
A Business Lifeboat Strategy
In 1790, at about the inception of the US Constitution, the American lumber industry was centered in Maine, then part of Massachusetts. Overharvesting timber to meet the demands of a growing domestic market as well as a robust international market for ship masts, planking and other naval stores eventually started the industry’s westward migration, first to the […]

Give Infosys a break
Having petty stories, like this Infosys visa issue, being blown up in the media is only causing negative emotions and xenophobia to be stirred up needlessly in this year’s political melting-pot. We operate in a global business climate these days, in case anyone hasn’t noticed… it’s time to embrace and compete, not resist and fall further behind.

Twitter, Politics, and Sentiment Analysis
I had an interesting conversation with a journalist recently that made me think a bit more on the use of social data for decision support, the accuracy of socially generated big data and the ability to apply current technologies to turn that data into useful information. The topic was the potential to use socialytics in […]

Protect the Internet Bill
Instead of constantly playing defense against congress, we should pass a Protect the Internet Bill. SOPA and PIPA are very dangerous symptoms of an underlying problem. Powerful embedded interests from the entertainment to the telecom lobby will continue to introduce legislation that threatens the net. Congress will continue to be driven by these interests and […]

Egypt’s crisis: where social media threatens global outsourcing
When the first response of the government, in times of political crisis, is to shut down the Web, this has a massive impact on the nation’s global sourcing infrastructure to support global businesses.

Journolist, Confidentiality, and Pageviews
Last week there was a minor scandal involving the Washington Post and a blogger on their payroll who was covering conservative political issues for the Post. The short short version of the story is that the blogger, Dave Weigel, resigned after inappropriate and disparaging comments about the very people he was hired to cover were […]

Politicizing IT failure in Australia
The scale of waste that arises from government IT failure makes these projects a healthy target for politicians seeking political advantage against rivals. Here’s the latest example.

Microsoft Should Donate PowerPoint to the Taliban
I don’t pretend to be a military strategist, but I’ve figured out how to win the war in Afghanistan. OK, not on my own – The New York Times helped, with an article titled: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint: Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in […]

Digital economy meets dinosaur politics
Digital citizens are disgusted at the way the UK parliament rushed Internet censorship provisions into law last night. The political establishment is out of touch with the rapid pace of change unleashed by the Internet.