Spectacular High-Res Image of Earth

The iPhone 4S takes great pictures, but nothing like this spectacular high-hes image of Earth. NASA Goddard oceanographer Norman Kuring gathered images from six different orbits of the satellite over an eight hour period last month. He stitched the six photos together to create the final masterpiece. I suspect it will be famous. The images were taken by a new instrument aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) Earth observing research satellite called the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). It collects and distributes remotely-sensed land, ocean, and atmospheric data to the meteorological and global climate change communities. Among the data collected are atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, humidity sounding, land and ocean biological productivity, and cloud and aerosol properties.  As for those four vertical lines: that’s the reflection of sunlight off the ocean, or “glint”, that VIIRS captured as it orbited the globe. See Spectacular High-Res Image of Earth: The Other Side | Wired Science | Wired.com for the full story.

Tags: earth, nasa, NPP, photograph, satellite, space, suomi, virs

Aviation Rekindled

My interest in aviation began when I was stationed at MacDill Air Force base in 1970. My private pilot license was issued 1/15/1971, a mere forty years ago. A commerical license followed in 1976 and then an instrument rating in 1977. After moving to Connecticut in 1981, the flying days were over. The topic of aviation was rekindled by Nick Nash, a summer intern at IBM shortly after we had formed the Internet Division of the company 15 years ago. Nick went on to get a degree, magna cum laude, at Harvard. He is now a Vice President at General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm. Nick was an excellent communicator and he asked me one day if he could do an interview on the subject of aviation. Nick titled the interview “I really prefer having an engine!”

Ten years later, I got very interested in aviation once again when the Elipse 500 was announced. The Eclipse was the first of a new class of aircraft called the Very Light Jet (VLJ). With a number of breakthroughs in aviation technology, the Eclipse promised to offer a dramatically more affordable business model for jet aircraft. The small six-seat business jet is powered by two lightweight Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F turbofan engines. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt in 2008. A new company was formed recently and they are building a new version of the aircraft, to be called the Eclipse 550, with planned deliveries in 2013.

Another VLJ was announced in 2006 — the Embraer Phenom 100 — developed by Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer. The Phenom was much more appealing than the Eclipse — significantly more space, larger windows, and great performance. My partners at Executive Jet Partners LLC (EJP) and I ordered a Phenom in 2006 and just over three year later, I went to Brazil to bring it back to Connecticut. It was quite an adventure. See the full story here.

EJP is a private company owned by three retired executives in Connecticut who have a love of aviation.  Two of the three are private pilots and all three love to fly.  EJP took ownership of the Embraer Phenom 100 executive jet in October 2009.  The Phenom has six seats – two for the pilots and four for passengers. It is certified by the FAA for single-pilot operation, but most passengers are more comfortable with two pilots up front. It can fly 1,365 miles non-stop at 41,000 feet altitude at an airspeed of  435 mph. Like many aircraft owners, EJP makes the Phenom available for charter when the partners are not using it. We hope to make a business out of aviation charter. To make that happen requires a good partner who is an expert in managing aircraft. Enter Corporate Flight Management (CFM). CFM is a private Smyrna, Tennessee company that manages aircraft; provides marketing, dispatch, and scheduling; coordinates maintenance; and provides pilot services. (See the CFM blogs for some interesting aviation commentary). CFM pilots are experienced professionals and are trained and certified in the aircraft that they fly. CFM has a division based in Danbury, Connecticut and currently has seven airplanes in their fleet, two of which are Phenom 100s. See the entire CFM fleet here.

Chartering a private aircraft is not inexpensive, but it is incredibly convenient.  When sharing the cost among multiple passengers, the cost approaches first class airfare.  One of the many advantages of private aviation is that the aircraft can take off and land at thousands of airports not serviced by the airlines.  For example, if you have a business or a personal reason to go from Danbury, Connecticut to Springfield, Illinois, there are no direct flights. A connecting flight through O’hare in Chicago departs Laguardia at 6 AM and gets into Springfield at 9:18.  If you live in Danbury, you would have to leave home at 3:30 AM. The available return flights take four hours or more. One flight leaves at 12:15 PM (which leaves you about an hour for your visit) or at 6:20 PM, arriving into Laguardia at midnight and getting home almost 24 hours from when you got up. A charter flight can depart directly from Danbury at 7:15 AM and arrive in Springfiled at 9:15 AM. You can arrive at the Danbury Airport at 7:05 and be in the air at 7:15 AM. You can take whatever baggage you want and use your laptop from takeoff to landing. Without even mentioning amenities, the best part is the return flight. It would be scheduled whenever you choose to depart. You can bring as much baggage as you want and be productive for your entire flight. The cost would be significantly higher than a commercial flight, but the convenience is incomparable.

Charter is not for everyone. It is incredibly convenient albeit very expensive. But if you want to splurge for that special vacation in Florida, Canada, or the Bahamas, or if you have a business trip where productivity and your time are valuable, then charter is worth considering. When it comes to passengers on a charter, you can have the plane to yourself, or bring three to seven others (depending on what kind of plane you charter) with you at no additional cost — you charter an airplane, not a seat. An interesting approach to sharing is at Social Flights – a startup company that is using the power of the Internet to enable like-minded travelers to find each other and share the cost of a charter. If you have questions about a charter or want to get a no-charge quote for a flight, contact CFM  at 615-220-1761, or e-mail them at charter.dispatchers@flycfm.com. If you just want to chat further about any of this, feel free to contact me at john@executivejetpartners.com.

Tags: Aviation, brazil, charter, embraer, flying, phenom

Travel Woes

There are quite a few stories here in patrickWeb about my travel woes (see travel category). There are many things people complain about including security, paying to check bags, late departures and arrivals, and grumpy service. My report from this past week is much more sanguine. I left Connecticut last Saturday for Dublin, Ohio to attend a board meeting at OCLC. On Sunday night, it was down to Orlando, FLorida to give a keynote speech at the opening of Data Center World. That afternoon took me to Minneapolis, Minnesota and then on to San Jose, California for the Demo conference and finally on Wednesday from San Jose to Salt Lake City, Utah to JFK in New York, and on home to Connecticut.

I have more than a million miles with Delta, but I am sure the attendants I encountered did not know that. Service was friendly and efficient. Things are more spartan that in the past, but they seem to have the processes working pretty well. All the flights were on time. They were all full also, which bodes well for them from a business perspective. The web site has come a long long way from the early days. It is easy to checkin from home or a hotel and they are exploiting the quick response (QR) code for use on your mobile phone for checkin. Nice to not have to have scrunched up boarding passes in your pocket. More on QR codes another time. They are becoming ubiquitous. That is mine there on the left. You can scan it with an iPhone app.

The next big thing for aviation is the FAA plan for NextGen. NextGen is a comprehensive overhaul of our National Airspace System to make air travel more convenient, dependable, safe, secure and hassle-free. The heart of NextGen is replacing radar tracking with GPS that can guide and track air traffic more precisely and efficiently to save fuel (more than a billion gallons over the next seven years), reduce noise and pollution, more predictability, fewer delays, less time sitting on the ground and holding in the air, and more flexibility to get around weather problems. The only thing standing in the way is–you guessed it–congress. There doesn’t seem to be much they can agree on.

Tags: delta airlines, faa, national airspce system, nextgen, qr, quick response code, travel

IBM at 100 – A Day of Nostalgia and Optimism

I was not exactly sure what to expect when I arrived at the world famous T. J. Watson Research Center at IBM last week. I have been there many times over the years but never to a birthday party. I walked in to the arrival tent where light refreshments were being served and the crowd of 350 invited guests began to build. One of the first people I saw was Allen Krowe. Allen had been CFO of IBM and then Vice Chairman of Texaco. I was his assistant back in 1981. I remember the day that he turned 50 years old and thinking that was very advanced. That was 30 years ago and NOW I am 15 years older than he was then. Then I saw Spike Beitzel. Spike had been a sales manager in Philadelphia for IBM’s insurance industry customers, the same position that I held some years later. Spike is a pilot, as was Allen, and many other senior IBM executives, including Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Spike is 83 and still flies his own airplane. It was nice to talk about aviation. It was a privilege to say hello to three IBM CEOs — John Akers, Lou Gerstner, and Sam Palmisano. There were four current and former heads of IBM Research there. One of them was Ralph Gomory. I am not sure how old Ralph is but he got his PhD in mathematics from Princeton in 1954. Whenb he retired from IBM in 1989 he became president of the Sloan Foundation. The pattern became clear — this was not just a birthday party for IBM; it was an alumni reunion for executives that worked for IBM over the past fifty years. Then I ran into the former heads of IBM Japn, IBM China, IBM Italy, IBM Brazil, and various other parts of IBM from around the world. Former Chairman Thomas J. Watson, Jr., said in 1957 that IBM “is a company of human beings, not machines; personalities, not products; people, not real estate.” That observation was true long before 1957 — and it remains so today. Although every IBMer makes a difference, there is a list of IBM Builders that were the pioneers who helped to fashion the IBM of the 21st century. Most of them were were among those in the tent; it was humbling to be in their midst and a thrill to shake their hands. Everyone had a smile on their face. It was a happy and nostalgic day that none of us will ever forget.

The main event took place in a really big tent. There were 2,000 members of IBM Research in attendance. During the opening ceremonies Sam Palmisano asked the thirty members of the Watson family in attendance to stand; everyone appreciated the heritage of the company. The family must have been proud to hear about Watson, the advanced Q&A system that triumphed at Jeopardy, and will surely change the way medicine is practiced as it transforms anecdotal medicine to personalized, evidence-based medicine. The program included some excellent videos about the past, present, and future of IBM. Senior VP Jon Iwata interviewed three journalists, Kevin Maney, Steve Hamm and Jeffrey O’Brien about the research they had done to write their new book about IBM called Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company. I have known Kevin for quite a few years. When he quoted someone in his columns at USA Today, you always knew that he would not use information out of context. Steve Hamm wrote the story about my home when he was at BusinessWeek. He now works for IBM. It was an alumni event with journalists too! Another panel with Senior VP John Kelly focused on IBM research efforts around the world, in particular about IBM’s advanced work on environmental and healthcare initiatives. Sam and senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy Ginni Rometty painted a rosy picture of IBM’s future.  IBM also cares about the future of others. As part of its Celebration of Service, 300,000 IBMers around the world — nearly three quarters of its global workforce — volunteeried in more than 5,000 projects in 120 countries, helping millions in need. Since the beginning of the year, IBMers, retirees and their families have donated more than 2.5 million hours of service to communities worldwide. A lot of conofidence was exuded that another 100 years of innovation and growth are underway.

Tags: akers, Aviation, beitzel, evidence based medicine, gerstner, gomory, Healthcare, IBM, IBM Research, kevin maney, krowe, palmisano, personalized medicine, research, rometty, steve hamm, supercomputing, watson, yorktown

Social Flights

I expressed some skepticism about the LinkedIn business model in my posting of April 22, but there were not many doubters today as the IPO took off for the stratosphere. There were many private jets taking off today too, and a new startup in Smyrna, TN hopes to make such flights much more affordable. Although a private jet charter is incredibly convenient, it is not affordable for most people. If there were friends or family who were going along for the flight, however, the per person cost could become much more affordable. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to organize a flight for a dispersed group of people. Enter Social Flights. With more and more of the population using some form of social networking, getting people organized to share the cost of a private jet charter could become much easier. That is exactly what Social Flights is making possible. Suppose you live in Connecticut and you want to attend a USF football game in  Tampa, Florida. Is it possible that there are other alumni of USF that live within the NY-NJ-CT metropolitan area? Very likely. Do you know who they are and their email addresses? Very unlikely. Might these fellow alums be users of Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn? Good chance. Social Flights becomes the gearbox that connects you, your fellow alums, and Corporate Flight Management (CFM), a jet charter operator based in Tennessee but with a half-dozen airplanes in Connecticut.  CFM can provide competitive quotes for use of a private jet that is owned by others, but made available for charter when not being used by the owner. You and your soon to be alumni-friends may end up geting very spoiled in a private jet for $1,000 each. The cost will never meet a Jetblue discount ticket, but for the convenience of being able to step on the plane and be in the air ten minutes later, the premium may be easy to justify. CFM jets use professional pilots and have safety insprections that equal what the best airlines can offer.

What Social Flights is doing is what all busineses will eventually do — making social networking an integral part of business planning and operations. I view social networks as a natural evolution of the Internet. The Internet is the basic communications infrastructure that enables every computer in the world to be connected to every other computer in the world. Sitting on top of the Internet is an application called the World Wide Web that provides application services such as email, electronic banking, and e-commerce. On top of the Web is a new layer of functionality called social networking — or the social Web. The social Web enables services such as instant messaging, tweeting, crowd-sourcing, collaboration, and widespread sharing of information. The social Web is people driven, not company driven. It is grass-roots people-power that provides product reviews; medical experiences and doctor referrals; book, restaurant, and wine recommendations; and, of course, travel planning for alums who want to charter a private jet to go to a football game, or business people who want to go to a conference. Finding a way to fill empty seats on private jets has been a dream for many years. By leveraging the social Web, Social Flights may have found the key to making it happen. I suspect we will be hearing a lot more about Social Flights. The Fast Company story and New York Times blog posting have said some positive things already.

Tags: Aviation, CFM, charter aviation, charter jet, Corporate Flight Management, facebook, internet, jet charter, linkedin, private jet, social flights, social media, social networking, twitter, World Wide Web

Management of Change

The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia

It would have been a beautiful sight to see the mountain ridges and terrain in Virgainia but the flight into Inalls Field was on a dreary, cloudy, drizzling evening. The runway was 5,600 feet long but it was also 4,000 feet above sea level; the thinner air making it effectively quite a bit shorter. A short van ride through the winding mountain ridge roads brough us to The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia to the Management of Change Conference 2011.

The American Council for Technology (ACT) – Industry Advisory Council (IAC) is a non-profit, public-private partnership dedicated to improving government through the application of information technology.  ACT-IAC provides an objective, ethical and trusted forum where government and industry  exchange information and collaborate on technology issues in the public sector.  It was a privilege for me to be the opening speaker prior to the participants spending several days of intense discussions and collaboration. I talked about the future of the Internet and how healthcare is being positively impacted by the evolution of the Internet. My slides (presented using Keynote from the iPad2) can be found in the presentations section of patrickWeb. The flight back was clear and smooth at 38,000 feet but the descent into Westchester County Airport took us all the way down to decision height before we could see any lights.

Tags: CIO, decision height, Healthcare, healthcare it, homestead, hot springs, Internet Technology, ipad, IT, westchester county airport

The Checklist Manifesto

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had met Dr. Gawande in New York a week or so ago and was quite impressed with his talk about “How To Live When You Have To Die“. The ChecklistManifesto is an easy read because the recommendations are practical and understandable. Dr. Gawande uses examples from medicine and aviation to make the point about how easy it is for people to forget things that can jeopardize the lives of others.

Being a pilot, I already appreciated the importance of checklists. When learning to fly, the checklist is fundamental. You learn to use it all the time, no matter how much experience you have. The book is replete with examples of how things went wrong in a medical setting when a simple step was skipped due to the frenetic pace of the operating room and possible distractions and interruptions.

No one likes to talk about the error rate in surgery, but suffice it to say that the numbers are non-trivial. Thousands of people are harmed in some way. Dr. Gawande believes that simple checklists can dramatically change the numbers. He cites studies where this is proven. His focus and enthusiasm for patient safety is having a positive impact around the world. I look forward to reading his two other books: Complications and Better.

Tags: Aviation, checklist, surgery

Kindle Sales Defy iPad

PC World Magazine says “Amazon Kindle Sales Defy IPad by Rising Each Month in Q2“.  This does not come as a surprise for a number of reasons. One is that the Kindle is a great product that is highly intuitive and easy to use. People get addicted to it and they tell their friends and family about it. I have been wanting to read Michael Lewis’s The Big Short but it was not available until recently on the Kindle. I waited. Great book, by the way. I know people who told me a few years ago that they had no interest in the Kindle but now are addicted. It was a popular gift item last holiday season and with the price reduced (again) it has become attractive to a much larger audience. Another factor is that the iPad is not the Kindle killer that some had thought. As described here a number of times, the iPad is great but not for for long periods and not for reading outdoors. Summer reading is the sweet spot for the Kindle.

Now we have the new Kindle DX.  The “old” Kindle DX was already quite nice.  We have been using it as an “electronic flight bag” for roughly 15,000 approach and airport charts. The Kindle reduces clutter in the cockpit but the iPad does a better job as an EFB since it has numerous aviation applications that enable pilots to calculate weight and balance, get the latest weather, and file flight plans directly with the FAA. Now that we have the iPad the DX can revert to the original reason we got it — reading newspapers and magazines. The DX is great for books too but the smaller Kindle is more comfortable to hold. The sweetspot for the DX is magazines, newspapers, and documents. Putting the DX on a stand and flipping through the Sunday paper is a treat. And now with the new DX it will be even better.

The new 9.7″ diagonal, high contrast e-ink screen has 50% better contrast than it’s predecessor. The Kindle DX display looks and reads like real paper, with no glare. With the free 3G wireless (no monthly payments and no contract) and the lower price, the DX is going to be a good choice for many people. Battery life is great too — read for up to 1 week on a single charge; turn wireless off and read for up to two weeks. The built-in PDF Reader has enhanced zoom capability to easily view small print and detailed tables or graphics. For professionals who have thousands of documents it will be a natural.

There will be a lot of competition for tablets and e-readers but from what I have seen so far the iPad and the Kindle, and the Kindle DX are the best. I love my iPad but for reading books the Kindle is better. I especially like being able to go back and forth between the iPhone 4, the Kindle, the Kindle DX, and the Kindle e-reader on the iPad and always have the bookmark synced to where I last was reading. As for newspapers and magazines the next move needs to be from the publishers who seem frozen with indecision. They want to charge a lot of money for their content but most of us don’t want to pay. Why pay for a New York Times app on the iPad when you can read the New York Times blogs on Pulse for free? As for magazines there is great potential for electronic versions but I don’t think people will pay the $4.99 for each new issue that Time and Wired are charging. I expect a lot of news about the news in the months ahead.

Tags: approach plates, Aviation, documents, dx, e-book, e-ink, e-reader, efb, flight charts, ipad, Kindle, kindle dx, magazines, New York Times, newspapers, pdf, time magazine, wired

IBM Happenings: March – April 2010

The months of March and April were busy ones at IBM with the usual flurry of announcements in hardware, software, services, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. See the list of the current press releases and also an index for prior months here. The major focus of the company remains on a “smarter planet” and the dimensions of this thrust continue to expand. An area of personal interest to me is aviation so I was pleased to learn about a joint project between IBM and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) working on a Research and Development project to protect the nation’s civilian aviation system from the ever-growing threat of cyber attacks.

Faa.gov is the official website for the Federal Aviation Administration. The site deals with many vital aviation topics including flights, airports, policies, news and events affecting aviation, pilot resources, weather, a wealth of safety information, regulations and guidelines, air traffic data, research, licenses and certificates, training and testing, alerts about specific airports, and medical and aircraft certification. The site has approximately a half-million monthly visitors who view an average of two million web pages. Needless to say faa.gov is a vital national resource. It is also a potential target for those who would like to harm it.

The joint project is part of IBM’s First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) program which engages scientists from IBM Research with clients to explore and pilot emerging technologies that address real world problems. In the case of faa.gov the IBM researchers and cyber security experts will design and build a prototype security system capable to accommodate the FAA’s high-speed networks. Building on IBM’s vast experience with analytics, the project will introduce first-of-a-kind security technologies and entirely new approaches to protecting large digital and physical infrastructures from hacking, botnets, malware and other forms of cyber attacks.

The prototype system will go beyond traditional security approaches of encryption, firewalls, intrusion-detection devices and anti-virus software. A flexible model is being designed to look retrospectively at event occurrences and system compromises. It will be able to correlate historical traffic patterns with dynamic data from monitors, sensors and other devices which capture information about network traffic and user activity in real time. Using “streaming analytics” and customized executive-level dashboards, the system will enable the FAA to continually analyze the massive amounts of data flowing through its networks and get instant and accurate insights about possible network threats and anomalies suggesting a possible attack in time to take action. The FAA will also be able to store real-time results in a data warehouse for later analysis and training.

“Cyber attacks have become a global pandemic and no system is immune,” said Todd Ramsey, general manager for IBM’s government business. “Through this collaboration with the FAA, as well as others underway in government and the private sector, we hope to develop comprehensive solutions for protecting the digital and physical infrastructures of critical national networks and enterprise systems.” IBM has also established the IBM Institute for Advanced Security in Washington, D.C., to help government agencies and other institutions gain access to tools, resources and expertise to address cyber security issues.

Complete index of IBM Happenings for 2004-2010

Tags: analytics, Aviation, cyber attack, faa, IBM, IBM Research

Electrical Energy

The Lehigh Unniversity Engineering Advisory Board meets a few times per year and at least one of the meetings focuses on a strategic issue opportunity. The meeting held  earlier this month was held in  Washington, D.C. and focused on U.S. electrical energy generation,
transmission, distribution, storage, and consumption. One of the EAB members is Judy Marks who is an executive at Lockheed Martin and she was kind enough to have her company host our meeting. On arrival night we were fortunate to hear a short lecture on the future of fighter jet aircraft at the Lockheed Fighter Jet Demonstration Center in Arlington. Even better was that each of us got to spend some time in F-22 and F-35 flight simulators. 

The Lockheed Martin (with partner Boeing) F-22 Raptor is a single seat, twin-engine fifth-generation fighter aircraft that uses stealth technology. The simulator was dumbed down and many of the questions that EAB members asked of the fighter pilot who assisted us were appropriately sprinkled with “unclassified” answers. Even the unclassified specifications were mind-numbing. As a pilot I know a little bit about aviation but not much about military jets. The flying experience in the simulators was incredible. Pull back the stick and the F-22 goes up — straight up if you tell it to. At a cost of $143 million each it should be spectacular!

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is also a fifth-generation, single-seat, single-engine stealth fighter but additionally is “multi-role” — it can perform close air support, tactical bombing, and air defense missions. I flew in the simulator for the short take off and vertical-landing variant of the plane. In addition to the amazing flying capabilities it can land on an aircraft carrier vertically. As I was bringing it down, it adjusted itself to land right next to another F-35 that was on the carrier deck. The F-35 is intended to become a Joint Strike Fighter and deployed by numerous countries around the world. At a mere $83 million each it is much more affordable than the F-22! 

The meeting turned serious first thing in the morning — a deep dive by the Engineering Advisory Board along with leading experts from government, industry, and Lehigh faculty researchers in energy, advanced materials, and systems research.  The goals were to assess future needs in integrated energy systems, evaluate technical and intellectual niches at Lehigh relevant to these needs, and envision a bold developmental roadmap toward a world-class energy systems  research center. Lehigh has a lot of depth in key areas that are fundamental to energy systems and the brainstorming at this meeting was designed to trigger ideas to leverage the available  skills. When I was an electrical engineering student 40+ years ago there were two curricula options — power systems or electronics. The latter had a bit more glamour for many. Energy (power) systems may take the baton.