CIO: take a lesson from Speedy Gonzalez

Do you remember Speedy Gonzalez, “The fastest mouse in all Mexico?” He never lost to his nemesis, Sylvester, known south of the border as El Gringo Pussygato.  He was hero to his mouse compatriots because he was smarter and faster than the competition guarding the cheese factory. If Sylvester wasn’t tricked into consuming large amounts of […]

One man’s trash is another man’s big data

In 2012 the Senseable City Lab, part of MIT, conducted an experiment called Trash Track to see just what happens when someone takes out the trash. By attaching transmitters to over 3,000 pieces of rubbish they were able to track where that item went, whether they went to the correct recycling facility or not, and how far […]

Leveraging Silicon Valley — from wherever you are

In business, volatility used to be more limited to the realms of finance and high tech. But as the tech wave has continued to sweep the globe, the environment for all organizations, including non-tech ones, has shifted from stability and predictability to rapid, unpredictable change. Innovations like Amazon price checks, or changes to healthcare or […]

Snowden told us things we should have already known

Snowden’s stories of a far-reaching NSA shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone working with Big Data. We’re entering a new age and the technology and techniques of the past won’t hold up. Just reading the headlines is all the evidence we need. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone was being monitored by […]

New ways to architect for the Internet of Things

In a previous post, Preparing for the internet of things, extreme scalability, real-time event handling, and time-to-insight were given as the three biggest challenges for Big Data and the Internet of Things. These are challenges that can be addressed now if companies are ready to invest and be proactive about what’s surely coming in the next […]

Customer loyalty is a bird in the hand

We’ve heard the phrase, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” since childhood. We were being told by wiser adults to value what we have over the things we don’t. Customer engagement has the same lesson at its heart: We can more easily achieve our goals by creating better, more loyal […]

Preparing for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is coming. If you don’t know what that means, there’s an explanation here. But if you want to be brought up to speed more quickly, here it goes: We’ve gone through three waves of data creation in our modern age. In the first age, data was generated by back office systems […]

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face

I attended The Big Data Conference in Chicago these past three days and noticed common threads consistently woven through each session and side conversation. First, we’re beyond the questions about what big data means (finally…I heard no V’s for three days). Instead, the conversations centered on where to get started, what approach to take, and […]

Breaking down Gartner’s 2014 strategic tech trends

Gartner may be the biggest technology advisory service in the world but that doesn’t mean that their predictions are always on the money or as forward-looking as we’d like. Here is our take on this year’s list: Mobile Device Diversity and Management Gartner statement: “Through 2018, the growing variety of devices, computing styles, user contexts […]

Thoughts on how mobile tech will change our work

When we think of mobile technology and the workplace, it’s very easy to go down one of two paths: I can be reached 24 x 7 and never get a break thanks to my smartphone I can work from anywhere and have freedom thanks to my smartphone Both of these paths are a real part […]

One guy’s summary of TUCON 2013

TIBCO’s TUCON 2013 in Las Vegas wrapped up on Thursday and today, two days later, I’ve had the chance to reflect on what was most interesting. Here are my takeaways: Civilization 3.0 In the opening keynote, CEO Vivek Ranadivé told the audience that we’re entering a new era that he called Civilization 3.0. He broke earlier […]

Asurion knows digital life is here to stay

Asurion CEO Steve Ellis and CIO Barry Vandevier took the stage this morning at TUCON 2013 with a great story of our times. We live in a world increasingly dependent on mobile devices. In fact, we’ve reached a point that when technology fails, our daily routine is out of balance at work and at home. Knowing […]

Our devices are going to coach us

Adidas announced at GigaOM’s Mobilize 2013 Conference that they’re creating a smartwatch that can provide location, speed, heart rate and serve music during workouts. That’s interesting, sure, but there’s something remarkable they’re adding: coaching. An athlete wearing the Adidas smartwatch will provide coaching through the watch’s screen or headphones. This is certainly a glimpse of what’s […]

Is mobile retail starting to grow up?

It really takes two things for mobile retail to become the norm…it has to be high on the agenda of the major brands and it has to be an expectation of the consumer. We’re making progress on both fronts. A recent survey by Internet Retailer shows that 79% of retailers now find mobile commerce important, […]

BPM and the Internet of Everything

Peter Schooff, writing on BPM.com, asked, “How will the Internet of Everything impact BPM?” This is a great and timely question because the Internet of Everything, the growth and convergence of people, process, data and things on the Internet, is a phrase that’s popping up everywhere. This week at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando, Paul LaBelle […]

After the Great Recession comes the Great Integration

Are you ready for the Great Integration? To realize how absolutely crucial data integration has become, you need to first think back to the mid-2000’s. The hot conversation was around service-oriented architecture (SOA) and the benefits of loosely coupled business systems that that allowed information to flow between applications and databases through reusable interfaces built […]