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SmarterwareA blog about software2016-06-29T08:08:15+00:00https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.4hourly1http://smarterware.org9 Technology Stocks Worth the Investment in 2016Christine2016-06-27T11:14:36-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11150
When you're looking for a great investment in 2016, it's no surprise that technology is one of the most lucrative fields around. Investors such as George Soros and Warren Buffet have experienced unparalleled success by jumping into the tech market, and it's no wonder why. Technology has continued to soar over the last few years, […]

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When you're looking for a great investment in 2016, it's no surprise that technology is one of the most lucrative fields around. Investors such as George Soros and Warren Buffet have experienced unparalleled success by jumping into the tech market, and it's no wonder why.

Technology has continued to soar over the last few years, and brought advances we would never have thought possible even 20 years ago. Some of these stocks started as risky penny stocks, but grew in time to become some of the highest-value, high-return investments you could turn to.

Now tech companies are among the most profitable in the world, and they continue to make products that people can't seem to get enough of. If you're looking to invest in 2016, technology is a fairly safe avenue to walk.

Whether you choose to go with a well-known company, or an obscure no-name, here are some of the best tech investments of the year.

1. Alphabet

The parent company of Google is officially the highest valued tech company in the world. It surpassed Apple earlier this year. Google has managed to achieve mastery over search engines. The competition is miles behind with no signs of catching up, which means if you place your money in Alphabet, you're pretty much guaranteed to see growth. The only question is, how much?

2. Facebook

Facebook is another king of its niche, having constructed its very own social media empire. Not only is Facebook hugely successful, but it also purchased Instagram, which is rapidly growing in total users and helping the parent company to maintain dominance. Facebook continues to expand its fortune through its advertising practices, which fuels its growth from quarter to quarter while the competition remains too far behind to touch the social giant.

3. Qihoo 360 Technology

Many folks in the U.S. might not recognize the name of this tech firm, but it's a highly respected Chinese company that's firmly established itself in the field of cybersecurity. Because cyber attacks have become more frequent and companies are scrambling for ways to defend themselves, firms that specialize in cybersecurity are expected to grow by leaps and bounds in the future. This company will surely be among them, and therefore makes an excellent investment.

4. Baidu

Also a Chinese firm, Baidu is similar to Alphabet's Google in that it's a search engine that boasts control of 70 percent of the Chinese Internet search market. The company's revenues grew 32 percent last year alone, and that number is projected to continue to expand as the business gains more investors and its system continues to develop.

5. eBay

We haven't heard much about eBay in the last few years since Amazon swooped in and took control of much of the market, but things are looking up for this familiar name. Projections were low at the beginning of the year, but stocks in this company have begun to rise in value again.

6. PayPal

Though a variety of competitive payment apps and online systems have popped up all over, PayPal has still managed to retain its preeminence in the online payment system industry. It's lost a fair chunk of its power, but PayPal remains one of the most exciting growth stories of all, and it's beginning to grow again as businesses and individuals continue to use the system for their money-transfer needs.

7. Ambarella

This company supplies the video chips for GoPro cameras, which makes it powerful by association. Admittedly, its stock price fell about 40 percent during the last year, but it's quickly regaining momentum as GoPro becomes trendy again.

8. VeriSign

One of the first Internet security firms, VeriSign is currently capitalizing on the high demand for online security. The company went through a rough patch a few years ago when its system was hacked, but the problems have been fixed and it's become a respected name once more. As mentioned earlier, cyber attacks are becoming more frequent and vicious, and this company will continue to grow as the need for cyber security does. Right now, the projections are indicating extensive future growth.

9. Pegasystems

One of the oldest CRM firms around, Pegasystems pioneered customer relationship management, and it's still performing well despite growing challenges from similar operations. By capitalizing on its originality factor, the company is able to focus on speed and mobility, which is promoting very quick growth.

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 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/9-technology-stocks-worth-the-investment-in-2016/Everything You Need to Know About Buying a Shipping ContainerChristine2016-06-25T16:28:21-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11147
When you think about a shipping container, what comes to mind? Most people conjure up images of shipyards or large vessels carrying hundreds of different containers stacked one on top of the other. However, did you know that there's a secondary marketplace for shipping containers? From industrial and commercial to residential, there are hundreds of […]

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When you think about a shipping container, what comes to mind? Most people conjure up images of shipyards or large vessels carrying hundreds of different containers stacked one on top of the other. However, did you know that there's a secondary marketplace for shipping containers? From industrial and commercial to residential, there are hundreds of different uses for these versatile containers.

The Value of Shipping Containers

The supply of used containers is virtually limitless. More than half a million containers are abandoned each year – and there are already several million abandoned containers currently sitting dormant. This overabundance means the companies holding these large steel boxes must find ways to extend the useful life of steel containers. Some of these uses include:

Residential. It's becoming increasingly common for people to purchase shipping containers for residential uses, including additional garage space, workshops, seasonal storage, underground emergency bunkers, and even living spaces.

Commercial. Storage containers are a good fit for commercial applications. Uses include: storage of supplies and equipment, additional showroom space, and cheap office space.

Industrial. One of the biggest markets for shipping containers comes in the form of industrial companies. These containers are ideal for equipment storage, refuse and waste collection, and on-site offices.

As you can see, there's a lot of potential for secondhand use. Whether at work or home, shipping containers afford a multitude of benefits.

4 Things to Know About the Buying Process

"Shipping containers are available in many different sizes and types. The most common type is a dry freight container that has a cargo door on one end," Shipped.com explains. "These dry storage containers, or "dry vans" represent the majority, with millions in circulation around the globe. The most common of these are the 20′ and 40′ containers. Rounding out the rest are insulated, refrigerated and modified containers."

Assuming you're interested in one of these standard shipping containers, here are some things you'll need to know about the shopping and buying process.

Think About Location

As mentioned, most containers are between 20 and 40 feet long and roughly eight feet wide. In other words, you're going to need a space that's at least a couple hundred square feet in size to place the container.

You'll also have to think about how the container will be positioned. For example, if the container is going to be used for storage behind your home, is there room to get back there and will it be hidden enough to meet local codes and restrictions?

Consider Shipping Options

While you can buy a container at a fairly cheap price point, one of the more expensive aspects of the buying process is the shipping. Where is the container located and how will it be delivered? A 20-foot container can be moved fairly easily with the right equipment, whereas a 40-foot container will need a heavy-duty stacker or crane. The latter will drive your costs up, but is necessary for safe transport.

Understand Shipping Container Ratings

Shipped.com also tells buyers to remain conscious of shipping container ratings and grades. The scale looks like this: New, Certified, A Grade, B Grade, and D Grade. New containers have only been used for one trip, while D Grade containers have rust and other serious health or structural problems.

Keep Utility in Mind

What will you be using your shipping container for? Will it be a makeshift shed for tool and equipment storage, or is it going to be your primary residence? As mentioned, there are dozens of different uses. Your intended use will dictate the containers you consider.

Be an Informed Buyer

If you're interested in purchasing a shipping container for any number of uses, make sure you're an informed buyer. There's a lot of information out there and you'll want to speak with experts who are familiar with the buying process. Patience is key!

The post Everything You Need to Know About Buying a Shipping Container appeared first on Smarterware.
 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-buying-a-shipping-container/7 Content Marketing Alternatives to Basic Blog PostsChristine2016-06-23T04:00:58-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11139
Every marketer understands the value of content marketing, yet few want to spend hours each week writing boring blog posts that may or may not get read. Well, the good news is that there are alternatives to the traditional blog post. By expanding your content marketing repertoire, you can publish highly engaging content that's also […]

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Every marketer understands the value of content marketing, yet few want to spend hours each week writing boring blog posts that may or may not get read. Well, the good news is that there are alternatives to the traditional blog post. By expanding your content marketing repertoire, you can publish highly engaging content that's also fun to create.

Here are a handful of alternatives to the traditional blog entry.

Podcasts

In 2016, multimedia alternatives to text-based blog posts can be more effective with certain target markets. One option to consider is podcasting. A podcast opens up an entirely new set of options and allows your brand to connect with customers in a totally different way.

While podcasting is effective, it should be noted that it's not a timesaving endeavor. You'll actually end up spending more time with podcasts than traditional blog posts. However, the hope is that it'll be more engaging for your audience.

Videos

Even more valuable than audio content is video content. That's why many marketers are turning to video blogs to satisfy their readers' demands for immersive content. In addition to offering a unique content medium, videos effectively break up the monotony of a traditional blog by providing some visual division between text-based posts. Here's an awesome example from Shout Me Loud of a blog entry that combines video and text-based elements.

Cartoons

Visual content is popular right now. If you can find a way to say more with less, then you should definitely seize the opportunity. One unique and memorable strategy is to throw in an occasional cartoon that resonates with your target market. The cartoon could speak to a pertinent pain point, make light of a relevant issue, or highlight something your brand is doing. Check out Milwaukee Lockstar's blog for an example of how cartoons can be used to offset other forms of content.

Infographics

One extremely popular blogging medium is the infographic. People love reading and sharing these engaging visual posts, and they're exponentially more effective than the traditional research-style format at conveying dense data. As a suggestion, though, you'll need to also create a text write-up of the infographic to ensure you get the SEO benefits.

Interactive Content

If you're goal is to create shareworthy content that keeps users engaged on your blog for longer periods of time, then interactive content may be the answer. Interactive content includes things like cost calculators, quizzes, surveys, and games. – i.e. anything that allows the user to manipulate the results. A classic example of interactive content is a BuzzFeed quiz like this one.

Curated Link Posts

The problem with a basic blog post is that it rarely provides lasting value. And while there is a place for timely "news-like" posts, pursuing evergreen content is a better long-term strategy. One of the best types of evergreen content you can produce is a curated link post.

A curated link post is nothing more than a blog post with a bunch of links to other articles, posts, and tools on the internet. However, the power lies in its resourcefulness for the end user. Since we're discussing the topic of content marketing, this curated link post about the top content marketing tools is the perfect example.

Guest Blog Posts

A standard blog post isn't necessarily a bad idea, but who wants to spend time writing their own posts? After your blog gains some clout, you should find it fairly easy to attract guest blog posts. Sometimes providing a simple byline with a link back to the author is all you have to give in return. This is an extremely effective way to publish quality content without spending a lot of time or money.

It's Okay to Mix Things Up

For years, corporate blog after corporate blog has followed the standard protocol of posting three-to-five basic blog posts per week. The only problem is that these blog entries are boring and provide little more than some SEO value.

If you truly want to engage your audience and ignite passion around your brand, it's time to mix things up. Brainstorm a new blogging strategy and see where it takes you.

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 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/7-content-marketing-alternatives-to-basic-blog-posts/3 Things Your Digital Marketing Strategy Is MissingChristine2016-06-22T10:05:21-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11138
Your digital marketing strategy probably has a lot of the essentials in place. From a solid social media presence to a well-written company blog, the basics may be covered – but what is your marketing strategy missing? Check out these tips to give your digital marketing an edge over the competition. Create buyer personas to […]

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Your digital marketing strategy probably has a lot of the essentials in place. From a solid social media presence to a well-written company blog, the basics may be covered – but what is your marketing strategy missing?

Check out these tips to give your digital marketing an edge over the competition.

Create buyer personas to determine your true target market.

Buyer personas are surprisingly underutilized, but they're a huge asset when it comes to determining your target market. Who are the core members of your audience? Using both raw data and well-researched, educated guesses, you can bring a buyer persona to life and subsequently improve the way your business relates to its customers.

Don't just say, for example, that you're targeting working moms. Give your persona a name and identify where she works. Hone in on the details. Is she a stockbroker? A preschool teacher? How old is she? Where does she live? What are her hobbies? What kind of online content does she consume? What are her values, goals, fears, and challenges?

By diving deep into what makes your buyers tick, you'll not only identify your audience – you'll also identify with them, which will help you to better solve their problems. This will also inform the way you target every aspect of your content marketing strategy – not just in emails, but in social media and more.

Which brings us to the next tip…

Customize UX of your online branding.

One of the best ways to get visitors to convert is to personalize their experience of using your site. You're taking targeted marketing one step further, providing personalized landing pages in response to all kinds of user data. This is best accomplished with a strategy called account-based marketing, allowing your website's algorithms to create custom pages and suggestions based on your visitor's history with your company, ads they've clicked on, the device they're using to access your page, and more.

One phenomenal example of account-based marketing at work is Amazon, a company that automatically shows suggestions based on a customer's purchase and browsing history. One way the company does this is by periodically displaying products from a wish list associated with the user's account, accompanied by a text prompt to "buy yourself a little something," or similar. It will also generate product recommendations based on this data, while also showing the user's recently viewed items.

This is a particularly excellent strategy if your business has a wide variety of product offerings. Instead of wasting the user's time with an endless catalog of irrelevant offerings, you can hone in on what the user is really looking for.

This is also true for B2B companies. For example, if a client has already subscribed to your introductory services and is satisfied, you don't need to keep displaying the same service. Instead, lead your client down a sales funnel. You've established a relationship with this business, so you should already know information about their industry, company size, and other such data. Use this knowledge to guide them toward your other services.

Use the right metrics to measure success.

How do you measure success? Lots of startups tout big numbers – tens of millions of downloads, registered users, tweets, and more. While this kind of raw data can certainly help you track your media's traction, it's not going to measure true success. For example, if your mobile app has been downloaded a million times but can boast only a few thousand active users, the number of downloads doesn't tell you much.

By focusing on real metrics like retention, repeat usage, and active membership, you'll provide meaning to this data. What matters is context; without context, you're left with nothing more than vanity metrics.

Final Thoughts

Too many startups go for a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy. As a result, they miss out on forging meaningful connections with their buyers. By identifying your buyer personas, customizing your marketing approach, and measuring true success, you'll give yourself a real edge on the competition.

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 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/3-things-your-digital-marketing-strategy-is-missing/Your Best Tool for Engaging the Media (Hint: It's Not a Press Release)Christine2016-06-21T11:42:18-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11137
For startups and growing businesses, brand awareness is everything. Unfortunately, this is also something very few brands are able to consistently generate. Frankly, the reason is that most startups are utilizing antiquated methods and outdated strategies that no longer deliver healthy returns. What you really need to be focused on is attracting media members to […]

The post Your Best Tool for Engaging the Media (Hint: It's Not a Press Release) appeared first on Smarterware.

For startups and growing businesses, brand awareness is everything. Unfortunately, this is also something very few brands are able to consistently generate. Frankly, the reason is that most startups are utilizing antiquated methods and outdated strategies that no longer deliver healthy returns. What you really need to be focused on is attracting media members to your site and engaging them with a stellar press page.

The Media: A Startup's Greatest Ally

Outside the Silicon Valley startup bubble, where fledgling tech companies are overvalued and overhyped, most young companies totally fly under the radar. The only way to make some noise in an established industry is by "catching a break" or putting the brand in front of the right person. And in many cases, the right person is someone with a large and captive audience: a member of the media.

See, in the startup world, the media is your best friend. (It can also be your biggest enemy, but that's a separate story for another day.) If you can somehow develop strong relationships with members of the media – journalists, bloggers, publishing platforms, etc. – then your brand will instantly become more recognizable and credible.

In the past, the popular strategy for connecting with the media was to develop a formal press release and distribute it to as many sources as possible. The hope was that a few would pick the release up and share it. In 2016, this strategy no longer works. Some larger brands can get away with it, but startups will see very little return from press releases.

There are dozens of ways to engage the media, but the one we're focusing on today involves the creation and optimization of a stellar press page.

3 Tips for Optimizing Your Press Page

The purpose of a press page is to house general company information, press mentions, recent news, past projects, and any other information that could potentially be of interest to consumers, potential clients, and the media. It's essentially a consolidated page that touts all of the great things your business is doing/has done.

However, over the years, the marketplace has changed and people's behaviors have evolved. As such, the traditional press page is no longer as effective. According to design strategist Howard Tempero, today's internet users are doing three things differently: Passively finding information on social media, actively searching online, and expecting easy web experiences.

As a result, you need to optimize your press page to meet these preferences. Here are some simple tips and examples to help you do just that:

Be a Show Off

When potential clients visit your site, they want to see that your startup is the real deal. One of the best ways for you to show them that you're credible is by highlighting the different accolades you've acquired.

Related, a fast growing men's underwear and garment company based out of Los Angeles, does a great job of "showing off" on their press page. The page features images, screen shots, and links to a variety of different magazines and publications the brand has been featured in. This instantly earns the company credibility in the eyes of potential partners and customers.

Give Out Directions

The press page is the place to give directions to people who may want to link up with you. If you're a software company, this is the place to explain the rules regarding logo usage and brand mentions. Here's an example from GitHub. They outline when and how people can use their visual assets.

List Interviews and Quotes

Journalists and bloggers are always looking for stories. And while they can learn a lot about your company by visiting your website, quotes are currency in their business. One good practice is to include questions and answers, interviews, stories, etc. and give people permission to use those quotes in articles and blogs.

Don't Ignore the Value of a Press Page

Today, startups tend to ignore the press page altogether or use outdated strategies that no longer yield value. It's up to you to ensure your startup doesn't make either of these mistakes. A press page – not a press release – is your best tool for engaging the media.

Meet with your team to discuss how you want to handle this aspect of your website moving forward.

The post Your Best Tool for Engaging the Media (Hint: It's Not a Press Release) appeared first on Smarterware.
 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/your-best-tool-for-engaging-the-media-hint-its-not-a-press-release/5 Tech Trends Dictating the Future of HealthcareChristine2016-06-20T03:21:03-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11134
We live in a tech-hungry society, with businesses, organizations, and individuals all clamoring for the latest and greatest technologies that will make their lives easier. For most of us, this is a luxury, such as being able to stream a movie in a higher resolution or being able to perform more advanced technological functions while […]

The post 5 Tech Trends Dictating the Future of Healthcare appeared first on Smarterware.

We live in a tech-hungry society, with businesses, organizations, and individuals all clamoring for the latest and greatest technologies that will make their lives easier. For most of us, this is a luxury, such as being able to stream a movie in a higher resolution or being able to perform more advanced technological functions while on the go. But for some industries, including healthcare, better technology can make a huge difference. It's important to learn how this technology is developing, so we can better prepare for the future of the industry.

Motivations for Technology in Healthcare

These are just some of the reasons why technology is so important to the development of the healthcare industry:

Diagnostics and prevention. Some technologies are increasing in sophistication and can detect and prevent diseases or ailments. This is important to minimize the development of injuries and illnesses.

Ongoing care quality. Once someone is sick, it's up to healthcare institutions to make them better. Improved technology can make the process faster and more thorough.

Efficiency. It's also important for new technologies in healthcare to make it easier for doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals to do their work accurately and efficiently. Being able to see one extra patient a day or completing a process a few minutes faster can add up to make a big difference.

Cost. Better technologies oftentimes mean doing the same thing for less money, translating to savings that can be passed to patients who may have trouble affording high quality care.

Tech Trends in Healthcare

With those motivations in mind, these are the main paths of development that healthcare technology is following:

Online medical records and other information. Old methods of creating and maintaining medical records are woefully inefficient. Paper is expensive, puts a burden on our natural resources, is difficult to comb through, and takes up space. Online and cloud-based medical records, on the other hand, are easier to make and manage, and can be accessed virtually anywhere—including by patients, if necessary, in the comfort of their own home. New technologies will make this storage and access much better.

Accurate data capturing. Other new technologies are improving the process of data collection at multiple levels. For example, some technologies focus on measurement and diagnostics, using biometrics and other developments to draw in information about patients. This is crucial for accuracy and efficiency.

Big data-based projections. With the amount of data healthcare organizations collect on their patients, it's possible for new technologies to accomplish some impressive feats, such as projecting paths of development for disease outbreaks, or learning new information about the effectiveness of certain treatments, which can then be shared with other organizations.

Direct treatment options. Of course, one of the most practical uses of new technology is in the form of direct treatment options, from enhanced tools for surgery to prosthetics and other follow-up devices. These tend to be highly specific, but also highly effective for their intended use of choice.

Better tracking and communication. Many new healthcare technologies are focused on tracking patient recovery and communicating with patients after receiving their initial care. For example, some technologies help patients take their medication or adhere to their rehabilitation programs consistently, while others help them get in touch with medical professionals easier if/when something goes wrong.

Specific technological development is hard to predict; some of the greatest breakthroughs are ones that seemingly come out of nowhere, while major technologies publicly thought to be game-changers may fizzle out before they achieve widespread adoption. So, rather than predicting specific developments, it's better to look at the course of development as a whole.

Identifying key technologies that fit into these categories and satisfy the motivation requirements above will help you learn which technologies will best fit into your healthcare organization, and which ones have the highest likelihood of achieving success in the broader market.

The post 5 Tech Trends Dictating the Future of Healthcare appeared first on Smarterware.
 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/5-tech-trends-dictating-the-future-of-healthcare/4 Privacy Concerns About Amazon Echo and Google HomeChristine2016-06-17T08:24:34-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11126
New technology is almost always exciting, but it's never without its drawbacks, and those tend to come with a bevy of public concerns. When social media was first becoming popular, privacy and security were major topics of discussion—and fears over user privacy still haven't completely faded. Now, technology is becoming even more closely integrated with […]

The post 4 Privacy Concerns About Amazon Echo and Google Home appeared first on Smarterware.

New technology is almost always exciting, but it's never without its drawbacks, and those tend to come with a bevy of public concerns. When social media was first becoming popular, privacy and security were major topics of discussion—and fears over user privacy still haven't completely faded. Now, technology is becoming even more closely integrated with our lives, and a new set of privacy concerns is on the horizon.

Smart Homes and Home Assistants

"Smart home" technology seeks to unify everything within your home, from your refrigerator and thermostat to your television and tablets, connecting them to the internet and with each other. On one device, for example, you could adjust your home's temperature and lights, preheat the oven, and find a movie to stream, without ever leaving your seat. Now, "home assistant" technologies are emerging to allow you these kinds of commands through voice inputs, as well as allowing you to purchase products and stream music online.

Amazon's Echo was one of the first of such products to enter the market, but now Google is cooking up its own version, Google Home. Though the full details on Google Home haven't been released, the two devices are similar in that they'll be controlling a sizable portion of your home life, and one of their biggest selling points is the fact that they're "always listening," which to many users, is more discomforting than impressive.

Privacy Concerns on Users' Minds

Personal information is just that—personal. Even government authorities only have access to certain types of personal information, according to Monder Law. With these home assistants geared specifically toward gathering commands and "listening" to your vocal commands, it's only natural to have questions about what information it can gather, what information it can send to its tech company creators, and what they can do with that information once they have it.

Deciphering human speech. Echo and Google Home are both adept at deciphering human speech. These devices are even capable of hearing low-level or garbled vocal commands, and translating them into actual actions. Anyone who's used a personal digital assistant in the past year or so knows how advanced voice recognition has become, so the question is—what kinds of conversations will these devices be allowed to hear? Amazon's Echo only "listens" after hearing a wake word—usually "Alexa"—which triggers a light to come on to signal its awareness. But users have a right to be curious about whether it's possible for the device to hear natural conversations they might be having in the privacy of their own homes—and whether that information could be stored somehow.

Order history. Things like order history and search history storage aren't new—in fact, for most of us, these are tools of convenience. You can check up on your past actions, and companies can make suggestions based on your past preferences. But once it gets to a home environment, how far will this history go, and what will companies be able to suggest? For example, if you start ordering a specific product every week, would these devices be able to use that information to suggest a similar or complementary product? On some level, this is useful, but there's a potential line it could cross when it comes to breaching the user privacy barrier.

User behavior. Order history isn't the only type of observation a home assistant could make. For example, these devices will be hypothetically capable of tracking your temperature preferences, what you're cooking for dinner, and what you like to watch, all in one location. This data is somewhat innocuous, but at the same time, it could paint a detailed portrait of who you are as a human being—and that's valuable information.

Advertising. Thus far, most of the detailed user information that's been gathered by tech companies like Facebook and Google has been exploited for the sake of advertising. So what happens when home assistants gather even more specific, more intimate personal information? Will we start seeing advertising that appears even "creepier" than retargeting ads that follow us throughout the web? Will these home assistants produce their own kinds of advertisements in our home environments? There's no question that the advertising industry will tie into the home assistant revolution; it's just a matter of how, and how much information they'll be able to use while participating.

Fortunately, tech companies are actively recognizing these privacy concerns and taking proactive measures to ease them. Amazon, for example, is detailed and (presumably) transparent about the privacy standards it maintains with the Echo device. It's also important to remember that we already have devices capable of "listening" to us at any time, and ads custom-served, based on our behavior. Home assistants aren't introducing new privacy concerns, per say, they're just bringing old ones into a new environment.

That doesn't mean they aren't significant or that they aren't worth thinking about, but it's important to recognize the full scope of privacy in the digital age.

The post 4 Privacy Concerns About Amazon Echo and Google Home appeared first on Smarterware.
 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/4-privacy-concerns-about-amazon-echo-and-google-home/App Redesign: Will It Help Or Hurt Your Business?Christine2016-06-15T14:45:32-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11117
When Instagram recently redesigned their logo, the response was huge – and almost exclusively negative. Shifting from the old rendered camera image with white and brown tones, the new logo is a rainbow colored aestheticized version of the old image, all excess detail dropped in favor of the increasingly popular notion of flat design. Users […]

The post App Redesign: Will It Help Or Hurt Your Business? appeared first on Smarterware.

When Instagram recently redesigned their logo, the response was huge – and almost exclusively negative. Shifting from the old rendered camera image with white and brown tones, the new logo is a rainbow colored aestheticized version of the old image, all excess detail dropped in favor of the increasingly popular notion of flat design. Users were furious and demanded a return to the old logo, but that response seems to have already faded. Like every Facebook interface update of the last five years, what seemed intolerable at first was forgotten a week later.

Still, a negative response, not matter how short lived, can have a significant impact on companies, particularly when tied to more dramatic changes. That's why redesigning your company's app should never be taken lightly. While there are certainly great updates that have improved on previously well-loved apps, there are also times when updates fall short of what we would want.

How can you know whether you should update your company's app? Here are a few factors to consider before you start consulting with designers and UX professionals. By setting clear goals and considering the past and intended future of your company, you can determine what degree of redesign your app needs.

When Was Your Last Redesign?

While most apps need to be updated at least once a month, there's a big difference between an update and a redesign. Updates fix bugs, respond to operating system changes, improve features, or otherwise respond to small, superficial issues within the app. Regular updates keep things running smoothly and keep users happy, but they don't undertake anything transformative.

A redesign, on the other hand, may change a number of significant features about an app. Maybe the interface looks completely different or there are numerous new features you want to add. If your app hasn't been redesigned since its initial launch but you've made a lot of small improvements, it may be time to launch a redesign. Alternatively, if your home site is changing dramatically in design aesthetic, you may need to update your app to keep them visually united.

Who Will A Redesign Benefit?

One reason you might consider redesigning your app is that the current design underserves a major audience. For example, many companies find that they have an international audience that would benefit from multiple language options or there are accessibility fixes that would make the app easier to use for members of the disabled community. These are all great reasons to redesign your app.

Regardless of your reasoning, however, you'll want to communicate the logic behind your redesign to customers in a consistent, helpful way. As seen with the Instagram logo change, we can all be averse to change, so knowing why a design or function change is occurring is important. Formulate a description of why you are redesigning you app and make sure that this explanation is used consistently when resistance or objections are encountered.

Will An Update Cause More Problems Than It Solves?

A big part of what we love about our phones and other devices is that they make everything so easy. Apps, in particular, cut down on a lot of hassle – whether we're trying to read the news, place an order, or date online. They put everything right there.

Changing the interface on your web app, then, can make it seem to customers that things are no longer right where they expect them to be. Even when this feeling is only short-lived, causing customers to feel disoriented can also result in increased shopping cart abandonment, a dip in user numbers, and a rise in written complaints.

Before initiating a redesign, you'll want to identify the main functions of your app and focus on retaining intuitive interactions with these features. Or, before launching the app, you may want to design a quick primer for use with the new design. That way, when users launch it for the first time, they can opt for a quick review of the major features. This can cut down on complaints and other user issues.

Typically app redesigns are a way of staying fresh and aligning your business with industry norms and trends, but sometimes they're simply superfluous. For the greatest positive impact, be goal oriented with your redesigns and communicate with users along the way. The more included users feel in the process, the more readily they'll accept and acclimate to app changes.

The post App Redesign: Will It Help Or Hurt Your Business? appeared first on Smarterware.
 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/app-redesign-will-it-help-or-hurt-your-business/The 3 Things Marketers Must do to Reach Digital NativesChristine2016-06-13T19:32:19-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11130
For the first time ever, we're seeing people who were raised with modern technology enter the marketplace as consumers with actual buying power. For businesses, this is a critically important turning point. These customers must be treated like the tech-savvy individuals they are, or they'll turn to the competition. Here's What You Need to Know […]

The post The 3 Things Marketers Must do to Reach Digital Natives appeared first on Smarterware.

For the first time ever, we're seeing people who were raised with modern technology enter the marketplace as consumers with actual buying power. For businesses, this is a critically important turning point. These customers must be treated like the tech-savvy individuals they are, or they'll turn to the competition.

Here's What You Need to Know

If you're trying to reach customers in the 17-25-year old range, then you're targeting individuals who have come of age in a post-internet world. They hardly know a world without mobile devices, social media, and all of the various technologies that come along with these cultural forces.

"Our youth—and future—are immersed in modern technology before they've taken their first steps! We've entered the iPad Generation," marketer Brad Nierenberg proclaims, "or better yet, The Technillennials—a generation where children no longer read paperback books, but instead swipe through an iPad."

While traditional marketing tactics aren't necessarily dead, they're hardly effective when used on digital natives. Here are some things you need to know about reaching this growing segment of the marketplace:

They Want High Level Personalization

According to a study of more than 1,700 consumers, 77 percent of digital natives fully expect a personalized web experience. This is rooted in the fact that digital natives have grown up with social media, which is – at its core – a collection of narcissistic platforms.

While we could spend hours debating how digital natives feel entitled, that's beside the point. Instead of fighting their demand for personal attention, you need to feed it. That's the only way to thrive within this target market.

Make Things Share Worthy

When it comes to digital natives, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that they're willing to share your products and services with their peer groups. The bad news is that it's becoming increasingly more difficult to win over customers amidst so much content and media saturation.

Reaching these customers means you need to create products, services, and content that aren't just designed for consumption, but also for sharing. "Knowing that your audience will share your products and services, it is your duty to make sure that the experience is remarkable and share worthy," says marketer Tyrona Heath. "How can you become more memorable? Work on making things more lasting, meaningful and relevant!"

Encourage Ownership

Digital natives are very brand loyal – but you can't take this for granted. In order to reach them and encourage loyalty, you may need to give them a stake in your company. (Don't worry, we aren't talking about equity.)

Millenials are creators, not followers. They don't just want to consume content – they actually need to play an active role in creating content. That's where co-creation comes into play.

"Co-creation is a marketing strategy that allows the consumer to work with the brand in their advertising efforts," explains one marketer. "Its goal is to make the consumers feel like they are a part of the campaign, not the target." Here are a handful of examples of co-creation campaigns that have worked in the past. Find creative ways to apply similar techniques and you'll be happy with the results.

Digital Natives Must be Treated Differently

Digital natives are their parents' children, but don't assume they possess any of the same characteristics. They've grown up in an entirely different world – one that's filled with mobile devices and digital communication. In order to reach them, you can't fight these realities. Instead, you must adapt your marketing strategy to meet them where they are. That's the only way to be successful in 2016 and beyond.

The post The 3 Things Marketers Must do to Reach Digital Natives appeared first on Smarterware.
 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/the-3-things-marketers-must-do-to-reach-digital-natives/5 Ways the Tech World Is Shaping the Future of InvestingChristine2016-06-10T17:12:37-07:00http://smarterware.org/?p=11118
Technology undergoes some interesting and powerful changes, and it has shaped our lives in nearly every significant area. Our communications, our work, our research, and our entertainment have all been improved (or at least facilitated) through advancements in Internet availability, programs, and apps, but our money—through the availability and processes of investing—is similarly being affected. […]

The post 5 Ways the Tech World Is Shaping the Future of Investing appeared first on Smarterware.

Technology undergoes some interesting and powerful changes, and it has shaped our lives in nearly every significant area. Our communications, our work, our research, and our entertainment have all been improved (or at least facilitated) through advancements in Internet availability, programs, and apps, but our money—through the availability and processes of investing—is similarly being affected.

Following the Technology Curve

When we first entered the digital age, technology only changed the investing world in simple ways; it took what we were doing anyway and gave us better tools with which to do it. For example, rather than using a broker or mediums like phones or mail to trade stocks, we could simply do it through an online transaction. Once the Internet became sophisticated enough, it began to support this process in a more immediate, convenient transaction.

Now, rather than simply making existing practices easier, our technology is making new practices available, and encouraging investors to maximize potential returns in new ways. The future of investing is diverse and exciting, and it's the growth of technology that's responsible.

Areas of Change

There are five main trends, or areas of change, shaping the future of our investing world. This is what technology is doing to shape our future.

Enabling people to pool their resources. The first new trend is the ability for people to quickly and easily share their resources. The obvious example here is crowdfunding, where individuals can use platforms like Kickstarter to invest small amounts of money to fund big projects. Equity crowdfunding is under development, though currently only available to specific accredited investors. Other platforms, such as crowdsourced personal and private loan sites, are also developing to follow this trend. This enables a greater number of people to participate in investing, and simultaneously attracts more potential projects for investment.

Using complicated algorithms to make better decisions. A number of investment platforms are developing based on impressive, complex algorithms that can theoretically make better decisions than humans. Wealthfront and Betterment are two perfect examples of this; both rely on the power of algorithmic trading to make better stock and mutual fund picks for their clientele. These "robo-advisors" operate independently from humans, and control investments on their own, making more objective decisions. Though there have been some scares about algorithmic trading—such as "flash crashes" that occur when too many algorithms trigger a selloff—so far, modern algorithms have been relatively successful.

Hedging bets through multiple investment options. The sheer number of new investment modes, apps, and possibilities has made hedging your bets easier than ever. Thanks to the many dozens of alternative investments that have arisen over the past several years, you can diversify your investment portfolio with relative ease, drawing on older, traditional strategies like investing in stocks and bonds, and newer strategies, like equity crowdfunding or algorithmic trading, with balance.

Connecting more people to funding sources. Let's not forget the other side of investing—many new investing options and connections are available to average people in need of funding. You may have a startup idea but not enough capital to fund it, you may be in need of a personal loan, or you may even be a plaintiff with a promising payoff in need of legal funding through a company like Thrivest. In any of these cases, modern technology will allow you to gain access to resources easier, whether that's finding an organization to support you or relying on the collaborative power of group contributions. This means more people will seek technology to fund themselves, which in turn means more investment opportunities for the average investors.

Giving investors more information. Finally, there's the obvious ability for new technology to give investors more information in the first place. On one level, there are thousands of news sites and publications dedicated to providing users with the latest and greatest in tech, giving investors intimate knowledge of new tech platforms before they choose to invest. On another level, all these new apps and programs have access to a wealth of user data, which they can use to achieve greater transparency and report more accurately on the potential gains and risks of different investment types. This enables investors to make better decisions.

It's hard to say exactly how or when new tech will develop, especially in the investing world, where new legal regulations must be created to accommodate new modes of investment, and where user adoption is generally slow as new methods gain trust and a history of reliable returns.

Still, by noting the key areas of development underway, we can sketch a vague course of the future of our investments, with more collaboration, more diversity, more information, and more availability.

The post 5 Ways the Tech World Is Shaping the Future of Investing appeared first on Smarterware.
 http://smarterware.org/2016/06/5-ways-the-tech-world-is-shaping-the-future-of-investing/


text:
In the flinstones, what was the secret handshake that fred and barney did with the water buffalo club?
kgb answers » Arts & Entertainment » TV » In the flinstones, what was the secret handshake that fred and barney did with the water buffalo club?
Tags: handshake, the flintstones, fraternity, barney, fred
Thursday, February 02 2012
Source: http://theinsidehandshake.blogspot.com/2010/02/finally-all-time-cartoon-football-team.html
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subset: commoncrawl


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9 January 2013 3:20 PM, PST | IF.com.au | See recent IF.com.au news »
Australian effects house Fuel VFX has added a British Academy Film Awards nomination for its work on Ridley Scott.s Prometheus following its recent nod from the Visual Effects Society.
Fuel co-founder Paul Butterworth was nominated alongside non-Fuel nominees Richard Stammers, Charley Henley, and Trevor Wood. Fuel, one of the three lead visual effects vendors on the latest installment in the Aliens franchise, delivered more than 200 visual effects shots. The company, which is now part of Animal Logic after facing a near-catastrophic cash-crunch last year, created the .Orrery. (an interactive 3-dimensional map of the known universe), the holographic 'Engineer' characters, and the 'Holotable' on the Prometheus' bridge.
Its work also received two nominations in the peer-reviewed Visual Effects Society Awards. Fuel.s BAFTA and Ves nominations mean it is likely to also receive an Academy Award nomination, which will be announced January 10 (Us time). The Oscar shortlist for visual effects includes: The Amazing Spider-Man, »
- Brendan Swift
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|By Dana Gardner
Article Rating:
|December 12, 2012 11:15 AM EST
Welcome to the latest edition of the HP Discover Performance Podcast Series. Our next discussion examines how global insurance leader American International Group (AIG) has leveraged a performance center of excellence (COE) to help drive business transformation.
We learn in our discussion how AIG's Global Performance Architecture Group improved performance of their services to deliver better experiences and payoffs for businesses and end-users alike.
Here to explore these and other enterprise IT issues, we're joined by our co-host for this sponsored podcast, Chief Software Evangelist at HP, Paul Muller.
And we also welcome our special guest, Abe Naguib, Senior Director of AIG's Global Performance Architecture Group. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]
Here are some excerpts:
Gardner: Many organizations are now focusing more on the user experience and the business benefits and less on pure technology -- and for many, it's a challenge. From a very high level, how do you perceive the best way to go about a cultural shift, or an organizational shift, from a technology focus more toward this end-user experience focus?
The CIO has to keep his eye forward to periodically change tracks, ensuring that the customers are getting the best value for their money.
Naguib: There are several paradigms involved from the COO and CFO's push on innovation and efficiency. A lot of the tooling that we use, a lot of the products we use, help to fully diversify and resolve some of the challenges we have. That's to keep change running.
CIO, CTO & Developer Resources
The CIO has to keep his eye forward to periodically change tracks, ensuring that the customers are getting the best value for their money. That's a tall order and, he has to predict benefit, gauge value, maintain integrity, socialize, and evolve the strategy of business ideas on how technology should run.
We have to manage quite a few challenges from the demand of operating a global franchise. Our COE looks at various levels of optimization and one key target is customer service, and factors that drive the value chain.
That's aligning DevOps to business, reducing data-center sprawl, validating and making sense of vendors, products, and services, increasing the return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) of emerging technologies, economy of scale, improving services and hybrid cloud systems, as we isolate and identify the cascading impacts on systems. These efforts help to derive value across the chain and eventually help improve customer value.
Gardner: Paul Muller, does this jibe with what you're seeing in the field? Do you see an emphasis that's more on this sort of process level, when it comes to IT with of course more input from folks like the COO and the chief financial officer?
Level of initiatives
Muller: As I was listening to Abe's description I was thinking that you really can tell the culture of an organization by the level of initiatives, and thinking that it has. In fact, you can't change one without changing the other. What I've just described is a very high level of cultural maturity.
Paul Muller
We do see it, but we see it in maybe 10 to 15 percent of organization that have gone through the early stages of understanding the performance and quality of applications, optimizing it for cost and performance, but then moving through to the next stage, reevaluating the entire chain, and looking to take a broader perspective with lots of user experience. So it's not unique, but it's certainly used among the more mature in terms of observational thinking.
Gardner: Tell us about AIG, its breadth, and particularly the business requirements that your Global Performance Architecture Group is tasked with meeting.
Naguib: AIG is a leading international insurance organization, across 130 countries. AIG's companies serving commercial, institutional, individual customers, through one of the world's most extensive property/casualty networks, are leading providers of life insurance and retirement services in the US.
Among the brand pillars that we focused on are integrity, innovation, and market agility across the variety of products that we offer, as well as customer service.
Bringing together our business-critical and strategic drivers across IT's various segments fosters alignment, agility, and eventually unity.
With AIG's mantra of "better, faster, cheaper," my organization's people, strategy, and comprehensive tools help us to bridge these gaps that a global firm faces today. There are many technology objectives across different organizations that we align, and we utilize various HP solutions to drive our objectives, which is getting the various IT delivery pistons firing in the same direction and at the right time.
These include performance, application lifecycle management (ALM), and business service management (BSM), as well as project and portfolio management (PPM). Over time our Global Performance organization has evolved, and our senior manager realized our strategic benefit and capability to reduce cost, risk, and mitigate production and risk.
Our role eventually moved out of quality assurance's QA's functional testing area to focus on emphasizing application performance, architecture design patterns, emerging technologies, infrastructure and consolidation strategies, and risk mitigation, as well increasing ROI and economy of scale. With the right people, process, and tools, our organization enabled IT transparency and application tuning, reduced infrastructure consumption, and accelerated resolution of any system performances in dev and production.
The key is bringing together our business-critical and strategic drivers across IT's various segments fosters alignment, agility, and eventually unity. Now, our leaders seek our guidance to help tune IT at some degree of financial performance to unlock optimal business value.
Culture of IT
Gardner: Is that a pattern you're seeing, that the people in QA are in the sense breaking out of just an application performance level and moving more into what we could call IT performance level?
Naguib: In the last six or seven years, there's less focus on just basic performance optimization. The focus is now on business strategy impact on infrastructure CAPEX, and OPEX. Correlating business use cases to impact on infrastructure is the golden grail.
I always say that software drives the hardware.
Once you start communicating to CIOs the impact of a system and the cost of hosting, licensing, headcount, service sprawl, branding, and services that depend on each other, we're more aligning DevOps with business.
Muller: I just had a conversation not three weeks ago with a financial institution in another part of the world. I asked who is responsible for your end-to-end business process -- in this case I think it was mortgage origination -- and the entire room looked at each other, laughed, and said "We don't know."
So you've really got this massive gap in terms of not just IT process maturity, but you also have business-process maturity, and it's very challenging, in my experience, to have one without having the other.
Gardner: I think we have to recognize too that most businesses now realize that software is such an integral part of their business success. Being adept at software, whether it's writing it, customizing it, implementation and integration, or just overall lifecycle has become kind of the lifeblood of business, not just an element of IT. Do you sense that, Abe, that software is given more clout in your organization?
Naguib: Absolutely Dana. I truly believe that. I've been kind of an internal evangelist on this, but I always say that software drives the hardware. Whether I communicate with the enterprise architects, the dev teams, the infrastructure teams, software frankly does drive the hardware.
That's really the key point here. If you start managing your root cost and performance from a software perspective and then work your way out, you've got the key to unlocking everything from efficiencies to optimizing your ROI and to addressing TCO over time. It's all business driven. Know your use cases. Know how it impacts your software, which impacts your infrastructure.
Converged infrastructure
Gardner: Just being productive for its own sake isn't good enough in this economy. We have to show real benefits, and you have to measure those benefits. Maybe you have some way to translate how this actually does benefit your customers. Any metrics of success you can share with us, Abe?
Naguib: Yes, during our initial requirements-gathering phase with our business leaders, we start defining appropriate test-modeling strategy, including volumetrics, and managing and understanding the deployment pattern with subscriber demographics and user roles. We start aligning DevOps organizations with business targets which improves delivery expectations, ROI, TCO, and capacity models.
The big transformation taking place right now is that our organization is connecting different silos of IT delivery, in particular development, quality, and operations.
Then, before production, our Application Performance Engineering (APE) team identifies weak spots to provide the production team with a reusable script setting thresholds on exact hotspots in a system, so that eventually in production, they can take appropriate productive measures. Now, this is value add.
Muller: As we're seeing across the planet at the moment, there's a recognition that to bring great software and information is really a function of getting Layers 1 through 7 in the technology stack working, but it's also about getting Layer 8 working. Layer 8, in this case, is the people. Unfortunately, being technologists, we often forget about the people in this process.
What Abe just described is a great representation of the importance of getting not just a functional part of IT, in this case quality and performance working well, but it's about recognizing the software will one day be delivered to operational staff to internally monitor and manage it in a production setting.
The big transformation taking place right now is that our organization is connecting different silos of IT delivery, in particular development, quality, and operations, to help them accelerate the release of quality applications, and to automate things like threshold setting, and optimize monitoring of metrics ahead of time. Rather than discovering that an application might fail to perform in a production setting, where you've got users screaming at you, you get all of that work done ahead of time.
Sharing and trust
You create a culture of sharing and trust between development, quality, and operations that frankly doesn't exist in a lot of process where the relationship between development and operations is pretty strained.
Gardner: Abe, how do you measure this? We recognized the importance of the metrics, but is there a new coin of the realm in terms of measurement? How do you put this into a standardized format that you're going to take to your CFO and your COO and say here's what's really happening?
Naguib: That's a good question. Tying into what Paul was saying, nobody cared about whether we improved performance by three seconds or two seconds. You care at the front end, when you hear users grumbling. The bottom line is how the application behaves, translating that into business impact as well as IT impact.
Business impact is what are the dollar values to make key use cases and transactions that don't scale. Again, software drives the hardware. If an application consumes more hardware, the hardware is cheap now-a-days, but licenses aren't. You have database and you have middleware products running in that environment, whether it's on-premise or in the cloud.
The point is that impact should be measured, and that's how we started communicating results through our organization. That's when we started seeing C-level officers tuning in and realizing the impact of performance of both to the bottom line, even to the top line.
We were able to leverage consistent dashboards across different IT solutions internally, then target weak spots and help drive optimization.
Our role is to provide more insight earlier and quicker to the right people at the right time.
Leveraging HP's partnership and solutions helped us to address technologies, whether Web 2.0, client-server, legacy systems, Web, cloud-based, or hybrid models. We were able to leverage consistent dashboards across different IT solutions internally, then target weak spots and help drive optimization, whether on premise or cloud.
Muller: In the enterprise today, it's all about getting your ideas out of your head and making them a reality. As Abe just described, most of the best ideas today that are on their way into business processes you can ultimately turn into software. So success is really all about having the best applications and information possible.
Understand maturity
The challenge is understanding how the technology, the business process and the benefits come together and then orchestrating that the delivery of that benefit to your organization. It's not something that can be done without a deliberate focus on process. Again, the challenge is always understanding your organization's maturity, not just from an IT standpoint, but importantly from a broader standpoint.
Naguib: What's the common driver for all? Money talks. Translating things into a dollar value started to bring groups together to understand what we can do better to improve our process.
What we're seeing more is that it's not just internal dev and ops that we're aligning with, or even our business service level expectations. It's also partnerships with key vendors that have opened up the roadmap to align our technologies, requirements, and our challenges into those solutions.
The gains we make are simple. They can be boiled down into three key benefits: savings, performance, and business agility. Leveraging HP's ALM solutions helps us drive IT and business transformation and unlock resources and efficiencies. That helps streamline delivery and an increased reliability of our mission critical systems.
After we've dealt with tuning, we can help activate post-production monitoring using the same script, understanding where the weak spots are.
My favorite has always been HP's LoadRunner Performance Center. It's basically our Swiss Army Knife to support diverse platform technologies and align business use cases to the impact on IT and infrastructure via SiteScope, HP SiteScope.
We're able to deep dive into the diagnostics, if needed. And the best part is, after we've dealt with tuning, we can help activate post-production monitoring using the same script, understanding where the weak spots are.
So the tools are there. The best part is integrated, and actually work together very well.
Gardner: It really sounds like you've grabbed onto this system-of-record concept for IT, almost enterprise resource planning (ERP) for IT. Is that fair?
Naguib: That's a good way to put it.
Muller: One of the questions I get a lot from organizations is how we measure and reflect the benefit. What hard data have you managed to get?
Three-month study
Naguib: IDC came in and did an extensive three-month study, and it was interesting what they have found. We've realized a saving of more than $11 million annually for the past five years by increasing our economy of scale. Scale on a system allows more applications on the same host.
It's an efficiency from both hardware and software. They also found that our using solutions from HP increased staff productivity by over $300,000 a year. Instead of fighting fires, we're actually now focusing on innovation, and improving business reliability by over $600,000 a year.
So all that together shows a recoup, a five-year ROI, about 577 percent. I was very excited about that study. They also showed that we resolved mean time resolution over 70 percent through production debugging, root cause, and resolution efforts.
So what we found, and technologists would agree with me, is that today, with hardware being cheaper than software, there is a hidden cost associated with hosting an application. The bottom line, if we don't test and tune our applications holistically, either the architecture, code, infrastructure, and shared services, these performance issues can quickly degrade quality of service, uptime, and eventually IT value.
I have a saying, which is that quality costs money but bad quality costs more.
Gardner: Abe, any recommendations that you might have for other organizations that are thinking of moving in this direction and that want to get more mature, as Paul would say. What are some good things to keep in mind as you start down this path?
Naguib: Besides software drives the hardware -- and I can't stress that enough -- are all the ways to understand business impact and translate whatever you're testing into the business model.
What happens to the scenarios such as outages? What happens when things are delayed? What is the impact on business operability, productivity, liability, customer branding. There are so many details that stem from performance. We used to be dealing with the "Google factor" of two-second response time, but now, we're getting more like millisecond response, because there are so many interdependencies between our systems and services.
Another fact is that a lot of products come into our doors on a daily basis. Modern technologies come in with a lot of promises and a lot of commitments.
Identify what works
So it's being able to weed through the chaff, identify what works, how the interdependencies work, and then, being able to partner with vendors of those solutions and services. Having tools that add transparency into their products and align with our environment helps bring things together more. Treating IT like a business by translating the impact into dollar value, helps to get lined up and responsive.
Muller: It might be a little controversial here, but the first step for progress on all of this is look in the mirror and understand your organization and its level of maturity. You really need to assess that very self-critically before you start. Otherwise, you're going to burn a lot of capital, a lot of time, and a lot of credibility trying to make a change to an organization from state A to state B. If you don't understand the level of maturity of your present state before you start working on the desired state, you can waste a lot of time and money. It's best to look in the mirror.
The second step is to make sure that, before you even begin that process, you create that alignment and that desired state in the construct of the business. Make sure that your maturity aligns to the business's maturity and their goal. I just described the ability to measure the business impact in terms of revenue of IT services. Many companies can't even do something as fundamental as that. It can be really hard to drive alignment, unless you've got business-IT alignment ahead of time.
I have said this so many times. The technology is a manageable problem, Layers 1 through 7, including management software to a certain degree, have solved problems the most time. Solving the problem of Layer 8 is tough. You can reboot the server, but you can't reboot a person.
Solving the problem of Layer 8 is tough. You can reboot the server, but you can't reboot a person.
I always recommend bringing along some sort of management of organizational change function. In our case, we actually have a number of trained organizational psychologists working for us who understand what it takes to get several hundred, sometimes several thousand, people to change the way they behave, and that's really important. You've got to bring the people along with it.
Gardner: I'd like to thank our supporter for this series, HP Software, and remind our audience to carry on the dialogue with Paul Muller through the Discover Performance Group on LinkedIn, and also to follow Raf on his popular blog, Following the White Rabbit.
You can also gain more insights and information on the best of IT performance management at http://www.hp.com/go/discoverperformance.
And you can always access this and other episodes in our HP Discover Performance Podcast Series at hp.com and on iTunes under BriefingsDirect.
You may also be interested in:
- HP BSM software newly harnesses big-data analysis to better predict, prevent, and respond to IT issues
- Right-sizing security and information assurance, a core-versus-context journey at Lake Health
- HP Discover Performance Podcast: McKesson Redirects IT to Become a Services Provider That Delivers Fuller Business Solutions
- Investing Well in IT With Emphasis on KPIs Separates Business Leaders from Business Laggards, Survey Results Show
- Expert Chat with HP on How Better Understanding Security Makes it an Enabler, Rather than Inhibitor, of Cloud Adoption
- Expert Chat with HP on How IT Can Enable Cloud While Maintaining Control and Governance
UAS, drones or unmanned aircraft, no matter what you call them — this was their week. Our news stream was flooded with updates on the newly announced rules and regulations for commercial UAS from the FAA. So, naturally we have dedicated this week's top news round up to highlight some of our favorite UAS stories.
Jun. 29, 2016 03:02 PM EDT Reads: 123
Internet of @ThingsExpo has announced today that Chris Matthieu has been named tech chair of Internet of @ThingsExpo 2016 Silicon Valley. The 6thInternet of @ThingsExpo will take place on November 1–3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Jun. 29, 2016 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 263
Basho Technologies has announced the latest release of Basho Riak TS, version 1.3. Riak TS is an enterprise-grade NoSQL database optimized for Internet of Things (IoT). The open source version enables developers to download the software for free and use it in production as well as make contributions to the code and develop applications around Riak TS. Enhancements to Riak TS make it quick, easy and cost-effective to spin up an instance to test new ideas and build IoT applications. In addition to...
Jun. 29, 2016 02:00 PM EDT Reads: 611
CenturyLink has announced that application server solutions from GENBAND are now available as part of CenturyLink's Networx contracts. The General Services Administration (GSA)'s Networx program includes the largest telecommunications contract vehicles ever awarded by the federal government. CenturyLink recently secured an extension through spring 2020 of its offerings available to federal government agencies via GSA's Networx Universal and Enterprise contracts. GENBAND's EXPERiUS™ Application...
Jun. 29, 2016 02:00 PM EDT Reads: 298
In addition to all the benefits, IoT is also bringing new kind of customer experience challenges - cars that unlock themselves, thermostats turning houses into saunas and baby video monitors broadcasting over the internet. This list can only increase because while IoT services should be intuitive and simple to use, the delivery ecosystem is a myriad of potential problems as IoT explodes complexity. So finding a performance issue is like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Jun. 29, 2016 01:15 PM EDT Reads: 279
"We work in the area of Big Data analytics and Big Data analytics is a very crowded space - you have Hadoop, ETL, warehousing, visualization and there's a lot of effort trying to get these tools to talk to each other," explained Mukund Deshpande, head of the Analytics practice at Accelerite, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 18th Cloud Expo, held June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Jun. 29, 2016 12:37 PM EDT Reads: 279
When people aren't talking about VMs and containers, they're talking about serverless architecture. Serverless is about no maintenance. It means you are not worried about low-level infrastructural and operational details. An event-driven serverless platform is a great use case for IoT. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Animesh Singh, an STSM and Lead for IBM Cloud Platform and Infrastructure, will detail how to build a distributed serverless, polyglot, microservices framework using open source tec...
Jun. 29, 2016 12:30 PM EDT Reads: 533
SYS-CON Events has announced today that Roger Strukhoff has been named conference chair of Cloud Expo and @ThingsExpo 2016 Silicon Valley. The 19th Cloud Expo and 6th @ThingsExpo will take place on November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. "The Internet of Things brings trillions of dollars of opportunity to developers and enterprise IT, no matter how you measure it," stated Roger Strukhoff. "More importantly, it leverages the power of devices and the Interne...
Jun. 29, 2016 11:58 AM EDT Reads: 305
Presidio has received the 2015 EMC Partner Services Quality Award from EMC Corporation for achieving outstanding service excellence and customer satisfaction as measured by the EMC Partner Services Quality (PSQ) program. Presidio was also honored as the 2015 EMC Americas Marketing Excellence Partner of the Year and 2015 Mid-Market East Partner of the Year. The EMC PSQ program is a project-specific survey program designed for partners with Service Partner designations to solicit customer feedbac...
Jun. 29, 2016 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 563
Apixio Inc. has raised $19.3 million in Series D venture capital funding led by SSM Partners with participation from First Analysis, Bain Capital Ventures and Apixio's largest angel investor. Apixio will dedicate the proceeds toward advancing and scaling products powered by its cognitive computing platform, further enabling insights for optimal patient care. The Series D funding comes as Apixio experiences strong momentum and increasing demand for its HCC Profiler solution, which mines unstruc...
Jun. 29, 2016 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 483
The IoT is changing the way enterprises conduct business. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Eric Hoffman, Vice President at EastBanc Technologies, discussed how businesses can gain an edge over competitors by empowering consumers to take control through IoT. He cited examples such as a Washington, D.C.-based sports club that leveraged IoT and the cloud to develop a comprehensive booking system. He also highlighted how IoT can revitalize and restore outdated business models, making them profitable ...
Jun. 29, 2016 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 431
IoT offers a value of almost $4 trillion to the manufacturing industry through platforms that can improve margins, optimize operations & drive high performance work teams. By using IoT technologies as a foundation, manufacturing customers are integrating worker safety with manufacturing systems, driving deep collaboration and utilizing analytics to exponentially increased per-unit margins. However, as Benoit Lheureux, the VP for Research at Gartner points out, "IoT project implementers often ...
Jun. 29, 2016 10:45 AM EDT Reads: 549
"delaPlex is a software development company. We do team-based outsourcing development," explained Mark Rivers, COO and Co-founder of delaPlex Software, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 18th Cloud Expo, held June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Jun. 29, 2016 10:30 AM EDT Reads: 477
In his general session at 18th Cloud Expo, Lee Atchison, Principal Cloud Architect and Advocate at New Relic, discussed cloud as a 'better data center' and how it adds new capacity (faster) and improves application availability (redundancy). The cloud is a 'Dynamic Tool for Dynamic Apps' and resource allocation is an integral part of your application architecture, so use only the resources you need and allocate /de-allocate resources on the fly.
Jun. 29, 2016 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,282
Connected devices and the industrial internet are growing exponentially every year with Cisco expecting 50 billion devices to be in operation by 2020. In this period of growth, location-based insights are becoming invaluable to many businesses as they adopt new connected technologies. Knowing when and where these devices connect from is critical for a number of scenarios in supply chain management, disaster management, emergency response, M2M, location marketing and more. In his session at @Th...
Jun. 29, 2016 09:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,243
Machine Learning helps make complex systems more efficient. By applying advanced Machine Learning techniques such as Cognitive Fingerprinting, wind project operators can utilize these tools to learn from collected data, detect regular patterns, and optimize their own operations. In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Stuart Gillen, Director of Business Development at SparkCognition, discussed how research has demonstrated the value of Machine Learning in delivering next generation analytics to imp...
Jun. 29, 2016 09:45 AM EDT Reads: 921
The idea of comparing data in motion (at the sensor level) to data at rest (in a Big Data server warehouse) with predictive analytics in the cloud is very appealing to the industrial IoT sector. The problem Big Data vendors have, however, is access to that data in motion at the sensor location. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Scott Allen, CMO of FreeWave, discussed how as IoT is increasingly adopted by industrial markets, there is going to be an increased demand for sensor data from the outermos...
Jun. 29, 2016 09:25 AM EDT Reads: 254
In his keynote at 18th Cloud Expo, Andrew Keys, Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise, provided an overview of the evolution of the Internet and the Database and the future of their combination – the Blockchain. Andrew Keys is Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise. He comes to ConsenSys Enterprise with capital markets, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment bank in equities analysis. Later, he was responsible for the creation and distribution of life sett...
Jun. 29, 2016 09:15 AM EDT Reads: 1,437
IoT is rapidly changing the way enterprises are using data to improve business decision-making. In order to derive business value, organizations must unlock insights from the data gathered and then act on these. In their session at @ThingsExpo, Eric Hoffman, Vice President at EastBanc Technologies, and Peter Shashkin, Head of Development Department at EastBanc Technologies, discussed how one organization leveraged IoT, cloud technology and data analysis to improve customer experiences and effi...
Jun. 29, 2016 09:15 AM EDT Reads: 493
There are several IoTs: the Industrial Internet, Consumer Wearables, Wearables and Healthcare, Supply Chains, and the movement toward Smart Grids, Cities, Regions, and Nations. There are competing communications standards every step of the way, a bewildering array of sensors and devices, and an entire world of competing data analytics platforms. To some this appears to be chaos. In this power panel at @ThingsExpo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, Bradley Holt, Developer Advocate a...
Jun. 29, 2016 08:45 AM EDT Reads: 945


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Health Care Reform:
A Guide to Health Insurance & Affordable Care Act
News and Features Related to Health Care Reform
Is There Gunk On Your Greens? 4 Things To Know About The Listeria Recall
By Lydia Zuraw Frozen vegetables are a staple in many diets, so a huge recall of them has us peering at the packages in our freezers. On Tuesday evening, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced an outbreak of the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria and frozen vegetables and fruitsRead Full Article
UHC Marketplace Departure May Impact Cost, Access
By Phil Galewitz UnitedHealthcare's decision to quit insurance exchanges in about 30 states next year has patient advocates concerned that fewer options could force consumers to pay more for coverage and have a smaller choice of network providers. The company's departure couldRead Full Article
AR Governor Extends Medicaid Expansion
By David Ramsey Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson Thursday signed an appropriation bill into law and used a line-item veto to insure continuation of the state's Medicaid expansion, ending a two-week budget standoff. The Medicaid expansion covers more than 267,000 Arkansans who makeRead Full Article
Medicaid Expansion and Poor Adults' Health Care
By Phil Galewitz In states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, low-income adults were more likely to see a doctor, stay overnight in a hospital and receive their first diagnoses of diabetes and high cholesterol, according to a study published Monday. Yet reseRead Full Article
Rise In Hospital Oncologists Boosts Chemo Costs
By Michelle Andrews If you have cancer, chances are your outpatient chemotherapy treatment costs are higher if your oncologist works for a health care system than if she has her own practice, a recent study found. The study by researchers at the University of Chicago analyzed private health insurancRead Full Article
Cost And Health Care Quality: Many Don't See Link
By Michelle Andrews Most consumers don't believe the adage that "you get what you pay for" in health care, according to a new study. The report in this month's issue of the journal Health Affairs analyzed the responses of 2,010 adults to four questions about the relationship between health care pricRead Full Article
CA Marketplace Imposes Quality, Cost Conditions
By Ana B. Ibarra and David Gorn Moving into a realm usually reserved for health care regulators, the California health marketplace Thursday unveiled sweeping reforms to its contracts with insurers, seeking to improve the quality of care, curb its cost and increase transparency for consumers. The attRead Full Article
Doctors, Patients May Miss Chances To Lower Costs
By Shefali Luthra Talking about money is never easy. But when doctors are reluctant to talk about medical costs, a patient's health can be undermined. A study published in Monday's Health Affairs explores the dynamics that can trigger that scenario. Patients are increasingly responsible for shoulderRead Full Article
Indiana's Medicaid Expansion Makes Poorest Pay
By Phil Galewitz GARY, Ind. — Reginald Rogers owes his dentist a debt of gratitude for his new dentures, but no money. Indiana's Medicaid program has them covered, a godsend for the almost toothless former steelworker who hasn't held a steady job for years and lives in his daughter's basement. "I juRead Full Article
Montana Medicaid Expansion Earns Good Grades
By Eric Whitney, Montana Public Radio Montana's new Medicaid expansion just got its first progress report, and it is exceeding expectations. Initial projections were for about 23,000 of the state's estimated 70,000 Medicaid-eligible residents to take up the new coverage in its first year. Instead, iRead Full Article
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text: The Rob's Video Blog 6/24/11 By The Rob June 24, 2011 5:12 PM Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Today we check in with Big Boy at the hospital Filed Under: Big Boy | the rob | video blog Category: Humor | Videos Share on Facebook Share on Twitter More Leave a comment Send to a friend! Print this page Pin it! Reddit This! Share on Tumblr! Best of 106.1 KISS FM Nino's Movie Review – Central Intelligence Harry Styles Officially Signs Solo Contract. What Will Happen to 1D? Demi Lovato Condemns Celebrity News Culture in Twitter Rant Fall Out Boy and Missy Elliott Ain't Afraid on New 'Ghostbusters' Theme Recommended For You ZergNet Best of the Web ZergNet


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Entertainment journal Variety has reported that Derek Connolly (Jurassic World, Kong: Skull Island, Safety Not Guaranteed) has been hired to write the latest version of a script for a Pacific Rim sequel, set to be directed by Steven S. DeKnight (showrunner on the Netflix Daredevil series). Jon Spaihts penned a previous draft.
The on-again, halted-again, on-again, delayed-again Pacific Rim sequel is back on the march. While mecha-vs-kaiju mastermind Guillermo del Toro remains a producer, having his hands full with Fantastic Voyage and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, he's given over the director's chair to Steven S. DeKnight, creator of the Starz Spartacus TV series and later showrunner of the Netflix adaptation of Marvel's Daredevil.
Guillermo del Toro's mecha versus kaiju movie Paicifc Rimstill has enthuiastic fans in Japan. Fuji TV recently announced plans to broadcast the movie on March 5th, and that was enough to unleash a storm on social media as fans repost their favorite tributes and jokes. And, plans are being made for more figures. More after the jump.
Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak director Guillermo del Toro is no stranger has been a vocal proponent of Japanese media, whether it was a broad endorsement of it for last year's Sugoi Japan program or his recent list of favorite classics. Over the last couple of days, he's praised the works of the late, acclaimed anime director Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress). Check them it out after the jump
News for the Pacific Rim sequel was mixed this week. Variety noted that Universal Pictures removed the feature from its release calendar, but insisted that it is still happening. Meanwhile, director Guillermo del Toro talked up the project. More after the jump.
With Hollywood Reporter claiming that production of the Pacific Rim sequel has been delayed indefinitely, Entertainment Weekly spoke to director Guillermo Del Toro. While GDT does admit that there is a delay and that he "may do another movie in the middle," he insists that Pacific Rim: Maelstrom is still happening.
While surveying the state of Pacific Rim production company Legendary Pictures, distributor Warner Bros., and Universal following Universal Pictures' decision last week to let Legendary Pictures take its Kong: Skull Island project to Warner Bros. in the midst of a five-year production deal, The Hollywood Reporter has indicated that sources are telling them that production on Pacific Rim 2 has been halted indefinitely. More after the jump.
Hollywood returns for a second bout of kaiju versus mecha action with Pacific Rim 2 on April 7, 2017. Director Guillermo del Toro touch based with Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision super hero blog to discuss who's back as well as the story's time frame. Get a look after the jump.
Guillermo del Toro has been all over the place in anticipation of this weekend's debut of the FX adaptation of his vampire novels The Strain. At Collider, he was discussing his mecha versus kaiju Pacific Rim projects including the sequel, and an animated series which might be produced in Japan. More after the jump.