Discussions about Emerging Technologies that are having or will have an impact on future IT development. Members of IBM's Emerging Technologies as well as from other IBM organizations provide insights into technologies that will impact how you can do your work. Some emerging technologies prototypes are provided within the IBM Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK) packages on alphaWorks.
Friday June 20, 2008
Social Media and RSS Explained In Three Minutes
Lee Lefever's "Explanations In Plain English" series is a great way to learn about Web 2.0. I like the simplistic and vibrant style used in all his videos to drive home the salient points of his topics. I've embedded two of his videos, the combination of which could help explain something like MashupHub and IBM Mashup Center to new users. One of the insights I gleaned after watching his RSS explanation is the similarity between Atom feeds and Tivo's subscription manager. Both produce a marked improvement to the user experience.
p.s. If you find these posts interesting, take a cue from video and leave a comment.
IBM Mashup Center and the IBM jStart Emerging Technologies team
For those that have been reading this Emerging Technologies blog on a regular basis, you already should be aware that the IBM Emerging Technologies team has been defining, developing, incubating, refining, and validating Mashups technologies and tools over the past few years. Our team first started with a mashup maker prototype utility called QEDwiki and a feed server called MashupHub which later evolved into the enterprise-ready productized version called IBM Mashup Center. The IBM jStart Customer Innovation team worked with several customers such as Boeing and Carrefour to define "real world" mashups, figure out what worked (and what didn't), make refinements, and prove that indeed that a Mashup Utility such as IBM Mashup Center can add real business value to our customers.
It's taken awhile to produce a mashup solution with the key functions and features that enable our customers to address their business needs. But I believe that Mashup Center was worth the wait. Soon Mashup
Center will be hosted as a free trial on the Web with which
non-technical
business people can use to experiment and build customized
mashups
following the success of early corporate adopters and business partners such as Boeing, Carrefour, StrikeIron, and Kapow.
Even though the Emerging Technologies team has now seen the concept of enterprise mashup tools and utilities successfully become available within an IBM product, there's always more to do. We are just at the beginning of the formation of an "Enterprise Mashup Ecosystem" and, thus, new requirements and capabilities will be continually defined. As I mentioned earlier, the IBM jStart Customer Innovation team has worked with several customers to create Mashup prototypes and they have identified some mashup best practices and business usage patterns. The jStart team works with customers to evaluate whether mashup technologies could add value to their business. The jStart team is also able to share their experiences and observations of working with mashups over the past few years. Interested in getting more information? Want to figure out if "Mashup" technologies can solve a problem for you? Send an email to jstart@us.ibm.com .
John Feller IBM jStart Emerging Technologies Development
I have been reading about IBM's Kittyhawk Project, which proposes a "global-scale shared computer capable of hosting the entire Internet as an application". This concept reminds me of the Planetary AC described in Isaac Asimov's short story "The Last Question", which is a worthwhile read.
At the very least, you can't accuse IBM of thinking small...
Jim Hsu
(pictured is IBM Blue Gene, as Kittyhawk is currently theoretical)
ETInfo Channel - Information on Emerging Technology in IBM
David Barnes from IBM's Emerging Technologies team just kicked off an ETInfo channel on YouTube.
To kick off the channel, David posted a seven part episode: Rod Smith on Mashups. It contains four videos of Rod giving his presentation and three videos of David demonstrating IBM Mashup Center.
David also posted the first two parts of a three part interview he did with Mikael Orn: Getting Started with IBM Mashup Center. These videos are quite informative of how to install and use IBM Mashup Center. Check it out!
Memorial Day weekend, like July 4th, means more to me each year as my sons near enrollment in our adult world.
After 5 weeks of Web 2.0 presentations with clients from 3 continents, the nature of these discussions are in a third chapter: 'We've tried a few related projects and want to pick up the pace (aka make investments) where it makes sense.' Seventeen months ago, chapter 1, clients wanted to know 'if this Web 2.0 is for real.' During News Corp's acquisition of Dow Jones in mid-07, creating a sibling for MySpace, chapter 2 centered on 'how should we get started?'
As you might expect, enterprise executives are more interested in Web 2.0 as it might enable collaboration to capture the organization's knowledge and to inspire innovation amongst employees, customers and partners than they are in the tools of Web 2.0 - blogs, podcasts etc, although low-end, low-cost video is compelling. The thinking is something like, 'If Wikipedia gets it done with 8 full-time employees, why can't we do a little better with a lot larger staff?!'
As we talk about the next generation of Internet-savvy employees and customers, I emphasize that regardless My which Web 2.0 tools or principles take hold, there will remain the need for two ships: leadership and scholarship. My eighteen-year-old once suggested to me, "Don't just yell at me, show me!" which I interpret to be a useful model for both Web 2.0 marketing and management.
My favorite leadership story in tribute to those we honor on Monday: 20+ years ago at a start-up software company, we interviewed a just-graduated engineer from NC State for a technical sales position. He offered capability and charm, but no measurable, related experience - a recipe for rejection. At lunch, one manager noted that the candidate had been fraternity president and asked what management lesson from that experience might be applied to developing our software business?
He replied in an even tone that in such an unorganized, chaotic environment where he had no real authority, he observed that "the mission of the top 1/3 was to keep the middle 1/3 from being like the bottom 1/3." Ten seconds of silence ensued; then our General Manager asked him how soon he could start.
Welcome to summer! There's lots to look forward to.
The beginning of May 2008 saw the launch of two entertainment blockbusters, Iron Man and Grand Theft Auto 4, each of which had a lucrative opening week.
GTA4 got things started with a $500 Million opening week, shattering the old record held by Halo 3. In fact, GTA4 made more in its first day than the previous Halo 3's opening week.
Although pundits suggested the Iron Man opening could be impacted by GTA4 fans busy playing at home, it also had an impressive $100 Million opening weekend, raking in over $200 Million worldwide.
And most of those economic stimulus checks have not even been sent out yet.
Jim Hsu
p.s. 60 percent of the GTA4 sales were on XBox 360, the rest are for Playstation 3. (This seems to track their respective market share, as XBox360 has 60% of the market with an installed base of 19 million and PS3 has 13 million.)
Leadership Old, Leadership New and Leadership Navy Blue
I observe that the main difference between our generation of managers and those raised on the Internet is that we grew up in a world where Knowledge is Power. Getting ahead often meant knowing the most. They grow up in a world where Everyone Knows and where the Sharing of Knowledge is Power. For our organizations to succeed in this transition, we must be coaches more than managers so that our employees can be players more than spectators. This behavior is different than we're used to and will require commitment, character and courage - hallmarks of leadership.
Leadership, like innovation, assumes many forms and representations:
IBM's announced this morning that our VP for Innovation & Technology, Nick Donofrio, will retire in October. We dreaded this notice. Every time he addressed us, his candid, simply insightful and passionate remarks informed every employee of an IBM that was and strives to be in this uncertain and exciting time. After forty-four years with the company (he and System 360 joined in 1964) he won't be replaced - 'cause we can't.
I hope that you had the chance to read the description of the women's softball game in Ellensburg, Washington last month between Central Washington and Western Oregon. Sara Tucholsky of WO hit a home run to put her team into the lead. Rounding first base, she twisted her knee, falling to the ground unable to continue around to home plate. The game's rules prevent teammates from assisting one of their own players around the bases. No problem. Two players from the opposing Central Washington team carried Sara to second base, to third base, and to home plate so that her hit would count.
On Saturday, the USS North Carolina, SSN -777, was commissioned into naval service in Wilmington, North Carolina. This nuclear-powered submarine is about 350' long with a crew of about 140 and can be required to patrol underwater for up to 60 consecutive days. If you're ever doubtful of the caliber of our young Americans or want to observe the power of purpose, please take a tour of one of these impressive boats.
Now you know a little bit of what I know, please put it to use. Nick would appreciate it. c.perrien
There's been some recent articles about how to create mashups that I've have found interesting. For instance, David Storm wrote an article about the seven steps toward creating your first enterprise mashup. Of the steps he listed, Step #2 "Pick your data sources", I feel is the most important. Actually, it's really a matter of finding and determining whether you can actually access various data sources in the format you need them in. Within an enterprise, data is stored in a variety of locations and in different formats. A lot of data is not even accessible by other users. In many cases, data is not even under the control of a corporate IT shop. For example, some mission critical data resides on individual's computer hard drives. Think of all the spreadsheets that are being used. When people need to share this data, they usually just send them to each other via email. In this case, people have to figure out who has the most recent copy and then the email them around and the cycle continues over and over again.
IBM's Mashup Center , a product which has been recently announced, addresses some of these concerns. The InfoSphere MashupHub component of this product provides a catalog as well as a way to retrieve data from departmental, personal, and enterprise information. For example, data can be uploaded from a spreadsheet and then be transformed into a feed that can be used within a Mashup Application. This data can be easily found by searching the catalog and by subscribing to the feed, business users can retrieve the most recent data. Social networking and community ratings help users find "quality" data sources rather because other people can provide comments and point to other mashup examples that use the data sources. The enterprise IT shop can also regulate who gets control of the data feed and start to provide a culture that people don't always store mission critical data on their personal hard drive. Data from various sources such as DB2, IMS, LDAP, pureXML, SAP, Web Services, Excel, RSS feeds, Access, and Domino can be retrieved, manipulated into various formats the users needs, and then cataloged for other people to use and share.
You'll be hearing more about the IBM Mashup Center with a series of future articles on the IBM developerWorks site. Stay tuned...
15' Free throws & 15' putts: a matter of technique
We're still reeling from UNC's Final 4 collapse vs Kansas. And then Memphis appeared to earn the championship trophy awaiting only the sinking of a mere free-throw in the final 10 seconds. At every level of basketball, destiny is quite often determined by the process of such an uncontested 15' shot, the clock stopped, no active defense and no rush to execute?!
Monday's New York Times offered an intriguing benchmark of Tiger Woods's professional success. Surprisingly, it's not his booming drives. He laps the competition by his effectiveness in making 15 foot putts under pressure.
In this teeter-tottering economic climate, here's how I'm working on my own 15-footers:
1. JP Rangaswami, author of the popular blog, confusedofcalcutta. If one types 'JP' into Google, his blog is the 5th hit. I enjoy especially his podcast on the Web 2.0 tools of knowledge workers, who are the primary value of today's Enterprise 2.0 companies. These tools are: Syndication, Search, Fulfillment, Conversation (in the form of storable traditions). BTW, he is the CIO for a large telecom company.
2. I attended Edward Tufte's travelling seminar, the Presentation of Analytical Information. One of his more popular books is The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. In the endless race for more and better IT tools, his is a refreshing and clever reminder of the value of content - when properly presently. His clever riff on the failings of Powerpoint had each of the 350 attendees nodding in agreement. His sole criticism of the iPhone design is that if the icons require descriptions (phone icon with word 'Phone' beneath), get rid of the needless icon!
3. David Pogue is the technology critic for the New York Times. His column is Circuits. I enjoy his topical and always well-substantiated comments. A recent article, Are You Taking Advantage of Web 2.0? re-calibrated my thinking on 'what it's going to take and why it's worth it' to invest in these enticing and not yet proven Internet capabilities.
Today at the IMPACT conference, IBM announced IBM Mashup Center which allows business users to drag and drop components from various Web
sources to easily create, deploy and share customized Web applications in
minutes. In the past, our emerging technologies team has demonstrated the usefulness of situational applications for business users particually using QEDwiki mashup maker. From our various customer interactions and lessons learned with QEDwiki, we have evolved the technology with more functions and enhancements into the IBM Mashup Center technology. IBM Mashup Center consists of Lotus Mashups (which is the mashup maker) and the MashupHub technology (a catalog and feed server).
Now that that NCAA College Basketball Tournament is underway, I thought I'd share a demo showing how a NCAA College Basketball fan could create his or her own "mashup" situational application to help decide what restaurant to go to after the basketball game. This demo utilizes the Lotus Mashups environment to combine data from StrikeIron's Men's College Basketball Web Service with data from Yahoo! Maps Service, Yahoo! Local Service, and AccuWeather. By combining these data sources into a mashup application, a fan of a college basketball team easily find restaurants and weather at the basketball arena site. By accessing other information such as local hotels and bars, this Lotus Mashups application can be modified to fit the specific interests of the user.
Politics, Finances, Football: what's a knowledge worker to do?!
Super Tuesday wasn't that super; sub-prime confessions continue to spiral the market; and Brett Favre retires! Does anyone really want to hear about the enterprise value of the Internet's blooming capabilities?!As we round the corner into spring weather, it might be useful to recall a few of the primary changes brought about by this current generation of web technologies,aka Web 2.0:1. no longer dozens of markets comprised of millions of customers, but millions of markets comprised of perhaps only dozens of customers - think Long Tail or the permanentchanges in media distribution (film, music, tv, advertising).2. the Apple Store is more like the branch bank of the future than is the current drive-up window.Customers want to affiliate with like-minded people where their particular needs can beaddressed. The better news is that given the tools, customers will form these communities themselves.3. Knowledge is no longer power because everybody knows - or at least has access to knowing.This is the highest peak for management to climb. Instead of singularly figuring-out how to deploy Web 2.0 tools e.g. the proper level of privacy, we should ask our employees, customers, partners what they think (and know) will work best. Management has to bound the chaos, not provide the answers.4. Mobility and Video are exploding right before our eyes similar to the marriage of computersand spreadsheets in the mid 1980s which launched the PC revolution. Consider Google's (owner of You Tube) Android program and yesterday's Apple - Kleiner Perkins announcement to fund enterprise applications for the iPhone. BTW, Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder of Disney Corp. Wait 'n see may be ok; and it's not too soon for incubating a promotion strategy on mobile devices.One thing is for certain, tomorrow's Duke vs UNC game will be a good one and that game tips-offthe welcomed respite of March Madness. Go Carolina!
MicroSoft & Yahoo, Giants and New England, Obama & McCain
Tomorrow is Mardi Gras in my hometown of New Orleans. On this day convention defers to imagination.
And plenty of conventional wisdom has stepped aside already this year: in sports, the seemingly unstoppable
mastery of Roger Federer and that of the Patriots ended in startling fashion; in the presidential campaign,
Obama seems to have surged into a dead-heat with Hillary; and John McCain, counted-out in October,
is now the odds-on favorite for his party's nomination.
So what is the wisdom of Microsoft's bid for Yahoo and how might we benefit from this gamble as
they try to prevent Google from doing to them what they did to AOL (America on Line).
AOL's model was to capture the customer in the AOL-only experience. No need to ever leave
the world of AOL, whether you wanted to or not. Monthly fee revenue model.
Yahoo trumped this model by providing a portal where Yahoo aggregated content developed by
others around the Internet. 'No need to leave, we'll bring it to you.' Banner ad & pop-up revenue model.
Google trumped Yahoo by using their search engine to take visitors all over the Internet where
Google would keep track of their searches and visits to deliver related advertising. Advertisers, not visitors,
pay Google.
Let's imagine what this merger might imply for our organizations aside from the reminder of the recent,
sour history of such mega-merger attempts: e.g. HP & Compaq, AOL & Time Warner, Chrysler & Daimler.
The Internet's emerging technologies and uses are evolving rapidly to being about:
Innovation not Integration by connecting like-minded people regardless of location or employer.
This is a design point for our systems and services.
Information not Application by connecting those who need to know with the content that they require.
Mobility and Advertising on the mobile device. Remember AOL and its garden wall approach? This is what the
iPhone is doing to the garden walls of the Telecom companies. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft spent $10b here in 2007.
As Tuesday's Rex parade circles Canal Street, the costumed crowd will shout the conventional
"throw me something, mister!" Let's imagine what other opportunities are in store for them.
Scott Adams is a clever marketer when it comes to promoting himself and the Dilbert brand.
I noticed he had partnered with a company called SkyScrapes to sell Dilbert merchandise after he challenged his blog readers to take pictures under the product. He would select winners and post those pictures to his blog.
He also shamelessly promoted (the best kind of marketing!) his last book on his blog. The book happened to be a collection of his blog writings.
And, Mr. Adams is also on the forefront of Widget technology, as evidenced by his newly colorized Dilbert strips in a shiny new online-embeddable widget format (see below). What makes his marketing tolerable is that he is often willing to give away something of value (his comic strip or a free ebook such as "God's Debris") to popularize his brand and entice customers to buy something else (i.e. Dilbert branded merchandise or a book sequel such as "The Religion War").
Hats off to you, Mr. Adams for trying out interesting new ways of melding marketing with technology!
Emerging Technologies You Need to Know
