Internet of Things Changes Almost Everything

Description: Currently in the business world we are witnessing something like the epic collision of two galaxies — a rapid convergence of two very unlike systems that will cause the elements of both to realign. It’s all thanks to the Internet of Things.

Source: Harvard Business Review

Date: May 7, 2013

If you are not familiar with the term, the Internet of Things refers to a dramatic development in the internet’s function: the fact that, even more than among people, it now enables communication among physical objects. By 2015, according to my own firm’s projections, not only will 75 percent of the world’s population have access to the internet. So will some six billion devices. The fact that there will be a global system of interconnected computer networks, sensors, actuators, and devices all using the internet protocol holds so much potential to change our lives that it is often referred to as the internet’s next generation.
For managers, this development creates challenges both long-term and urgent. They need to envision the valuable new offerings that become possible when the physical world is merged with the virtual world and potentially every physical object can be both intelligent and networked. And, starting now, they must create the organizations and web-based business models that can turn these ideas into reality.  READ REST OF STORY

Questions for discussion:
1. What is the INTERNET of THINGS and why is it important?
2. List some market technologies that you see around you that are part of this INTERNET of Things.

Will the Internet of Things Changes Everything?

Description: Currently in the business world we are witnessing something like the epic collision of two galaxies — a rapid convergence of two very unlike systems that will cause the elements of both to realign. It’s all thanks to the Internet of Things.

Source: Harvard Business Review

Date: May 7, 2013

If you are not familiar with the term, the Internet of Things refers to a dramatic development in the internet’s function: the fact that, even more than among people, it now enables communication among physical objects. By 2015, according to my own firm’s projections, not only will 75 percent of the world’s population have access to the internet. So will some six billion devices. The fact that there will be a global system of interconnected computer networks, sensors, actuators, and devices all using the internet protocol holds so much potential to change our lives that it is often referred to as the internet’s next generation.
For managers, this development creates challenges both long-term and urgent. They need to envision the valuable new offerings that become possible when the physical world is merged with the virtual world and potentially every physical object can be both intelligent and networked. And, starting now, they must create the organizations and web-based business models that can turn these ideas into reality.  READ REST OF STORY

Questions for discussion:
1. What is the INTERNET of THINGS and why is it important?
2. List some market technologies that you see around you that are part of this INTERNET of Things.

(AWS) Amazon Web Services

Description:  Learn about how Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a cloud computing solution for businesses, non-profits, and governmental organizations with a flexible, highly scalable, and low-cost way to deliver their websites and web applications.

Source: AWS Cloud

Date: Sept 4, 2013

This short video helps explain the benefits of running your website on Amazon Web Services. You’ll learn about the low-cost, pay only for what you use pricing model and the elastic scalability that helps you match your resources to the demands of your users. You’ll also find out about the flexibility you have to run any software you want and how this can help you get your website to market faster.  READ REST OF STORY 

Questions for discussion:

1.  What is AWS (Amazon Web Services and why is it important?

2.  What potential applications do you see for AWS and in what industries will this add the greatest value?

Bearing Down on Data Upstarts

Description:  Nothing concentrates minds at a tech start-up like living in the middle of a price war between Amazon and Google. Just ask executives at companies like Box, Dropbox and Hightail

Source: NYTIMES.com

Date: Aug 24, 2014

“These guys will drive prices to zero,” said Aaron Levie, co-founder and chief executive of Box. “You do not want to wait for Google or Amazon to keep cutting prices on you. ‘Free’ is not a business model.”

So how do you avoid free? Box is trying to cater to special data storage needs, like digital versions of X-rays for health care companies and other tasks specific to different kinds of customers. Hightail is trying to do something similar for customers like law firms. And Dropbox? It is trying to make sure that its consumer-minded service stays easier to use than what the big guys provide. READ REST OF STORY 

Questions for discussion:

1. Using Porter’s model for competitive advantage, how do you feel that someone like “Dropbox” will compete in this changing industry? Explain which generic strategy they will pursue.
2. Do you feel the larger companies like Google or Amazon will drive these smaller one out of business? Why or  Why Not?

Big Data Explained

Description: Big Data is the next big thing in computing. This video explains Big Data characteristics, technologies and opportunities.

Source: http://www.explainingcomputers.com

Due to the issues raised by its volume, velocity and variety, Big Data requires new technology solutions. Currently leading the field is an open-source project from Apache called Hadoop. This is developing a software library for reliable, scalable, distributed computing systems capable of handling the Big Data deluge, and provides the first viable platform for Big Data analytics. Hadoop is already used by most Big Data pioneers. For example, LinkedIn currently uses Hadoop to generate over 100 billion personalized recommendations every week.

What Hadoop does is to distribute the storage and processing of large data sets across groups or “clusters” of server computers using a simple programming model. The number of servers in a cluster can also be scaled easily as requirements dictate, from maybe 50 machines to perhaps 2000 or more. Whereas traditional large-scale computing solutions rely on expensive server hardware with a high fault tolerance, Hadoop detects and compensates for hardware failures or other system problems at the application level. This allows a high level of service continuity to be delivered from clusters of individual server computers, each of which may be prone to failure. Processing vast quantities of data across large, lower-cost distributed computing infrastructures therefore becomes a viable proposition.     READ REST OF STORY 

Questions for discussion:

1.  What is Big Data and why is it important?

2.  What potential applications do you see for Big Data and in what industries will this add the greatest value?

Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back

Description:  After years of customizing playlists to individual listeners by analyzing components of the songs they like, then playing them tracks with similar traits, the company has started data-mining users’ musical tastes for clues about the kinds of ads most likely to engage them.

Source: NYTimes.com

Date: Jan 4, 2014

A few services, like Pandora, Amazon and Netflix, were early in developing algorithms to recommend products based on an individual customer’s preferences or those of people with similar profiles. Now, some companies are trying to differentiate themselves by using their proprietary data sets to make deeper inferences about individuals and try to influence their behavior.

This online ad customization technique is known as behavioral targeting, but Pandora adds a music layer. Pandora has collected song preference and other details about more than 200 million registered users, and those people have expressed their song likes and dislikes by pressing the site’s thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons more than 35 billion times. Because Pandora needs to understand the type of device a listener is using in order to deliver songs in a playable format, its system also knows whether people are tuning in from their cars, from iPhones or Android phones or from desktops.

So it seems only logical for the company to start seeking correlations between users’ listening habits and the kinds of ads they might be most receptive to.  READ REST OF STORY 

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you feel companies that are trying to differentiate themselves by using their proprietary data sets to make deeper inferences about individuals and try to influence their behavior is ethical? Why or Why not?

2.  If you were a company that had access to this type of data, how would you price this type of asset in the marketplace?  Who are your potential customers ?

Algorithms        iPhones or Android        

Websites on Amazon Web Services

Description:  Learn about how Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a cloud computing solution for businesses, non-profits, and governmental organizations with a flexible, highly scalable, and low-cost way to deliver their websites and web applications.

Source: AWS Cloud

Date: Sept 4, 2013

 

This short video helps explain the benefits of running your website on Amazon Web Services. You’ll learn about the low-cost, pay only for what you use pricing model and the elastic scalability that helps you match your resources to the demands of your users. You’ll also find out about the flexibility you have to run any software you want and how this can help you get your website to market faster.  READ REST OF STORY 

 

Questions for discussion:

1.  What is AWS (Amazon Web Services and why is it important?

2.  What potential applications do you see for AWS and in what industries will this add the greatest value?

 

Explaining Big Data

Description: Big Data is the next big thing in computing. This video explains Big Data characteristics, technologies and opportunities.

Source: http://www.explainingcomputers.com

Date: Jan 16, 2012

Due to the issues raised by its volume, velocity and variety, Big Data requires new technology solutions. Currently leading the field is an open-source project from Apache called Hadoop. This is developing a software library for reliable, scalable, distributed computing systems capable of handling the Big Data deluge, and provides the first viable platform for Big Data analytics. Hadoop is already used by most Big Data pioneers. For example, LinkedIn currently uses Hadoop to generate over 100 billion personalized recommendations every week.

What Hadoop does is to distribute the storage and processing of large data sets across groups or “clusters” of server computers using a simple programming model. The number of servers in a cluster can also be scaled easily as requirements dictate, from maybe 50 machines to perhaps 2000 or more. Whereas traditional large-scale computing solutions rely on expensive server hardware with a high fault tolerance, Hadoop detects and compensates for hardware failures or other system problems at the application level. This allows a high level of service continuity to be delivered from clusters of individual server computers, each of which may be prone to failure. Processing vast quantities of data across large, lower-cost distributed computing infrastructures therefore becomes a viable proposition.     READ REST OF STORY 

Questions for discussion:

1.  What is Big Data and why is it important?

2.  What potential applications do you see for Big Data and in what industries will this add the greatest value?

Email Not as Private as you may think?

Description: Some of the free providers of e-mail frequently scan e-mail for keywords, but one company is working to make e-mail more secure.

Source: cnn.com

Date: Aug 21, 2013

 

Questions for discussion:

1. How would you describe to someone why email is not secure and private?

2.  What can an individual do to make thier email more secure and private?

A Big Data Approach to Measuring Small Businesses in America

Description: The hype around “big data” in Silicon Valley has left many people confused with what “big data” actually means. There are numerous news stories and articles which catalogue the disasters facing many large enterprises when it comes to analyzing large data sets.

Source: forbes.com

Date: April 4, 2013

The hype around “big data” in Silicon Valley has left many people confused with what “big data” actually means. There are numerous news stories and articles which catalogue the disasters facing many large enterprises when it comes to analyzing large data sets. Most companies aren’t sure what they’re looking for or are confused with how to make sense of disparate data — I call this a problem of “haystacks without needles”. Rather than data for data’s sake, the question should be how does one use data to generate genuine insight that can influence and inform business strategy, create efficiencies and build the business.  The other key issue is how to do all this while ensuring clean and accurate data upon which those business decisions will be made. These fundamental issues are what drive us at Radius.

The key to success with analyzing any large data set is focus. At Radius, we’ve decided to focus on small business data. We’ve built a system that indexes the web just like Google and then organizes that information around 23 million small businesses in the United States. The types of data we collect include social reviews, Twitter and social information, owner background, news articles about small businesses themselves, or even the success (or failure) of running Groupon and LivingSocial deals. These make up only a small fraction of the sources and types of information we collect about small businesses.

Small businesses are close to my heart. My grandfather owned a textiles and dress-making shop in Iran before he had to flee to America after the 1979 revolution. Most of my extended family run small technology consulting firms or local service-based businesses. As Americans, it is incredibly important that we be absolutely certain our small business economy continues to grow and thrive. As cliché as it might sound, small business is the heart and soul of the American economy and embodies the quintessential American spirit of optimism, risk and ambition. Without small businesses, our free market can’t survive — Fortune 500 companies rely on smaller buyers to continue to buy.  READ REST OF STORY

 Questions for discussion:

1. Can Big Data be used effectively with small business? Why or Why not?

2. What questions would a small business want answered with Big Data?