "purpose built" device serves an important and growing market. Many business leaders in Amazon's position with the Kindle would tie the content and the device in a proprietary model. Jeff says that Amazon plans for the Kindle to be the best device and their strategy is enable the device to read content of any format. In parallel the Amazon format will be made available on competitors e-books. He clearly follows a long-term strategy.

Jeff Immelt also demonstrated strategic leadership in his comments in numerous areas. He said that the Chinese have developed an MRI scanner that is a third the cost of what GE enjoys as their richest market segment today. Many companies would put their head in the ground, but GE is planning to compete directly with Chinese pricing and expand the MRI market on a global basis. I was quite impressed with the comments of Vivek Kundra. The former CTO for the city of Washington DC who is now the first US government CIO. He has a very aggressive approach to opening up government to the people. Today there are more than 20,000 government web sites and most do not make it easy to get data. Vivek is planning to make all non-secret data available to the public through data.gov, His visionary theory is that by making the data available people will find ways to build applications to explore and exploit the data. Privacy will be an issue but the upside is very large. While some people fear the government "watching us", the strategy behind data.gov will allow citizens to watch the government.

Overall, the conference was exceptionally well produced. Upon leaving at the end of the day attendees were given a nice Golla Mobile Lifestyle bag containing a couple of WIRED magazines plus a copy of Chris Anderson's new book -- Free: The Future of a Radical Price. The summer read pile growing already -- but mostly on the Kindle.

As usual, one of the best parts of the conference was seeing former colleagues from years past. It was very nice to catch up with Nicholas Negroponte and Ann Winblad and to compare notes with Jay Walker. Jeff Bezos hung around with attendees at the reception at the end of the day and answered questions from several of us. He is a brilliant businessman that makes it a habit to listen to what people (customers) have to say. I would say that is also why Amazon has a market capitalization of $36 billion.

Conferences, Gadgets, Healthcare June 27, 2009 06:37 PM

Friday, June 19, 2009

Busy Week

Wired Business Conference in New York City. On Tuesday it was down to Dulles Airport and a visit to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum nearby. Wednesday was the closing session of the Special Libraries Association where I served on a panel moderated by Judy Woodruff. Today included a series of meetings at Danbury Hospital and a great demo of their new electronic record-keeping system. When I got home there was a small brown box on the front stoop containing an Apple iPhone 3GS. More on all these topics over the next few days.

Add category, Conferences, People June 19, 2009 07:03 PM

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Special Libraries

Library I am really looking forward to visiting with the Special Libraries Association at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. on June 17. The SLA 2009 Annual Conference will be attended by 2,500 - 3,000 Information Professionals from 75 countries. "IP's" are library and information science experts -- people that are vital to libraries, information centers and corporate information and knowledge resource departments. I will be part of the closing panel at the conference where there will be a discussion about the future of information -- where it will come from, how it will be managed, how people will retrieve it and use it.

The closing conference panel will be moderated by TV newscaster Judy Woodruff. The panelists will be Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Robyn Meredith, and yours truly. Judy Woodruff was born in Oklahoma and has had a distinguished career as a television news anchor and journalist. I remember her as chief White House correspondent for NBC and as host of Frontline on PBS. Neil deGrasse Tyson is also a television personality -- not typical for an astrophysicist. Among many other distinctions, Dr. deGrasse Tyson hosted PBS's educational television show NOVA scienceNOW. Robyn Meredith is the author of the New York Times best-seller The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What it Means for All of Us.

You might say it is eclectic group -- I am certainly humbled to be part of this panel. Judy Woodruff will have a heyday asking questions and no doubt will bring out insights that the audience will find of value. I will not be surprised if I get asked about Twitter, the mobile Internet, the semantic web, and Internet security. I also look forward to learning from the other panelists.

Conferences, People June 2, 2009 04:15 PM

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Gen XV

People at a conference The 15th Annual Genesys Partners Venture Dinner -- Gen XV-- Monday night at the Union League Club in New York attracted more than 100 venture capitalists, investors, journalists, entrepreneurs, and industry executives. As always, Jim Kollegger -- CEO of Genesys Partners and one of the pioneers of the information industry -- was an elegant master of ceremonies. He introduced the various sponsors, next day panelists for the SIIA Conference, several startup CEO's, and a few of us who have been around the block a few times, each to make some comments.

Like a broken record, I offered the normal upbeat view of the future of the Internet but prefaced my remarks by asserting that we are only 5% of the way there. In other words, of all the things that could be done on the Internet that would save us time and make our lives better, only 5% of them are there. It may sound low but consider retail e-commerce. Although there has been continuous and steady growth of retail e-commerce it still represents just over 3% of total retail (as of the end of October). Why isn't it 25% or more? Much written about that here at patrickWeb but the short version is that there are still a lot of lame web sites. "Click here for the location of our nearest dealer where you can buy the product you just found" or "Click here to download this form and fax it to us". And of course there are the ubiquitous clipboards at doctor offices where we take a pen and write information that they already have.

Fast
Broadband in the U.S. is not a pretty story compared to other parts of the world. The problem is that there are too many lobbyists and the FCC is a political organization. I was in Greenland this past August. It is three times the size of Texas, has no trees, and only 50,000 people. The entire population has access to the Internet. When the chairman of the FCC was asked by CNBC why the U.S. was not even in the top ten countries of the world in terms of broadband availability, his reply was that there many rural parts of America!

Always On
WiFi is becoming more and more a part of the fabric of the world. Hospitals will soon be replacing their infusion pumps with WiFi infusion pumps that will enable hospital administrators to know where the pumps are, which ones need maintenance, and even allow doctors to adjust drop rates of intravenous solutions via the Internet WiMax continues to struggle. Some believe it will replace WiFi. My bet is on WiFi.

Everywhere
Cloud computing has become the mainstay for me and for millions. Whether it is gmail or MobileMe the convenience and reliability of the clouds is compelling. The next big wave is enterprise cloud computing. Virtualization is making enterprise servers more scalable, reliable, and efficient than ever. Broadband in the enterprise likewise. Security models allow remote access for telecommuters and AJAX is enabling applications to run in any browser on any kind of computer including mobile.

Natural
Social networking may not be a business model in and unto itself but it is becoming fundamental to all aspects of our economy and society. Integration of social networking with a full range of web applications will evolve to become the primary means of collaboration.

Intelligent
The Semantic Web is the next big turn of the crank. Most web pages have links but do not have context. In other words the words on the page do not necessarily mean anything -- but they could. If a web page said "Join us for a concert by The Eagles at Kimmel Center in Philadelphia next Tuesday" that set of words could have a lot of context. Clicking on it could add the concert to your calendar, knowing what "next Tuesday" means. It would also know exactly where the Kimmel Center is and that The Eagles is a performing group that performs a particular genre and your music player would receive a list of suggestions of music they have recorded or links to live concerts under way at the moment. This is the tip of the iceberg. The semantic web will lead us to a point where most of the interactions of web pages will be between computers not between computers and people.

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Conferences, Mobile June 27, 2008 11:32 AM

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Supernova 2008 - Part 2

Description of image Supernova began last Monday morning at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center. There is no sign of recession in the Mission Bay area -- construction cranes everywhere. The 300 acre former rail yard was created in 1998 as a redevelopment project and seems to be flourishing. It has attracted a lot of biotechnology research and development and is the headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. It also has fiber to the premises communications.

Kevin Werbach kicked off the conference with his view of the "Ten Challenges for the Network Age". If it wasn't already, Supernova made it clear that decentralization is happening and that there is an accelerating shift underway to network-based computing, services, business processes, marketing, entertainment, social relationships, connectivity, and culture. The shift is changing our assumptions about how the world works. There are big opportunities ahead for those who grasp the shift and peril ahead for those who don't.

A panel with Bob Iannucci from Nokia, Esther Dyson, and Clay Shirky (New York University) how the Internet is changing the way the world works -- especially how people are doing things differently. In Clay's new book "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, he tells a story of how a woman left her cell phone in a cab and someone stole it and started using it rather than trying to find out who owned it (which would have been easy). The woman's friend took the matter as "wrong" and launched a campaign on the Internet through blogs and social networks to get the thief to return the phone. Based on messages the person had sent from the phone it was determined who she was. Her MySpace profile led to where she lives. The police would not take the case. They said it was just lost, not stolen. The bloggers did not give up and eventually brought the NYPD around. The phone got back to the owner and the thief was arrested. More than one million people followed and/or participated in the effort. Talk about "Power to the People"! (which I have been writing about for fifteen years). ! highly recommend Clay's book.

In a similar manner, Facebook groups are providing valuable input to businesses and surely will cause them to change direction on some issues. Intel found this out years ago when they denied problems with the then new Pentium chip. They were forced to come clean. Collective opinions will be making more and more of a difference. Another emerging business tool is the the Virtual Company Project which is building online tools to provide governance for a virtual company. People with common interests and appropriate skills will be able to develop a business and collaborate online to provide products and services.

On the political scene the bloggers of America have been having a heyday for the last five years and are becoming more and more effective. In 1999 there was considerable strife in Kosovo. Part of the strategy by the government was to control information so that the people would not know exactly what was going on. Journalists were expelled from the country. The independent radio station, B92, in Belgrade was closed down. Local media was either shut down or censored. But the radio station set up a web site and began to publish text, audio and video. They reported when air raid sirens were going off. Up to the minute news was provided to the population. There was no way to shut down the Internet site because the government didn't’t know where the server was. If they had known and shut it down another server would have been put back online. From a coup in Thailand to London bombings, information becomes available and it becomes public. In Zimbabwe text messages went out to tell people where to vote as the government tried to keep it a secret. Governments can put people in jail but they will not be able to confiscate 3-5 billion cell phones. As long as there is information the Internet provides a way to share it. Power to the People.

One of the most subtle but most powerful capabilities of today's Web 2.0 that was not available ten years ago is tagging. People take pictures with their phone and upload them to Flickr. They then apply tags: London, bombing. Someone else finds the pcitures and adds their own tags: train, terrorism. As more people find, view, and tag, the pictures become more valuable -- they gain more context. This is a key element of social networking. Not only can people report something, but they can also join in a collaborative effort to find a criminal or a loved one. Awesome stuff and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Blogging, Conferences, Internet Technology, People June 24, 2008 03:33 PM

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Supernova 2008 - Part 1

Ppeople at a conference Last Sunday evening was a bad night for air travel for most all of the United States. I happened to be in Albany and had a flight to Cleveland connecting to San Francisco. It is a long story but the net is that a 4:15 PM departure from Albany ended up taking me to Newark and then to California arriving to the hotel at 5:45 AM. The bad part is that stories like this are not that uncommon these days. Airlines can't control the weather and occasional maintenance issues are to be expected. The frustrating part is the lack of good communications on the ground at the airports and the lack of integrated systems resulting in getting different information -- kiosk, overhead displays, ticket counter, at the gate, airline lounges -- for the same flight. The gate display in Albany on Sunday at about 7:15 PM showed the 5:15 PM flight as being "On Time". Many of you have stories that can top this vignette -- there are a number of my airline stories here in the blog.

This was the seventh year for the Supernova conference -- I missed one of them a few years ago. The conference is run by Kevin Werbach who is a leading expert on the business, policy, and social implications of emerging Internet and communications technologies. Kevin has a good track record of anticipating key trends along the path to the Network Age. Supernova attracts CEOs, bloggers, entrepreneurs, academics, practitioners, visionaries, policy experts and industry thought leaders. Like all conferences, the best part is catching up with friends and colleagues and comparing points of view.

There are a couple of unique things about Supernova. It is the only conference that connects with one of the world’s foremost business schools -- the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The other unique feature is how "connected" the attendees can become with the speakers and each other. Supernova offers a live video stream, an IRC channel, a twitter feed, live blogging, interviews, and a Yahoo Pipe to enable attendees and remote participants from all over the world -- there were 400+ people from 15 countries in San Francisco -- to all jump into the conversation.

This paragraph summarizes some of the key things that I think are most important of the many things discussed at Supernova. The mobile Internet is gaining a head of steam. The new iPhone coming in a few weeks plus a slew of iPhone killers plus a big push by Microsoft will accelerate mobile even faster. Social computing is mushrooming. There are serious discussions going on in the development community about how (not whether) to standardize identity, authorization, and applications across the various social networks in some sensible way. Privacy has always been an issue but as storage cost approaches zero, everything we say or do will be saved. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg. The telecommunications operators continue to consolidate and continue to offer poor customer service and a lack of choice. More on each of these topics to follow over the days ahead.

Other conference related patrickWeb stories

Conferences June 22, 2008 01:30 PM

Saturday, May 31, 2008

IBM Happenings: May 2008

The month started out with the Business Partner Leadership Conference in Los Angeles and then was filled with a slew of announcements in hardware, software, services, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. The list of announcements made during the month is here. One of the most interesting things IBM did in May was to release a Global CEO Study. Being the largest information technology solutions provider in the world, it is imperative for IBM to have a keen understanding of the priorities of the top management of it's clients. The idea is to stay ahead of the curve and have the skills and resources in place to meet upcoming demand. IBM sent senior people to interview 1,130 CEO's from 40 countries to capture insights on how the challenges CEO's face today will impact the future of business.

It was the largest study of chief executives ever conducted -- spanning 32 industries. This was not SurveyMonkey -- it was face-to-face interviews. The study revealed that 83 percent of CEO's expect substantial change in the future, and are optimistic they can successfully manage change. The catch is that the CEO's report that their ability to effectively manage change is increasing at a far slower pace. The gap between the rate of change and the skills available is growing. This is bad news in some respects, but certainly good news for IBM which increasingly gains it's revenue and profits by filling skill gaps for clients.

A somewhat surprising insight from the study is that CEO's believe that the most important changes are occurring within their existing customer base. Two kinds of customers are emerging. First is the ‘information omnivore’ who craves knowing everything about everything and spends a good portion of their time (maybe most of their time) online. The other customer is the ‘socially-minded’ customer. This type of person can't get enough of providing and retrieving information about where they are, where their friends are, what they are doing, what their favorite things are, and arranging a rendezvous in both virtual and real world places. The CEO's plan substantial increases in investments to reach both of these customer types. This spells opportunity for IBM. Take a look at a video clip with more insight about the CEO Study.

Speaking of CEO's, two of the technology industry's finest got together on stage at the Business Partner Leadership Conference in Los Angeles. Eric Schmidt of Google and Sam Palmisano of IBM have more in common than you might think. Eric cut his teeth on IBM's largest scientific computers and has been a devotee of advanced computing architecture throughout his career. Sam has a conviction about the role of information omnivores and social computing. The common ground is cloud computing. The two companies announced an initiative to promote new software development methods which will help students and researchers address the challenges of Internet-scale applications in the future. The goal is to improve computer science students’ knowledge of highly parallel computing practices. IBM and Google are teaming up to provide hardware, software and services to augment university curricula and expand research horizons. The University of Washington was the first to join the initiative but the program is spreading to other leading schools around the world. The project combines IBM’s historic strengths in scientific, business and secure-transaction computing with Google’s complementary expertise in Web computing and massively scaled clusters. It seems very likely that the IBM-Google collaboration will change the way large-scale computing is exploited over the years ahead. Here is a video clip of what Eric Schmidt had to say at the Los Angeles meeting.

Complete index of IBM Happenings

Conferences, IBM, Internet Technology, People May 31, 2008 10:52 AM

Thursday, May 15, 2008

The World in 2050

Brain The flight to Los Angeles last week was long but on schedule and it provided some time to make a dent in reading World Without End (sequel to The Pillars of the Earth) by Ken Follett on the Kindle. Holding the 10-once e-reader is a joy and the battery lasted throughout the six hour flight. The physical book -- 1,024 pages -- would not be a joy to hold for hours.

The purpose of the trip was to attend IBM's Business Partner Leadership Conference. The event was attended by roughly 1,000 business partners, IBM executives, members of the press, and information technology analysts. See "IBM Happenings - May 2008" for a list of some of the announcements made by IBM during the meeting. At the end of the first day was a special event at the University of California School of Cinematic Arts. The invitation only event included 100 or so analysts, members of the press, faculty members and students. IBM and USC had been holding discussions to map out a collaboration between some of the most creative minds in Hollywood with some of IBM's top scientists. Having known some of them for years I was really pleased with they selected. The moderator was Dr. Bill Pulleyblank, mathematician, computer scientist and predictive analysis expert. Bill is known for having managed a project in which a supercomputer named Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov in a six game rematch. The panelists were all quite distinguished. Don Eigler, IBM Fellow, was the first ever to precisely manipulate individual atoms and spelling the word "I B M". Jeff Jonas, IBM Distinguished Engineer, expert in security and privacy, created much of the technology used in capturing criminals in Vegas casinos. Sharon Nunes, Head of the Energy and Environment business at IBM is a research expert in materials science and is working on numerous projects to save the environment. Last but not least was Ajay Royyuru, who leads IBM Research's computational biology team and IBM's liaison to the National Geographic Genographic project. Ajay participated on a past panel which I had the honor to moderate at Demo.

The breadth and depth of the panel could have kept the audience spellbound for quite a few hours. Will the future be like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Back to the Future, Incredible Journey or Star Wars? How can scientists help filmmakers create prescient depictions of the future?

Much of the discussion revolved around the merger of biology and systems. Some of the breakthroughs discussed included using nanotechnology to assure the availability of clean drinking water everywhere on the planet, self-healing spinal cords, and life span stretching well past the century mark? The human genome has been mapped but that is just the beginning. In effect the mapping provides the parts list of the human bodies. The next phase of research is to figure out what all those parts do and how they fit together. Not only will regenerating entire body parts be possible but embedded processors under our skin will make it possible to gain significant human augmentation of our capabilities. A project in Europe called Blue Brain is using IBM supercomputing technology to built a simulation model of the human brain. This is a very big undertaking but someday it could lead to curing some of the most dreaded diseases that afflict our societies.

Computer processing is already awesome but we haven't seen anything yet. A Mini Cooper has more computing power than Apollo 13 had. At the exponential pace of growth of computing capacity we may actually reach the Singularity in the next couple of decades.

Security and privacy are obviously crucial elements to the research agenda. We will be able to have an embedded super-PDA that can record every conversation you hear or say during a lifetime. Existing databases make it possible to specifically identify a person by only knowing their zip date of birth and gender. So much for witness protection programs. The good news is that ubiquitous sensors can make the world is less dangerous place. Yes, the government can watch the people, but the people can watch the government too.

I think we are very fortunate that IBM focuses vast sums of money and thousands of top notch people on solving some of the tougher global problems. There is money in some of it and long term business value is created but along the way societies around the world benefit greatly from IBM's work toward the greater good. Take a look at the most recent report on this to get an idea.

As for film making, I learned a lot in talking with some graduate students at the reception. They are all hoping to be as successful as Steven Spielberg, and no doubt some will. The surprising thing I learned is that the best quality movies are still captured on cellulose acetate based film. It is rare these days to see a professional photographer use anything other than a digital camera and apparently with wide angle, high contrast movie making, the industry is not quite there. Consensus was that it would be all digital within five years. Computers already play a huge role (no pun intended) in film making either for augmentation of scenes or for creating the very characters of the movie.

Conferences, IBM, Internet Technology, Media, People May 15, 2008 11:21 AM

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

SOA Las Vegas

The conference in Las Vegas this past week was not like the ones Thomas J. Watson used to hold in Endicott where all the blue suit white shirt male attendees would sing songs about IBM's future. The master of ceremonies for the opening morning was Drew Carey and the "dinner music" was by The B-52's -- the new wave rock band not the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. I don't think anyone wore a blue suit or a white shirt.

What attracted the 6,300 people to fly to Las Vegas and fill every hall, ballroom, salon, patio, and restaurant at the MGM Grand? IBM calls it "Smart SOA". I call it The Application Web.

Only the most brilliant technical people could come up with SOA as a name for something. Let's see, is it safe operating area, School of the Americas, Skies of Arcadia (a Nintendo game), Society of Actuaries, state of the art, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? Nope. The SOA that brought all these people together stands for "service oriented architecture". It is really important. The wikipedia has a comprehensive definition of SOA but basically it represents a new way for companies -- and hospitals, schools, and governments -- to enable their customers -- and suppliers, business partners, and employees -- to get things done on the web. Actually it is isn't new -- the idea has been around for decades -- but now it is really happening. It is so much a part of the vernacular at IBM that they just matter of factly talk about "so a".

Web In a nutshell, SOA will allow web sites to do much more than “click here to buy”. In fact web sites built with SOA will result in us standing in fewer lines in the physical world and have to endure fewer telephone call centers that want to control us. Fulfillment models at our favorite retailer’s web site will result in the staple goods we need just showing up outside the garage door when we need them. If businesses have the right attitude, SOA will enable them to get closer to the ultimate Internet -- to build a people-oriented and user-friendly experience that is tightly integrated with all the appropriate business processes of the company.

Over the last fifty years there has been an explosion of computer applications, but many of them were built in silos and were highly inflexible. In some cases companies thought decentralization was the answer so they allowed divisions and departments to do their own thing. The result was that many have a hodgepodge of incompatible systems that nobody is happy with. The web took things a big leap forward. At last there was a common way (the browser) for accessing and displaying information, even though the applications that run on the server -- that do the pricing, inventory lookups, shipping estimates, invoicing, etc. -- are still proprietary and usually tied to one particular IT vendor or system. The applications have also been very monolithic; i.e. in order to fulfill the expectations of customers on the web the application has to do the whole job. Soup to nuts; present the right price, confirm if the item is in stock, calculate shipping, and confirm the status of the order. Increasingly, customers want to get access directly into the supply chain and see exactly where their order stands. In short, applications have gotten larger and more complicated -- harder, not easier.

SOA -- arguably the biggest change in information technology in decades -- is poised to change the way applications are created and how they interoperate. Instead of building a monolithic application that takes a customer order, does credit checks, checks inventory, looks through the supply chain, arranges for payment, charges the customer, clears credit card transactions, etc., with SOA these various functions are built as separate "pieces". Think Legos. The individual programs are called "services" and they are called upon as needed. A sales tax calculation "service", for example, could be used by many different divisions of a company thereby eliminating redundancy. IBM has been practicing what it preaches in this regard. It has reduced the number of programs it uses to run the company from 16,000 to just a few thousand -- and declining.

The SOA services do not all have to be developed or acquired internally. Thanks to the Internet, services can be "rented" from others. For example, suppose that a company called American Specialties Inc. (ASI) specializes in selling American goods for delivery mostly outside of America. They want to create an application to sell their products on the web. The trickiest part of the application is determining the best way to ship the product to ensure it gets there when the customer wants it and at the lowest cost. ASI doesn't’t have the skills to write this particular part of the application and they haven’t bee able to find a vendor with a software package that can do it and which is compatible with the rest of ASI’s software.

It turns out that there is another company called Rates and Costs Inc. (RCI), which specializes in the calculation of optimum routes and the associated costs for shipment to places anywhere in the world. RCI offers the calculation as a service on the web and it is the exact function ASI needs to incorporate into their web application. Since RCI follows the SOA standards, ASI is able to see the specifications for RCI’s service – what inputs are required and what output does it produce. RCI could have created their calculation service using any IT platform they choose -- the standards assure that things can work together.

The programmer at ASI likes RCI’s program because it performs exactly the right function that ASI needs and the software has already been written and tested! ASI follows the SOA standards to incorporate RCI’s service into their web application. Whenever a user goes to ASI’s web page and needs shipment route and cost information, a link is made behind the scenes to RCI’s web server to get the information. ASI’s customers don’t know, nor will they care, that part of the job is being done by RCI’s server; not ASI’s server. ASI makes an arrangement to pay RCI each time one of ASI’s customers uses the RCI web service.

Creating programs by linking to other programs without regard to what programming language was used to create the others’ programs represents a whole new paradigm. It is one of the information technology industry’s holy grails. Standards organizations, such as Oasis, have been attempting for years to create a “neutral” programming environment. The UNIX vendors – HP, DEC, Sun, IBM, Data General, and others – formed various organizations, councils and consortia over the years attempting to bring things together. Progress was made but none of these initiatives achieved real openness and true compatibility across the information technology industry -- until SOA. It is not really new but it is time. Open Internet standards and SOA tools are making it happen.

SOA will make it possible for the web to evolve from a web of content to a web of content and applications. SOA will enable server-to-server interaction in addition to browser to server interactions. Servers will negotiate with other servers and even complete transactions by themselves with no direct human intervention. These interactions will replace the paper forms and faxes that flow back and forth from company to company today.

E-business evolved to on demand and on demand has evolved to business and IT "alignment". At this stage many enterprises have bought in to the concept but are struggling with how to get there. This is why many web sites don't fully meet our needs -- they are dependent on many independent applications that the enterprise has had for decades and so far have been unable to integrate them. SOA is the new model -- it offers the first comprehensive, standards based way to get the job done. Adoption of SOA will enable the interoperability within the many functions and departments of enterprises and between enterprises that has been a decades long dream. History has shown that adoption of standards leads to an explosion of usage and that will surely be the case with SOA. The SOA standards will enable entire industries to be brought together. Virtual corporations comprised of a federation of smaller ones will enable “hyper competition” on a global scale.

How does "Web 2.0" fit into all this? Like a ball and glove. Quite the hot topic in tech circles and among venture capitalists, Web 2.0 is basically a style, a model, an approach, and a philosophy wrapped together. It includes a "lightweight" programming model that is more like web page development than traditional programming. A key element of 2.0 is the blog feed -- a way to allow people to look at a web page but also subscribe to it. Another element is AJAX, a technique built on a collection of Internet standards that produces a rich user experience -- kayak.com is a good example -- with pages that don't "reload", they just change while you are looking at them. Another characteristic of Web 2.0 is that it is a perpetual beta -- users are treated as co-developers. At the conference, IBM announced WebSphere sMash which may turn out to be a really key tool for the evolution toward Web 3.0. Jerry Cuomo, IBM Fellow and CTO for IBM WebSphere, described a broad vision for how "smashups" will extend the web in a major way. The idea is to make it simple to combine content from multiple web sites. For example a travel agency may want to combine the best deals from airlines and hotels along with comments and discussion from tourists all in one "seamless" site. The smashup tool is based on a community project called "Project Zero" that has been underway for a number of months and is now ready to go mainstream.

All things considered, IBM really has it's act together with regard to SOA. Every software and services executive at the company is well versed on it and has it baked into their business and development plans. The promise is great and with tens of thousands of software engineers and top management support I think it is fair to expect IBM to continue to deliver on their vision. They have already made dozens of acquisitions to fill in the white spaces and customers are signing up and getting results. There were hundreds of customers and business partners there in Las Vegas to tell their success stories. Nothing is more creditable than having someone else tell your story for you.

great summary of IBM’s “Smart SOA” vision

Conferences, IBM, Internet Technology, On Demand, Travels, e-Business April 15, 2008 08:25 PM

Saturday, April 5, 2008

patrickWeb Blogroll

patrickWeb Blogroll

The patrickWeb blogroll has been around for more than ten years. A blogroll is basically a list of blogs of other people. In my case, it is a list of blogs of people who are either good friends, people whose opinion I respect, or blogs I have found useful. I learned about blogrolling from my friend Joi Ito and then learned how to actually do it from blogrolling.com.

Now that we all live in a world of social networking, there are many ways to share not only links to your favorite blogs, but links to your favorite anything. (There are also numerous specialized ways to "tag" stories, pictures, songs and videos). At sites such as del.icio.us you can put all your bookmarks in one place and share them with anyone and everyone. But, it is still ok to have a good old fashioned blogroll.

One of the entries in the patrickWeb blogroll is The Guidewire. Guidewire Group is a market intelligence firm that is focused on technology entrepreneurship, early-stage companies, and emerging technology markets. The insight they have developed over the years is quite valuable to their clients and the community that has built up around them. The Guidewire Group analysts meet with hundreds of innovative companies each year and a subset of the companies ends up launching their product or service at a DEMO conference.

There are a number of stories about the DEMO conferences here in this blog but over at the The Guidewire blog there is quite a buzz going on. There are always debates about the future of emerging technology and whether we are living in a post-bubble or pre-bubble period . Now there is a debate about the future of the emerging technology conferences. The latest story is called Let's Get Real: Business is Not Personal.

patrickWeb blogroll
patrickWeb stories about conferences

Blogging, Conferences April 5, 2008 04:31 PM

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

South Africa 2008 - Johannesburg

The South African Airways flight to Dakar, Senegal on the northwest coast of Africa was approximately 4.000 miles and took about seven and a half hours. It was the half-way point on the journey to Johannesburg. From door to door it took just about 24 hours to get to the D'Oreale Grande at Emperors Palace at Kempton Park in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. South Africa borders the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Visiting this beautiful country is quite a geography lesson.

On the arrival night, it was a pleasure to meet Matimba Mbungela, a managing executive at Vodacom South Africa, in person after having exchanged email and phone calls during the prior week. Matimba introduced me to his colleague Chris Ross, the senior sales executive for Vodacom South Africa, who would be host of the conference taking place the next day. Vodacom is a Pan-African cellular communications company providing world class GSM services to more than 30 million customers in South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mozambique. More than 500 Vodacom business partners attended The Future of Technology conference to get an update on the various Vodacom offerings. My keynote at the end of the day offered a view of The Future of the Internet. That evening a delightful gala was held to recognize the sales achievements of the top Vodacom partners and dealers.

Like most conferences, there was an exhibition area where dozens of hardware, software, and services companies showed off their latest offerings. One of the most interesting one was the Firefly, from Grapevine Interactive. The Firefly is a parent-friendly mobile phone for young children. The tiny colorful phone has three prominent buttons on it. One to call Mom, one to call Dad, and one to place an emergency call. The phone can also store twenty parent-approved phone numbers.

Another conference took place later in the week in Midrand at Vodaworld, the company headquarters. The top 200 senior level executives of Vodacom came together as part of their professional development and to network with one another. The first part of the morning focused on The Future of the Internet and the second half we discussed innovation and how to nurture big ideas. The latter session was based on a class I led at MIT in September.

During the second half of the first week we stayed at the Intercontinental in Sandton, just a few blocks from Nelson Mandela Square. The giant statue of the former President of South Africa is impressive as is the life of the man who was first to be elected in a fully representative democratic election in the country. Mandela had led the anti-apartheid movement. We could see Robben Island, where Mandela spent 27 years in prison, from the waterfront the following week in Cape Town. We also visited his former home in Soweto. The respect for Nelson Mandela is universal regardless of ethnicity or political leaning. He will be 90 in July.

Nearby in Soweto is Orlando West stands the Hector Pieterson memorial square. Pieterson was killed at the age of twelve when police opened fire on protesting students in 1976. More than five-hundred were killed in the struggle. Soweto, which stands for townships southwest of Johannesburg, consists of dozens of townships and represents more than a third of the population of the city. The poverty is incredible. Some progress is being made but the results of decades of repression are obvious. The sights are breathtaking and not in a positive way. Hard to imagine that a government rationalized the extreme segmentation and discrimination. After a half day touring Soweto we had lunch in the Dube section of Soweto at Wandies Place. I could not identify most of the food in the buffet but it was very tasty.

Another half-day educational visit was to the Cradle of Humankind. It was well worth the one hour ride north of Johannesburg into the Gauteng province to see the Sterkfontein Caves where the 2.3-million year-old fossil Australopithecus africanus (nicknamed "Mrs. Ples"), an early hominid, was found in 1947. We literally had to crawl on hands and knees to get to the bottom of the enormous limestone cave hundreds of feet below ground. Although there was not much light, we could see huge stalactites and stalagmites and an underground lake that is fed from more than fifty miles away. Excavation at the site continues. In case you did not know it, we all came from Africa. The guide said "welcome back". If you are interested in finding the path taken by your ancestors to get from Africa to whatever part of the world you live in, take a look at the human genographic project.

Index of stories and pictures from South Africa 2008

Conferences, Internet Technology, People, Travels March 4, 2008 03:17 PM

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

DEMO in Palm Desert

Gadget Demo continues to be my favorite conference -- the semi-annual event took place this past week in Palm Desert, California. There were many new people in attendance but also some friends from many Demos past -- Amy Wohl, Shel Israel, John Landry, and Steve Larsen. While there were many attendees in their mid-twenties, the five of us joked how we had logged 200+ years in technology.

Whenever possible I try to start an out of town visit with a hunt for a benchmark or geocache. The nearest benchmark was along a railroad bed across the Interstate several miles away so I decided to look for three geocaches. The first two turned out to be more than challenging and after miles of walking and searching with ten feet of each I had to give up. At least the weather was great and I got some exercise. During a break before dinner the next day I went back out and looked for "Between Rock & a Hard Place". After reaching the latitude/longitude and looking for ten minutes or so I thought I would be zero for three but then as I thought about the comments made in the log at geocaching.com, it suddenly came to me and I found it. It was one of the most cleverly hidden caches I have seen in years.

There were some key trends that emerged from Demo this year. Many companies in some way talked about mobile. Most companies either provide a web service or use web services as their platform. Most companies were media related in some way provided or used social networking. None of these things are new, by any means, but Demo confirmed their strategic importance and significant implementations. I don't think any of them have cracked the code so to speak but there were many that had exciting visions and demos. visited the ones in which I had most interest. Chris Shipley kicked off the conference with insightful comments about the industry. See the Demo blog for more on her thoughts. Chris screens the companies and introduces them to the stage. After the main tent sessions the attendees got to visit with the companies in the "Demo Hall". There isn't time to visit all of them so I tried to be selective. Some of the ones I found interesting follow. They are in no particular order. (Read more)

Conferences February 6, 2008 03:22 PM

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Back To DACS

Presentation On December 4th, the Danbury Area Computer Society will hold it's monthly meeting and it will be my honor to give a talk (at 7:45PM) about The Future of the Internet. (This will be the sixteenth year in a row that I have done this). The meeting will be open to the public and will take place in the auditorium at Danbury Hospital. The talk will be an update on how the next generation of the Internet is unfolding and how it will affect our personal and professional lives. I will discuss recent developments that are fueling the rapid evolution of the Internet and enabling more than a billion people to experience a Net that is fast, always on, everywhere, natural, intelligent, easy, and trusted. The potential for information technology to improve healthcare will also be discussed. See this link for comments made about prior DACS presentations.

Conferences November 28, 2007 09:12 PM

Friday, October 26, 2007

Governance

Doctor and Patient It was an educational week at the Leadership Conference for Trustees, Physicians, Executives, & Nurse Executives at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The conference, which focused on the subject of governance, was organized by The Governance Institute. Although not a new term, governance has taken a much higher profile in both for profit and not for profit organizations. At a very high level governance aims to assure that an organization produces a pattern of good results while avoiding an undesirable pattern of bad circumstances. The Governance Institute focuses on helping hospitals achieve best practices among the leading healthcare boards across the country.

The conference included three days of speeches, Q&A, and breakout sessions that covered many topics including clarification of a hospital board's basic fiduciary duties and core responsibilities, exploration of "best practices" of high-performing boards, understanding of various hospital-physican relationships and complexities of physician credentialing and privileging, approaches to hospital financial planning and capital allocation, and an analysis of the healthcare reform (and cost) being advocated by the various political candidates.

Governance can be a complex topic but at a high level it is mostly common sense. The way I think about it, good governance means being financially efficient but not pushing so hard on the numbers as to cause people to do unnatural things in order to "make" the numbers, focusing on how the leadership of the organization is selected and how they are paid, being transparent with the various stakeholders so they understand the decisions that are made and the rationale behind them, and insuring personal accountability is in place at all levels.

Although governance was the main focus of the conference, all of the speakers had some predictions about where things are headed with American healthcare. It was not a pretty picture. Costs are going to cointinue to escalate to the point where they are a huge part of the economy and exceed the cost of primary and secondary education at the state level. As costs rise they will be pushed toward hospitals and pressures will continue between payers (insurers) and providers. Primary care physicians, already in short supply in many areas, will be in even shorter supply as new graduates seek out speciality areas with more economic potential. As the cost of running a medical practice continues to increase many doctors will choose to become employees of hospitals. Hospitals will consolidate and as they gain economy of scale they will implement electronic medical records and become highly efficient providers of high quality care. Although America does not today offer the highest quality health care in the world, there is significant progress being made toward curing cancer and heart disease. The glass is half full, not half empty.

There was not a lot of spare time but enough to get in a look around the Greenbrier's spectacular 3,500+ acres, have a good hike up Kates Mountain Road, and also locate a benchmark near the old White Sulphur Springs train station (a few pictures in the photo gallery). That brings cumulative benchmarks found to eighty-eight. Some of my colleagues took a tour of the Bunker but we had been there before.

Other patrickWeb stories about healthcare
Pictures from 2002 trip to the Bunker

Conferences, Healthcare, Hiking, Travels October 26, 2007 04:19 PM

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Demo in San Diego

Gadget Demo continues to be my favorite conference -- the semi-annual event took place this past week in San Diego. There were some outdoor tables at the opening reception and I joined one with three friends from many Demos past -- Amy Wohl, Shel Israel, and Steve Larsen. While there were many attendees in their mid-twenties, the four of us joked how we had 150+ years in technology around the table.

The Demo conference allows entrepreneurs to show off new gadgets, software, hardware and business ideas and enables the press, analysts, investors, and technology enthusiasts to assess what they see. The product introductions that take place reveal key technology trends over the coming 12 to 18 months. This year there were 69 companies showing off. Unfortunately I could only stay in San Diego for the first day of the conference due to board meetings back in New York so I did a little research on the companies and visited the ones in which I had most interest. Chris Shipley kicked off the conference with insightful comments about the industry. See the Demo blog for more on her thoughts.

The booth at which I spent the most time was Truphone. Tru phone enables mobile phone users to enjoy low-cost (if not free) calls and text messages [SMS] by routing them via WiFi. The service is presently in beta and delivers Voice-over-IP, SMS-over-IP and “presence” (showing when your friends are online). A Truphone-enabled mobile handset automatically connects to WiFi hotspots when one is available. The obvious question some of us had was whether this would work with the iPhone. The short answer is yes at Demo but no after Apple updated the iPhone the next day. More on this in a separate iPhone update in the next couple of days. There are many comments online about Apple's latest move to keep the iPhone locked down.

Visit demo.com for the full list but following are comments about some of the companies at the conference. Not surprisingly, there were many companies at Demo that arose from the YouTube revolution. Technologies, products and business strategies aimed at every part of the video and entertainment value chain were on display. Some focused on infrastructure and others on tools to help consumers find and interact with video content. There were seven companies in this space. Digital Fountain showed a content delivery network for streaming video with full-screen TV-quality experience. You had to see it to believe it.

Every Demo has some consumer content-oriented companies with new ideas. There were eight in that category this year. One of them -- run by an old friend, Samir Arora -- is called Glam Media and is focused on the glamour industry. His energy and enthusiasm have enabled him to create and then sell one company after another.

Chris called them "Enablers and Sea-Changers" -- seven companies that focus on infrastructure and new ways of connecting. Jasper Wireless is a global "mobile to mobile" operator, providing data communications in over 35 countries around the world. LogMeIn, Inc. showed the first Web-based service that enables IT technicians to remotely access and take control of a smartphone and the connected PC. This will become important as more and more smartphones are delivered. I was impressed with Phreesia, Inc. which demonstrated a technology that brings the doctor’s waiting room into the 21st century by automating patient check-in using a very user-friendly approach. No more clipboards!

One of the important elements of Web 2.0 is consumer-generated content and five companies showed some very creative implementations. Graspr, Inc. was one of the better ones. Their application allows people to get help with projects from other users. “How to” videos created by "ordinary people with extraordinary experiences" provide chocolate soufflé tips to Harley Davidson repair assistance.

Every Demo I can remember has had new companies with new ideas on how to organize, prepare, and conduct online meetings. This year there were nine companies with solutions. I liked Dimdim, Inc. which is a free and open source Web meeting service which requires no software to be downloaded. It allows users to show slides, share a desktop and talk, listen, chat, or broadcast via webcam.

Five companies offered small business solutions. I liked CashView, Inc.. They have a web-based services for sending invoices, paying bills, and keeping track of cash. For $10 per month plus a dollar per transaction this may be a big hit with very small businesses.

Take a look at the full list of companies at Demo.com. Demo 2008 will be here before we know it and there will be another six dozen or so startups with another batch of great ideas. It would be interesting to know the percentage of startup companies that survive. Out of ten companies there is probably a home run or two, a couple of triples and doubles, a few singles and unfortunately some strikeouts. There is no end of good ideas and capital to fund them.

Other patrickWeb stories about conferences

Conferences September 29, 2007 11:18 AM

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

eCommerce Videos

TV Camera A video of Ira Magaziner's talk at last week's eCommerce celebration in Washington can be found here and a video of my wrap-up talk, which I called "The Future of the Internet", is here.

Conferences, Internet Technology, e-Business July 18, 2007 06:53 PM

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Ten Years of eCommerce

eCommerce Ken Wasch is a fellow alum (Economics and International Relations) from Lehigh University and a law graduate of SUNY Buffalo in New York. After spending eight years as a senior attorney for the U.S. Department of Energy working on petroleum price regulation, Ken saw the light and established the Software Publishers Association (1984) which is now the Software & Information Industry Association. I have known Ken for more than half of his twenty-two years in the industry, so when he called to ask me to participate in a conference to celebrate an important milestone for eCommerce, it was hard to resist.

A handful of us joined with Tim Berners-Lee to start the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT in December 1994. None of us at the time foresaw today's level or potential for eCommerce. Most of the focus at that time was on techniques for formatting web pages and on various other content related issues. Jim Clark, founder of Netscape, did see the eCommerce potential and he also realized one of the biggest inhibitors was the U.S. Government regulation of encryption, a key tool for making eCommerce secure. Jim and a handful of us started the Global Internet Project as a public policy group to gain more awareness about encryption and urge governments around the world to loosen the reigns. That effort was successful and use of encryption is no longer an inhibitor. (The inhibitor is insufficient Net Attitude to enable web sites to meet our needs).

There were many other complexities looming under the surface that could have dramatically stalled the growth of eCommerce. Collectively it was a hodgepodge of sticky issues -- like non-U.S. countires that objected to the U.S. control over key elements of the Internet infrastructure -- but the biggest issue was a lack of vision. There was no consistent framework for eCommerce that could enable businesses to move forward. One of the first of the Fortune 500 to put a stake in the ground was IBM Corporation where Lou Gerstner said in 1997 the web is not for surfing, it is for transactions -- later named e-Business. The gamble being taken by IBM and many others was that the Internet would become internationally politicized and potentially regulated to a standstill. Fortunately, there was a person in a high place in the government that would help solve many of the tough issues and enable President Clinton to announce a “Framework for Global Electronic Commerce” in the summer of 1997. It was a huge accomplishment for which we should all be eternally grateful. The person who lead the effort was Ira Magaziner, a top aide at the White House. Ira is best known for his efforts to create a major American healthcare program. His effort got attacked from every political direction and eventually fell. Unlike healthcare, the Internet was not well understood by politicians and they stayed out of the way as Ira raised and solved many of the key issues. He then traveled around the world enlightening key government leaders. The rest is history. At the conference last week Ira modestly said the event was "a good reminder of how far we have come and of how much opportunity still remains". Ken Wasch said “Electronic commerce has provided a significant engine for the growth of the global economy and has sparked the delivery of a multitude of innovative products and services.”

It was my privilege to serve on a panel moderated by Michael Mandel, chief economist of BusinessWeek. The other panelists were Stewart Baker, Assistant Secretary, Department of Homeland Security; Dan Burton, Senior Vice President, at Salesforce.com and former President of the Council on Competitiveness; Jamie Estrada, Assistant Secretary (Acting) at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Ira Magaziner who is now Chairman of the Clinton Foundation. To set the stage for discussion, Michael announced the results of a poll of thought leaders in the industry in which they voted on the most significant "eCommerce Developments of the Last Decade". The results are so commonplace to all of us that it is hard to believe that they are ten years or so old. No surprise, Google (Sept. 1998) came out on top. Number two was when broadband penetration of US Internet users reached 50% (June 2004). Third was eBay Auctions (Launched Sept. 1997). Fourth was Amazon.com (went public in May 1997). Fifth was Google Ad Words (2000) which enabled key word advertising. Sixth -- Open Standards. Seven -- WiFi. Eight - User-Generated Content (YouTube 2005). Ninth was iTunes (2001) and last but not least, the BlackBerry (1999). See the SIIA press release for more details on the top ten.

It was my privilege to give the wrap-up talk which I called "The Future of the Internet". I asserted that the Internet has grown to it's infancy and that we have so far only seen five percent of what the Internet has in store for our business and personal lives. The examples used were things often written about here in patrickWeb. A video of Ira Magaziner's talk is here and my closing speech is here.

Other patrickWeb stories about Conferences

Conferences, IBM, Internet Technology, e-Business July 17, 2007 07:33 PM

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Supernova - 2007

Cactus There are a lot of good conferences -- Supernova is one of the best. This week was the third time I have made the trip to San Francisco to attend. There were roughly 350 technologists, investors, business leaders and media who came together to network, share ideas, and explore the business impacts of many key innovations. The highlight, like all conferences, was catching up with former colleagues and making new friends.

Supernova 2007 is an event that challenges your assumptions, makes you think a lot and allows you to hear some of the world's experts debate the future of the connected world. The broad topics discussed at Supernova focus on the decentralization of computing, communications and the Internet, digital media, and business models. (See the full agenda and list of speakers). There are so many exciting things happening in these areas -- distributed e-commerce, mobile applications, the power of the "long tail" in commerce and media, massively multi-player virtual worlds, business blogging, the video Internet, and voice over IP applications, just to name a few. It is beyond the scope of this posting to try to effectively summarize all that I learned during the week. It was a really terrific conference. If you are interested in the topics discussed and some of my notes and observations then please read more.

Conferences June 24, 2007 07:21 PM

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Back To DACS

Presentation On December 5th, the Danbury Area Computer Society will hold it's monthly meeting and it will be my honor to give a talk (at 8PM) about The Future of the Internet. (This will be the fifteenth year in a row that I have done this). The meeting will be open to the public and will take place in the auditorium at Danbury Hospital. The talk will be an update on how the next generation of the Internet is unfolding and how it will affect our personal and professional lives. I will discuss recent developments that are fueling the rapid evolution of the Internet and enabling more than a billion people to experience a Net that is fast, always on, everywhere, natural, intelligent, easy, and trusted. The potential for information technology to improve healthcare will also be discussed. See this link for comments made about prior DACS presentations.

Conferences November 19, 2006 10:41 AM

Monday, October 2, 2006

DEMO in San Diego

Cactus Demo has always been my favorite conference and this past week in San Diego was one of the best ever. The Demo conference allows entrepreneurs to show off new gadgets, software, hardware and business ideas and enables the press, analysts, investors, and technology enthusiasts to assess what they see. The product introductions that take place reveal key technology trends over the coming 12 to 18 months. A new twist called FutureScan was added to Demo this year that takes a look at the more distant future.

Paul Jacobs, ceo of Qualcomm, gave the keynote. He talked about more radios operating concurrently in our mobile phones -- cell phone connections, WiFi, gps from satellites, etc. He envisions much faster networks so that we can spend more time listening to music and watching videos as opposed to waiting for things to download. He showed a picture of a mobile phone containing a 10 megapixel camera. Phones will be inside of mp3 players, gps devices, cameras, etc with transferable subscription plans so that one mobile phone number will work on multiple things. There will also be "TV-out" so that our mobile phones will be able to connect to large flat panels in our homes to display the pictures and movies we take while outdoors. Keyboards will remain better than voice recognition for now. Our mobile phones will have tailored applications including glucometers and other forms of remote healtchare monitoring. Social networking will allow all this new content to come together.

Moderating the FutureScan panels is a way to share one's perspective but more importantly to help bring out the depth and breadth of knowledgeable experts through an interactive conversation plus questions from the moderator and the audience. The panels this time were on the subjects of mobile computing and nanotechnology, The idea was to look at "the more distant future" and find some clues, not about what is hot today or next year, but about the next, next, next big thing. We were fortunate to have a very distinguished panel for both subjects.

Tuesday's panel on "The Future of Mobile" included Tom Jacobs, Director of Research, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Juergen Urbanski, General Manager, FON North America, and Joe Ziskin, Vice President, Corporate Strategy, IBM Corporation. Each brought a different perspective about a day when mobile phones surpass desktop computers as our primary interface to information and services. Tom sees a big role for open source software to provide digital rights management so that could enable people to buy content on the web and hear it or see it on their PC or their mobile phone. Joe sees the enterprises of the world embracing a mobile world for communications and for applications. Juergen described a world where everyone has WiFi access. His company is helping make it happen. Take a look at http://www.fon.com. I signed up today. No doubt I will refer to Tom, Juergen, and Joe in subsequent postings.

Wednesday morning's panel on "The Future of Nanotechnology" included Dr. Gian-Luca Bona, Department Group Manager of Science & Technology, Almaden Research Center, IBM Corporation, Dr. Gerald Hoegl, CEO, Metcomb Nanostructures, and Dr. Rohit Sharma, Principal, Mohr Davidow Ventures. Millions of dollars have poured into nanotechnology startups in recent years, leaving many to wonder when will the market begin to see the return on those investments. All three panelists were not only bullish but bullish on seeing things in the next few years. Gian-Luca talked about storage and logic devices of incredibly small dimensions. He talked about nanometers. A nanometer is the size of a handful of atoms. A grain of salt is equivalent in size to more than 100 billion atoms! (See prior patrickWeb story about nano). Gerald showed a new material called cellular aluminum which will soon revolutionize cars and aerospace. Using nanotechnology, his company has created a material that can be molded into any shape which is strong as steel but yet floats in water. Rohit was enthusiastic about nanotechnology in healthcare. He is investing in companies that are creating cures for things not thought to be curable and paving the way toward personalized medicine based on our individual genetic makeup. (See prior patrickWeb story about computational biology).

The best part of Demo is the demos! Sixty-seven companies showed their stuff and, although there were some companies with solutions looking for problems, there were a lot of impressive ideas and plans. I could not possibly do justice here to what I saw and learned but I will mention a few of the highlights and encourage you to visit the archive at demo.com to see the demos and explore things you may want to learn more about. Here are some brief comments about a few of the things I found interesting.

GrandCentral - gives you a lifetime single phone number and a web site where you can manage all your inbound calls. A call to your grandcentral phone # will ring on all the phones you want - home, mobile, etc. Each caller can have a unique ringtone and you can identify spam callers and have their calls ignored. Voicemails can become emails and you can record and save any phone call. This is a really neat service. I signed up.
Photobot - optimizes your digital pictures and stores them on a server in Switzerland
Presto - prints email and pictures on an HP printer at Mom's house with no Internet connection. You can select crossword puzzles or opt-in newsletters and news content
SystemOne - a semantic wiki for the enterprise. It pulls together content from contacts, emails, presentations, and web sites
ThinkFree - seamless compatibility with office applications via the web. Microsoft Office not required. This was part of a distinct trend toward lightweight IT-free enterprise applications
BuzzLogic - enables companies to determine what bloggers are saying about a company's products or service. It creates a social map of who the key influencers are and who is in on the conversation
Dash - a dashboard car system to allow someone to send an address to a car. Also allows a driver to find an optimum route based on data from other Dash units and from road sensors
scanR - a service which allows you to take a picture of a business card (or any document) with your cell phone. You then email the picture to scanR.com which then converts the picture to digital format and even extracts the contact info into your contact list
Photocrank - take a picture, send it to photocrank and then it returns a picture superimposed with graphics and text
3jam - allows you to send an sms text message to multiple people and then allows each recipient to do a "reply all". Great for arranging a rendezvous

Disclosure: The producer of the Demo conferences is Guidewire Group and I am a member of their "Sounding Board". I am also a limited partner (investor) in First Round Capital. First Round Capital invests in companies that come to it through an exclusive partnership with the Guidewire Group. First Round is currently a minority investor in fourteen companies.

Conferences October 2, 2006 09:44 PM

Monday, September 25, 2006

alphaWorks

alpha There have been several stories here about alphaWorks. Today is a special day as IBM celebrates the tenth anniversary of the program. It was an honor for me to be part of the event in San Francisco. I made some remarks today about why and how alphaWorks was created but I decided to go further here and republish part of a chapter of my book, Net Attitude, where I gave some background on what alphaWorks is all about. It was part of a bigger subject called "Organizing to get things done". Today we might call it collaborative innovation.

From Net Attitude (Perseus Publishing), November 2001

The most important ingredients to accomplishing great things as an e-business are to find, attract, recruit, hire, motivate, and retain really great people. Every year the crop of students gets better so you have to continually raise the bar -- look at every movement of staff and ask yourself if you are improving your hand. Everyone has to not only bring something to the table but bring unique value to the overall equation.
When things are working right the whole organization breeds and feeds on itself.
If the caliber of your team is high, there's a much greater likelihood of being able to attract additional high caliber people. Once you have them it is critical to nurture and support Net Attitude and to have creative programs to take advantage of their skills.

Every CEO I spoke to during the 1990'2 wanted to know how to make e-business web projects go faster. Every CIO I have met worries about e-business web projects going too fast. The CIO has spent decades getting information technology under control and making it reliable. Fast moving projects are sometimes in conflict with that goal. The solution to the dilemma is multifaceted but one key element is to have a "Skunk Works" where rapid prototyping is the modus operandi.

The Skunk Works (continued)

Conferences, IBM, Internet Technology September 25, 2006 04:14 PM

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Conference Time

Cactus Thursday was Venture Capital day at IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. Monday will be the tenth anniversary celebration of IBM's alphaWorks program in San Francisco, and Tuesday will be the DEMO Conference in San Diego.

The IBM Venture Capital Group facilitates relationships between the company's vast research and development, product, and marketing resources venture capital firms and their portfolio companies. Many are recent start-up companies that build their business and technology solutions on IBM's industry solutions platform and then use the IBM marketing resources to get the word out and to act as a distribution channel. It is a symbiotic relationship that works well for all parties. Yesterday's conference was attended by dozens of "VC" firms, more than fifty of their portfolio companies, and a dozen or so industry thought leaders. It was a very positive day of interaction with numerous IBM executives focused on vertical industry segments including banking, retail, media & entertainment, telecommunications, government, and healthcare. I attended three of the sessions but the most interesting was healthcare.

The biggest trend that the IBM healthcare experts talked about is an understanding of disease at the molecular level and development of targeted drugs based on genomic insight. This will lead to individual diagnosis and treatment based upon medical history and genetic predispositions, as opposed the anecdotal approach used today. This new level of understanding will also enable "pre-emptive medicine" -- don't wait until you get sick to seek treatment. Genetically we are all 99% the same but the small differences are what cause health problems. The innovation in patient-centric healthcare is going to happen much more quickly than people think. Why?

There is a convergence of four disruptive changes underway...

1. Rapid evolution in technology. Computers keep getting smaller and faster. Nanotechnology is emerging rapidly.

2. Pressure on existing business models. Many hospitals are losing money, insurers are trying to put on the brakes, consumers are not happy with the services they get, waste and duplication are rampant, and medical errors are causing deaths.

3. Social pressures. People are beginning to realize that medical data about them is their data, not the doctor's or hospital's. Hundreds of millions of people more than sixty years old have high expectations for their health and are demanding treatment for things that once would be considered incurable.

4. Political pressures. Politicians are feeling the heat and want to see progress. They want more people to get affordable or subsidized care and they want to protect privacy.

Any one of these four factors would be interesting and create pressure for change. The convergence of all four are creating a firestorm of activity. Stay tuned. (See other patrickWeb healthcare stories).

Conferences, Healthcare September 24, 2006 03:03 PM

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Engineering

Engineer For many of us, leaving our alma maters was a relief or even a good riddance -- what a joy to graduate and move on. Over the years the primary connection to the campus may have been sports related without much thought about academic roots. As time goes on that feeling changes and in fact some of us not only began to recall our college days but actually go back to visit in a more serious way and even get involved. Financial support of alumni is critical but involvement and sharing of experience is even more valuable.

At the engineering advisory board meeting today at Lehigh University, I was quite impressed with my colleagues' intense interest in what is going on at the university. In addition to getting an update from Dean Wu, there was a lot of discussion about future directions and how the extended family of alumni could collaborate to help out.

In the 1960's, Lehigh was primarily an engineering school and it was 100% male. Today engineering is a third of the university and women represent more than 40% of the nearly 7,000 students. When I graduated 39 years ago, there were no women at Lehigh (although there were many nearby, including my wife at St. Luke's School of Nursing), and last week Dr. Alice P. Gast, a world-renowned researcher with a passion for teaching, was named Lehigh University’s 13th president.

One area of focus for the college of engineering is to provide degree programs in which students can develop horizontally as well as vertically. Over time, a top student can be an ultimate techie but can also be outstanding as a business or arts student. This will mean they will be able to move from their undergrad experience to enter law school or medical school or join the ranks of business management or consulting with an edge because of their broader perspective. An engineer uses creativity, technology, and scientific knowledge to solve practical problems. What about communicating the solution to the problem and working with global multi-disciplinary colleagues to implement the solution? That is where Lehigh's thrust toward integrated programs comes in.

The Integrated Business & Engineering degree (IBE) is an innovative example of the potential of more diverse education. The program prepares students to assume leadership roles in industrial research and development, entrepreneurial initiatives, management consulting, high-tech ventures, and innovative technology. I have no doubt that this integrated approach to engineering will produce some future leaders for the world's top businesses.

Conferences May 16, 2006 11:48 AM

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Innovation That Matters (From Rome)

Rome The Business Leadership Forum was quite an experience and is hard to summarize. IBM did a good job of organizing it and everyone there appreciated it and learned a lot -- I certainly did. As with most conferences, a lot of the value was in talking to people at breaks. Dinner at the Vatican is next to impossible to describe. It was the proverbial "you had to be there" thing. Here are some of the key insights delivered by Sam and his speakers and panelists during the conference...

Innovation is essential and what the 21st century is all about
Change is faster and more disruptive than ever
Globalization is inevitable
Ubiquitous connectivity is breaking down physical borders and creating connections between people, economies, organizations and governments in ways that were never thought possible
Businesses need to cultivate their uniqueness
Businesses need to encourage employees to be multi-disciplined, collaborative, and global
Innovation that matters comes from seeing problems differently and adding value quicker than anyone else
Constant reorganization is futile but leaders must look at a company’s structure strategically, consider which pieces need to shift and then unfold change bit by bit
Technology plays a leading role in innovation, but it isn't the only factor
What were once disruptive technologies now are commodities
To innovate, CEO's don’t need to control all the resources or build within their own frameworks. They need to partner and collaborate
Governments can help spur innovation among the private sector
Governments must be more flexible to respond to today's business needs
Restrictive governments try to defend and preserve what has been achieved in the past, but if they rely only on the strength of their past, they put progress in peril
Governments need to open themselves to market and labor reforms to stay relevant and competitive in global markets

Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
Index to Roman Rendezvous stories

Conferences, IBM, Travels April 27, 2006 03:34 PM

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Big Picture From Rome

Rome The final afternoon of the Business Leadership Forum focused on the big picture -- of both global political factors and technology. A panel included Karl-Heinz Grasser, Federal Minister of Finance for the Republic of Austria. He spoke about how governments can not only avoid being an obstacle to innovation and growth but also encourage competition thereby creating more jobs. The panel was bullish about how the information revolution -- ushered in by the microprocessor in the early 1970's and the Internet of the 1990's -- has led to an explosion of new products and new business models, However, there was a consensus that retaliation from poor economies and over-regulation by some countries could stymie the growth.

Mario Monti, President of Bocconi University and commissioner in the European Union for ten years, was quite optimistic about the EU -- a market of 480 million people -- and said that the EU itself is an innovation. He said that Europe is much more like the U.S. than it was. It is now a single market, has a single currency, and has been expanding market reach around the world. The shortcoming is that Europe, unlike America, does not yet have a constitution. This results in an economic disadvantage because the European community can not make a decision for the total. The European economy is not innovating quickly enough and in fact some countries are protecting the past at the expense of the future. Mario says it is time for "naming and shaming" the laggards through peer reviews. Then he got more specific -- "Germany, France, and Italy are behind on liberalization of service markets and have resisted initiatives to increase competition". These three countries will have a negative impact on the Euro which in turn will hurt the rest of Europe. Mr. Monti's presentation was sobering but hopeful. He said the EU has a lot of good features, that it can protect intellectual property but also move against monopolies such as Microsoft. The key to get innovation going in Europe is for the EU to innovate itself by completing it's constitution.

Irving Wladawsky-Berger kicked off the final segment of the forum, which focused on the future. IBM supports Linux because it is a great operating system for computers. Irving introduced Linus Torvalds the developer of Linux which he published as a student in 1991. Don Tapscott, a widely acclaimed author, who invented the term "paradigm shift", then moderated the final panel which included Linus, Nick Donofrio, executive vice president for innovation and technology at IBM, and Ann Mettler, executive director and co-founder of The Lisbon Council. It was a wide-ranging discussion. Linus is an incredibly humble guy. He said he has no vision, just looks 5 cm ahead before each step, and loves to solve technical problems. Linux is successful, he says, because both the development and the decision making are distributed -- a "built-in meritocracy". Don asked why volunteers worked on Linux for no economic return. Linus said, "if you were all engineers, you would not be asking that question". Open source software is viable in most all software areas, with the only exception being niche markets which are too small to get adequate collaboration. "Open source will take over most all infrastructure".

Ann said there is a huge gap between businesses which are moving ahead rapidly and societies which feel left behind. The key problem is that the economy is 70% services but the regulations and governance are still based on an industrial model. She believes that government should learn how to innovate from businesses. "Politicians are clueless about the discussion of the past day and a half". She says that businesses need to share their leanings with society. The labor market in Europe is flat because companies do not want to hire and that is because the laws are so onerous. "You can hire but you can't fire". Labor reform is needed desperately.

Nick says' It' s all about change". IBM is doing a balancing act by supporting both open things and proprietary things. The company is generating a lot of patents but also giving away a lot of patents to move the ball forward in key markets such as healthcare and education. "The world can move ahead faster if the OS is Linux -- it is good enough and a "blow for freedom". A California venture capitalist asked about business ethics and Nick was very aggressive in his response saying it was not optional for companies to be totally and completely ethical in every respect. (Having been at IBM for 38 years, I can say I never ever had a concern about ethics at the company). Nick summarized that anyone can innovate if they are willing to change. "If nothing changes, nothing changes". Sam wrapped up the conference by saying corporations need to be transparent. Their ultimate responsibility is to create value for the constituencies: stockholders, customers, employees. He walks the talk.

Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
Index to Roman Rendezvous stories

Conferences, IBM, Internet Technology, Travels April 26, 2006 05:44 PM

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Demos and Podcast From Rome

April 8, 2006

Rome IBM had some demonstrations set up in the breakout areas at the Auditorium Parco della staffed by researchers and experts in various areas. There was a lot of interest during coffee breaks. After lunch before the final session of the forum got started I had interview with Chris Barger from IBM to talk about the demonstrations and also a few thoughts on the future of healthcare and the Internet. Here is the transcript and here is the podcast.

Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
Index to Roman Rendezvous stories
Podcast
Transcript of podcast

Conferences, Healthcare, IBM, Internet Technology, Travels April 25, 2006 12:49 PM

Monday, April 24, 2006

Business Leadership Forum - Day 2 (part 2)

Rome Following Nakamura-san at the Business Leadership Forum would not be easy but Sunil Bharti Mittal, CEO of Bharti TeleVentures Limited had quite an amazing story to tell. Bharti is India's leading mobile operator and one of the top five companies in India. Revenue per month per person has shrunk from $30 to $8 and he believes it will go to $3-$4. The good news is that the number of users has gone from 2 million to 90 million. India is a huge consumption economy because there are so many young people -- 50% are under 25. He expects mobile phone users to grow from 90 million to 300+ million by 2009-2010 and his strategy to address the market has been to give away everything except the customer ; i.e. outsource everything except the customer relationship. IT was outsourced to IBM -- a $1 billion contract. Networking was outsourced to Nokia & Ericsson. Call centers were outsourced to an IBM joint venture in India. Mr. Mittal said their growth (1 million new customers per month) could not be achieved without having outsourced to top partners. Complete alignment is achieved and the business model becomes predictable. Innovation in many areas including "Lifetime Validity" where incoming calls are free to customers for life. The theory is simple, if people receive a lot of free inbound calls, they will eventually *make* calls, which are not free. His goal is for his many partners to be happy -- not to laugh but to smile. He hopes to grow from 7 billion minutes per month to 20 billion.

Mr. Yang Mingsheng, President and CEO of the Agricultural Bank of China, was the only speaker who did use English but the simultaneous translation to Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, German, and English allowed all of us to hear what he had to say -- which was a lot. The bank has 500,000 employees and 28,000 branch offices. Although I could not understand a word of what he was saying without the headphones, I could tell that the speaker was very articulate, enthusiastic, and confident. 95% of all bank services are available online. The bank has 400 million depositors, 12.4 million outstanding loans, and 220 million credit cards issued. They have introduced many e-banking and mobile products to their customers. This is being done by centralizing IT infrastructure. Mr. Mingsheng is both a ceo and a member of government. For hobbies he writes poetry and plays the violin. His speech covered every aspect of consumer and business banking services. I don't think a similar presentation by Citigroup or JP Morgan Chase would much if anything that ABC isn't also doing.

Pierluigi Bernasconi, CEO of an Italian electronics retailer called MediaMarket. The company is the No. 1 consumer electronics retailer in Europe with 66 stores in Italy, more than 500 stores in more than a dozen European countries, and a new web-based business in Germany. One of their stores is the largest in the world -- it has six floors of consumer electronics products. Steady growth over the past decade has taken them from $4 to $16 billion. They have taken an innovative business model approach whereby they have two different store brands (MediaMarket and Saturn) that compete with each other. They believe that "self competition" results in better service and price to the consumer. Fifty million people per month spend time in one of their stores. Mr. Bernasconi described an intensely competitive environment in Italy from 4,000 photography shops, 6,000 telephone stores, e-retail sites, hyperStores, and in the future new channels such as Digital Terrestrial TV. In spite of this the company continuously outperforms the competition and gains market share. They have been using the web for sales and communications since 1995. Utilizing advanced IT the company has integrated all their distribution channels. They believe that communication is key and will result in customers thinking of MediaMarket or Saturn as the first choice as a place to get information and subsequently purchase. Their strategy is to exploit multi-channel strategies -- tying together so a person can call from land line or mobile, surf via the web connect via digital terrestrial set top box, or visit in person and all the experiences are recognized and tracked.

Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
Index to Roman Rendezvous stories

Conferences, IBM, Travels April 24, 2006 01:48 PM

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Business Leadership Forum - Day 2

Rome Day two of the Business Leadership Forum at "the auditorium"opened with a big-screen video made for the event by Tom Friedman, author of The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. Less than four hundred years ago, people still thought the world was flat and that ships would "fall off" the globe if they went too far. Then people figured out that the world was round, not flat. Now we are all realizing, thanks to Tom's book, that the world is indeed flat. Tom Friedman totally gets it and tells it very clearly.

1989 marked the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Windows. This was followed by Netscape going public in August 1995 which triggered the dot-com boom which triggered massive over-investment in fiber optic cable which enabled extremely low cost transfer of information on a global basis. A revolution in web applications enabled collaboration using interoperable standards-based protocols. These three things flattened the world and brought us from the industrial age to the information age. The end result, Tom says, is that when the world is flat, whatever can be done, will be done. The only question is "will it be done by you or to you". He says it takes an innovative flare, not vanilla ice cream -- which everybody can make -- but "whipped cream with a cherry on top".

Kunio Nakamura, President of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (otherwise known to most of us as Panasonic) with classic Asian sincerity, paid great homage to IBM for all that his company had learned and how it was supported during a significant transformation. Matsushita was founded in 1918 and now has sales of $75 billion with $3.4 billion in profit and 335,000 employees. Their management philosophy is that the company is a public entity, that the customer comes first, and to start each day anew. Their largest single product is TV's but it is only 8% of revenue. The company was in crisis condition in 2000, reached the survival level in 2006, and plans to achieve global excellence by 2010. A key element of this comeback is management innovation, a key part of which is using IT to drive productivity. This may seem obvious but Nakamura-san pointed out that culturally productivity was thought of as something that can be nudged by maybe 10%, whereas American companies think of doubling and tripling of productivity. He said Matsushita wants to change from a lead ball to a soccer ball. I have heard many CEO's describe corporate strategies over the years but never have I seen a CEO use the terms "IT" and infrastructure as extensively as Nakamura-san. He outlined how the company plans to invest $1.5B in IT over five years to integrate their procurement, production, distribution, sales & services from material & component suppliers all the way through to customers. He plans to use IBM as the company's innovation partner.

Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
Index to Roman Rendezvous stories

Conferences, IBM, Travels April 23, 2006 05:57 PM

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Dinner at the Vatican

Vatican The shuttle buses departing from the Auditorium Parco della Musica each had a sign indicating the language of the onboard tour guide (the entire Business Leadership Forum was simultaneously translated and available to all attendees through headphones in Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, German, and English). The route from the auditorium took us through the Olympic Village which was built for the 1960 Games. The guide on the "English" bus was superb and she pointed out the many architectural features along the route and also the history of Vatican City.

The Vatican is a landlocked enclave in Rome, but it is actually the world's smallest sovereign state (country). Beyond the territorial boundary of Vatican City, the Holy See has authority over twenty-three sites in Rome and five outside of Rome, including the Pope's summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. The Vatican was closed to the public when we arrived. I had been there some years ago along with many thousands of other visitors. It was a unique feeling to be there with a small crowd of five-hundred. Being divided into small groups of a dozen or so made the experience very special -- a lifetime memory for all of us.

The Vatican Library is home for many of the world's rarest books and documents.The library has more than 150,000 manuscripts, including the four oldest surviving manuscripts of the Roman poet Virgil dating from the fourth and fifth century AD; and the oldest known manuscript of the Bible, written in 350 AD. There are also more than a million books, including 8,000 published during the first 50 years of the printing press. Virtually all civilizations and cultures in the history of humanity are represented somewhere in the Vatican Library. The wealth of content is phenomenal and scholars from all over the world are deeply interested in studying it in detail. The result will be an advancement in the general understanding of the history of the world. That is the good news. The bad news is that due to the cost of travel and the physical limitations of the Library to accommodate visiting scholars, only about 2,000 scholars per year can actually visit. Fortunately, a number of technical collaborations have focused on how to both preserve the treasures of the Library and make them more accessible to scholars. IBM developed a digital library service to extend access to portions of the Library's collections to scholars worldwide. (more on the project here).

Walking into an empty Sistine Chapel is hard to describe. The chapel is 135 feet long and 44 feet wide. The paintings are awe inspiring. It took Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564) four years to create the 68 foot high fresco ceiling. Our tour guide happened to be an artist and she herself was in awe of the art and knew an amazing number of details about every aspect of the incredible room. We spent nearly an hour listening and craning our necks to try to absorb what we were seeing. One part of the "creation" panel contains an image that depicts the various parts of the human brain. It has been only recently that the image has been validated as being an accurate depiction. When Michelangelo painted the ceiling in 1512 he certainly had no MRI's or medical texts to refer to.

Cocktails in the courtyard outside of St. Peter's Basilica and dinner in the Braccio Nuovo Gallery at the Vatican were beyond outstanding. The blessing was offered by the president of Vatican City, who is also a cardinal. His eminence then thanked IBM for the digital library project and said it was that generosity that inspired them to make an exception and allow a formal dinner in the Vatican for IBM and the BLF guests. He also reminded Sam that there were still many thousands of manuscripts left to digitize. The outstanding food and wine were accompanied by a string quartet which played a selection of works from the great masters: Bach, Pergolesi, Boccherini, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. It was an evening to remember forever.

Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
Index to Roman Rendezvous stories

Conferences, IBM, Travels April 22, 2006 09:48 PM

Friday, April 21, 2006

Business Leadership Forum - 1

Roman orator

The shuttle buses dropped us off and we walked a few hundred feet through a large courtyard to the Auditorium Parco della Musica. It is quite an impressive place and of the thousands of "auditoriums" in the world, only this one has the url of http://www.auditorium.com. The "city of music" lies outside of Rome's densely-packed historic center where such a facility could never have been built. Four hundred trees surround the beautiful buildings where 3,000 spectators can enjoy concerts of all kinds -- from classical to jazz and rock.

IBM hosted it's fourth Business Leadership Forum at "the auditorium" earlier this month, and it was attended by several hundred of "the world's leading thinkers from across business, industry, government and academia", representing more than 50 countries. The forum facilitated two days of discussion about innovation and the challenges facing businesses in the 21st century.

IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano kicked off the meeting by saying that innovation is not optional for the leading institutions of the world -- businesses, schools, hospitals, and governments. "The bottom line of all this is that innovation is really a 'must do' unless we want to live in an environment that's commoditized and not unique, not differentiated". Sam's point was that if organizations focus only on taking out costs, they will be doomed with very low profits if not extinction. Everyone agrees that Innovation starts at the top and Sam practices what he preaches -- not just by innovating in technologies (IBM turning out more patents year after year than any company in the world), but by innovating in strategies and business models. For example, it was Sam who led the charge to transform IBM from a hardware company to a hardware, software and services company. Especially the latter, when he acquired Price Waterhouse Consulting and smoothly integrated it into the IBM portfolio of services. He also led the sale of the PC business. Some people viewed it as simply a "sale" but in reality it was a highly innovative change to the IBM business model -- selling off a low margin business but retaining the services aspect of it and at the same time gaining a stronger foothold in the Chinese market opportunity.

Note: See BusinessWeek's story about The World's Most Innovative Companies.

Sam then introduced Lord Brown, group chief executive at bp. The company had more than $20billion in profits for 2005 and is moving to even bigger numbers in 2006. Lord Brown described many innovative aspects of the company but I was most impressed with how they are using computer simulation to continuously increase the amount of oil they are able to extract from their drillings. He also described ambitious goals to put the hydrocarbon pollutants that come out with the oil back into where the oil was extracted, thereby reducing global pollution.

At the end of day we all got back in the shuttles to head to the Vatican.

Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
Index to Roman Rendezvous stories

Conferences, IBM, Travels April 21, 2006 09:46 PM

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Roman Geocaching

Vatican

I was anxious to get going so I quickly selected three geocaches that were closest to the hotel -- Forum's Revival, Coliseum, and Circus Maximus -- downloaded the latitudes and longitudes into the Magellan eXplorist GPS and hit the street. It would have been much better if I had done some better planning, reviewed the logs of others who had found the caches, and selected caches that had maximum odds of me finding them. As they say, haste makes waste.

No map in hand, I headed down the Via Veneto toward the Forum following the arrow on the GPS. I was so confident there would be plenty of time that I stopped along the way at a small sidewalk cafe called Berzitello's and enjoyed a plate of spaghetti. From there I meandered from street to street following the arrow until I reached the Forum. The IBM Business Leadership Forum focused on "Innovation that Matters". The Roman Forum obvioiusly focused on innovative structures -- especially impressive considering that many of them are nearly two thousand years old. It is a marvel that they were constructed.

After taking a few false entries I finally got to the spot -- or so said the GPS. There were a number of logical hiding places within twenty feet of the waypoint and I searched many of them. After more than a half-hour I gave up and headed for the Coliseum. At least I would find the other two caches. The Coliseum is an enormous place and there were thousands of people touring the ruins. The eXplorist said the cache was just 300 feet away. Sounds simple, but with the huge circumference and multiple levels of the Coliseum, it was not at all clear where the cache might be. If you are an experienced geocacher, you know what I mean. Sometimes you are a few hundred feet away but there is a river with no bridge in between. After an unplanned tour of most of the Coliseum, I found the spot, but not the cache. The latitude/longitude) was near a meadow and a wall just a couple of hundred feet from the main entrance to the Coliseum. After a half hour, I reluctantly gave up. Sound familiar? Well, at least I will find one of the three. Off to walk to the Circus Maximus.

This one should be easy, I told myself. Out in the open, nothing tricky about it. I got to the exact spot and searched high and low. Empty handed again. The good news is that I logged quite a few miles of walking on a sunny day. The weather was perfect. After meandering through the streets of Rome back to the Via Veneto and the hotel, I went straight to geocaching.com and read the logs of people who had found (or attempted to find) the three caches. If only I had done that *before* the search. It was tempting to head out again but the day was late and the miles of walking were enough -- and I had a plan for the morning.

Since I knew exactly where to go I knew I could hire a taxi for an hour, get to all three cache locations, and still get back in time for the opening of the Business Leadership Forum. Forum's Revival was still no piece of cake but I was able to find it in less than ten minutes. I signed the logbook, removed a travel bug, hid the tupperware container back in it's place, and headed back to the taxi. At the Coliseum, I went to the exact same spot as the afternoon before and recognized all the clues from the logs -- but still could not find it -- a big dissappointment. On to Circus Maximus to look for the microcache. Traditional caches are in tupperware containers or ammo cans. Microcaches are much harder to find -- they are usually black 35mm film containers -- easy to hide in a very small place, in this case in a three-foot high wall behind a loose stone. With two out of three finds, I declared victory, headed for the hotel, put on a tie and took a shuttle to the Auditorium Parco della Musica where Sam Palmisano kicked off the day.

As usual, I apologize for being a poor photographer, but I do have quite a few pictures to share here on flickr.

Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
Index to Roman Rendezvous stories

Conferences, Hiking, IBM, Travels April 18, 2006 05:56 PM

Sunday, April 9, 2006

Roman Rendezvous

Vatican

Short stories are usually better than long stories but this past week contained so much to share that it can not be told in one short story. The highlight was when five-hundred of us entered the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel in a rare way -- the buildings had been closed to the public and were empty -- and then even more rare was having dinner in the Braccio Nuovo Gallery of the Vatican Museum. The Business Leadership Forum was led by Sam Palmissano, chairman of IBM and it focused on "Innovation That Matters".

Just about every company these days talks about innovation but IBM is actually walking the talk -- and innovating in innovative ways and on a global basis. CEO's at the forum from around the world talked about how their companies were breaking new ground and setting new records by innovating with IBM. During coffee and lunch breaks at the rapid-fire day-and-a-half forum there were demonstrations of technology that can make the world a better place by using RFID (radio frequency identification tags) to track the movement of cargo containers and hospital patients. With incredible humility, Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux talked about the past and future of open source software development. The week even allowed a few geocaching trips on arrival day. The link below provides an index to the stories about what I learned this week.

Roman Rendezvous Stories

Conferences, IBM, Travels April 9, 2006 10:11 PM

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Western Geocaching

Hiker There wasn't time during the two and a half hour drive from Denver to Laramie, Wyoming to look for some of the many geocaches and benchmarks, but we did take an hour to find two interesting geocaches in Laramie. The first cache is associated with "Welcome to Laramie" and is located at 41.3 degrees north and 105.54 degrees west. Exactly due east from home but 32 degrees further west and more than a mile higher in elevation.

The second cache -- StarBrand's Rhyme Time #2 -- was different than any I have seen so far. It was hidden in a tupperware container under a log out in a field. On a sheet of paper were listed 100 words. In order to count the cache as a "find" you have to pick a word and write a four line poem with at least two rhymes with the word you selected. Since we were there for one of our son's graduations from Wyotech, the poem was easy to compose....

We came for our son's graduation
Mom and Dad are filled with elation
The ceremony was quite a creation
The students received an ovation
We had a fear this day would not be near
Now we're here shedding a tear

From Wyoming, it was back to Denver for a flight to Las Vegas to participate in the Stratus Technologies Conference. Staying at the Venetian was tough duty but somebody had to do it. Not being good gamblers, we found three very interesting virtual caches. A virtual cache is one where you go to a specified latitude and longitude and observe something and then send an email to the cache owner or post a picture to validate that you had actually found the cache. In some cases you have to report certain information that you would only know if you had actually been there. The first one was a commemorative plaque that had to be reported. At the second one a pose by a statue was required. The third one was most difficult to find and there were three questions that had to be answered and reported to the cache owner. Aside from the educational aspect of this cache, the surrounding scenery and wildlife made the walk worthwhile.

On Monday morning I gave a speech at the conference for 500 people and talked about the key trends I see with the future of the Internet. In the afternoon I participated in an executive roundtable to drill a bit deeper into the issues. My theme is still that we are only 5% of the way into what the Internet has in store for our business and personal lives. As for geocaches and benchmarks, the 84 I have found so far are less than one one-hundredth of a percent of those that are out there.

Conferences, Internet Technology, Travels March 28, 2006 10:08 PM

Thursday, March 16, 2006

PC Forum 2006

Cactus PC Forum has normally been held in Phoenix but this year (15th for me) moved to Carlsbad, California (near San Diego). The travel to conferences is not always a joy but they do tend to be in nice places -- too bad I am not a golfer. PC Forum is always interesting because it focuses mostly on the big picture. It is also interesting because after all these years one gets to know a lot of attendees and catch up with them at breaks and meals and it is also rewarding to meet new people each year.

Esther Dyson opened the conference and set the stage for the theme which was "Erosion of Power: Users in Charge". The concept of "power to the people" is not a new one -- I wrote quite a bit about the idea in "Net Attitude" -- but PC Forum drilled down deeply on the subject and brought a lot of experts from all walks of life into the dialogue. The first speaker was Barry Schwartz, Professor of Social Theory and Social Action, Swarthmore College. He talked about his book "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less". It was a topic everyone could identify with -- going to the store and finding 285 salad dressings, 35 toothpastes, and endless other choices. coffees, and getting a cell-phone model choice that includes an mp3 player, nose hair trimmer, and mini blow-torch. People already are beginning to ask, "Do you have a phone that doesn't do too much?". Even in healthcare, you are given choices. The Dr. won't tell you what to do but will give you choices with pros and cons. The bottom line is that people are overwhelmed with choice and instead of the choices liberating them, they are being paralyzed by them. "People may do better with more choices but not feel as good about it".

The end of the first day of PC Forum was an interview with Pierre Omidyar. The young billionaire is down to earth and has committed large amounts of money to the greater good through the Omidyar Network. Pierre personifies "giving back" and is setting a great example for others. Many of the remaining speakers were inspiring. More to come.

P.S. I did find one geocache at the end of the last day of the conference. It was more of a hike than I expected but rewarding to add it to the "found" list

Conferences March 16, 2006 10:14 PM

Monday, March 6, 2006

Doral Happenings

Toolbox What brought me to the Doral Golf Resort in Miami is a conference where I will be discussing my thoughts about the future of the Internet with management and clients of CSG Systems, Inc. CSG is a leading provider of outsourced billing, customer care and print and mail solutions for the cable, broadband, and satellite companies. If you get a bill every month from your cable company, for example, chances are that it was printed and mailed by CSG.

The Doral is always busy but yesterday when I arrived there were 37,000 people here to watch the Ford Golf Championship. I am not a golfer and know very little about the sport but I certainly respect the professionals who were here. Tiger Woods and the others perform way beyond what most people would consider perfect.

Conferences March 6, 2006 06:59 PM

Friday, March 3, 2006

Open and Closed

Open sign The central theme at the IBM Open Source IT Analyst Conference in Stamford, Connecticut this week revolved around the word "open". The term is used with "open source" and also with "open standards" and there is often confusion about the meaning of the two terms. A standard is like a blueprint. An open standard is one that is freely available. Open source is software that is freely available and which may implement open standards. The two terms are independent.

At one extreme, open means you can take my idea and do whatever you want with it and you don't even have to tell me you did so. At the other extreme, closed means my idea is mine and you can not use it or even see it. In a practical sense there is a wide spectrum in between open and closed. There are many factors in the debate but long term it is breakaway innovation among communities of developers and inventors that share a common vision that is the most important argument in favor of the expansion of open source software. The downside for entrenched monopolies or those resistant to change is that open source can cause disruption and a ton of incremental competition in markets. IBM's Dr. Bob Sutor, vp for standards and open source, says "tough". Only the greatest sinners of the past can truly repent.

The most visible example of the open standards debate is what is going on in Massachusetts. (see prior story). Some people are calling the state's decision to separate data formats from applications a "Bill of Rights" around information. A gentleman from Boston University told me he not only is confident the decision will stick but that it will be a model for the free world. A Norwegian official said that proprietary data will no longer be acceptable. It is a struggle against existing ways of doing things but long term there are huge benefits for all of us if open document forms proliferate resulting in consistent, error-free, structured ways of doing things. Electronic physician notes about our healthcare would be a good example. IBM has targeted healthcare and education as two industries that can benefit from open documents and the company is opening up it's intellectual property treasure trove to help enable these two industries to make a quantum leap.

What about patents? Similar to open vs. closed, patents are not all good or all bad. It is quite impressive to see how IBM has been able to balance it's proprietary products and it's open source solutions. They are building proprietary code and innovation on top of the open source base. At the same time they are giving patents away that have the potential to accelerate the quality of healthcare and education. In parallel they are leading an effort to improve the quality and integrity of the patent process that all companies use. The patent process has been like the jury system -- not perfect but nobody has come up with a better way. In the case of the patent system, while many companies complain about the system, IBM is taking the lead to do something about it.

Other patrickWeb stories about open standards
Bob Sutor's blog

Conferences, Healthcare, IBM, Internet Technology, Public Policy March 3, 2006 10:40 AM

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Open and Closed - Intro

Telephone Today I attended the IBM Open Source Analyst Briefing which was held at the Marriott in Stamford, Connecticut. I will post a story about what I learned later but first I would like to share something about the Marriott. The hotel had a "Wired-for-Business" connectivity offer which enables guests to "Work smarter with unlimited..." in-room high-speed Internet access plus local and long distance phone calls. The cost is $9.95 per day. Not bad compared to many places. For me, using EV-DO is much better. I am already paying a monthly fee for it and it works more or less everywhere -- but I have to admit it is expensive. I suspect many guests do not have EV-DO and may not want the WiFi offering. They will be confronted with $1.00 for the first 30 minutes of a local call, MCI "daytime operator assisted" rate plus 55% hotel surcharge for long distance plus a "connection charge" of $4.99 for each U.S. long distance call and $9.00 for each "International" call. This is one of many examples of companies exploiting those who are part of a declining market for old-fashioned services. Why would anyone pay $4.99 plus $1.00 for a call that they could make on their cell phone -- probably within their covered minutes. As for international calling, there are many choices including Skype and my people which allows you to transfer from a cell phone to your home and then to a VoIP connection to Europe for less than ten cents per minute. Disintermediation is happening all over the place. Next time you need to call 411, try 800-FREE-411 instead.

Conferences, IBM, Internet Technology February 28, 2006 10:46 PM

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Top Ten Demo picks

Toolbox My apologies for making an error in the link to my Top Ten Demo picks. I have corrected it -- the link is here. The top ten is actually eleven and I do not mean to imply that there are really the "top" in the sense that they are the best. They are the ones that I happened to see and found most interesting.

Conferences February 12, 2006 07:10 PM

The MooBella Demo

People at a conference It was such an exciting week at Demo that it is hard to summarize. There are many reviews of the conference on the web and you can find some of them at Kaboodle (one of the companies that debuted at Demo). There were sixty-eight companies showing off their latest and greatest -- the Demo site has the full list with links to the companies, so if you want to know what is hot take a look here and click the + sign next to Demo 2006 at the top right of the page.

The product least expected but perhaps most enjoyed by the 700+ attendees was the MooBella virtual ice cream vending machine. After attendees made touch-panel choices from up to 96 combinations of flavors and mix-ins, the machine mixed and instantly froze fresh ingredients to produce a delicious scoop of ice cream within 45 seconds. The only drawback I could see was that there was no chocolate. Apparently, that flavor (favorite of 20% of the market) poses special challenges due to the viscosity of cocoa powder.

There were a number of themes that emerged at DEMO. Collaboration was one. Chris Shipley said that 2006 will be the year of collaboration. Demos included virtual meeting platforms, tools that in effect allow people to act as librarians and share their findings with others, and tools for collaborative software development. Another theme was vertical search. Google and Yahoo! are great but highly specialized searches offer much better results. Examples shown included shopping, entertainment, software code, healthcare, and politics.

Mobile applications are still somewhat limited by tiny screens but innovative new ideas were shown that make cell phones more useful than ever. One company showed a phone being used as a personal trainer during exercise. It kept track of your pace and location and plotted results on the screen. Another small device was shown that allows complete control over the phone, music, and every aspect of things going on in the house.

Security solutions were shown to protect our identity, protect our networks, stop spam and viruses at the door, and diagnose Internet traffic and catch malware before it gets to our systems. Biometric technologies were shown to allow secure payment and authentication. I look forward to some of these technologies being used in healthcare.

Through two FutureScan panels I attempted to help the audience see the future of security and computational biology. On the security panel we discussed the general state of Internet security (not healthy) but more importantly some of the research that may lead to a healthier net. To me the most promising thing is PKI. I have written much about this here. The computational biology panel was mind-blowing for most of us. Systems biology models, redesigning proteins, and learning about our genetic history will affect all of our lives. There was a great deal of interest in The Genographic Project. (A dozen DNA kits were given to the audience -- you can get your own here). If you are interested in learning more about the human genome, the panelists recommended Genome by Matt Ridley. I am reading it now. We were all extremely fortunate to have had some of the world's leading experts share their thoughts on the panels. You can find links to all the panelists here.

The most asked question between Demo attendees at breaks and meals is "See anything interesting?". Chris Shipley, Executive Producer of the DEMO Conferences, introduced sixty-eight companies -- there was definitely something for everybody. I was not able to visit all the companies or hear all of their pitches, but at the end of this story I will mention eleven companies that I found most interesting -- "My Top Ten Picks"

Conferences, Healthcare, Internet Technology, Media, Mobile, Music, People, Personal Computing, Public Policy February 12, 2006 01:38 PM

Wednesday, February 8, 2006

The Future Of Security Panel

People at a conference "The Future of Security" panel will be this afternoon at 3:15 PM. Most of us are aware of current day security threats, but what about down the road? Will the good guys be able to stay ahead of the bad guys? Will we be able to trust the Internet for commerce and communication? Those are the key areas we will discuss. The panelists will be Dr. Charles Palmer, manager of the Security, Networking, and Privacy departments at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center and Dr. Partha Dasgupta, Associate Professor, Arizona State University, Fulton School of Engineering, and Hilarie Orman, Chief Technology Officer & VP of Engineering, Shinkuro, Inc.

Conferences February 8, 2006 10:46 AM

Computational Biology Reference Information

People at a conference The computational biology panelists from yesterday were Ajay Royyuru, Senior Manager, Computational Biology Center at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Colin Hill, CEO, President, & Co-Founder of Gene Network Sciences and Steve Mayo, Associate Professor of Biology and Chemistry in the Divisions of Biology and Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. If you are interested in learning more about the subject area, the panelists recommended Genome by Matt Ridley.

Conferences February 8, 2006 09:53 AM

Monday, February 6, 2006

Geocaching at Demo 2006

Hiker The weather in Phoenix is beautiful. Both before and after the First Round Capital investor luncheon, I was able to head up on the trails near the hotel and find a couple of geocaches. If you have time I would recommend finding In The Rough and Camelback Mountain View Cache. Some of the others close by are very difficult to find. If you are not yet into the sport of geocaching, you may want to visit geocaching.com. There are some pictures of the day in flickr.

Top Ten Technology Trends

Blogging software highly integrated with all the other software we use
Video blogging technology being practical for many more people
Voice over IP known more for applications than for price
Location based services
Mesh technology enabling highly distributed bandwidth
Tags everywhere
OpenDocument Format predominant
Standards evolving rapidly and winning over proprietary
Broadband over the Power Line (this one we did not have time to discuss)
Mobile devices dominant as our primary way to communicate including the web

Conferences, Internet Technology, People February 2, 2006 09:46 AM

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Three G's

human gene IBM has added a new dimension to the Genographic Project. More than 100,000 people have acquired genographic kits and had their DNA analyzed and learned where they came from. This is not the last few generations of the family tree but rather about what haplogroup they belong to and what migratory path was taken by their predecessors to get from Africa to where they are currently living. The new twist is that IBM has added a 'Genetic Journeys' site which describes IBMers' individual perspectives and journeys into their ancient migratory history. Turns out that more than 10,000 of the kits to date have been acquired by IBM employees. It was interesting to read the comments of some former colleagues. My friend Irving said "The findings caused me to look into my heritage more, something I had not done in a long time".

The second G of the day was a speech by Tim Armstrong who is VP for Advertising Sales at Google. Tim said that Google believes there is 5 million trillion bytes of information on the web that is relevant to consumers and advertisers. Currently they have 170 trillion bytes of it in Google.

The third G of the day is for geocaching. I took a brisk walk to the NYC Corner Cache during the lunch hour at the SIIA Conference. This one is a webcam cache. I stood on the corner with one arm in the air while I used the other hand to call home. My wife went to the webcam site and copied my picture. I will be moderating a Future Technology panel as the last session of the conference.

Conferences, Hiking, People February 1, 2006 10:11 AM

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

FutureScan

People at a conference Demo will be starting two weeks from today. I am looking forward to seeing all the new gadgets, software, hardware and business ideas and catching up with many friends from the press, consultant, and investing communities. The product introductions that take place will reveal key technology trends over the coming 12 to 18 months. A new twist will be added to Demo this year called FutureScan.

Chris Shipley, executive producer of Demo, asked me to moderate two panels to explore the more distant future. The idea behind FutureScan is to find some clues, not about what is hot today or next year, but about the next, next big thing. I'll share my own perspective on the future in the first few minutes of the panels but 90% of my effort will be to help bring out the depth and breadth of the incredibly knowledgeable experts on the panels and facilitate Q&A with the audience.

The first panel will be on the afternoon of February 7th and it will focus on "Computational Biology". Not an everyday topic for most of us, computational biology -- often called bioinformatics -- combines techniques from applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, and computer science to solve problems of life. Some of the topics we will be discussing include genome assembly, protein folding, and perhaps even the modeling of evolution. No doubt we will get some insight about major breakthroughs in health and science, such as personalized medicine. The panelists will be Ajay Royyuru, Senior Manager, Computational Biology Center at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Colin Hill, CEO, President, & Co-Founder of Gene Network Sciences and Steve Mayo, Associate Professor of Biology and Chemistry in the Divisions of Biology and Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.

On the following afternoon, the FutureScan panel will explore "The Future of Security". Most of us are aware of current day security threats, but what about down the road? Will the good guys be able to stay ahead of the bad guys? Will we be able to trust the Internet for commerce and communication? Those are the key areas we will discuss. The panelists will be Charles Palmer, manager of the Security, Networking, and Privacy departments at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center and Partha Dasgupta, Associate Professor, Arizona State University, Fulton School of Engineering.

Take a look at the panelists' links and you will see why I am humbled and excited about FutureScan.

Learn more about DEMO

Conferences January 24, 2006 04:10 PM

Friday, January 13, 2006

Open Hopes for 2006

Open sign The debate about the OpenDocument format is still underway. See this link for a list of the stories in patrickWeb about it. Bob Sutor over at IBM just posted a very good story called "Open standards, open source, open minds, open opportunities". Rather than repeat or plagiarize it, here is a link to it. It is a worthwhile read about the difference between "open standards" and "open source". He also talks about an "openness movement" that he hopes will take hold in 2006. Me too. Bob will no doubt be discussing this on the SIIA Technology panel which I will be moderating in New York in a few weeks

Upcoming conferences in which I will be participating

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Conferences, Internet Technology, People, Personal Computing January 13, 2006 02:59 PM

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Internet Phones

Telephone Today's Wall Street Journal story, "Web Phones Go Unplugged", summed it up pretty well. There is a convergence taking place between cell phones and Internet phones. Utopia has not quite arrived but at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month there was a slew of new announcements surrounding Vonage, Skype, and various new handsets. The "ideal" phone is very close.

Imagine that your "cell phone" is on your belt or in your pocket. You are at home. When you make a call, the connection goes through your DSL or Cable Modem over the Internet and through one of the VoIP providers such as Vonage. When the phone "rings", you will hear a voice saying who is calling and if you look at the phone you will see a picture of the person and the person will have a unique "ring" associated with them so you can tell just from the ring. When you get in the car with your Bluetooth headset on, you will be using the same phone that you were using in the house except that phone calls will use the cellular network. When you arrive at the airport, the phone will pick up the free WiFi service being offered and you will once again be able to use Vonage or Skype for unlimited long distance calling.

Some would argue that the environment I have described is already here. There are in fact quite a few products and services available. However, there are a few wrinkles. A seamless 911 system is not quite there. There are still some places you might be that have no reliable signal of any kind. A power failure at home can cut you off from communications if you don't have a good cellular signal or if your phone is dependent on a base station. Some telecommunications providers and airport operators are attempting to block free WiFi services. Finally, some of the devices have so many features that they are hard to adapt to for many people. In spite of the wrinkles, we are getting very close to the point where the Internet is pervasive in our lives for all forms of communications and interactions. I am sure we will see and hear much more about all this at the upcoming DEMO conference.

Other patrickWeb stories about Long Distance

Conferences, Gadgets, Home Automation, Internet Technology, Mobile January 12, 2006 08:29 AM

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

DEMO Coming

People at a conference Demo has always been my favorite conference and I am looking forward to the next one -- to be held in Phoenix, February 6-8. The Demo conference allows entrepreneurs to show off new gadgets, software, hardware and business ideas and enables the press, analysts, investors, and technology enthusiasts to assess what they see. The product introductions that take place reveal key technology trends over the coming 12 to 18 months. A new twist will be added to Demo this year that will add a look at the more distant future.

Moderating panels is a way to share one's perspective but more importantly to help bring out the depth and breadth of knowledgeable experts through an interactive conversation plus questions from the moderator and the audience. The new modules to look at "the more distant future" will be called "FutureScan". The idea is to find some clues, not about what’s hot today or next year, but about the next, next, next big thing. There will be two panels -- one on the afternoon of February 7th and the other one the next afternoon. The topics which the panelists and I will explore are "Computational Biology" and "The Future of Security". In the next few postings I will provide some thoughts about the two topics and also about the distinguished panelists who will be sharing their insights.

Other conference related stories

Conferences December 9, 2005 03:03 PM

Sunday, October 23, 2005

BlogOn 2005

The Copacabana Hotel in Manhattan is said to be an excellent place to enjoy salsa. This week it was also a place to enjoy a discussion about the past, present, and future of blogging as more than three-hundred people gathered at BlogOn 2005.

One of the ways that you can tell if a new Internet technology is going to be successful is to look for skepticism. When people begin to say the hype exceeds the reality, it means we are on the way toward the reality exceeding the hype. I am not referring to new business models that are going to make water run uphill, but rather to fundamental technologies such as the Internet itself, the Web, Java, Linux, WiFi, and others. All of those were discounted in the early days. Blogging has now entered the phase where it is in the category of a fundamental technology -- one that is enormously profound and is altering how information is documented, distributed, syndicated, and archived.

As with all fundamental technologies, there are a lot of myths in the early stages -- like "The Internet is free" or "The web is for documents, not for applications". Add to the list that blogging is a vanity tool for people to write about themselves or their hobbies. Sure there are many personal blogs. Someone may write a blog that is only read by the blogger's mom. That's ok. A volunteer parent on a school trip may write a daily posting for the other parents to read. Pundits may write a "column" that is read by very large numbers of people. All of these take advantage of the "diary" aspect of blogging, but there is a lot more to blogging than people writing their personal accounts or views. (read more)

Blogging, Conferences October 23, 2005 03:23 PM

Friday, September 30, 2005

E-ruptions

The gathering this morning at 101 Park Avenue in New York was called the CEBiz Conference: E-ruptions Nobody Heard. It was organized by The Columbia Center for Excellence in E-Business (CEBiz) and sponsored in part by Booz Allen Hamilton. The conference was focused on marketing and consumer issues but technology played a large role in the discussions. There were three panels.

The first panel focused on "networks" with a lot of discussion about blogging, music sharing, social networking of various kinds, and of course the long tail. Panelist Hank Barry, former ceo of Napster, had a really good way of explaining the impact of the Internet on markets. He explained micro-markets by using the example of a merchant who sells Manchurian hamster supplies. Such a merchant can not afford mass media and perhaps can not afford any traditional marketing. However, by purchasing Google AdWords, any of the handful of people in the world interested in Manchurian hamster supplies and searching on Google will find the merchant's store.

The second panel focused exclusively on Voice over IP (VoIP). There are many stories here at patrickWeb about this topic. (See the Internet technology category). Since a recent survey showed that 47% of the respondents had never heard of it VoIP and 20% thought it was a hybrid European car, you can tell it is still relatively new -- even though it has been around for more than a decade. The fact that eBay paid $2.6 Billion for Skype, a European startup that offers VoIP to fifty million or so customers, tells you there must be something very real going on. There are a billion traditional phone lines out there and they will co-exist with VoIP for a long time, but the billion lines will undergo a constant reduction. Every day people are switching to either VoIP or to a cell phone. If this sounds strange just talk to kids and young adults -- they start their careers, get their first apartment, and they don't even consider the idea of calling a phone company to install a "line". Tom Kershaw from VeriSign made the important point that people don't buy technology, they buy services. VoIP is a service that allows people to talk to friends, family, and colleagues using the Internet.

The last panel, "Empowering Consumers; Undiscovered Opportunities" was moderated by Randy Rothenberg, Senior Director, Intellectual Capital, Booz Allen Hamilton. Three of us did our best to discuss key marketing issues from our perspective. Katherine Bagin, Vice President, IP Communications, AT&T was enthusiastic about how VoIP is changing the world and she emphasized that understanding the real needs and wants of consumers was the key. Eric Johnson, Norman Eig Professor of Business and Director, Center on Excellence in E-Business, Columbia University focused on "defaults" and showed examples of how the layout and sequence of steps on web sites can influence what people buy and how much they spend. I suggested that we are five percent of the way into what the Internet has in store for us and referred a recent essay I wrote about "The Bubble". As for the "next big things", I suggested that blogging and podcasting continue to be underestimated, that healthcare is about to change dramatically as people demand personal health records, and that geocaching is an example of a coming explosion in geographic based data. All three of these are areas written about here with much more to come.

Conferences September 30, 2005 04:53 PM

Sunday, September 25, 2005

DEMOfall 2005

gadget The Demo conferences allow entrepreneurs to show off new gadgets, software, hardware and business ideas. It has always been my favorite conference and DEMOfall 2005 did not disappoint. Sixty-five companies showed their stuff and, although there were some cases of companies showing solutions looking for problems, there were a lot of impressive ideas and plans. I could not possibly do justice here to what I saw and learned but I will mention a few of the highlights and encourage you to google away to explore things you may want to learn more about. Another good source is to read the Demo blogs. Here are my comments about some of the things I found most interesting. (read more)

Conferences September 25, 2005 11:41 AM

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Conference Update (and Microsoft comments)

The conference circuit took no summer break (see engagement calendar) and is now in full swing for the balance of the year. Next week begins with DEMOfall in Huntington Beach, California. The Demo conferences are always my favorites because there is so much technology on display and you can have open dialogue with the creators of it and talk to the executive teams about their marketing plans. There are typically 70 or so companies showing something new.

At the end of the month I will be participating in a new conference, called E-ruptions, to be held in New York City. Some of the topics to be discussed include "E-ruptions Nobody Heard", radical disruptions occurring in society and commerce, "The Value of Networks; Does Anybody Know?", "Voice Over IP; How Big?", and "Empowering Consumers; Undiscovered Opportunities". Most tech conferences are quite expensive to attend but this one is open to the general public for $25. See E-ruptions for details.

There are two interesting conferences taking place in October. I will not be able to be there this time but a really good conference is Vortex. Take a look at John Gallant's blog to learn about it.

Finally, the BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit, will also to be held in New York. The summit will explore what is happening and key trends for blogs, social networking sites, collaboration tools and syndication feeds. As of today, technorati.com is offering search across 17.3 million blogs. This is the tip of the iceberg of people expressing themselves on every imaginable topic. Businesses are embracing blogs too - except perhaps at Microsoft. In Friday's BusinessWeek CEO Steve Ballmer was asked if he read the blogs being written by Microsoft employees. "I do not", he replied. He went on to say "I'm not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything". During the last half of the 1980's, IBM's top guys were not listening -- and the company paid a big price for it. As for Microsoft, BusinessWeek summed it up well. "There's a plea for action to Gates and Ballmer to do more -- slash the bureaucracy, tend to morale, and make it easier to innovate. But is anyone listening?".

Other patrickWeb conference related stories

Conferences September 17, 2005 04:09 PM

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Conference Update

The conference circuit takes no summer break (see engagement calendar). MRO World was quite interesting in Dallas in July and coincidentally the Texas Association of State Systems for Computing and Communications Annual Meeting this week is also in Dallas. The Fall will be very active too. I plan to attend DEMOfall in Huntington Beach in September for sure. I will not be able to be there this time but another really good conference is Vortex. Take a look at John Gallant's blog to learn about it.

Other patrickWeb conference related stories

Conferences August 9, 2005 06:39 PM

Saturday, July 16, 2005

The Long Tail

Graph Chris Anderson from Wired talked passionately at Supernova about how the Internet makes it possible to exploit the "niche" portion of the demand for products, services, and content. His theory is that there is more total demand -- revenue -- from a large number of little known products that there is from a small number of big "hits". He calls the curve that reflects this phenomenon "the long tail".

In particular, the future of entertainment -- books, songs, movies -- is at the "shallow end of the bitstream". All of us have unique likes and dislikes. One person's trash is another person's treasure. Prior to the Internet bringing us Amazon and Netflix, we had to be content with what was available in the "store" and the store would only carry something that had good odds of selling. The fact is that there is a lot out there that may not mean much to the masses but is exactly what someone somewhere is looking for.

My friend and colleague, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, recently found a personalized recommendation at Netflix for a movie called Blue, by a Polish director, Krzysztof Kieslowski. Irving said he had never heard of the movie or the director but the movie had a very high rating, member comments were positive, and professional reviewers that he trusts all highly recommended the movie. A mouse click later the DVD was on it's way to Irving and he soon enjoyed it greatly. It turns out the movie was part of a trilogy and he ended up ordering the other two movies also.

A slightly different phenomenon is happening with music. iTunes recommends music on a personalized basis but also provides "iMixes" of various artists and links to music collections that are favorites of music stars themselves. By following the trail from list to list you can get pretty far out on the long tail and find some highly unique music. None of them will sell millions but millions of people will find music that they really like. There will still be "mega-hits" but the world of creating and retailing is being turned upside down. The Long Tail is a really important story and I urge everyone to read it.

See Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail"
Film category of Irving's blog

Conferences, Internet Technology, Media, Music July 16, 2005 08:24 PM

Friday, July 8, 2005

Supernova 2005

Toolbox There are a lot of good conferences -- Supernova is one of the best. This year was the second time I have made the trip to San Francisco to attend. There were roughly 250 technologists, investors, business leaders and media who came together to network, share ideas, and explore the business impacts of many key innovations.

Supernova focuses on the decentralization of computing, communications, digital media, and business. (See the full agenda and the participants here). There are so many exciting things happening in these areas -- distributed e-commerce, mobile applications, the power of the "long tail" in commerce and media, massively multi-player virtual worlds, business blogging, the video Internet, and voice over IP applications, just to name a few. It is hard to summarize. I will comment on the panel that I moderated and then highlight the four subject areas of the conference that I thought were most significant.

Something new at Supernova this year was the Wharton West Workshops and Technology Showcase -- a day targeted at technologists and business professionals, and held at the state-of-the-art Wharton West facility. The panel I moderated was called "Connected Work" and the participants included Tom Ngo & Cydni Tetro from NextPage and Greg Lloyd from Traction Software. We had a far reaching discussion with the audience about how blogging and on-line information management can help users get a grip on managing structured and unstructured information, documents, and processes in order to make their jobs easier. A lot of the dialogue was about how blogging can become an effective enterprise communications tool.

There were many interesting people and topics at Supernova. I have summarized the four things I would say were most significant. (read more)

Conferences July 8, 2005 09:45 AM

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Supernova Podcast

Toolbox Supernova 2005 was athought provoking conference and I learned a lot -- more on that to come. The technology industry is a constant thrill to be part of. John Furrier and I got to reflect on this for fifteen minutes during one of his podcasts. John is a young but seasoned entrepreneur who has taken podcasting to heart. He did quite a number of interviews during Supernova -- he is a very good interviewer with a strong technical and business background. Visit the homepage at podtech.net to see (and hear) them all. Click here to listen to our conversation.

Other patrickWeb stories about conferences

Conferences June 23, 2005 04:57 PM

Conferences -- A New Category

Toolbox It is very nice to be home after eleven days on the road being in eleven cities including home, New York, Madrid, Zaragoza, Berlin, Oslo, Frankfurt, Denver, Laramie, San Francisco, and Berkeley. There is much more to write about the conferences I attended and the things I learned, but it will be hard to capture it all -- it was one of the most intensive periods of learning for me since e-tirement began three and a half years ago. There will be some more postings about all this in the days ahead. I decided to add a new category to patrickWeb -- "Conferences" -- and have re-categorized a number of stories from the past few years.

Other patrickWeb stories about conferences

Conferences June 23, 2005 04:35 PM

Friday, June 17, 2005

Innovate Europe 2005

The train ride from Madrid to Zaragoza was very enjoyable even after an overnight flight from New York (I will be posting something about Zaragoza and getting some pictures in the gallery later). The purpose of the trip was to participate in the Innovate!Europe: A Catalyst for Change conference. Innovate!Europe has brought together European investors, entrepreneurs, technology executives, researchers, public administrators, and various people who ae key players in the global technology industry.

The conference was organized by Guidewire Group (where I serve on the board of advisors). The entire agenda is here. After welcome messages from the Minister of Science & Technology and the Mayor of Zaragoza, Chris Shipley - Executive Producer of Innovate!Europe gave an opening talk about the origins and goals of the conference. She is passionate about the potential for technology companies in Europe and i have no doubt that she will be running conferences there again. Then Sven Ingjaerde from Vision Capital gave a professional and comprehensive presentation about the status of venture capital investments in Europe and about why there is a big opportunity but yet relatively few successful technology company startups there. He pointed out the many strengths of Europe and also the shortcomings -- most of which are cultural in nature and none that can not be overcome.

One point I saw slightly differently than what Sven presented was about the size of the market that should be addressed by a startup. In my experience, too many startups focus on a target market which is everywhere/everybody/global/everything. I believe a more proven method is to be highly focused and address a market segment that can be addressed and dominated -- and then branch out from there to more segments, dominating one at a time. I have posted this thought to the Innovate Europe wiki which you can find here.

Next was a panel called "Working Capital: Empowering Europe's Investment Community" moderated by Jeff Clavier from SoftTech Venture Consulting (a fine Frenchman who loaned me a nice tie for dinner) did a deep dive on venture capital issues and ideas for Europe. It was everyone's day to beat up on the French for perceived attitudinal issues. Ironically, Bruno Uzzan, CEO of Total Immersion -- a French technology startup -- totally blew away the audience with his demonstration of augmented virtual reality. He showed a heliopter flying around the auditorium on the screen. Needless to say, there was no helicopter in the room -- but it looked like there was. You had to be there to believe it.

After the break, Simon Brown from Microsoft gave a presentation about independent software vendors in Europe and how Microsoft hoped to help them use the Windows platform. A Q & A session was then led by José Cervera. José opened up with blazing guns asking Simon why Microsoft doesn't acknowledge open Internet standards and open source software. Dan Bricklin -- inventor of the spreadsheet --- asked why Microsoft was able to grow from nothing to the biggest software company in the world with virtually no patents. I have to admit, some of Simon's responses sounded like IBM in the 1970's when asked about OEM peripheral attachments to IBM mainframes.

Then it was my turn. My task was to lead a panel discussion about innovation issues in Europe -- the panel was the audience -- or as they say in Europe, the delegates. Here is the outline I used to make my opening comments.

Conferences June 17, 2005 01:03 PM

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Constant Conferences

Toolbox There are so many conferences. Seems like every major hotel is packed with attendees who are there to learn, share, make deals, make new friends and see old friends. Even though the Internet has made it possible to find almost anything and also to communicate in a myriad of ways -- including realistic live video -- people still go to conferences. I don't see the appeal for real live in-person conferences diminishing anytime soon. Maybe never. Aside from the many benefits to the attendees, there is quite a good business in running conferences. Companies such as Jupitermedia have an "events" business and companies like IBM run conferences to keep customers up to date on strategy and product and service developments. With the related food services, audio/visual, and travel, the conference " industry" is non-trivial..

For the last dozen years or so I have been attending an average of three to five conferences per month. I don't play golf or tennis and I really like the opportunity to meet new people and learn new things. At most of the conferences I attend, I am also a speaker or panelist or moderator. The engagement calendar is here. The "in the news" section is also updated.

This week is "IBM Week" with the IBM IT Analyst Conference yesterday and today and the IBM/Forbes Executive Conference today through Friday. Next week Knovel Corporation is hosting a keynote at the the Nylink 2005 Annual Meeting, which will be held in historic Saratoga Springs, New York. Nylink is a not-for-profit membership organization for all types of libraries and information organizations throughout New York State and surrounding areas. I am looking forward to speaking with them about the "Future of the Internet". The next morning, after an early trike ride from upstate New York to Danbury, Connecticut will be a similar discussion with school superintendents and then the following Monday with students and faculty at Western Connecticut State University.

Conferences April 27, 2005 09:37 PM

Friday, February 18, 2005

LinuxWorld - Boston

Penguin LinuxWorld in Boston this week reminded me of the Internet World of ten years ago. The show was buzzing with people and dozens of vendor booths. Nearly eight thousand attendees were there attending tutorials and pitches, testing what the vendors had to show and tell. When the attendance at a particular conference begins to wane -- the Internet World conference is history -- it is because the topic of the show has become pervasively adopted.

Linux is surely on it's way to becoming ubiquitous. There is a lot written here in patrickWeb about Linux. One story, Linux -- The Penguin Marches On, is an update to what I had written about Linux in Net Attitude. This week it was an honor to offer a keynote at LinuxWorld in Boston.

There were five keynotes speeches. The presenters Jack L Messman who is CEO, Novell, Inc., Martin Fink who is Vice President Linux, HP, John Swainson who is President and Chief Executive Officer-Elect, Computer Associates, Inc., Marten Mickos who is CEO, MySQL. and myself. Unfortunately, I was not able to hear the other speakers because I was at Demo@15. You can find a short bio and abstract of each speaker's talk here. My topic was The Future Of The Internet, but needless to say, I focused on Linux as a key element of the future as I see it

Many people like to say that Linux is all about "free". I made the point that Linux is about "freedom". Freedom to innovate openly with thousands of people around the world. Freedom to set your own priorities for operating system functions that you want to use or replace or fix. I also talked about why Linux is ultimately the most secure operating system. The real power of Linux is not derived from IBM or any other company or organization; it is the power of the Linux community.

Linux, just like the PC and the Internet, was built in an open fashion so that all can see how it works. If a security glitch is discovered, any of thousands of members of the community can respond. There is no dependency on any one company. In fact each company using Linux can establish their own priorities and make changes themselves if necessary. Over time it just gets better and better. When a major organization has a choice between proprietary offerings, or offerings built around communities, communities will almost always win -- surely in the long run. The second reason that proprietary offerings ultimately lose out is that there is no way that a single vendor can compete against a well-organized community. In the early stages, when the community is not yet well organized, it cannot make progress, and individual vendors can step in and do very well, even establishing natural monopolies as they bring order to chaos. But, once the community gets organized, and starts making significant progress, the game is over. Darwinian evolution takes over; the best ideas survive and the others fall by the wayside. There is just no way a single vendor, no matter how powerful, can have access to as talented and as many skills as the global community can bring to the effort. The Penguin Marches On. As a follower of IBM's strategy, I am very pleased to see them leading the parade.

Conferences February 18, 2005 01:57 PM

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Demo@15

Toolbox Of all the many conferences I attend each year, my favorite is Demo. Many conferences offer insight in various ways. All conferences offer a chance to network with friends and colleagues from the industry. Only Demo offers the chance to meet with the top couple of people from dozens of technology companies, see their product in action, and discuss their plans and strategies with them. The conference is attended by analysts, consultants, editors, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs. This year was special because it was the fifteenth year of Demo. There were several people there who had attended fourteen of the fifteen (I have been to thirteen of them). There were 73 companies showing off their new offerings.

Various stories have appeared in the media about Demo this week and news about the conference will reach 250 million people around the world via print and online media. Chris Shipley is the Executive Producer for DEMO Conferences and she always opens the conference with her vision of where things are headed and what technologies will have the biggest impact. Half or so of the companies get six minutes to tell their story and do their demo on stage -- others get one minute. During half of the morning and half of the afternoon, the 750 attendees get to mingle at the company booths. Needless to say, a lot of networking occurs and much of it leads to new relationships and in some cases financing.

Chris says that she gets to be like a kid in a candy store - she looks at more than a thousand companies in order to select the ones that present at Demo. At breaks, colleagues always ask each other "see anything you like?". I always do. It is hard to summarize the excitement I felt for what I saw. I'll highlight a few things I saw but you can see a one page summary and link for each company on the list of demonstrators. (read more)

Conferences, Gadgets, Internet Technology, Personal Computing February 17, 2005 05:43 PM

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Heads Up -- Demo Coming

Personl Computer I am fortunate to attend many conferences each year as one can see from the engagements calendar. I find them all productive but my all time favorite conference is Demo. Demo is recognized as the major event that "demos" the products and services poised to have the greatest impact on the technology landscape in the year to come. Every year, technology executives, venture investors, journalists and analysts converge at Demo to preview and discuss new ideas. The best part of the conference is the opportunity to network with many old and new friends. DEMO@15! marks the 15th year of the conference -- the 13th year for me. In that time, 1,500 companies have launched technologies live on the Demo stage -- and a few have launched revolutions. Notable on the list have been Palm, TiVo and Java.

Below are some of the places I plan to be during the first quarter of the year. I am speaking at most of them , (including opening keynotes at both LinuxWorld and COMMON. As I updated the engagements page, it was fun to reminisce over conferences of the past four years.

Engagements - 2001
Engagements - 2002
Engagements - 2003
Engagements - 2004
Current engagements


Event	Date	Location
Optometric Practice Management Conference	01/15/2005	New York, NY
Genesys Partners Annual Dinner	01/31/2005	New York, NY
Demo 2005	02/14/2005	Phoenix, AZ
LinuxWorld	02/16/2005	Boston, MA
What's Next: Boomer Business Summit	03/09/2005	Philadelphia, PA
COMMOM	03/13/2005	Chicago, IL
PC Forum	03/21/2005	Scottsdale, AZ

Conferences, Internet Technology January 22, 2005 11:04 AM

Thursday, January 20, 2005

First Quarter Conferences

The first quarter is going to be very busy. I plan to attend seven conferences and speak at five of them. Engagement calendar is now updated for 2005.

Conferences, Internet Technology January 20, 2005 10:52 AM

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Toronto - 2004: COMMON

All of us that travel internationally are used to big crowds at airports, but the number of people at Perason International airport in Toronto, Canada was as large as I have ever seen. Although the lines for immigration looked formidable, the processing moved steadily and efficiently (even without the digital IDs I have been advocating). The purpose of the trip was to give a presentation about "The Future of the Internet" at the Fall 2004 IT Executive Conference of COMMON, A Users Group. COMMON is the world's largest community of IBM midrange computer users. The group provides information, education, and networking among users, IBM, and related third-party solution providers.

After my talk, the attendees of the Executive Conference broke up into four tables and discussed various things that I had presented. I rotated among the tables and then after a half hour, each table had their elected representative summarize the discussion and questions for everyone. I did my best to provide useful answers. The most asked questions were about instant messaging, css, blogging, authentication, and mobile devices. A lot of this is discussed in various parts of patrickWeb. The category index is here. I have summarized some of the answers I offered here.

Conferences October 23, 2004 06:01 PM

Sunday, September 12, 2004

DemoMobile 2004 - part 2

DemoMobile 2004 brought a laser focus to the area of mobile computing this week in La Jolla (near San Diego and pronounced La Hoya, in case you are not familiar with it) . As I mentioned in DemoMobile - part 1, there have been skeptics over the years about mobile computing. Some have wondered whether the wireless Web is for real while others wondered if the operators would get their act together and offer some valuable services beyond voice. DemoMoblie brought together nearly forty products and services poised to have a positive impact in the mobile arena in the year to come. The demonstrators were supplemented by speakers and panelists from numerous companies who shared their point of view. There were signs of the vision coming true.

Pete Kelly from Opera Software showed everybody he could how the Opera browser offered dazzling performance and fidelity on the Sony Ericsson P900. Verizon, Vodaphone, Sprint and SK (Korea) talked about their plans to roll out advanced high speed networks to support mobile devices of all kinds. Our Pictures, Inc. showed solutions to send pictures from a cell phone to your mom's TV set -- literally. Mirra demonstrated a home server that automatically backsup, synchronizes, and versions all the PC's in your home LAN. Aliph showed Jawbone, a headset that enables you to have a clear conversation from your mobile phone even if you are driving a car with the window down or standing next to somebody ten feet away who is using a weed whacker. Handmark showed a suite of applications that keeps your mobile phone up to date with news, weather, sports, stocks, and movie reviews. Yahoo, AOL, American Greetings, and Nokia Ventures discussed plans to make their content offerings relevant for mobile users. And on and on. It was a very exciting couple of days with technology executives, venture investors, journalists and analysts who had converged to preview, review, and discuss the many new ideas. As usual, the best part of the conference was the opportunity to network with many old and new friends.

Chris Shipley, executive producer for DemoMobile, kicked off the conference with a keynote talk about her view of where things are and where they are headed. This was followed by a number of talks, panels, and of course demos.

I enjoyed moderating two of the panels. There were a lot of comments from panelists about how important the operators/carriers are -- at times I got the feeling it was the operators/carriers who are the customer of the mobile industry. The question I wish I had asked the final panel was about who the real customer is and what they want. If you believe that eventually you and I and our friends, family and colleagues around the world will prevail and get what we want then it is clear as a bell to me what that will be. We (the real customers) want all the content and applications to be accessible in any standards-compliant browser, for standards-compliant browsers to work on any phone, and for any phone to work with any network operator. This is what open Internet standards are all about. The glass is half full, not half empty. The grass roots will prevail in the end.

The DemoMobile weblog has a lot of comments from DemoMobile attendees. You may also want to visit Conferenza.com where veteran writer extraordinaire Shel Israel made a full report. If you drop Shel a note I suspect he would be willing to send you a copy.

Other patrickWeb mobile-related stories
DemoMobile 2004 - part 1

Conferences, Mobile September 12, 2004 09:01 PM

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

PC Forum - Day 3

Desert PC Forum day 3 opened with a talk by Eric Johnson, Norman Eig Professor of Business, Columbia University School of Business called "Defaults have value(s): How Do People Really Behave on the Web?" His bottom line was that defaults have a huge impact on consumer behavior and he illustrated this point with many examples. He also showed studies revealing how the background image of a webpage has a big effect on consumer willingness to buy from that site.

The first panel was "Content: How Users Make it Their Own", moderated by Hank Barry, Partner, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. The panelists were Lisa Gansky, Chairman & President, Ofoto, and GM, Digital Imaging Services, Eastman Kodak, Rob Glaser, Chairman & CEO, RealNetworks, and Shane Robison, Executive VP & Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, Hewlett-Packard. There was a wide-ranging discussion about how users interact with content and even create content. Hank said that 44% of web users have actually created some of their own content on the web. Tools like TypePad are making this really easy to do. Updating a geocaching expedition log is another example of the idea of the "writeable web". There was a lot of discussion about the music business and changing distribution mechanisms and business models. (read more)

Conferences March 24, 2004 01:35 AM

Monday, March 22, 2004

PC Forum - Day 2

Desert PC Forum day 2 was one of the best in all the 12 years I have been attending. It started out with Esther interviewing with Eric Schmidt, Chairman & CEO, Google. He wouldn't talk about the rumored IPO but he was very bullish about the potential for Google. Eric then joined in on a panel, "From Player to Platform: The Context Makes the Connection",along with Jon Miller, Chairman & CEO, America Online and Dan Rosensweig, Chief Operating Officer, Yahoo!.

Dan said that Yahoo!'s goal is to give people what they want, when they want, how they want it, on whatever device they want. Jon said that in the past few months AOL has begun to feel they may be gaining in their war on spam even though they are seeing more than 2.5 billion spam emails daily. Dan said that more than 90% of the spam to Yahoo! users is caught. That means that the incredible amount of spam that people see is less than ten percent of what actually gets sent.

There was a lot of discussion about social networks such as Orkut and LinkedIn. I don't think these are for everyone but they clearly are part of the emerging social software models. I finally threw in the towel and joined LinkedIn. (read more)

Conferences March 22, 2004 08:13 PM

PC Forum - Day 1

Cactus PC Forum is one of the conferences I most enjoy because it always try to look at the big picture. Esther Dyson opened the conference by announcing that her company, Edventure Holdings, has been acquired by CNET (see full press release for details). The agenda this year is focused on looking at the world and the US political scene through the lens of IT. The opening day of the conference was about "Globalization".

The first panel was about worldwide economic development, free trade, and the impact of "off-shoring". Narayana Murthy, Chairman, Infosys Technologies (and one of the many good speakers/panelists at the conference) made a really good point that the various geographies of the world will ultimately see value in "coming together" and will begin to break down barriers. His proof point was how the European Union came together for that very reason. Louis Rosenthal, Executive VP, ABN AMRO Services Company was skeptical about this point and believs that in some cases the barriers have actually increased. He also expressed a view that much of the debate about "off-shoring" is political noise that will go away after the U.S. elections. The others on the panel viewed the issues as more fundamental. Off-shoring is missing the bigger point which is that the world is globalizing. Diana Farrell, Director, McKinsey Global Institute said "competition is at the heart of productivity". The bottom line was a view that globalization means new markets and new jobs as long as countries don't over-regulate. (read more)

Conferences March 22, 2004 01:43 AM

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Demo Pictures

Demo 2004 was an excellent conference -- I learned a lot and got to see many old and new friends. Ben and Mena Trott, from Six Apart Ltd. in San Mateo, California showed their newest Typepad tool for bloggers. It lets mobile bloggers -- "mobloggers" as they are called -- put their digital photos, along with audio and text, on their Web sites. (AP Photo by Roy Dabner).

Greg Reinacker of Newsgator (L) and I looked on as Doc Searles of Linux Journal showed us his blog on the big 17" laptop. Picture by Mitch Ratcliffe of RedHerring. There are also a couple of pictures from last year's Demo panel.

I am awaiting the FedEx truck to pull up with a delivery from Amazon. The Logitech Pro camera will enable me to try out Sightspeed.

Conferences February 19, 2004 01:06 PM

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Demo Synopsis

Demonstrator

I could have spent a week seeing the demos and especially meeting and talking with the many entrepreneurs at the conference. Some conferences have long speeches. Demo has six minute demos and then plenty of time to chat with the CEO and CTO and marketing exec of the companies. I can't begin to do justice to the innovative products and services that I saw but I hope the following provides a glimpse of what was going on at Demo. (read more)

Conferences February 17, 2004 09:16 PM

Demo Heaven

If you love technology, you have to love Demo. This year there were 58 companies on stage during the two day conference. Each demonstrator got six minutes to tell their story and show off their product. Here is a list of all the vendors with links to their sites. I didn't get to visit with all of them but I talked to quite a few. The following are some that I found particularly interesting. (read more)

Conferences February 17, 2004 04:35 PM

Sunday, February 15, 2004

Blogging Panel

The four Demo panelists and I are looking forward to our attempt tomorrow morning to reveal the big picture about blogging and where it is headed. In case you didn't see the preview, it is here. If you want to take a look at what the participants and moderator have been writing about lately, there are links to their blogs below. The companies of the four panelists have some really great products that are worth taking a look at if you don't already use them. I personally use something from each company. Movable Type is my primary tool for blogging. The product is excellent and so is the support. ActiveWords improves my productivity in blogging significantly. See story. I have not been a fan of Outlook but I must say that Outlook 2003 has some big improvements, especially in the ease and productivity of reading mail. Newsgator is a joy. It plugs into Outlook and makes reading blogs as easy as reading mail.

Here are links to the panelists blogs.

Mena Trott
Buzz Bruggerman
Robert Scoble
Greg Reinacker
John Patrick

Blogging, Conferences February 15, 2004 06:34 PM

Demo Travel Woes

Airplane Every year I travel to Demo with eager anticipation, but as we all know, travel is not always fun. One of the major improvements in travel is the ability to print out a boarding pass at home before heading for the airport. American Airlines has made a lot of progress with aa.com over the recent years and I am sure it has been difficult coping with the integration of numerous legacy systems. Unfortunately, I have written about airline woes before involving breakdowns in the American systems and last night I experienced yet another one. (read more)

Conferences, Travels February 15, 2004 06:24 PM

Friday, February 13, 2004

Demo Bikers

There will surely be a lot of very interesting technology at Demo 2004 next week. I One of these years I am going to ride my motorcycle out to Phoenix for the conference. Would sure be nice to be able to ride in warm weather. It actually got up to forty degrees in New England today and the sky was blue. I couldn't resist going for a ride so I put on the Widder electric chaps, gloves and vest, and headed out. It was very nice. Motorcycling in the winter is not a new experience this winter has been particularly challenging. A few weeks ago, the Harley-Davidson Fatboy hesitated in the six degree temperature even though it is fuel-injected but it does start fairly easily and runs very well in the cold. After returning home from the ride, the AWID tag on the front fork of the bike was detected and the proper garage door opened. Hoping to run into some fellow bikers and talk about gadgets at Demo. I am also looking forward to meeting the panelists for the blogging panel.

Conferences February 13, 2004 05:03 PM

Thursday, February 5, 2004

Heads Up -- Demo Coming

Personl Computer I am fortunate to attend many conferences each year. My all time favorite conference is Demo. Demo is recognized as the major event that "demos" the products and services poised to have the greatest impact on the technology landscape in the year to come. Every year, technology executives, venture investors, journalist and analysts converge at Demo to preview and discuss many new ideas. The best part of the conference is the opportunity to network with many old and new friends. Last year I participated on a panel at Demo to discuss WiFi. This year I will be moderating a panel on a subject very and near and dear to my heart -- blogging. (read more)

Conferences February 5, 2004 09:44 PM

Thursday, January 29, 2004

The Conference Circuit

Circuit board Attending conferences is a good way to renew acquaintances, meet new people, gain new perspectives, and collaborate on new ideas. Some conferences I attend to give a talk about "The Future Of The Internet" (40 talks in 2003) and some I attend just to listen. The January calendar has included four interesting conferences -- two in Atlanta and two in New York City. I met a lot of very interesting people but most special was to see and hear Brewster Kahle from The Internet Archive. He made everyone in the audience think. (read more)

Conferences January 29, 2004 03:28 PM

Thursday, January 8, 2004

January Flurry

There are snow flurries in the air and very cold conditions in New England. Hoping to get out for a motorcycle ride tomorrow though. As long as the roads are free of slippery materials, it is fun to ride in the winter. Meanwhile, the schedule for conferences of various kinds for the next 100 days is turning into a flurry also. Next week at the I/S Executive Roundtable Breakfast series hosted by Georgia State University in Atlanta, I expect to find a lively dialogue about the future of the Internet. The following week, back in Atlanta again, will be ATI 2004 conference which will focus on "trustworthy computing". Unfortunately, I will not be able to stay for the Friday morning keynote by Robert Liscouski, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection because of a board meeting back in Connecticut. (read more)

Conferences January 8, 2004 09:44 PM

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Information & Interaction at the Western CT Exchange

The Western CT Exchange is holding networking sessions which are designed to enable members and attendees to gain insight and share information with business professionals and executives from throughout the Western Conecticut region. Their next meeting will be December 4th at the Ridgefield Community Center. It will be a breakfast session from 7:45 - 9:45 am. I have been asked to give a keynote talk to kick off the session. Also speaking will be Kenn Devane, President of MineTech Data; Tim Cummins, Exec.Dir. of International Assoc. of Contract & Commercial Managers; Frank Ballatore, The New England Computer Group and; Bhavin Desai, Founder of Danbury-based AgileSolv. If you are interested, there is contact information at the Danbury News-Times Online.

Conferences November 26, 2003 12:43 PM

Monday, November 3, 2003

Remember When? - Part 2

It didn't seem possible, but the fortieth reunion for the Class of 1963 of Salem High School in Salem, New Jersey acutally happened. As promised in the prior story, I have used OCR scanning to capture the "Remember When" snippets that were part of the program bulletin. Nothing about WiFi or blogging but I hope some of the patrickWeb readers are old enough to enjoy reading this. Here is a sample. Remember when...

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
It took five minutes for the TV to warm up?
Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
Nobody owned a purebred dog?
When a quarter was a decent allowance?
You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
(read more)

Conferences, People November 3, 2003 05:05 PM

Sunday, October 26, 2003

Do You Remember When?

It doesn't seem possible, but this weekend marked the fortieth reunion for the Class of 1963 of Salem High School in Salem, New Jersey. It was really nice to see my former classmates and renew fond memories of our shared past. Salem is a rural area of southern New Jersey and the high school is small. Consensus was that our graduating class was approximately 130 students. The organizing committee sent out an information form and just 51 filled them out. They were then compiled into a nicely done program booklet. It was nostalgic and interesting to read the forms. (read more)

Conferences, People October 26, 2003 11:49 PM

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Friedman Billings Ramsey Technology and Growth Conference

It was a very interesting day at the FBR conference yesterday. At lunch just before my turn on stage, I had the privilege to sit with Manny Friedman (see his bio below). We share an optimism about the underlying strength of the market and of the technology industry. Manny gave a brief overview of how he sees things and netted out the basis of his optimism because of five fundamental sea changes. My talk was about the Future of the Internet. I tried to paint a picture of investment opportunity around the Next Generation of the Internet -- Fast, Always On, Everywhere, Natural, Intelligent, Easy, and Trusted. That is my story and I am sticking to it. (read more)

Conferences May 29, 2003 10:38 PM

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Technology & Growth Conference

Friedman, Billings, Ramsey (FBR) will be hosting their 7th annual Technology & Growth Investor Conference in midtown Manhattan May 28-29. Presenters include more than 120 leading companies in technology (display and semiconductor, enterprise platform and application software, enterprise services, media infrastructure, network software, specialty contracting, telecom equipment & services and wireless services) and healthcare (specialty pharmaceuticals and biotechnology). The conference will be held at the Millennium Hotel Broadway. More than 700 attendees are expected. I will be the luncheon speaker.

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Conferences May 27, 2003 06:17 PM

Monday, March 3, 2003

Vortex

VORTEX 2003: The New Leaders is coming up May 18-20 at The Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel Dana Point, California. I find conferences like this to be an excellent chance to connect with the people, markets, and technologies that are leading the next wave of growth in the information technology industry. Over the years I have gotten to know quite a few revolutionary thinkers, investors, researchers, and consultants who play a key role in the future of the technology business. The agenda for this year's Vortex conference is of particular interest to me because of what is going on with WiFi -- and I'll be speaking about it at the conference. There promises to be some other hot topics too. (read more)

Conferences March 3, 2003 01:41 PM

Thursday, February 20, 2003

Conference Update

The snow on the ground was was beautiful during the return flight from Phoenix to the East last night. Lifting it in a snow shovel today was not quite as nice an experience. Here are two additional links about the Demo 2003 conference...

IDG (the organizer) press releases
Press releases by companies who were at Demo

On Sunday I'll be heading to Dallas to speak at Share. (read more)

Conferences February 20, 2003 05:16 PM

Thursday, December 12, 2002

New School University

I'll be speaking on a panel tonight at New School University in Manhattan. The subject is whether there are any technologies that can help spark the economy. You can be sure I'll have some things to say about WiFi. The dot net evangelist from Microsoft will also be on the panel. Should be fun.

Conferences December 12, 2002 07:57 AM

Thursday, October 17, 2002

Le WiFi

The trip from Agenda 2003 in Phoenix to Paris for the IBM CIO conference was fifteen hours door to door. I can't say it was a fun trip but thankfully it was uneventful. The conference wss actually at Disneyland Paris which is in Marne La Vallee, an interesting place unto itself (with a really neat homepage) and also part of Paris. The CIO conference is something IBM has been doing since Lou Gerstner's arrival in 1993. I am sure that Lou will mention this in his new book because I know how much he has enjoyed CIO conferences. (read more)

Conferences, Travels, WiFi October 17, 2002 09:51 PM

Monday, October 14, 2002

Agenda 2003 - part 4

Very interesting afternoon with Dr. Richard Garwin, Eric Schmidt, Bill Gross, David Gelernter, et al. Then an evening with Michael Crichton. (read more)

Conferences October 14, 2002 08:08 PM

Agenda 2003 - part 3

Speakers this morning from RealNetworks, Microsoft, Intel, and others. (read more)

Conferences October 14, 2002 03:57 PM

Agenda 2003 - part 2

The reception and dinner were as expected -- meeting and chatting with many friends from years past. The first person I ran into was Sheldon Laube, chariman of Centerbeam, and friend for many years. A number of people from the press attend Agenda and after all these years I know most of them. (read more)

Conferences October 14, 2002 01:34 AM

Sunday, October 13, 2002

Agenda 2003

The Agenda 2003 conference is this week in Scottsdale, Arizona -- it will be the eleventh year I have attended. The speakers are usually good but the best part is seeing old friends and renewing acquaintances. I am heading to the dinner now and am looking forward to seeing many of them. I'll post more info here in the blog as the conference progresses.

Conferences October 13, 2002 08:56 PM

Sunday, December 2, 2001

People in the Know

On November 27 I was privileged to be able to give a talk at the Silicon Valley World Internet Center. They are the nicest people and they do a great job of creating community and serious business discussion around key Internet topics.

Most of the attendees are Bay area folks who are "in the know". Prior to the event the SVWIC posed a question -- "What will the Internet change for you or your company in 2002?"

Given that the attendees are so knowledgeable and live/breath this stuff, it is enlightening to see the range and depth of their responses.

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

CHALLENGE-THE-EXPERT

NET ATTITUDE
By MR. John Patrick
Vice President, Internet Technology, IBM Corporation

"From IBM's Internet Guru -- A Revolutionary Approach to Instilling a Web-savvy Culture Throughout Your Organization"

RESPONSES FROM AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS

On November 27, 2001, IBM's Vice President of Internet Technology, Mr. John Patrick, made a return visit to the Center this year to discuss with Silicon Valley executives and technologists the profound implications of adopting an Internet attitude and how it would transform businesses.

Prior to his talk and the interactive knowledge discussion where the audience participants challenged Mr. Patrick's premises, the participants were asked to answer the following question of which their responses are below:

"The Internet changes everything. What will the Internet change for you or your company in 2002?"

BUSINESS STRATEGY/MARKETING
Improved remote office capabilities.
New distribution channel, revenue stream.
Collapse of demand from first wave has caused disillusionment in future investments.
It is the end of big companies.
New market approach.
Fewer banner ads; fewer subscription-based services; more transactional tracking.
Expect the Internet to expand in terms of more and more companies having a Web presence, thus providing more sales opportunities.
Exposure to more people and information.
A Web presence is an important marketing and sales tool for my new company.
New market approach.
A "true" push to eCommerce and a new career.
Stronger market.
Internet infrastructure supporting mobile communication will enable our Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)- based calling applications to be deployed.
Greatly influence our investment decisions.
Big question! The Internet will be the integral part of how we do business as a company and how we communicate with our users.
As a service provider, the expanding Internet will provide us with a growing market.
It really builds a strong service industry as companies move from fat products to customized services
(Web services).
It will allow me to have my offices anywhere I want them.
All GUIs go then; intranets, xtranets become more important, hence, move money; Web services - not yet, but let's all pay homage.
It will impact my entire consulting portfolio as a management consultant/business strategist.
What is the single largest hurdle to deploying mobile commerce solutions? And how do you envision it being overcome?

GLOBALIZATION AS A SUBSET OF BUSINESS STRATEGY/MARKETING
The Internet will allow my company to cost-effectively do business all around the world while at the same time overcoming previous inefficiency problems.
Enable a consultant like me to manage projects remotely in Asia and Europe from here.
It will allow me to expand my customer base beyond the U.S..
Business globalization.
Give local branches a global presence.
The Internet enables our firm to act globally and communicate with clients and strategic partners easily.
The Internet will change the ability of our company to market itself globally and bring together groups in a collaborative community.
Globalization of innovation and opportunities.
It will tie together every product and service across our global enterprise.
When will U.S. companies start realizing the Net gives them immediate access to the global market place and strategize accordingly?

COMMUNICATIONS
Communicating rapidly in business and personal lives.
Access to information.
Accessibility of information and greater coordination of activities and communication of uses of that information.
Continually improve ability to connect to information and people.
Knowledge will be distilled from information.
The way we share information and collaborate.

COMPETITIVENESS
Provide more selection, but overall, force more competitiveness.
The Internet will enable very fine-grained competition and innovation arising from core competencies rather than control of markets.
Change the economy back to somewhere near pre-March 2001 . . .$$$.
It will bring a new type of revenues.
It will bring greater profit. "Realsoft ISP"
Under deliver on experience; cause sufficient confusion to fuel consulting projects.

CUSTOMER SERVICE/CRM
It will most likely change my travel schedule. I will need to add several thousand more air miles to see all the new constituents.
The Internet will connect my business with customers.
The Internet will allow us to keep in continuous contact with our customers.
It will bring new types of services.
Faster feedback regarding customer interests and buying patterns.
Allows companies to analyze customers' and markets' needs and make recommendations to develop business.

EFFICIENCIES/COST-EFFECTIVENESS/PRODUCTIVITY
Well, we've just got to pay for it! $$$
It will make my primary market research more cost-effective - Web-based surveys via email; Web-based virtual focus groups.
The Internet will allow our company to become more efficient through mobile and wireless services.
Streamlines business processes.
The Internet will improve the speed to perform our tasks, distribution and collaboration.
Faster and easier.
More bandwidth; more multi-media, wireless related; social and community interactions; more efficient data mining.
It will let us implement tele-medicine very economically.
More, faster, deeper meaning and increasing content confusion.
Company direction and focus towards integrating technology.
Increase my business.
Operational efficiency.
Combination of mobility and Internet will fully deliver productivity.

LIFESTYLE/COMMUNITY
It will continue to break down the walls between work life and personal life as more instant chat becomes part of a day. Community of affiliation connected all day.
Allow me to learn more easily.
A more rational balance between commercial and non-commercial endeavors.
Web services will create new Internet economy in 2002, I hope!
Increase the time I spend in front of my computer reading news, doing investment, paying bills, shopping, communicating . For my company, not many changes are expected, because business needs to digest technology.
The Internet in 2002 will only change my personal life significantly if broadband finally arrives in a uniform fashion to American homes.
A big understatement.
Everything!
The crystal ball is cloudy; time will tell.
Yes.
Customer entertainment and information in cars.
I won't really know until 2003!
Nothing.

LOGISTICS/SCM
The way we do business; the way we get paid; the type of business we will be; the way we pay suppliers.

SECURITY/PRIVACY
Need for more robust security to safeguard against viruses and terrorism.
Privacy: Addressing our customers' data-handling concerns.
Interconnectedness and increased complexity driven by the Internet will only increase the need to address security and its management.

Programs at the Center, including Challenge-the-Experts, are possible due to the support of its Sponsors:

Amdocs
Cable & Wireless
Deutsche Telekom
Fujitsu
IBM
SAP
Sun Microsystems

For further information on Center program proceedings, please contact:

Ms. Susan Barich
Director of Communications
Silicon Valley World Internet Center
E: barich@worldinternetcenter.com

Conferences December 2, 2001 10:57 PM

Thursday, August 30, 2001

Getting back to business

Monday September 24 was my first day in New York City since the tragic Attack on American. Driving (from Connecticut) down the West Side Highway and not seeing the familiar twin towers produced a very uncomfortable feeling and my heart filled with sadness for those who were lost there. Heading across town to the Hilton Hotel took a long time -- traffic was extremely heavy. I can't say I am an expert in what is "normal" in midtown but there was definitely a lot of activity. My purpose to be in town was to give a speech at the LegalTech Conference. More than 800 people registered for the conference after September 11 so perhaps the attendees were mostly those who did not have to travel. There were many booths showing off technology for the legal industry. You didin't hear much laughter and the normal "buzz" of an industry conference but I think most were happy to be getting back to business.

Conferences August 30, 2001 05:09 PM