The deceptive seduction of Big Data

Everyone wants to dance with Big Data. We are in love with its velocity, volume, and variability. It is an exciting partner that hypnotizes us with the allure of all of its possibilities. The market lavishes money on it and everyone wants to say they know it. The reality is a little more mundane. Often, […]

The anti-social Web is dead. Long live the anti-social Web.

Like many things left too long in the hands of clever humans, social media has become corrupted. But at just the moment it appeared that greed and automation might do permanent damage, there’s change afoot. You saw it in hue and cry over Twitter’s API’s (the way third parties access the site), in the rise […]

The power You wield

It is impossible to miss. Over the past few decades, all the things that help one become professionally more efficient, more effective, have dramatically changed. From infrastructure to transport to communication to technology, things have only improved. Each of these today has altered our immediate professional context, opening the door to endless ways to be […]

Playing it social media safe

We had an excellent conference in Las Vegas last week. We watched great presenters talk about cutting edge ideas and thousands of conversations took place across industries and technologies. And last night was the big party. A few thousand people having a great time at a Las Vegas night club. Of course, it was a […]

Sir, you’ll need to prove to me that you’re dead

The following is a guest post by Dave Chamberlain. Dave has over 30 years of experience in all aspects of software including marketing, business development and creating and fostering business partnerships. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Life Insurance is a complex and highly regulated business. The basic premise is simple: You pay in while alive, […]

How I beat Las Vegas (but shouldn’t have)

I left Las Vegas yesterday afternoon after five days in town for TUCON 2012 and drove back to Los Angeles where I live. The evening sky was amazing and the desert was gorgeous from the luxury of my air-conditioned car. It didn’t hurt my mood to know that I didn’t gamble a single dime. I […]

Vulnerability, shame, courage, fear and storytelling

On Monday night, Brene Brown spoke at my daughter’s school in front of about 300 parents, faculty & staff. I was so excited going into the evening… I’m gonna have a chance to hear her speak live, plus I’d be able to meet her in person. Her talk was awesome. It was all about vulnerability, shame, […]

How Marketing can lead process improvement

To keep their companies in shape, managers must explain to employees what customers experience and expect. The head of marketing is typically charged with gathering market research on customers and their expectations. Most heads of marketing that I’ve seen gather “voice of the customer” research for product design decisions, but they don’t do enough to […]

Big Data is watching a million fireflies

I watched Mercy Health’s John Conroy talk today about how they manage one of the most deadly issues facing hospitals right now: Sepsis. It is a systemic infection that isn’t the reason the patient entered the hospital. He described what they do as standing in a field in the summertime at dusk and seeing flashes of […]

The social business equation

There’s a lot of chatter (pun) about Salesforce, Dreamforce and Benioff’s vision of the ‘connected enterprise’. Most of the themes emerging which have been discussed before are how trust will drive the new social economy. An interesting article from Ray at Constellation states that there are 5 simple rules for the social/ connected enterprise: Trust is the […]

Day 2 of TUCON 2012 even better than Day 1

The following is a writeup of TIBCO’s TUCON 2012. Follow the event at #TUCON2012. While we’re not usually so ‘TIBCO’, there was a great deal of really interesting information shared that we thought you would enjoy. Day Two of TUCON 2012 continued to be a showcase of the technology that responds to the conference theme, […]

From the Himalayas to the Hilton

What we take for granted with mobile technology is remarkable. While we’re busy checking sports scores and posting to Instagram (something Ben Zoldan deplores), the developing world sees mobile devices as a way to find freedom and life-saving medical care. Yes, mobility is much more than cell phones. I get that. The point is that […]

The awful truth: Mobility disconnects us

I had a call this week with a senior executive at Aetna, who reached out to me, and wanted to learn about my business.  From the start, the conversation felt weird; almost hollow, like this person I was supposed to get to know wasn’t even there. I heard typing on her laptop when she was […]

Everything really IS different at #TUCON2012

TIBCO’s TUCON 2012 kicked off this morning with the theme, “Everything is Different.” From the start, the areas of Digital Customer Experience Management, Big Data, Social and Consumerization took center stage, beginning with the opening address by TIBCO CEO Vivek Ranadive. Vivek talked about how to make the worst of times into the best of […]

Who wants to be a Mobillionaire ?

The analysts are all pinning their research badges on the Big 4. Not the consultancy outfits but the four trends that are supposed to disrupt the fabric of business and enterprise for the next few years: Cloud, Big Data, Mobile, Social. So today I’m going to play Who Wants to be a Mobillionaire and go 50/50 […]

Mobility doesn’t change the basic facts

It doesn’t matter what drives it, organizations will want to try and leverage organizational structure for productivity gain. There is no doubt that the workforce is more mobile today and they are using mobile technologies to get work done. This opens the door to infinitely more organizational structure options. This can, in turn, lead to […]