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|By Dana Gardner
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|August 5, 2014 10:00 AM EDT
Over the past five years, the impetus for cloud adoption has been primarily about advancing the IT infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) fabric or utility model, and increasingly seeking both applications and discrete IT workload support services from Internet-based providers.
But as adoption of these models has unfolded, it's become clear that the impacts and implications of cloud commerce are much broader and much more of a benefit to the business as a whole as an innovation engine, even across whole industries.
Recent research shows us that business leaders are now eager to move beyond cost and efficiency gains from cloud to reap far greater rewards, to in essence rewrite the rules of commerce.
Our latest BriefingsDirect discussion therefore explores the expanding impact that cloud computing is having as a strategic business revolution -- and not just as an IT efficiency shift. Join a panel of experts and practitioners of cloud to unpack how modern enterprises have a unique opportunity to gain powerful new means to greater business outcomes.
Our panelists are: Ed Cone, the Managing Editor of Thought Leadership at Oxford Economics; Ralf Steinbach, Director of Global Software Architecture at Groupe Danone, the French food multinational based in Paris; Bryan Acker, Culture Change Ambassador for the TELUS Transformation Office at TELUS, the Canadian telecommunications firm, and Tim Minahan, Chief Marketing officer for SAP Cloud and Line of Business Solutions. The panel is moderated by me, Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.
Here are some excerpts:
Gardner: What has the research at Oxford Economics been telling you about how cloud is reshaping businesses?
Cone: We did a survey for SAP last year, and that became the basis for this program. We went out to 200 executives around the world and asked them, "What are you doing in the cloud? Are you still looking at it for just process speed, efficiency, and cost cutting?"
The numbers that came back were really strong in terms of actually being a part of the business function. Beyond those basics, cloud is very much part of the daily reality of companies today.
We saw that the leading expectation for cloud to deliver significant improvement was in productivity, innovation, and revenue generation. So obviously process, speed, efficiency, and cost cutting are still very important to business, but people are looking to cloud for new lines of business, entering new markets, and developing new products.
In this program, what we did was take that information and go out to executives for live interviews to dive deep into how cloud has become the new engine of business, how these expectations are being met at companies around the world.
Gardner: Are businesses doing this intentionally, or are they basically being forced by what's happening around them?
Minahan: Increasingly, as was just indicated, businesses are moving beyond the IT efficiencies and the total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits of the cloud, and the cloud certainly offers benefits in those areas.
But really what's driving adoption, what's moving us to this tipping point, is that now, by some estimates, 75 percent of all new investments are going into the cloud or hybrid models. Increasingly, businesses are viewing the cloud as a platform for innovation and entirely new engagement models with their customers, their employees, their suppliers and partners, and in some cases, to create entirely new business models.
Just think about what cloud has done for our personal lives. Who would have thought that Apple, a few years ago, would be used to run your home. This is the Apple Home concept that allows you to monitor and manage all of your devices -- your air-conditioning, your alarm, music, and television -- remotely through the cloud.
There's even the quasi business B2B and B2C models around crowd sourcing and crowd funding from folks like Kickstarter or payment offerings like Square. These are entirely new engagement models, new business models that are built on the back of this emergence of cloud, mobile, and social capabilities.
Gardner: Right, and it seems that one of these benefits is that we can cross boundaries of time, space geography, what have you, very easily, almost transparently, and that requires new thinking in order to take advantage of that.
Bryan, at TELUS as Culture of Change Ambassador, are you part of the process for helping people think differently and therefore be able to exploit what cloud enables?
Flexible work schedule
Acker: One hundred percent. It's actually a great segue, because at TELUS we have a flexible work arrangement, where we want 70 percent of our employees to be working either from home or remotely. What that means is we have to have the tools and the culture in place that people understand, that they can access data and relevant information, wherever they are.
It doesn't matter if they're at home, like I am today, on the road, or at a client site, they need to be able to get the information to provide the best customer experience and provide the right answer at the right time.
So by switching from some of the great tools we already offered, because collaboration is part of TELUS's cultural DNA, we've actually been able to tear down silos we didn't even know we were creating.
We were trying to provide all the tools, but now people have an end-to-end view of every record for customers, as well as employees and the collaboration involving courses and learning opportunities. They have access to everything when they need it and they can take ownership of the customer experience or even their own career, which is fantastic for us.
Gardner: Ralf, at Danone, as Director of Global Software Architecture, you clearly have your feet on the IT path and you've seen how things have evolved. Do you see the shift to cloud as a modest evolution, or is this something that changes the game?
Steinbach: We've been looking at cloud for quite sometime now. We've started several projects in the cloud, mainly in two areas. One involves the supporting functions of our business which is HR, travel expenses, and mail. There, we see a huge advantage of using standardized services in the cloud.
In these functions we do not need any specifics. The cloud comes standard and you can not change, as you can with SAP systems. You can't adapt the code. But that is one area where we think there's value in using cloud applications.
The other area where we really see the cloud as valued is in our digital marketing initiatives. There, we really need the flexibility of the cloud. Digital marketing is changing every day. There's a lot of innovation there and there the cloud gives us flexibility in terms of resources that we need to support that. And, the innovation cycles of our providers are much faster than they would be on premises. These are the two main areas where we use the cloud today.
Cone: Ralf, it was interesting to me, when I was reading through the transcript of your interview and working on the case studies we did, that it is even changing business models. It's allowing Danone to go straight to the consumer, where previously your customer had been the retailer. Cloud in new geographic markets is letting you reach straight to the end user, the end buyer.
Digital marketing
Steinbach: That's what I meant when I talked about digital marketing. Today, all consumer product goods company like Danone are looking at connecting to their consumers and not to the retailers as in the past. We're really focusing on the end-consumer, and the cloud offers us new possibilities to do that, whether it is via mobile applications or websites and so on.
One thing that's important is the flexibility of the systems, because we don't know how many consumers we'll address. It can be a few, but it could be over a million. So we need to have a flexible architecture, and on-premise we could not manage that.
Gardner: The concept of speed seems to come up more and more. We're talking about speed of innovation, agility, direct lines of communication to customers and, of course, also supply-chain direct communication speed as well. How prominent did you see speed and the need for speed in business in your recent research?
We're really focusing on the end consumer, and the cloud offers us new possibilities to do that.
Cone: Well, speed was important -- and it's speed across different dimensions. It's speed to enter a new market or it's speed to collaborate within your own company, within your own organization.
This idea of taking IT and pushing it out to the people, to the customer, and really to the line of business allows them to have intimate contact and to move quickly, but also to break down these barriers of geography.
We did a case study with another large company, Hero, which is a large maker of motorcycles and two wheeled vehicles in India. What they're doing with cloud- enabled customer-facing technology is moving their service operation outside of dealerships into the countryside, out across India. They go to parks and they set up what they call service camps.
There, the speed element is the speed and the convenience with which you are able to get your bike serviced, and that's having a large measurable impact on their business. So it is speed, but it is speed across multiple dimensions.
New innovation
Minahan: At the core, the cloud is really all about unlocking new innovations, providing agility in the business, allowing companies to be able to adapt their processes very, very quickly, and even create entirely new engagement models, and that's what we are seeing.
It is not just the cloud, though. This convergence of cloud, big data, analytics, mobile and social, and business networks really ushers in ultimately a new paradigm for business computing, one where applications are no longer just built for enterprise compliance or to be the system of record. Instead, they're really designed to engage and empower the individual user.
It's one that ushers in a new era of innovation for the business, where we can enable new engagement models with customers, employees, suppliers, and other partners.
We've heard some great examples here, but some others were very similar to the experience that Danone has seen. T-Mobile is leveraging the cloud not to replace its traditional systems of records, but to extend them with the cloud, to create a new model for social care, helping monitor conversations on its brand, and engage customer issues across multiple channels.
This convergence of cloud, big data, analytics, mobile and social, and business networks really ushers in ultimately a new paradigm for business computing.
So not just their traditional support channels, but Twitter and Facebook, where these conversations are happening and really it is empowered them to deliver what has become a phenomenal kind of "Cinderella-worst-to-first" story for customer support and satisfaction.
Now, they're seeing first time resolution rates that have gone from the low teens to greater than 94 percent. Obviously, that has a massive impact on customer satisfaction and renewals and is all powered by not throwing out the systems that they've used so long, but by extending them with the cloud to achieve new innovations and then drive new engagement models.
Gardner: Tim, another factor here, in a sense, levels the playing field. When you move to the cloud, small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMBs) can enjoy the same benefit that you just described for example from T-Mobile. Are you at SAP seeing any movement in terms of the size or type of organizations that can exploit these new benefits?
Minahan: What's interesting, Dana, is that you and I have been around this industry for quite some time and the original thought was that the cloud was the big, democratized computing power.
It allowed SMBs to get the same level of applications and infrastructure support that their larger competitors have had for years. That's certainly true, but it is really the large enterprises that have been aggressively adopting this on an equal pace with their SMBs.
All sizes of companies
The cloud is being used to not only accelerate process efficiency and productivity, but to unlock innovations for all sized companies. Large enterprises like UPS, Deutsche Bank, and Danone are using cloud-based business applications. In the case of UPS and Deutsche Bank, they're using business networks to extend their traditional supply chain and financial systems to collaborate better with their suppliers, bankers, and other partners.
It's being used by small upstarts as well. These are companies that we talked about in the past like Mediafly, a mobile marketing start-up. It's using dynamic discounting solutions in the cloud to get paid faster, fund development of new features, and take on new business.
There's Sage Health Solutions, a company started by two stay-at-home moms in South Africa that is really grown from zero to a multi-million dollar operation. That is all powered by the leveraging the cloud to enable new business models.
Cone: To follow on with what Tim said about the broad gamut of usage from company sites and also earlier mentioning mobile, what we saw in our survey is that mobile is of great importance to companies as a way of reaching their customers for internal productivity as well. But reaching customers is actually a higher priority and that comes down to the old adage: You have to fish where the fish are.
The cloud is being used to not only accelerate process efficiency and productivity, but to unlock innovations for all sized companies.
Look at what Danone is doing when they're setting up direct-to-customer technologies and marketing. They're going into markets where people don't necessarily have laptops or landlines. They're leapfrogging that to a world where people have mobile devices.
So if you have mobile customers, and as Tim said, think of the consumer experience, that is how we all live our lives now. No matter what size your company is, you have to reach your customers the way your customer lives now -- and that is mobile.
Gardner: Tell us a little bit about your research, how you have gone about it, and how that new level of pervasive collaboration was demonstrated in your findings.
Baseline information
Cone: In terms of the research, as I said, we went out to 200 execs around the world and asked them a series of questions about what their investment plans were. It was baseline survey information. What are you doing in the cloud, how much of it are you doing, and what are the key benefits that you're getting?
Then, as we went deeper in this phase of the project, we found that collaboration has different meanings. It can be collaboration within the company. It can be with partners, which cloud platforms allow you to do more easily. It's also this key relationship, a key area of collaboration between IT and the business.
What we see in this research is that IT is increasingly seen as a partner for the business as a way of driving revenue via the cloud. But across the four regions that we surveyed -- North America, Latin America, EMEA and APAC -- we saw a very high percentage of companies say that they see that IT is emerging as a valued partner of the business, not just a support function for the business. I think that's a key collaborative relationship that I'm sure our guests are seeing in their own companies.
Gardner: Just to be clear, Ed, this is ongoing research. You're already back in the field and you'll be updating some of these findings soon?
We're really interested to see how people are doing compared to the targets they set and what their new targets are.
Cone: Yes, we're really excited about that, Dana. We did this survey last year for SAP. Then, we jumped in about a year later using those numbers and did these in-depth research interviews to look at the use of the cloud to drive business. This summer, we're refielding the survey to see how things have changed and to see how the view of the future has changed.
We ask a lot of questions about where they are now, and where they think they'll be in three years. We're really interested to see how people are doing compared to the targets they set and what their new targets are. So we will have some fresh numbers and fresh reports to talk to you about by Q3 or Q4.
Gardner: Let us look into those actual examples now and go back to Bryan at TELUS.
Acker: I have a tangible example that might help express the value of collaboration at TELUS and something that people don't think about, and that is safety.
We have a lot of field technicians who are in remote areas, but have mobile access. A perfect example is that we can go into situation where a technician may be a little unsure of what to do in a situation and it's potentially unsafe.
Because of the mobile access and the cloud, we've enabled them to quickly record a video, upload it directly to our SAP Jam system, which is our collaborative tool suite that we use, and share it with a collection of other technicians, not just the person they can call.
Safer situation
What happens is then people can say this is unsafe, you need to do X, Y and Z. We can even push them required training, so they can be sure that they're making the right decision. All of a sudden, that becomes a safer situation and the technician is not putting themselves at risk. This is really important because people do not think of those real, tangible examples. They often feel that they're just sharing information back and forth.
But in terms of what we are doing and where we are going, I sit in HR, and we're trying to improve the business process. We now have all of our information, the system of record, an integrated learning management system (LMS), our ability to analyze talent, so we make the correct hires.
We now trust the information implicitly and we're able to make the correct decision, whether it means customer information, recruiting choices, hiring choices, or performance choices.
Now, we're in a situation where we're only going to maximize and try to leverage the cloud for even more innovation, because now people are singing from the same choir sheet, so to speak.
We now trust the information implicitly and we're able to make the correct decision, whether it means customer information, recruiting choices, hiring choices, or performance choices.
We have access to the same system or record of truth, and that's the first time we've had that. Now, recruiting can talk to learning, who can talk to performance, who can talk to technicians and we know they all get a consistent version of the truth. That is really important for us.
Gardner: Those are some excellent examples of how mobile enhances cloud. That extends the value of mobile. That brings in collaboration and, at the same time, creates data and analysis benefits that can then be fed back into that process.
So there really is a cyclical adoption value here. I'd like to go back to the cultural part of this. Bryan, how do you make sure that that adoption cycle doesn't spin out of control? Is there a lack of governance? Do you feel like you can control what goes on, or are we perhaps in the period of creative chaos that we should let spin off on its own in any way?
Acker: That's a great question, and I'm not sure if TELUS handles this in a unique way, but we definitely had a very detailed plan. The first thing we did was have collaboration as one of our valued attributes or one of our leadership competencies. People are expected to collaborate, and their performance review is dependent on that.
What that means is we can provide tools to say that we're trying to facilitate collaboration. It doesn't mean matter if you're collaborating through a phone call, through a water-cooler chat, or through technology. Our employees are expected to collaborate. They know that it's part of their performance cycle and it's targeted towards their achievements for the year. We trust them to do the right thing.
We actually encourage a little bit of freedom. We want to push the boundaries. Our governance is not so tight that they are afraid to comment incorrectly or afraid to ask a tough question.
Flattening the hierarchy
What we're seeing now is individual team members are challenging leadership positions on specific questions, and we're having an honest and frank discussion that's pushing the organization forward and making us make the accurate correct choice at all time, which is really encouraging. Now, we're really flattening our hierarchy and the cloud is enabling us to do that.
Gardner: That sounds like a very powerful engine of innovation, allowing that freedom, but then having it be controlled, managed, and understood at the same time. That's amazing. Ed, do you have any reactions to what Bryan just said about how innovation is manifesting itself newly there at TELUS?
Cone: When we spoke to TELUS, I was intertested in that cultural aspect of it. I'm sure the guys on the call would disagree with me on a technical level, but we like to say that technology is easy, and culture is hard. The technology works, and you implement it and you figure that out, but getting people to change is really difficult.
The example that we use in the case study, SAP on TELUS, was about changing culture through gamification, allowing people to learn via an online cloud-based virtual game. It was this massive effort and it engaged a huge number of employees across this large company.
It really shifted the employee culture, and that had an impact on customer service and therefore on business performance
It really shifted the employee culture, and that had an impact on customer service and therefore on business performance. It's a way that the cloud is moving mountains and it's addressing the hard thing to change, which is human behavior and attitudes.
Minahan: We talk about the convergence of these different technologies in cloud, social, and mobile and ultimately we had this convergence going on in technology that we talked about all the time. There is massive change going on in the workforce and what constitutes the workforce.
Bryan talked about how there is a leveling of the organization, doing away with the traditional hierarchical command and control, where information is isolated in the hands of a few, and the new eager employees doesn't get access to solving some of the tough problems. All that's being flattened and accelerated and powered by cloud and social collaboration tools.
Also, we're seeing a shift in what constitutes the workforce. One of the biggest examples is the major shift in how companies are viewing the workforce. Contingent and statement of work (SOW) workers, basically non-payroll employees, now represent a third of the typical workforce. In the next few years, this will grow to more than half.
It's already occurring in certain industries, like pharmaceuticals, mining, retail, and oil and gas. It's changing how folks view the workforce. They're moving from a functional management of someone -- this is their job; this is what they do -- to managing pools of talent or skills that can be rapidly deployed to address a given problem or develop a new innovative product or service.
These pools of talent will include both people on your payroll and off your payroll. Tracking, managing, organizing, and engaging these pools of talent is only possible through the cloud and through mobile, where multiple parties from multiple organizations could view, access, collaborate, and share knowledge and experiences running on a shared-technology platform.
Customer is evolving
Acker: That extends quite naturally to the customer. The customer is evolving faster than almost anything and they expect 24x7 access to support. They expect authentic responses and they now have access to just as much information as the customer service agent.
Without mobile, if you can't connect with those customers and be factual, you're in trouble. Your customers are going to reply in social-media channels and in public forums, and you're going to lose business and you're going to lose trust with your existing customers as well.
Minahan: I fully agree. The only addition to that is that they also expect to be able to engage you through any channel, whether it's their mobile phone, their laptop, or in some cases, directly face to face, on the phone, or in a retail outlet and have the same consistent experience and not need to reintroduce who they are and what their problem as they move from channel to channel.
Gardner: Clearly we're seeing how things that just weren't possible before the cloud are having pervasive impacts on businesses. Let's look at a new business example, again with Danone. Ralf, tell us a little bit about how cloud has had strategic implications for you. You have many brands, many lines of business. How is cloud allowing Danone to function better as a whole?
The cloud is definitely the best option for us to start these new businesses and connect to all consumers.
Steinbach: We have a strategy around digital marketing and, as you know, we're operating in almost every country in the world. Even though we're a big company, locally, we're sometimes quite small. We're trying to build up new markets in emerging countries with very small investments in the beginning. There, the cloud is definitely the best option for us to start these new businesses and connect to all consumers.
Money matters, even for a big company like Danone. That's very important for us. If you look at Africa, there are completely different business models that we need to address.
People in Africa pay with their mobile phones. Some sell yogurt on a bicycle. Women pick up some yogurt in the morning and then they sell them on the road. We need to do businesses with these people as well. Obviously, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system isn't able to do that, but the cloud is a much better adapted platform to do this sort of business.
Gardner: The C-suite likes to look at numbers. How do we measure innovation?
Metrics lacking
Cone: We're doing some research on another program right now on that very topic for a non-SAP program. That is showing us that metrics for success on basic things like key performance indicators (KPIs) for progress of migration into the cloud are lacking at a lot of companies. Basic return on investment (ROI) numbers are lacking at a lot of companies.
We're really old school. To go back to your definition of what a business is, we think it's an organization that's set up to make money for shareholders and deliver value for stakeholders. By those measures, at least by dotted line, the key metrics are your financial performance? Are you entering, as we mentioned before, new markets and creating new products?
So the metrics we're seeing that are cloud specific aren't universal yet. In a broader sense, as cloud becomes an everyday set of tools, the point of those tools is to make the business run better, and we are seeing a correlation between effective use of the cloud and business performance.
There are entirely new engagement models and business models that the companies hadn't even thought of before.
Minahan: What the cloud, mobile, and social bring to bear in addition to new collaboration models is that they kick off an unbelievable amount of new information, and oftentimes not in a structured way. There's a need to aggregate that information and analyze that in new ways to detect and predict propensity modeling on your customers, your supply chain, and your employees. Progression and development are extremely powerful.
I think we've just scratched the surface. As an industry, we provided the channels through which to collaborate, as we heard today. There are entirely new engagement models and business models that the companies hadn't even thought of before. Once you have that information, once you have that connectivity, once you have that collaboration, you can begin to investigate and trial and error.
To answer your question about measurement on this, yes, we need measurement of the business process and the business outcome. Let's not forget why companies adopt technology. It's not just for technology sake. It's to effect the change. It's to effect more efficiency, greater productivity, and new engagement capabilities.
Measuring the business benefit is what we're seeing and what we're advising our customers to do. And rather than just measuring, are we tracking towards an adoption of having more cloud in our infrastructure portfolios.
The focus today is largely driven by the fact that the lines of business are now more engaged in the buying decision and in shaping what they want from a technology standpoint to help them enable their business process. So the metrics have shifted from one of speeds and feeds and users to one of business outcomes.
Gardner: Bryan at TELUS in Toronto, you're closely associated with the human resources productivity and the softer metrics of the employee involvement and dedication that sort of thing. Are there any ways that you can think of that cloud adoption and innovation, as we've been describing, has this unintended set of consequences when it comes to employee empowerment or that innovation equation? How do you view measuring success of cloud adoption?
Simplifying the process
Acker: We measure our customers success by the likelihood to recommend. Will a TELUS customer recommend our services and products to friends, family, and peers?
We measure internal success by our employee engagement metric. If the customers are satisfied and the employees are engaged and fulfilled at work, that means that we're probably moving in the right direction. We can kind of reverse engineer to see what changes are helping us. That allows us to take our information and innovation from the cloud and inspire better behaviors and better process.
We can say, "You know what, in this pocket we've analyzed that our customers are likely to recommend it higher than anywhere else in Canada. What are they doing?" We can look back through the information shared on the cloud and see the great customer success stories or the great team building that's driving engagement through the roof.
We can say, "This is the process we have to replicate and spread throughout all of our centers." Then, we can tweak it for cultural specifics. But because of that, we can use the cloud to inspire better behavior, not just say that we had 40,000 users and 2,000 hits on this blog post. We're really trying to get away from the quantitative and get into the qualitative to drive change throughout the organization.
Gardner: What comes next? Where do you see the impacts of cloud adoption in your business over the next couple of years?
Steinbach: There are still some challenges in front of us. One of the challenges is China. China is one of the biggest markets, but cloud services are not always available or they're very slow. If your cloud solution is hosted outside of China, there's a big problem. These are probably technical challenges, but we have to find solutions with our partners there, so that they can establish their services in China.
That's one of the challenges. The other is that that the cloud might change the role of IT in our organization. In the past we owned the systems and the applications. Today, the business can basically buy cloud services with a credit card. So you could imagine that they won't need us anymore in the future, but that's not true.
As an IT organization, we probably have to find our role inside the organization, from just providing solutions or hardware to being an ambassador for the business and to help them to make the right decisions. There are still problems that will remain as the integration between different applications. It doesn't get easier in the cloud, so that's where I see the challenge.
And last but not least, it's about security. We take that really seriously. If we store data, whether it's employees or of our consumers, we have to make sure that that our cloud providers have the same standards of security and there are no leaks. That's very, very important for us. And there are legal aspects as well.
We've just started. There are still a lot of things to do in the next few years, but we're definitely going on with our strategy towards the cloud and toward mobile. And, at the end of the day, it all fits together. I think it was said before that it's not only cloud, but it's the big data, collaboration, and mobile. You have to see the whole thing as one package of opportunities.
Important challenges
Gardner: What do you think might be some of the impacts a few years from now that we're only just starting to realize?
Acker: On a more positive note, which is just the other side of the coin, obviously the challenges are there, but we're actually just starting to be able to experience the fact that innovation at TELUS is moving faster than it used to. We're no longer dependent on the speed at which our pre-assigned resources can make change and develop new products.
IT can now look at it from a more strategic point of view, which is great. Now, we're maximizing quarterly releases from systems that are leveraging the input from multiple companies around the world, not just how fast our learning team can develop something or how fast our IT team can build new functionality into our products.
We're no longer limited by the resources, and innovation is flying forward. That, for us, is the biggest unexpected gain. We're seeing all this technology that used to take months or years to change now on a quarterly release schedule. This is fantastic. Even within a year of being on our cloud-computing system, we're so happy, and that is inspiring to people. They're maximizing that and trying to push the organization forward as well. So, that's a real big benefit.
Gardner: Tim, do you have any thoughts about where this can lead us in the next few years that we haven't yet hit upon, things you're just starting to see the first really glimmers of it?
I think the biggest thing is that the cloud is going to unlock new business models and new organization models.
Minahan: A lot of it has been touched on here. We're seeing a massive shift in what the role of IT is, moving from one of deploying technology and integrating things to really becoming business process experts.
We talked a bit about the amount of data and the insights that are now available to help you better understand and predict the appetites of your customers to help you even determine when your machines might fail and when it's time to reorder or set a service repair.
I think the biggest thing is that the cloud is going to unlock new business models and new organization models. We talked a bit about TELUS and their work patterns, in which most of the workers are remote and how they are engaging the field service technicians in the field.
We talked about the growing contingent workforce and how the cloud is enabling folks to collaborate, onboard, and skill up those employees, non-payroll employees much more quickly. We're going to see your new virtual enterprises. We're talking about borderless enterprises that allow you to organize not just pools of talent, but entire value chains, and be able to collaborate in a more much transparent way.
We mentioned before about Apple Home. You're beginning to see it with 3D printers. It's this whole idea where more and more companies become digital businesses. This isn't just about on-the-channel commerce providing a single customer experience across multiple channels.
It's actually about moving more and more of what you deliver, the solutions you deliver, the former products your deliver, to digital bits that can be tested, experienced, and downloaded all online.
All of this is being empowered by this massive convergence of cloud, mobility, social and business networks, and big data.
What comes next
Cone: To follow on what Tim said about the borderless enterprise, when we ask people what's in the cloud now and what's going to be substantially cloud based in three years, three of the highest growth areas were innovation in R and D, supply chain, and HR. All of those go straight to this idea that boundaryless digital enterprises are emerging and that cloud will be the underpinning of these enterprises.
We're working with Tim right now on a big global study about the workforce. When I talk about culture and the way companies function internally, a year ago, when we started this research, HR was the least likely function of the ones we queried to be in the cloud, and it's going to have massive growth in the next couple of years.
These stories start to converge of boundaryless and culture, all coming together via the cloud.
These stories start to converge of boundaryless and culture, all coming together via the cloud. That's the segue to say that we're really excited to see how these numbers look when we refield this survey this summer, because that progress is snowballing and accelerating beyond even what people thought it was the last time we asked them.
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Wearable technology was dominant at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) , and MWC was no exception to this trend. New versions of favorites, such as the Samsung Gear (three new products were released: the Gear 2, the Gear 2 Neo and the Gear Fit), shared the limelight with new wearables like Pebble Time Steel (the new premium version of the company's previously released smartwatch) and the LG Watch Urbane. The most dramatic difference at MWC was an emphasis on presenting wearables as fashion accessories and moving away from the original clunky technology associated with t...
Mar. 31, 2015 03:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,502
SYS-CON Events announced today that robomq.io will exhibit at SYS-CON's @ThingsExpo, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. robomq.io is an interoperable and composable platform that connects any device to any application. It helps systems integrators and the solution providers build new and innovative products and service for industries requiring monitoring or intelligence from devices and sensors.
Mar. 30, 2015 06:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,546
The list of 'new paradigm' technologies that now surrounds us appears to be at an all time high. From cloud computing and Big Data analytics to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and the Internet of Things (IoT), today we have to deal with what the industry likes to call 'paradigm shifts' at every level of IT. This is disruption; of course, we understand that – change is almost always disruptive.
Mar. 30, 2015 04:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,173
SYS-CON Events announced today that Solgenia will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, and the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Solgenia is the global market leader in Cloud Collaboration and Cloud Infrastructure software solutions. Designed to "Bridge the Gap" between Personal and Professional Social, Mobile and Cloud user experiences, our solutions help large and medium-sized organizations dr...
Mar. 30, 2015 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,936
The world's leading Cloud event, Cloud Expo has launched Microservices Journal on the SYS-CON.com portal, featuring over 19,000 original articles, news stories, features, and blog entries. DevOps Journal is focused on this critical enterprise IT topic in the world of cloud computing. Microservices Journal offers top articles, news stories, and blog posts from the world's well-known experts and guarantees better exposure for its authors than any other publication. Follow new article posts on Twitter at @MicroservicesE
Mar. 30, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,521
SYS-CON Events announced today the IoT Bootcamp – Jumpstart Your IoT Strategy, being held June 9–10, 2015, in conjunction with 16th Cloud Expo and Internet of @ThingsExpo at the Javits Center in New York City. This is your chance to jumpstart your IoT strategy. Combined with real-world scenarios and use cases, the IoT Bootcamp is not just based on presentations but includes hands-on demos and walkthroughs. We will introduce you to a variety of Do-It-Yourself IoT platforms including Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, Spark and Intel Edison. You will also get an overview of cloud technologies s...
Mar. 30, 2015 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,156
SYS-CON Events announced today that SafeLogic has been named "Bag Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo® New York, which will take place June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. SafeLogic provides security products for applications in mobile and server/appliance environments. SafeLogic's flagship product CryptoComply is a FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic engine designed to secure data on servers, workstations, appliances, mobile devices, and in the Cloud.
Mar. 30, 2015 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,533
After making a doctor's appointment via your mobile device, you receive a calendar invite. The day of your appointment, you get a reminder with the doctor's location and contact information. As you enter the doctor's exam room, the medical team is equipped with the latest tablet containing your medical history – he or she makes real time updates to your medical file. At the end of your visit, you receive an electronic prescription to your preferred pharmacy and can schedule your next appointment.
Mar. 30, 2015 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 912
Containers and microservices have become topics of intense interest throughout the cloud developer and enterprise IT communities. Accordingly, attendees at the upcoming 16th Cloud Expo at the Javits Center in New York June 9-11 will find fresh new content in a new track called PaaS | Containers & Microservices Containers are not being considered for the first time by the cloud community, but a current era of re-consideration has pushed them to the top of the cloud agenda. With the launch of Docker's initial release in March of 2013, interest was revved up several notches. Then late last...
Mar. 30, 2015 09:15 AM EDT Reads: 2,264
The WebRTC Summit 2014 New York, to be held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York, NY, announces that its Call for Papers is open. Topics include all aspects of improving IT delivery by eliminating waste through automated business models leveraging cloud technologies. WebRTC Summit is co-located with 16th International Cloud Expo, @ThingsExpo, Big Data Expo, and DevOps Summit.
Mar. 30, 2015 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,656
SOA Software has changed its name to Akana. With roots in Web Services and SOA Governance, Akana has established itself as a leader in API Management and is expanding into cloud integration as an alternative to the traditional heavyweight enterprise service bus (ESB). The company recently announced that it achieved more than 90% year-over-year growth. As Akana, the company now addresses the evolution and diversification of SOA, unifying security, management, and DevOps across SOA, APIs, microservices, and more.
Mar. 30, 2015 08:30 AM EDT Reads: 2,086
GENBAND has announced that SageNet is leveraging the Nuvia platform to deliver Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) to its large base of retail and enterprise customers. Nuvia's cloud-based solution provides SageNet's customers with a full suite of business communications and collaboration tools. Two large national SageNet retail customers have recently signed up to deploy the Nuvia platform and the company will continue to sell the service to new and existing customers. Nuvia's capabilities include HD voice, video, multimedia messaging, mobility, conferencing, Web collaboration, deskt...
Mar. 30, 2015 01:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,509
SYS-CON Media announced today that @WebRTCSummit Blog, the largest WebRTC resource in the world, has been launched. @WebRTCSummit Blog offers top articles, news stories, and blog posts from the world's well-known experts and guarantees better exposure for its authors than any other publication. @WebRTCSummit Blog can be bookmarked ▸ Here @WebRTCSummit conference site can be bookmarked ▸ Here
Mar. 29, 2015 10:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,853
SYS-CON Events announced today that Cisco, the worldwide leader in IT that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, has been named "Gold Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Cisco makes amazing things happen by connecting the unconnected. Cisco has shaped the future of the Internet by becoming the worldwide leader in transforming how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco and our partners are building the platform for the Internet of Everything by connecting the...
Mar. 29, 2015 07:00 PM EDT Reads: 5,278
Temasys has announced senior management additions to its team. Joining are David Holloway as Vice President of Commercial and Nadine Yap as Vice President of Product. Over the past 12 months Temasys has doubled in size as it adds new customers and expands the development of its Skylink platform. Skylink leads the charge to move WebRTC, traditionally seen as a desktop, browser based technology, to become a ubiquitous web communications technology on web and mobile, as well as Internet of Things compatible devices.
Mar. 29, 2015 06:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,881
Docker is an excellent platform for organizations interested in running microservices. It offers portability and consistency between development and production environments, quick provisioning times, and a simple way to isolate services. In his session at DevOps Summit at 16th Cloud Expo, Shannon Williams, co-founder of Rancher Labs, will walk through these and other benefits of using Docker to run microservices, and provide an overview of RancherOS, a minimalist distribution of Linux designed expressly to run Docker. He will also discuss Rancher, an orchestration and service discovery platf...
Mar. 29, 2015 04:15 PM EDT Reads: 2,460
SYS-CON Events announced today that Vitria Technology, Inc. will exhibit at SYS-CON's @ThingsExpo, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Vitria will showcase the company's new IoT Analytics Platform through live demonstrations at booth #330. Vitria's IoT Analytics Platform, fully integrated and powered by an operational intelligence engine, enables customers to rapidly build and operationalize advanced analytics to deliver timely business outcomes for use cases across the industrial, enterprise, and consumer segments.
Mar. 29, 2015 03:30 PM EDT Reads: 2,208
SYS-CON Events announced today that Liaison Technologies, a leading provider of data management and integration cloud services and solutions, has been named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York, NY. Liaison Technologies is a recognized market leader in providing cloud-enabled data integration and data management solutions to break down complex information barriers, enabling enterprises to make smarter decisions, faster.
Mar. 29, 2015 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 3,504
@ThingsExpo has been named the Top 5 Most Influential M2M Brand by Onalytica in the 'Machine to Machine: Top 100 Influencers and Brands.' Onalytica analyzed the online debate on M2M by looking at over 85,000 tweets to provide the most influential individuals and brands that drive the discussion. According to Onalytica the "analysis showed a very engaged community with a lot of interactive tweets. The M2M discussion seems to be more fragmented and driven by some of the major brands present in the M2M space. This really allows some room for influential individuals to create more high value inter...
Mar. 29, 2015 01:45 PM EDT Reads: 4,702
SYS-CON Events announced today that Akana, formerly SOA Software, has been named "Bronze Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo® New York, which will take place June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Akana's comprehensive suite of API Management, API Security, Integrated SOA Governance, and Cloud Integration solutions helps businesses accelerate digital transformation by securely extending their reach across multiple channels – mobile, cloud and Internet of Things. Akana enables enterprises to share data as APIs, connect and integrate applications, drive part...
Mar. 28, 2015 04:15 PM EDT Reads: 1,581


text:
OP Member
Thanks Meter: 1
68 posts
Join Date:Joined: Mar 2007
And like most here, I was flummoxed and PO'd to find that it doesn't work on my Tilt 2, and in fact, nothing works, since HTC decided to use a different BT stack.
Why they do these things and don't think one step down the road to the Customer Experience I can't figure, but they screwed the Pooch bigtime on this one!
Well, I've found half of a solution - and a key that I expect will allow an expert here to give us an app to fix it all!
Buried in the WINDOWS folder is a file called "TurnBTOff".
It does Exactly what it says, so if you create shortcut to it in your WINDOWS/STARTMENU/PROGRAMS file you can turn it into a program launchable from the programs TAB.
Of course, you still have to turn BT on manually, but...
surely someone here can take the code apart, see how it's turning BT off and modify it to make it toggle the radio instead of just turning it off.
It would end up on virtually every Raph out there in no time!
Fame and Glory await!
Pretty please with sugar on top!
(or a beer if you prefer)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Former Paramore drummer Zac Farro will release his debut EP under his new monkier of HalfNoise next week.
The self-titled, five-track EP is Farro's first release since he and brother Josh left Paramore in December 2010.
Farro told NME he's been sitting on the record for quite a while now – more than 12 months, to be precise.
"As soon as it was done, I was ready for it to come out. I always want people to hear it as soon as it's ready, so to have to wait a year has been quite a challenge."
Farro also said he believed that the project, which is strongly influenced by Sigur Ros and Radiohead, had "pushed him to the limit" and he expected that the sound would "shock people".
"Ever since I was 17, I've worked on this, even when I was still in Paramore, I'd sit and work on these kind of songs.
"HalfNoise is an art project and it's pushed me to my limit. I think people will be a bit shocked when they hear it that it's the drummer in Paramore, but I hope to surprise people and open myself up to a whole new audience."
Farro also revealed that he'd played almost all the instruments on the record.
"I played all the drums, I did all the sampling. Me and a producer called Daniel James did the guitars together, but it was mainly just me performing. There are trumpet, French horn and glockenspiel samples too. I write in the mind of a film score, that's really the dream, what I'd like to be doing soon."
For more information about the EP, visit Xtramilerecordings.com.
Read More
- The 2015 Grammy Awards: The Winners & The Losers
- Aussies Among Early Winners At 2015 Grammys
- HalfNoise's Zac Farro On Finding Musical Inspiration In New Zealand
- 9 Things Everyone's Talking About After Reading & Leeds Festival 2014
- Paramore, You Me At Six, twenty one pilots – Entertainment Centre, Brisbane 09/01/14
- Paramore Unveil Music Video For New Single 'Daydreaming'


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Garfield back on screen, and Comic-Con, as Spidey
San Diego For his last Comic-Con appearance, nearly a year before the release of 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man," Andrew Garfield wore a store-bought Spider-Man suit and gave a heartfelt speech about what the character means to him.
Thousands of fans who'd known Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker instantly had reason to embrace the new star.
But Garfield was just as nervous before appearing inside the San Diego Convention Center's largest hall recently to promote "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," which is set for release next year.
The 29-year-old actor again attended the presentation in his Spidey suit - this time a screen-worthy version - before appearing as himself to answer fan questions. He spoke with The Associated Press about Comic-Con, his hopes for the second film and why he's afraid of famous people.
AP: What's it like to be back at Comic-Con after your first experience?
Garfield: I had so much fun, and I think about it often. It was a real highlight. It was like part extreme sport - it felt like skydiving, the amount of adrenaline that I had. I was like shaking and breathing incredibly hard. But being able to say - we all want moments like that in our lives where we go (exhales), `This is who I am. Hello! This is genuinely who I am.' And they're rare. They do take courage, but they don't have to, and it's weird because that's what Spider-Man has helped to give me through my growing up, is courage to move forward even with the fear. So to come back here is really nice, nerve-racking, overwhelming. Nothing's really changed.
AP: Your recent remarks that Spider-Man could be gay generated a lot of response. Were you surprised?
Garfield: I don't know about the response. All I know is it's an interesting question, more philosophically than anything. Obviously making this version of Peter Parker suddenly bisexual or gay wouldn't really make logical or dramatic sense. It was a hypothetical kind of question about the nature of these comic book characters and the nature of this particular character, and whether sexuality, race, any of those things makes any difference to the character of Peter Parker. ... What Stan Lee created is an Everyman for every man. Especially the underdog. And especially for those marginalized, for those ostracized. And who is more ostracized as young teenagers than gay young teenagers? So it was more a philosophical question about that. And I long for the day where a comment like that wouldn't make anyone batter an eyelid.
AP: How do you like working with Jamie Foxx, who is playing the villain Electro?
Garfield: Famous people scare me. I get really nervous around famous people. ... I overcompensate (with) how unimpressed I am, which is completely and utter rubbish. So I'm a fan. But of course, with someone like Jamie who's not only this presence, but such an incredible talent, multitalented, who I've been a fan of for ages, is just a great man, a great person, and a gentle, kind, good soul and good spirit, and then suddenly it's like, let's shoot some hoops, have a chat, meet his daughter. It's that weird myth of fame, of actors and musicians or whatever being any different from anyone else. It's that weird thing that I still (get) excited: Oh they're on a pedestal, they're better, they're better, they're just better. It's just not the truth. I love busting that myth any chance I get.


text:
CrossFit 781 was founded to bring the best of CrossFit to the South Shore area. We believe in excellence in every facet of our gym. We also believe in fostering a warm, welcoming and motivating environment for everyone who walks through our doors; ranging from beginners who have never tried CrossFit to experts who are training for competitions and fitness events.
Why CrossFit 781?
Come see why CrossFit 781 is the best CrossFit gym on the South Shore, and how we can change your life.


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@Bas: I tried it extensively before getting a Samsung. What I can tell you is that the screen is defintely underwhelming in general and totally useless in direct sunlight (that was my primary annoyance with phones). On the plus side, I must say that I may have misjudged the physical buttons: "soft" buttons look much sleeker, but they are also way too easy to hit by accident. Maybe I'm just holding it wrong™
DLNA is also a big plus.
As for battery life, I'm not sure it makes a big difference: most phones will get you through one day of casual usage without charging, but as soon as you start playing games or video extensively performance drops dramatically. I don't think a few extra mAh will be noticeable.


text:
One key element of any successful CRM project is the ability to migrate data and sometimes keep data integrated between applications. In order to have a stable and viable Microsoft Dynamics CRM environment you need to ensure that all your data integration
and migration is done using a supported method. Directly modifying data in the database is not supported. That means that you should not perform direct inserts, updates or deletes. Instead, you should interface with CRM by leveraging the CRM web services.
You can find the information needed in the
Microsoft Dynamics SDK. There are two supported ways to read data from CRM: one is to also use the CRM web service, the other is to use SQL statements to query the CRM filtered views. Note that the second option is not available if using Crm Online, so
you will have to use the CRM web services to retrieve data from Crm Online.
Since there would be significant development effort to build code from scratch to use the CRM web services, and others have already created integration applications, most choose to use one of the available tools. Two of the most common tool types are Scribe
Insight and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) when combined with one of a few 3rd party CRM-SSIS adapters. Other ETL vendors have recently begun adding CRM webservice adapters to their own suite of tools.
From a feature perspective all data integration solutions have some similarities and generally include the following basic features:
Another consideration when determining which tool is right for you is to understand the technical resources that are available to you. Do you have inhouse developers who are familiar with SSIS? Maybe you have CRM business analysts or CRM system administrators
who might be more comfortable with Scribe or a similar tool. Regardless of the tool you select, all will have a learning curve. While SSIS is more likely a "go to" tool for developers, Scribe might be easier for a business analyst type to use. In either
scenario, it is generally a good idea to obtain a trial version of the tool and try it before purchasing.
Most of the tools are designed around a batch processing model, in which a set of records is read from a source system, transformed (if necessary), then written to a destination system. These tools are normally scheduled to run on a periodic basis. Of the
tools listed below, Microsoft Biztalk Server would typically be described as a middleware tool that uses an alternative model, which is message-based. In this model, the source system would typically write data as it is changed as a message to the middleware
tool. The middleware would then perform any transformation or routing logic, then update the destination. There are further differences between a batch processing model, and a message-based one, which are beyond the scope of this article, but may also impact
your choice of integration tool
There are many options for integrating your Microsoft Dynamics CRM system with other in-house and third-party systems. The list below represents some of the data integration solutions available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM:


text: Utah State University USU Students Create, Share Design Ideas for SLC's Granary District By Bob Nelson • Feb 19, 2015 File: USU/ Dana Crosson Listen Listening... / 1:27 Salt Lake City's Granary District will be in the spotlight Friday as students from Utah State University's Architecture and Environmental Planning Department present their vision of that area's future. USU Program Provides Low-Cost Recycled Wheelchairs By Dan Bammes • Dec 31, 2014 Utah State University Assistive Technology Program Listen Listening... / 1:13 story audio A program that recycles wheelchairs for people with disabilities has provided more than 150 chairs over the past 18 months. University Gun Policies in Spotlight After Sarkeesian Cancellation By Brian Grimmett • Oct 16, 2014 Ken Lund / Creative Commons Confusion about what a person can and can't do with a gun on Utah's college campuses is once again in the spotlight after pop culture critic and feminist Anita Sarkeesian cancelled a speaking engagement at Utah State University earlier this week after receiving death threats. How Much Water is Your Sprinkler Wasting? By Andrea Smardon • May 6, 2014 Utah is the second largest consumer of water per person in the nation, but Utah State University Extension is offering a program to help people cut down on wasted water by getting a free sprinkler check. According to USU, about two-thirds of water in private homes is used on lawns and landscapes. 40 percent of that water is wasted, says Molly Waters, the university's water check program manager. "Water is wasted in the landscape through things as simple as watering too long, or too frequently, to having major breaks that you don't know about," Waters says. Study Shows Indoor Air Quality Better than Outdoors By Dan Bammes • Dec 27, 2013 Utah State University/Utah Division of Air Quality When the air quality gets really bad in Utah's valleys, residents are told to stay indoors. But is our indoor air really any better? A new study from Utah State University is helping to answer that question. Environmental engineering professor Randy Martin says our indoor air is much cleaner than outdoors on cold inversion days. He says a lot of the hazardous PM 2.5 particles tend to evaporate in the warmer indoor environment. But he says we can also cause problems for ourselves inside. Remembering an Old-Time Gardener By Dan Bammes • Jul 23, 2013 Alicia Geesman Will Pitkin taught at Utah State University for 40 years, and after his retirement, grew a garden that inspired many more people. He passed away on Sunday, July 21, 2013 at the age of 77. KUER originally aired this story in July, 2011 but we chose to broadcast it again in his memory.


text:
5041 South Shields Avenue
Fuller Park, Chicago, 60609
Commute to Downtown Chicago
Most errands require a car.
Transit is convenient for most trips.
Flat as a pancake, minimal bike lanes.
Score Details
5041 South Shields Avenue has a Walk Score of 33 out of 100. This location is a Car-Dependent neighborhood so most errands require a car.
5041 South Shields Avenue is a 12 minute walk from the Red Line at the Garfield-Red stop.
This location is in the Fuller Park neighborhood in Chicago. Nearby parks include Lowe Park, Fuller Park and Wagner Park.
Explore how far you can travel by car, bus, bike and foot from 5041 South Shields Avenue.
5041 South Shields Avenue has excellent transit which means transit is convenient for most trips. Car sharing is available from I-GO.
Rail lines:
Red Line
0.5 mi
Green Line
0.8 mi
Bus lines:
15 Jeffery Local
0.1 mi
51 51st
0.1 mi
24 Wentworth
0.1 mi
47 47th
0.4 mi
Car shares:
5041 South Shields Avenue compared to all of Chicago.
Average crime area.
Average crime area.
How do you feel walking near 5041 South Shields Avenue?
Thanks for your feedback!
5041 South Shields Avenue is in the Fuller Park neighborhood. Fuller Park is the 184th most walkable neighborhood in Chicago with a neighborhood Walk Score of 55.
Moving to Chicago from another city? View our moving to Chicago guide.


text:
Grand Bluewave Hotel Shah Alam
Value Score
Average Value
Price and Rating Equal to similar hotelsSee Travelers Recommended Hotels
Luxury of a 5-star Hotel in the Heart of Shah Alam
The Grand BlueWave Hotel Shah Alam has been classified 5-Star by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism, Malaysia.
It is the first 5-Star hotel in the heart of Shah Alam. The hotel's facilities include 24-hour room service, high speed internet access in all rooms, Japanese speaking guest relations managers, multi-lingual staff, limousine service, safe deposit box, a swimming pool and a fitness centre and also facilities for the physically challenged.
The choice of buffet spread is quite generous offering an eclectic and various kinds of food from Western, Japanese to traditional Malay.
Unique Quality: The hotel offers daily shuttle service to shopping malls such as the PKNS Complex, Shah Alam City Centre, Alam Sentral, Shah Alam Mall, Tesco and Giant Hypermarket.
There are also special transfers on Saturday, Sunday & Public Holiday to Subang Parade, Sunway Pyramid, One Utama, Mid-Valley Megamall, KLCC, Lot 10 and Berjaya Times Square.
However, the shuttle service is available on a first come first served basis and each transfer is able to accommodate a maximum of 10 persons only.
Directions: The hotel is very near the Shah Alam Maybank Office and UMNO building. It is also close to the Shah Alam Blue Mosque and State Library.
Shah's Alam first 5 star hotel
Blue Wave hotel in Shah Alam is located in the heart of Shah Alam, the state capital of Selangor. Shah Alam's landmark, the blue-domed Mosque is just a stone's throw from the hotel. Inside the hotel you will hear 5 times a day the call for pray from the mosque. Even when the windows are closed, you still hear the calls. First day, just a funny detail but later, you really get more irritated of it. Where you walk, everywhere you hear the Mosque... :(
Hotel is pretty luxeous... it claims it has a 5 star rating but unconfirmed... Malaysian hotels like to give themself always lot of stars to compete themself with international hotels as Hilton...
Unique Quality: swimmingpool, spa, massage, non-working hot steam rooms, restaurants & function rooms and a entire floor for ladies only... :(
- 1
- Holiday Inn Glenmarie-Kuala Lumpur
- The Saujana
- Concorde Hotel Shah Alam
- Concorde Hotel
- Quality Hotel Shah Alam
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- Holiday Inn Glenmarie-Kuala Lumpur
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Nearby Grand Bluewave Hotel Shah Alam
Nearby HotelsSee all 11
Quality Hotel Shah Alam 0.2 miles away
Holiday Inn Shah Alam 0.2 miles away
Concorde Hotel Shah Alam 0.9 miles away
Concorde Hotel 0.9 miles away
The Saujana 1.1 miles away
3 Photos of Grand Bluewave Hotel Shah AlamView Professional Photos
Amenities at Grand Bluewave Hotel Shah Alam
- Restaurant
- Swimming Pool
- Wheelchair Accessible
- Room Service
- Fitness Center
- Free Parking
- Business Services
- Kitchenette
- Suites
- Free High Speed Internet
Sponsored Listings
Shah Alam Travel Forum
Need advice about Shah Alam, Malaysia? Visit the Travel Forum for Shah Alam and ask our Answer Gurus.


text:
And now for something completely different…
My friend Katie over at Kitchen Stewardship has been running a Tuesday series called Real Food Face-Off. Every week, she posts interviews with two real food bloggers. It's not so much a contest as it is a getting-to-know-you, and a way to find kindred spirits and other interesting food blogs.
Anyway, this week, I was interviewed!
Click here to see the interview.
I've been "faced off" with Raine from Agricultural Society, a wise and thoughtful woman who has turned to real food for healing, after getting sick repeatedly and becoming disillusioned with mainstream medicine. You can read her eye-opening story here. Raine, thanks for sharing your intense story.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Real Food Face-Off
Posted by Alex Lewin at 09:40
8 comments:
- LocalLadle said...
Terrific interviews -- definining a gesalt!
- February 23, 2010 at 10:02:00 AM EST
- Marianne Elixir said...
Great interview! Thanks for sharing.
- February 23, 2010 at 11:45:00 AM EST
- Raine Saunders said...
Hi Alex, I am honored to be featured with you today on Kitchen Stewardship (thanks Katie!). Thanks for keeping up this site and all you do for real food; it is greatly appreciated! :)
- February 23, 2010 at 12:51:00 PM EST
- christielala said...
Loved the interview :) My next book to read is going to be "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved".
- February 24, 2010 at 2:39:00 AM EST
- Zeke said...
Awesome interview. I really liked it! You provided soem good answers.
- February 24, 2010 at 5:09:00 PM EST
- Alex Lewin said...
Thanks all. I thought the questions were great, too.
- February 24, 2010 at 10:27:00 PM EST
- Kitchen Stewardship said...
Thanks for participating - you added great depth to the field! :) Katie
- March 3, 2010 at 11:38:00 PM EST
- Alex Lewin said...
Thanks Katie. Thanks for having me.
- March 3, 2010 at 11:43:00 PM EST


text:
Latest Comparison of DNS server software Reference Libraries
2010-09-29 15:02:09
A server is a program that functions as a socket listener. The term server can also be used to generally describe a host that is positioned to carry out one or more such programs. A server functions as either sole-operating software, or one or series of computers that links other electronic devices together. In addition, they often provide important and necessary services to members, both public and private, across an entire network through the Internet. For example, when a query is entered...
Word of the Day
- Large; stout; burly.
The word 'bowerly' is an alteration of 'burly'.


text:
If you're like most guys, you've found your favorite haircut, mastered the day-to-day styling, and stuck with it for decades. That stops here.
"If you give a guy a good haircut, he'll stick with it until his hair falls out," says Craig Hanson, creative director of American Crew. "And he'll use the same products for years, which can be a crutch." (For no-fail hair products to suit every style, check out our 2012 Grooming Awards.)
If you're stuck in a similar rut, there's no better place for hair styling inspiration than American Crew's Opening Night: a runway show featuring the best new hairstyles for men—followed by "Face Off," where three American stylists compete for their chance at the international title. Here, the Face Off finalists tell us their latest favorites—and how you can master them with ease.
The rockstar style Sarah Adams, 2nd runner up, Portland
It's really amazing: Some guys can party until 4 in the morning, wake up with a raging hangover, and still look like a badass. Not you? Adams says you can fake the low-key, yet amped up look with this boost powder. "Let your hair air dry, then add the product," she says. Lightly massage it into your scalp with your fingertips for instant bulk and texture—without the weight. Plus, it's great for fine hair. "It makes one strand of hair look like ten," she says.
The just-got-out-of-bed look Josiah Maglinti, 1st runner up, Portland
"I'm liking the bedhead trend right now," says Maglinti. "You don't need to put much thought into it, but it still looks stylish."
His plan: Apply the light hold texture lotion to damp hair. If you have thick hair, you can let it air dry; if you have thin hair, blow dry in the opposite direction of hair growth for volume. Then, add the defining paste to set it. Start from the back of your head and distribute throughout the front and sides, using your fingers to structure the mess, he says. Remember: Less is more. A quarter-sized drop is a good rule of thumb for most products.
The wear-anywhere cut Patrick Chai, Face Off winner, Los Angeles
"I work in a barbershop and a lot of guys want a clean cut look they can wear to work," says Chai. "But I want to show them that certain styles can be worn different ways." He suggests a cut that's about 4 inches on top—and nearly half of that on the sides. This way, you can shape it conservatively, or with some attitude, depending on the event. "You can twist the hair strands on the top—using American Crew Fiber—to make it spiky," says Chai. "Or, you can push the hair to the side using a foaming cream for a more office-friendly style."
Need a new stylist? Choose from The Manliest Barbershops in America.
—Kiera Aaron
Follow @MensHealthStyle on Twitter for answers to all your style and grooming questions.
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Dong Sun, Li Jin, Yun Chen, Prof. Jian-Rong Zhang and Prof. Jun-Jie Zhu Microwave-Assisted In Situ Synthesis of Graphene/PEDOT Hybrid and Its Application in Supercapacitors ChemPlusChem 78
Article first published online: 28 DEC 2012 | DOI: 10.1002/cplu.201200206
Do it in the microwave: A graphene/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (G/PEDOT) hybrid has been prepared by the in situ polymerization of EDOT monomer using the precursor of graphene, graphene oxide, as an oxidant under microwave heating. The G/PEDOT hybrid as a supercapacitor material exhibits high specific capacitance (see figure), excellent electrochemical stability, and high energy density.
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Replacing Electric Panel 200 amps
We have gotten a few estimates for replacing the old panel. Anything we need to consider or ask the contractors before we pick which one to use? Or is it safe to just go with the lowest bidder, assuming they are all licensed? Would appreciate any advice!
Why are you replacing the existing panel? (its not the sort of thing one usually swaps out for fun or fashion) That might dictate what questions to ask.
Generally if you use a real electrician and have it permitted and inspected (required where I live, anyway) you should be OK. Based on experience it's worth asking them to put a level on the box before screwing it to the wall.
The real electricians will have advice on brands, I'd suggest getting one that is not obscure in your area, with a wide variety of breakers available. I was distressed to find that the C-H subpanel put in my shop can't accept 220v tandem half inch breakers so now I'm out of slots and looking at adding a sub-sub panel if I want to keep my bigger machines isolated on their own circuits.
There was a 42 pole limit in the code for panels and most that can't accept tandems/skinnies are because they were designed to not exceed that limit through a variety of usually mecanical means.
This was removed from the code a few revisions back but lots of those restricted panels still exist.
When we did our 200 amp heavy up the electrician used a Square D QO panel (not the Homeline you see at many home stores) because the old panel used QO breakers. The Square D QO line seem to be reliable panels, with a good reputation for reliability, and breakers are easy to find. However, YMMV.
I had my panel upgraded to 200 amp QO in 2013 (house in Northern VA) and a local semi-retired electrician did the job for $1850, including the permit. The initial estimates I got were about $2200-2300, however, the guy was working a commercial job in the area and he gave me a break because it was easy for him to add my job to his schedule.
Also remember that the panel upgrade is not the end of the upgrade process. I've gone through a kitchen renovation that added a lot of circuits, added central AC, and added dedicated circuits for bathroom GFCI, bath heater/fan, and exterior GFCI outlets. It seems to never end.
I've also stripped out all the accessible two-wire flexible metal conduit and replaced it with new NM-B cable. I still have a few old runs with no way to replace them through access from the basement or attic, but they are only being used for lighting circuits.
For a duplex we own and rent out, one half we were fixing up and were planning on replacing the oil furnace with a heat pump/central air, and planning to install an electric dryer hookup. So the electric service needed to be upgraded from 100 amps to 200 amps which required a new larger service drop, since there a single 200 amp service for the entire structure.
The electrician we hired explained that we'd need a new main panel, two new meter/disconnect panels, and a new 200 amp subpanel in the location where the 100 amp fuse panel was.
I think the total for material and labor was around $1500


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4. Get a room
"I would recommend staying in a hotel downtown. Any hotel. Just book a room. The last time I was in town, I stayed at the Hotel Indigo (1244 N. Dearborn), which is near all the clubs on Division, so it may be a better spot for someone who enjoys that scene. In one room, the walls may be... CHRIS WALKER, CHICAGO TRIBUNE


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Drew Holcomb and his 'Medicine,' at WCL tonight, are easy to swallow
That's the theme and title of Americana rockers Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors' invigorating new album, a favorite find and a cure-all you can gulp without fear or prescription at World Cafe Live tonight. "First time we ever played there [WCL], five years ago, ...
SouthFlorida.com (blog)
Lauderdale Live 2015: OAR, Phillip Phillips top bill
SouthFlorida.com (blog)
Also peforming that day will be Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors (who played the first Lauderdale Live), "American Idol" winner Kris Allen, Nashville-based Ben Rector (his 2013 album "The Walking in Between" hit No. 16 on the Billboard 200 chart) and ...
and more »
Sun Sentinel
Lauderdale Live returning with OAR and Phillip Phillips
Sun Sentinel
Other acts on the bill, set to be announced Monday morning, include Sister Hazel, Dumpstaphunk, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, Kris Allen, Ben Rector, Luke Wade, and popular locals Beverly McClellan and Emily Kopp. Advance tickets cost $39.50, ...
and more »
The Daily Times
Singer-songwriter Ellie Holcomb steps off the edge ... and flies
The Daily Times
She opens for Third Day on Friday night at the Civic Auditorium in Knoxville — only four short years after she stepped out of her role in her husband's band, Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors, to pursue her own calling. She never intended it to work out that ...
and more »
Fairfield Sun
Emerging Nashville act make FTC debut
Fairfield Sun
One of the biggest and brightest emerging acts to surface out of Nashville, Tennessee will make their Fairfield Theatre Company debut, as Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors bring their country, folk, Americana sound to the intimate StageOne venue Monday, ...
and more »
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Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.
For a start, Freedom of Information must be match with Freedom of Access especially by the Police, who should not have any need for any recourse to any political authority as far as prosecution is concerned...
The constitution needs be reviewed as Rawlings easily took advantage of an aloof electorate, and now the clauses that empowered him is now fortifying complacency.
The education system needs to be expanded to consider education in the country's major native languages.
It seems though that the correspondent is avoiding outright confrontation because there are ever few pieces of evidence to substantiate the corruption or questions that hang in the air, as is the case in typically corrupt African countries...
The content presented do not fully cover the title.. It does not clearly say 'what' decisions are to be taken. I think the comments provided by the readers give more insights than covered by the Economist correspondent.
I read the article and found it vague on what needs to be done in Ghana. It seems to indicate cleaning up political
corruption and an austerity budget is needed even though it has developed democratic institutions that are working.
I would have liked a more detailed article on where the 8% growth is coming from and so forth.
How does foreign aid fit in at 11% of GDP? How much oil is expected.....a little research and some facts please.
Instead of trotting out the findings of Transparency International and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation on corruption in the Mahama administration, your correspondent ought to have talked to Ghanaians themselves.
Did your correspondent hear of the "GYEEDA"" scandal? Mahama and Co. have tried to suppress a report gthat shows that about 1 billion Cedis was given to party cronies to do nothing! Ask you correspondent to find the report and write on it.
Did your correspondent hear that the Internal Revenue Service had hired a company to monitor cellphone calls for the Service so that it could collect taxes from the phone companies? The company was paid about 114 million Cedis -- for doing nothing. Guess who owns the company hired by the IRS!
Mention Fortiz; guinea fowl project; bribing Supreme Court judges who sat on the election petition case -- and Ghanaians will shake their heads slyly and move away from you if they don't know you too well! Yet your correspondent rolls out figures that make Ghana smell like roses.
Please ask your Correspondent to read the Auditor-General's Reports. To talk to the members of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly.
Time was when an Economist Correspondent wouldn't be prodded to do these things. Yes -- I remember those days.
KwaLondon Darku
If only the gov't will take this advice, the country at this time is sinking. There are too many waste in the gov't, and Mahama have no future plan to move the country. What he lack also is P-O-L-C. planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling. With such a large Ministers, in which non of them can not make a critical decisions without asking the president's permission, the country is sinking, all Mr. Mahama been doing is to keep on making one promise after the other. It is time for him to cut cost, spend less, and let the private sector be the backbone of the country's economy.
Belt-tightening in Ghana should begin at the top. Immediately after coming to power Mr Mahama increased his pay by 30% to $10,000 a month and that of ministers to $8000 a month. Deputy Ministers and MPs earn $7000 a month. This may seem meagre until you put things in perspective: there are 38 Ministers, 38 deputies, 275 MPs, 100 presidential advisors, 15 ministers without portfolio. All the income earned by the president, his ministers and deputies is tax free. On top of that they have free health care, free housing, free transportation, including a chauffeur, 40 gallons of fuel a week for free. After trimming the fat at the top, then Mr Mahama should look at corruption. I don't think he is corrupt but he is turning a blind eye to this canker just as his predecessor did. The debt owed by the president's brother to Merchant Bank, a bank owned by Ghana's pension fund, constitutes 70% of the bank's entire worth. After repeatedly failing to honour his debt and being threatened with prosecution by the bank, the President's brother appeals for his intervention, which he did through the Vice President. The bank is now being sold to a company formed less than six months ago (with no banking experience and unclear ownership structure). Some suspect it is a plan by the government to let the president's brother off the hook. The government claims 70% of government revenue goes to wages and yet there are hundreds of teachers who are not being paid. Pension payments are being rationed (i.e. if some pensioners receive their money this month others will not). President Mahama has charm and is very likeable but he is not prepared or perhaps incapable of taking the bold decisions to move the country forward.
Ghana is West Africa's second largest economy after Nigeria....
The article said: "West Africa's largest economic success..."
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Arizona Diamondbacks
D-backs' Adam Eaton on injury: 'It's coming along great'
Adam Eaton was expected to bat leadoff for the Arizona Diamondbacks this season, setting the table for the rest of the lineup as well as the tone for the team.
A self-described "grinder," the center fielder's style of is to go all-out and give maximum effort on every play.
It's made him a fan favorite in a very short amount of time, but it's also led to a couple of significant injuries early in the 24-year-old's career.
The latest ailment is an elbow strain suffered during spring training, which has kept the outfielder out of the lineup since March 22. Eaton has yet to suit up for the team in the regular season, though he says his recovery is coming along nicely, and was scheduled to see the doctor Wednesday for an update.
"I get to throw [Thursday] if all goes well," he said while visiting patients at the Barro's Neurological Rehabilitation Center at St. Joseph's Hospital Wednesday. "It's coming along great; I got to hit in the game yesterday, felt athletic, felt like i could get out there. It was good for my own psyche."
Eaton said it's been tough not playing every day, but getting a chance to hit some -- and even start throwing the baseball -- is just around the corner.
And, assuming there are nothing goes wrong, a return to the team is on the way.
"May 9th to 15th-ish area is what we're looking," he said of his timeframe. "As long as there are no setbacks, that's the key."
And it's no surprise that Eaton, who appeared set to win a starting job out of spring training, is itching to get back to the team as soon as possible.
"They're having all the fun," he said. "They're having fun hitting doubles, triples and homers and winning a lot of games and having fun doing it.
"It's exciting for to sit there and watch them play, but definitely want to be out there soon.
"Sooner, better than later, to help them win."
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BitTorrent 3.4.2
Posted by: Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 09/24/2004 04:02 AM [ 0 comment(s) ]
You have a great product, many customers, and are delivering your product to hordes of happy customers online. Serving large files creates problems of scaling, flash crowds, and reliability. As you grow, they become more central to your business, but your bandwidth costs go up as well. It's a vicious cycle. There is a solution. BitTorrent is a simple software product which addresses all of these problems. The key to cheap file distribution is to tap the unutilized upload capacity of your customers. It's free. Their contribution grows at the same rate as their demand, creating limitless scalability for a fixed cost.
Tagged as: BitTorrent
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