Bill Collectors and Repo Men Rejoice

I often get into debates about my addiction to checking in with Foursquare. Foursquare is yet another social network designed to let you explore an area, wherever you happen to be. Using your smart phone, you select the specific business, location or event you are attending. You can see what's in the area, take advantage of what others have said about it, find nearby deals or add your own comments. Foursquare lists local places based on the GPS in your phone. You connect with your friends and can see where they are.

I have checked in over 1,000 times. You will almost always know where I am if  you either 1) friend me on Foursquare, 2) friend me on Facebook or 3) follow me on my personal Twitter account. My account is configured so every check in is "tweeted" and "posted" to my "wall" automatically.

So, the question is whether you would find it a pleasant experience or just creepy if someone you know observes your location on a social network, happens to be nearby and decides to drop in and visit with you. This has happened to me in the past and never caused me any concern. Frankly, if I don't want anyone to know where I am I simply do not check in. But more than once, I have been pleasantly surprised by the unexpected opportunity to spend time with a friend or family member.

SONAR is another tool you can load on your smart phone. It is designed to collect information from a variety of sources and, again based on GPS, determine who among your "virtual" friends is physically nearby. Like Foursquare, two SONAR subscribers in the same location will automatically be visible to each other. But SONAR goes beyond this, aggregating location data from other sources to show you who else you might know that it nearby.

In my view, this is where it might cross the line. It's less fun and convenient and little more like Skynet. Scanning around various social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, it assembles a kind of who knows who. So any two SONAR users, even if they don't know each other, will be alerted and have an opportunity to meet if they come into the same location.

I suppose if you are a wall flower and wind up at a social gathering with Mary who happens to be "friends" with  Mike who follows you on Twitter, and Mary is a hot prospect, SONAR alerting you would be a good thing. On the other hand, Mary might not thing when she "checked in" that anyone outside of her circles would be made aware of her presence.

At the end of the day, no one can know more than you yourself reveal. But be aware that information you volunteer through any of these social networks may just find its way far beyond the borders you think exist and may be put to other uses that  you did not anticipate. The best way to keep something a secret is to not tell anyone. If you don't advertise your location, you can hide in plain sight and no one will even know you are there.

So even if you friend or follow me, perhaps you won't always know where I am, after all.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

The Evolving Role of the CIO

My undergraduate degrees and MBA were earned at the NYU Stern School of Business. At freshman orientation, more years ago than I care to remember, I met a few people who turned out to be lifelong friends. One of them, Steve, and I have been involved with the school. and each other,  in one way or another since graduation. We've been active in the alumni association for years and were instrumental in the formation of the Cohorts Program several years ago. Working with Dean Sally Blount-Lyon, the original program was created to connect several "cohorts" of students each with business leaders who would be available to them throughout their four years of study. Steve and I were the Battery Park Cohort and had the first group of 30 or so students which we met periodically through their college career.

Steve and I continue to support the program and this week we had the privilege of having dinner with another batch of extremely bright, articulate, curious and interesting students who fired questions at us relentlessly throughout the evening.

Knowing my career has been centered around technology, one student asked how all of the current trends have impacted the role of the CIO in business. It was a wonderful question and afforded me an opportunity to think about how best to describe the fundamental shift I see in what this senior leadership role now involves.

At one time, being the CIO meant you had reached the pinnacle of your career in technology management. You were now responsible for information technology throughout the company. You designed and operated the hardware and software systems that were used by employees in the rest of the company, and perhaps even customer systems. Your focus was on people, process and equipment. You were measured by how well you controlled your spend, service level metrics like response time, "up" time or turnaround time, and how well you could deliver projects.

Current trends like the consumerization of IT, the cloud and mobile computing have liberated the CIO from these "engine room" tasks and allowed much more focus on the business. Today, employees are very tech literate and bring their own favorite devices for use in the workplace. While this introduces some concerns, particularly around security and support, it has boosted productivity and, in many ways, reduces the support burden. With fully managed infrastructure, the CIO can shift attention from being the architect of systems to being the architect of  the enterprise, streamlining business process across functional lines. The CIO is now a true member of the C suite, helping to drive the business forward by improving products and services and increasing customer satisfaction.

Our discussion went on through dessert and we sent the students on their way. They will graduate soon and embark on their individual career journeys. I wish them much success and hope they gained some insight or had at least one takeaway from our conversation that will benefit them in the future.

I look forward to our next event and another opportunity for more stimulating interaction.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

iPhone 4s - My New Assistant

A few weeks back I wrote a column on voice input. The ability to speak a command and have an intelligent device carry it out has been around for a while. Cars, for example, have been outfitted with voice activated functions such as placing a call or requesting navigation.

Smart phones themselves have had voice activated search and dial abilities. Some blue-tooth earpieces included voice command capabilities. Google search can be done with voice input and there was even an experimental program on Android called Edwin that was able to research and answer simple spoken questions. Edwin could understand natural language speech, search data sources on the internet and, in a limited cases, speak the answer.

A lot has been written about the new iPhone 4S in the last day or two. It has a faster processor, better camera and several new applications. Some have praised its new features while others expected much more. But one thing is for sure. With its integrated voice activated Assistant, based on the SIRI technology acquired by Apple earlier this year, the iPhone 4s sets a new standard for verbal device interaction. Beyond understanding natural language, Assistant understands you. It just may be the next best thing to having an actual human assistant.

The big difference is that Assistant handles your requests in context. The first time you ask for a restaurant or plane tickets, there will be some interaction. Do you prefer Chinese or Italian? What frequent flyer programs do you belong to or which airport is most convenient? Window or aisle seat? Assistant will gather the additional information it needed to complete the task at hand.

Once these preferences have been obtained they will be factored into every subsequent request. Your Assistant learns about you and will make choices or recommendations based on what is known or can be determined in other ways. With GPS, for instance, your Assistant always knows where you are so location can play a role in any decision.

But wait, there's more. Assistant will be able to interact with popular services to execute transactions on your behalf. Of course, it can post an appointment to your calendar and remind you about that important dinner meeting Tuesday. But Assistant will also be able to interact with OpenTable to book the reservation at your favorite restaurant.

At this point, I can only comment based on what I have read about iPhone4S and Assistant. But as soon as I can get my hands on one I will review it based on first hand experience.

If  this technology evolves much further, administrative assistants everywhere better fear for their jobs.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Will Streamouts Replace Webcasts

People have been using web site services such as Livestream and UStream to broadcast live video on the web for some time. YouTube has a similar capability in test with a very limited number of people. You may have seen some live web-casts by Michael Mozart who is one of the chosen few able to use it today.

I was recently introduced to live streaming technology by people I have met through my exploration of some of the  popular social networks. In a Google Hangout just the other day, for example, Bruce Garber a colleague from Boston started to capture the discussion and, through some digital wizardry, streamed the entire Hangout conversation to the web where anyone could listen and watch.

Of course, it has been possible to record and post video for replay on a variety of internet services, including the most popular of them all, YouTube. The statistics are staggering. According to a recent post, 48 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute and over 3 billion views are delivered every day.

But here we were delivering interaction to the web in real time. Combining Livestream with a Google Hangout produced a webcast of a conversation among this group of people located in cities around the world, including Boston, New York, Ft. Collins (CO), Kenilworth (UK), Brazil and Austria. No need for expensive video equipment, a broadcast studio, an army of technicians or special internet facilities. Each of us had an ordinary desktop computer with a web cam and broadband access to the internet. In fact, one person participated briefly using a 4G smart phone.

The possibilities are absolutely mind boggling. Producing the U_News show using Hangouts was impressive, but this allows virtually anyone to be the host of a live broadcast show. Most of the use of Hangouts has been as an adjunct to the live stream. For example, there have been a few "back stage" hangouts or hangouts giving viewers a behind the scenes look at production. This puts a limited number of "guests" in the same virtual room where they can interact with each other while the larger audience watches.

A few pioneers have introduced talent contests, game shows and other forms of entertainment in Hangouts while streaming it to the masses. But we are only at the very beginning of what is possible based on this combination of technologies. It's like television in the 1950's. No one could have imagined how far that has progressed, or where this new ability is likely to take us.

Live streaming Hangouts, or what I like to call Streamouts, will put a whole new spin on live broadcasting over the internet. Two way interaction is no longer confined to phone, text or chat windows. Now you can virtually walk in and fully participate in the event.

I envision this being used in politics, education and business. Imagine the virtual town hall meeting where groups of constituents can interact with the politician and each other. Talk shows can have a virtual couch full of guests from anywhere in the globe. Panel discussions can be orchestrated with thought leaders who never have to leave their homes. Corporations can conduct stockholder meetings and educators can hold tutoring sessions, all highly interactive in ways simply not possible before.

I'm sure I have only scratched the surface of this topic. Let's schedule a Google Hangout and brainstorm how this might work for you and your business.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Clearing Away The Cloud

Unless you have been living under a rock (like those guys in the GEICO TV commercial) you know one of hottest topics in IT circles these days is the cloud. Cloud computing is the ability to rent computing resources including raw processor, memory or storage on demand. Need a dozen servers for 30 minutes? No problem. Just order them up on-line and presto, you are in business. You can also rent business applications using SaaS or "software as a service" providers. Everything from simple e-mail systems to office automation suites and complete customer management systems are available by the drink.

While this ability has been around for many years in various other forms (time-sharing, remote batch processing, ASP, etc.) the current cloud movement is picking up steam. It is building a large following among major corporations delivering a whole new set of benefits and introducing a new set of problems and issues.

You can hardly read a newspaper, trade journal or magazine without encountering articles discussing cloud computing. All of this activity and interest has spawned new organizations devoted to the study of cloud computing. The industry must assemble a body of knowledge about the cloud and find ways to disseminate this information  It must further propose standards to make it possible for business to extract the full potential value the cloud computing paradigm holds.

One such organization is the Cloud Computing Consortium (C3) at Stevens Institute of Technology. This organization, formed last year by a handful of volunteers, has grown rapidly and now includes five active working committees debating and documenting various aspects of cloud computing from a management perspective. As one of the founding members, I serve on the Executive Council and participated in the work of the value proposition committee.

C3 is planning to hold its first conference November 7 in Northern New Jersey. C3 is currently seeking additional volunteers for a second round of committees to tackle additional topics, while the findings of the first group will form the basis for the presentations at the conference.

C3 is also seeking additional members and vendor sponsors to support its efforts. For details you can write me or Ken Saloway, or visit the C3 web site.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC