Nina Bhatti of HP Labs explains her job and how to become a person of influence when you first get into a position.

Thanks to Cody Whitesell and Ruby Shuz.

Wiki notes for Becoming a Person of Influence (workshop): http://community.anitaborg.org/wiki/index.php/Workshop_-_A_Person_of_Influence.
Wiki notes for Becoming a Person of Influence (panel): http://community.anitaborg.org/wiki/index.php/Panel_-_A_Person_of_Influence_-_In_Real_Life
Official GHC blog post for Becoming a Person of Influence: http://ghcbloggers.blogspot.com/2009/09/jo-miller-session-becoming-person-of.html

Read what HP has to say about Cloud Computing.

Thanks to Maggie Soladay, a photo editor/producer/photographer and member of www.linkedin.com, for writing about print-on-demand books and posting a link to ASMP/NY’s blog on the subject. Maggie is in the “Women in Photography” group I belong to on Linkedin. ASMP/NY recently did a test of on-demand publishers for photo books and the results are posted in the link below.

http://sharpernewyork.blogspot.com/2009/07/print-on-demand-book-test-results.html

So far the only one I’ve tried is Blurb. I did one of their smaller books and although the printing quality was adequate, I wasn’t thrilled by layout and typeface/point size restrictions.

Yesterday I stumbled onto http://magcloud.com/. I’m considering trying the service out for a few projects. I was delighted to then see it got very high ratings in the ASMP test. I have some ideas for a magazine (actually two!) and thought it would an inexpensive way to do some limited run copies for distribution to potential advertisers. I am savvy enough to realize it’s not an ideal market in which to launch a magazine, but really—is there ever a good market to do such a thing? And yet there are new magazines popping up anyway. The economy may be the death of some current magazines, but it doesn’t appear to be a deterrent altogether. A magazine format could definitely serve as a portfolio for a photographer or artist, or even for fun projects such as a birthday or anniversary book. There are several “wedding magazines” that photographers have created for specific clients as a keepsake. You can browse (and even purchase) magazines that have been uploaded to the site. It’s a neat concept—I’ll try it out and report back with my findings.

Check out their help and FAQ pages to learn more about the process, costs and other details.

I discovered an interview with the MagCloud creators here and a good discussion about MagCloud on FOLIO: mediaPRO. I just learned here that the MagCloud project is the brainchild of HP Labs and HP’s Corporate Ventures team. This excerpt from that last link sums up what MagCloud is all about:

It costs you nothing to publish a magazine on MagCloud.com. The service lets you upload a high-resolution PDF and MagCloud takes care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management and more. The MagCloud website functions as a virtual newsstand, where readers can browse and, using PayPal or a credit card, order publications. The publisher specifies a markup on each copy sold, which MagCloud collects and pays the publisher at the end of each month.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Most of you can see that Obama has a great online campign. You can find more information about that on techpresident.com , but now it is time to make a great human resource for Obama to approve the mission impossible, the rise of the US again. But it is not as easy as it seems. Because, US not only lost it is trust on the point of view of their citizen but also its reputation on the world nations. Especially in Turkey. Hope Obama, will find his best path to Turkish Nations which are famous on their hospitality.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama used technology to organize, communicate, and raise funds in innovative ways that gave him an advantage over opponents in both the primaries and the general election. It’s clear that Obama views tech as a powerful catalyst, and with the U.S. facing an unprecedented array of economic challenges, Obama will need to use technology to drive efficiency and institutional transformation.

A part of his policy platform, Obama has stated that he plans to hire the nation’s first chief technology officer (CTO) to play quarterback in driving these changes. A CTO is typically an organization’s top engineer and focuses on outward-facing technologies , but based on Obama’s policy statements he wants to use the national CTO position to:

• Build a 21st century technology infrastructure
• Unite and lead the CIOs and CTOs of various federal agencies
• Architect innovative tech solutions to help solve big problems

As a result, Obama is going to need a visionary tech leader who can rally both technologists and standard Washington bureaucrats around a common purpose. It also wouldn’t hurt to bring in a big name — someone who already has a strong reputation that will translate into political capital. Here are 10 top candidates.

10. Shai Agassi

This former technology head of SAP has the business experience and the interest in larger societal issues to do well as America’s CTO. However, he’s recently founded his own company, Better Place, to create an entirely new business model and power system to run the electric cars of the future. Because of his passion for that project, it’s doubtful he would want the U.S. CTO gig.

9. Larry Lessig

Lessig, a Stanford Law professor, is the founder of Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society and has been an outspoken commentator on U.S. technology policy. Although Lessig has a conservative background, he publicly endorsed Obama for president. At times, he has even been rumored as a candidate for numerous political offices himself. He would be an excellent tech policy wonk and a decent visionary, but he does not have a traditional tech background and that would likely hurt him in gaining the respect of the federal tech executives that he would have to lead.

8. Padmasree Warrior

Warrior is one of only two candidates on this list who is currently serving as a CTO. She was previously CTO at Motorola and in 2008 moved over to the CTO job at Cisco, where she is tasked with driving technology strategy and innovation and serving as an evangelist of what’s possible in the future. She’s also demostrated an interest in politics, having attended the Democratic National Convention in August and expressed enthusiasm for Obama’s vision of America.

7. Shane Robison

The other current CTO on this list, Robison is the executive vice president of technology and strategy at Hewlett-Packard. All of the CTOs of the various HP business units report up through Robison, as does the forward-looking HP Labs and the company’s corporate marketing department. That kind of breadth of experience would serve Robison very well as U.S. CTO. He’s also a visionary who understands the larger context of the current technology revolution and its impact on business and society. It’s unclear whether he has any interest in politics or if he could be wooed away from HP.

6. Vint Cerf

Cerf is sometimes called the “Father of the Internet” because he and Bob Kahn designed the TCP/IP architecture that made the Internet possible. Cerf, who currently works as Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1997 by President Clinton and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 by President Bush. He has outstanding technical chops and extensive experience working with government technology agencies, but his leadership and management credentials aren’t quite as strong as some of the other candidates.

5. John Chambers

One of the technology industry’s most passionate characters, Chambers has a will of steel that would help him cut through the bureaucratic stone walls in Washington. The Cisco CEO is a terrific visionary and one of tech’s most effective leaders when it comes to getting a team to execute. Chambers has also shown an interest in politics — even being rumored for an eventual run at political office. He endorsed John McCain for president and was a significant donor to the McCain campaign, so that could hurt him in being considered as Obama’s CTO.

4. Ed Felten

A Princeton computer science professor, Felton founded Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy and is a leading researcher, commentator, and blogger on technology law and policy. He famously served as the Department of Justice’s leading technology witness in its antitrust suit against Microsoft. He would be an excellent policy wonk, but doesn’t have as much experience leading technology teams.

3. Bill Gates

The biggest name that nearly everyone is forgetting is Bill Gates, the former Microsoft leader who retired from his full-time gig at Microsoft in June so that he could devote his energies to the Gates Foundation. He obviously has his sight set on larger societal impact. What better way to make that happen than helping define the critical technology policies of the next decade? Melinda can handle the foundation. Gates has the vision, the iron will, and the ability to rally the troops that would make him a successful CTO. The only problem is that he is still technically the chairman of Microsoft and it would be a conflict of interest to continue in that roll while serving as U.S. CTO. Plus, the government uses a lot of open source solutions and Gates has never been an open source fan.

2. Julius Genachowski

Genachowski went to Harvard Law School with Obama and served as an advisor to the Obama campaign on technology issues, even helping to draft Obama’s technology platform. He previously served as chief of business operations at InterActive Corp, was an FCC advisor during the Clinton administration, and founded his own company, LaunchBox Digital, to help tech startups. Since the election, Obama has named Genachowski to his transition team. It’s likely that he will have a role in the Obama administration, either as the first CTO or, more likely, as head of the FCC.

1. Eric Schmidt

The Google CEO endorsed Obama in October and has served as an unofficial advisor on economic and technology issues throughout the campaign. Since the election, Schmidt has served on Obama’s newly-formed economic advisory board. Schmidt is a pragmatic, low-key leader who can successfully work in collaboration with other leaders. He is not as much of a visionary or a bulldog, but his temperament might be the right fit for this position. At the end of last week, Schmidt denied that he is interested in the position, and no one could blame him for not wanting to leave Google, which is at the top of its game and still has an excellent future. Nevertheless, don’t rule him out just yet. He remains the most likely candidate for the job.

Napjainkban számtalan vállalat rendelkezik olyan szabadalmakkal, melyeket nem hasznosít. Ezek gyakorlatilag értéktelen, illetve csak megakadályozzák a többi vállalatot abban, hogy ezekben rejlő tudást hasznosítsa. Sok esetben úgy jár le a szabadalmi védettség, hogy a birtokos nem is tud róla, és egy élelmes versenytárs azonnal felhasználja a lehetőséget. Ezek a vállalati tudáselemek formalizált formában vannak jelen, mégis mintha elfeledték volna őket – mi lehet a helyzet azokkal az elemekkel, melyek nem formalizáltak.

Egy szervezet tudásvagyonát osztályozhatjuk aszerint, hogy a szervezet milyen tudatossággal rendelkezik róluk. Egy szervezet szempontjából pazarlást jelent, ha olyan tudással rendelkezik, melyről nincs is tudomása. Ez a tudás esetleg növelhetné a hatékonyságát, lehetővé tenni bizonyos helyzetek megoldását. Nem azonos ez a helyzet azzal, amikor egy szervezet tudatában van bizonyos tudáselemeinek, de azokat nem hasznosítja (pl. nincs rá szükséges). A tudatosság a szervezet tudásáról nem csak biztonságot ad (pl. váratlan helyzetek esetén), hanem lehetővé teszi annak megfelelő kezelését.

Egy másik nézőpontból a szervezet számára szükséges bizonyos tudáselemek birtoklása annak érdekében, hogy versenyképes maradjon. Amennyiben ezeket az elemeket képes azonosítani, lépéseket tehet megszerzésükre. Amennyiben még azt sem tudja, hogy mit nem tud, úgy a vállalat veszélyes helyzetbe kerülhet azáltal, hogy a szükséges tudás nem, vagy későn kerül csak birtokába.

Lew Platt, a HP Labs egykori igazgatója által megfogalmazott – és már szinte szállóigévé vált – mondat jól jellemzi a szervezet belső tudásával kapcsolatos problémát: „Ha a HP tudná, amit a HP tud…”. A HP Labs azzal a problémával szembesült, hogy a saját tudásával sem volt tisztában, és ahogy Platt szavaiból is kiviláglik ezáltal lehetőségektől esett el, hatékonyságot vesztett. Ennek kiküszöbölésére egy projekt keretében létrehozták a szakértők hálózatát, melyben a munkatársak képességeit, tapasztalatai területeit tárolták le, az elérhetőségükkel együtt. A rendszer lehetővé tette, hogy a megfelelő tudással rendelkező munkatársakat elérhessék, ha szükség van rájuk, illetve a tudásukra. (Forrás: Davenport, T.H. (1997) „If only HP knew what HP knows…„ in: Perspectives on Business Innovation, Issue 1, pp. 20-25.)

A szervezetek által birtokolt tudással kapcsolatban nem csak a tudatosság az, ami belső értékké teszi, hanem az is, hogyan hasznosítható és a versenytársak által ez mennyire elérhető. Aki egy erőforrást (tudást) előbb szerez meg, lépéselőnybe került. Amennyiben ezt az erőforrást védeni tudja, úgy ez az előny fenntartható. A szervezetek tacit tudása tipikusan olyan, melyet nehéz másolni, mivel nem formalizált, és így csak a birtokosával (személy) együtt vihető el a szervezetből.

A szervezetek számára a rendelkezésre álló tudás új lehetőségeket is nyit. A tudás jó alapot biztosít, hogy a szervezet új dolgokat tanuljon meg, vagy találjon ki. Ez lehetővé teszi, hogy bizonyos tudás által megszerzett előnyöket a szervezet fenntartson és továbbfejlesszen. Ugyanakkor ehhez szükséges az is, hogy a szervezet rendelkezzen a tanulás képességével, mely ugyancsak versenytényező lehet.

Minél többet tud a szervezet, annál nagyobb lehetőség nyílik a különböző tudáselemek kombinálására, és ezáltal a szinergiahatás elérésére. Egyes elemek kombinálásával új lehetőségek nyílnak meg, új termékek, szolgáltatások vállnak kifejleszthetővé.

A tengeri hajózás évezredes problémája a navigáció a nyílt tengeren, ahol a tereptárgyak nem nyújthatnak támpontot. A nap állásából már sok-sok évszázaddal ezelőtt sikerült megállapítani, hogy egy hajó észak-déli irányban hol helyezkedik el, ugyanakkor a kelet-nyugati pozíció megállapítása nehézségekbe ütközött. Ennek módszerének kifejlesztése az angolok által (a minden helyzetben pontos óra) a tökéletes navigáció előnyét biztosította, így a szinergiahatás érvényesült.

A vállalatok tevékenysége, és a stratégiájuk által kijelölt tevékenységek között eltérés lehet. Egy szervezet belső képességei megszabják, hogy mit képes megtenni, míg a stratégiai elvárások meghatározzák a cselekvési területeket. Ez a stratégiai eltérés (strategic gap) ugyanakkor egy lehetséges tudásbeli eltérés (knowledge gap) is lehet, azaz különbség a rendelkezésre álló, és a szükséges tudás között.

Zack, a tudásmenedzsment stratégiai értelmezésének egyik nagy guruja megkülönbözteti a belső és külső tudásbeli eltérés állapotát. A belső tudásbeli eltérés a szervezet rendelkezésére álló tudás és stratégia végrehajtásához szükséges tudás között van, míg külső tudásbeli eltérés a szervezet tudása, valamint a versenytársak tudása között értelmezhető. A tudásmenedzsment egyik célja, hogy ezeket a hiányokat megszűntesse, vagy mérsékelje. Minél nagyobb a tudáshiány, annál agresszívebb tudásmenedzsment stratégia szükséges az elvárt tudás megszerzésére. (Forrás: Zack, M.H. 2002 A Strategic Pretext for Knowledge Management, in: Proceedings of the Third European Conference on Organisational Knowledge, Learning and Capabilities (OKLC), 5-6 April 2002, Athens, Greece)

HP speed and execution has often been compared to an aircraft carrier, but not in this case.  HP moves fast with the announcement of the gobal cloud research initiative. Last March I was predicting that HP Labs would move in this direction.  Well they did and fast.

This shows me that HP can move fast on their promises and with some sizzle and steak.  The partnerships of Intel and Yahoo show some real meat on the bone.  I’m not expecting any massive products soon out of this initiative but certainly some innovation.

The test bed will initially consist of six “centers of excellence” at IDA facilities, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Steinbuch Centre for Computing of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, HP Labs, Intel Research and Yahoo!. Each location will host a cloud computing infrastructure, largely based on HP hardware and Intel processors, and will have 1,000 to 4,000 processor cores capable of supporting the data-intensive research associated with cloud computing. The test bed locations are expected to be fully operational and made accessible to researchers worldwide through a selection process later this year.

The test bed will leverage Yahoo!’s technical leadership in open source projects by running Apache Hadoop — an open source, distributed computing project of the Apache Software Foundation — and other open source, distributed computing software such as Pig, the parallel programming language developed by Yahoo! Research.

With this test bed, not only can researchers test applications at Internet scale, they will also have access to the underlying computing systems to advance understanding of how systems software and hardware function in a cloud environment.

Researchers at HP Labs, the central research arm of HP, will use the test bed to conduct advanced research in the areas of intelligent infrastructure and dynamic cloud services.

This has a kind of DARPA feel to it.  I have many questions.  How will it be organized?  What will prevent it from becoming ‘vendorland’ of hidden agendas?  How can I as an entrepreneur use it?  What is the requirement to participate?

Final question:  Where is Google and Microsoft on this?

MagCloud is Derek Powazek’s new venture with HP Labs. upload a PDF and you pick the markup. (via waxy)

Come nascono ed evolvono nel tempo giudizi ed opinioni nel Web? Quali sono i meccanismi che guidano la formazione di valutazioni su prodotti come ad esempio libri e film all’interno delle comunità online? Un utente in cerca di informazioni può avere fiducia nell’opinione generale creatasi su quel prodotto?

Una ricerca condotta dagli HP Laboratories di Palo Alto giunge a conclusioni interessanti.

Analizzando migliaia di votazioni e di critiche lasciate dagli utenti su Amazon e su IMDB i ricercatori hanno scoperto che non nascono fenomeni di polarizzazione – o estremizzazione – dei giudizi. Anzi, si innesca un meccanismo che tende ad attenuare i giudizi preesistenti, riconducendo l’opinione della comunità verso “un giusto mezzo”. Questo perché chi arriva nella comunità dopo che si è già formato un certo consenso tende a non lasciare un suo parere se questo coincide con l’opinione comune mentre aggiunge il suo giudizio se questo ne è in contrasto. E’ probabile, dicono gli autori della ricerca, che in un “gioco senza vincitori” come questo prevalga la gratificazione personale di cercare di spostare il giudizio fin lì maturato.

Questo risultato va in controtendenza rispetto ad altri studi sulle dinamiche di gruppo e sui siti online nei quali erano stati rilevati “effetti gregge” e fenomeni di polarizzazione delle opinioni.

Il suggerimento è quindi quello di valutare attentamente quello che, in generale, si intende come opinione pubblica online: le conclusioni che si possono trarre possono essere diverse a seconda del momento in cui si accede alle informazioni.

Researchers Prove Existence of New Basic Element for Electronic Circuits — ‘Memristor’ from PhysOrg.com

HP today announced that researchers from HP Labs have proven the existence of what had previously been only theorized as the fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering.

This scientific advancement could make it possible to develop computer systems that have memories that do not forget, do not need to be booted up, consume far less power and associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain.

In a paper published in today’s edition of Nature, four researchers at HP Labs’ Information and Quantum Systems Lab, led by R. Stanley Williams, presented the mathematical model and a physical example of a “memristor” – a blend of “memory resistor” – which has the unique property of retaining a history of the information it has acquired.

Leon Chua, a distinguished faculty member in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department of the University of California at Berkeley, initially theorized about and named the element in an academic paper published 37 years ago. Chua argued that the memristor was the fourth fundamental circuit element, along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor, and that it had properties that could not be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements…..

Read More: [...]

From the sciencemode.com article:
Hewlett-Packard announced today that its researchers from HP Labs, the company’s central research facility, have proven the existence of what had previously been only theorized as the fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering.

This scientific advancement could make it possible to develop computer systems that have memories that do not forget, do not need to be booted up, consume far less power and associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain.

In a paper published in today’s edition of Nature, four researchers at HP Labs’ Information and Quantum Systems Lab, led by R. Stanley Williams, presented the mathematical model and a physical example of a “memristor” – a blend of “memory resistor” – which has the unique property of retaining a history of the information it has acquired.

Leon Chua, a distinguished faculty member in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department of the University of California at Berkeley, initially theorized about and named the element in an academic paper published 37 years ago. Chua argued that the memristor was the fourth fundamental circuit element, along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor, and that it had properties that could not be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements.

Building on their groundbreaking research in nanoelectronics, Williams and team are the first to prove the existence of the memristor.
…
One application for this research could be the development of a new kind of computer memory that would supplement and eventually replace today’s commonly used dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Computers using conventional DRAM lack the ability to retain information once they lose power. When power is restored to a DRAM-based computer, a slow, energy-consuming “boot-up” process is necessary to retrieve data from a magnetic disk required to run the system.

In contrast, a memristor-based computer would retain its information after losing power and would not require the boot-up process, resulting in the consumption of less power and wasted time.

This functionality could play a significant role as “cloud computing” becomes more prevalent. Cloud computing requires an IT infrastructure of hundreds of thousands of servers and storage systems. The memory and storage systems used by today’s cloud infrastructure require significant power to store, retrieve and protect the information of millions of web users worldwide.
…
Another potential application of memristor technology could be the development of computer systems that remember and associate series of events in a manner similar to the way a human brain recognizes patterns. This could substantially improve today’s facial recognition technology, enable security and privacy features that recognize a complex set of biometric features of an authorized person to access personal information, or enable an appliance to learn from experience.

Read the full article here.

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