Source: DazeInfo
Organizing the world’s information, one reference at a time
Desk Set, 1957
In his book Weaving the Web, Tim Berners-Lee writes:
I was excited about escaping from the straightjacket of hierarchical documentation systems…. By being able to reference everything with equal ease, the web could also represent associations between things that might seem unrelated but for some reason did actually share a relationship. This is something the brain can do easily, spontaneously. … The research community has used links between paper documents for ages: Tables of content, indexes, bibliographies and reference sections… On the Web… scientists could escape from the sequential organization of each paper and bibliography, to pick and choose a path of references that served their own interest.
With this one imaginative leap, Berners-Lee moved beyond a major stumbling block for all previous information retrieval systems: The pre-defined classification system at their core. This insight was so counter-intuitive that even during the early years of the Web, attempts were made to do just that: To classify (and organize in pre-defined taxonomies) all the information on the Web.
Google’s founders were the first to seize on Berners-Lee’s insight and build their information retrieval business on tracking closely cross-references (i.e., links between pages) as they were happening and correlate relevance with quantity of cross-references (i.e., popularity of pages as judged by how many other pages linked to them). This was what set Google apart from its competitors (Yahoo had a Chief Ontologist on staff).
Berners-Lee’s insight is frequently linked to Vannevar Bush who wrote in 1945, “Our ineptitude at getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing… Selection [i.e., information retrieval] by association, rather than by indexing may yet be mechanized.” But I prefer to start the history of the Web (and organizing information) with what was, to my knowledge, the earliest use of cross-references.
This was Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopaedia, published in London in 1728. While lacking the worldwide platform for “crowd-sourcing” references that Berners-Lee invented, Chambers shared with him (and Bush) a dislike for hierarchical, alphabetical, indexing systems. Here’s how Chambers explained in the Preface his innovative system of cross-references:
Former lexicographers have not attempted anything like Structure in their Works; nor seem to have been aware that a dictionary was in some measure capable of the Advantages of a continued Discourse. Accordingly, we see nothing like a Whole in what they have done…. This we endeavoured to attain, by considering the several Matters [i.e., topics] not only absolutely and independently, as to what they are in themselves; but also relatively, or as they respect each other. They are both treated as so many Wholes, and so many Parts of some greater Whole; their Connexion with which is pointed out by a Reference. So that by a Course of References, from Generals to Particulars; from Premises to Conclusions; from a Cause to Effect; and vice versa, i.e., in one word, from more to less complex, and from less to more: A Communication is opened between the several parts of the Work; and the several Articles are in some measure replaced in their natural Order of Science, out of which the Technical or Alphabetical one had remov’d them.
Chambers’ Cyclopaedia was the earliest attempt to link by association all the articles in an Encyclopedia or, in more general terms, of everything we know at a given point in time. And like the World Wide Web, it moved some people to voice their concern about what Google is doing to our brains. The supplement to the 1758 edition of the Cyclopaedia says:
Some few however condemn the use of all such dictionaries, on the first pretence, that, by lessening the difficulties of attaining knowledge, they abate our diligence in the pursuit of it; and by dazzling our eyes with superficial shew, seduce us from digging solid riches in the mine itself.
The fear of what tools for organizing information could do to our thinking (and livelihood) was renewed many-fold with the advent of modern computers. “They can’t build a machine to do our job; there are too many cross-references in this place,” says the head librarian (Katharine Hepburn) to her anxious colleagues in the research department when a “methods engineer” (Spencer Tracy) is hired to “improve workman-hour relationship” in a large corporation. By the end of the film, Desk Set (released in 1957), she proves her point by winning, not only the engineer’s heart, but also a contest with the ominous looking “Electronic Brain” (aka Computer).
Andrew Ng, Chief Scientist at Baidu, on Deep Learning (Video)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0VN0pGgBZM?list=PLNJqCmaeRkpEzd01z9v6Ltdo5_K_6UuuL]
[slideshare id=55455948&doc=andrew-ng-extract-oct2015-nonotes-151124104249-lva1-app6891]
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Re-Engineering IT for Digital Transformation
Angela Yochem, CIO, BDP International
For many companies today, business transformation means digital transformation. Using information technology to automate and speed up processes, design innovative practices, and create new revenue streams, requires a New IT organization.
Crucial to the success of digital transformation is a dynamic IT team with a dual mission of supporting the IT infrastructure and creating new digital products, disciplined and practical but willing to experiment with new ideas and tools, and a reputation for being both an excellent student and a great teacher—continuously learning but also guiding others about what technology can do for them.
“We are just at the cusp of a significant business transformation at BDP,” Angela Yochem told me recently. Yochem is the Global CIO of BDP International, a logistics company specializing in shipping sensitive materials that require special handling or are subject to regulatory requirements. “We move things around the world but we don’t actually own the planes, the ships, the trucks or the warehouses. We are like a travel agent for our customers,” says Yochem.
BDP is a virtual company, operating in 130 countries without owning logistics and transportation assets. Now, however, it is transforming into a digital business, increasingly relying on information technology to both support and drive its services.
A pioneer in the transmission of data electronically, BDP has always regarded IT as an important component of its business. But today the business is changing, “moving from what has historically been very manual sort of service offerings to more automated services,” says Yochem. “Our customers’ expectations continue to change across the board and with them, the demand for greater visibility and automation tools. BDP needed to change the focus of its IT shop and that’s why I was brought on board in early 2013,” she adds.
Here are the 6 key actions Yochem took to transform IT so it can play a major role in BDP’s digital transformation.
Run IT like a software shop
A new focus on developing software that will make BDP stand out in its industry has led to the re-definition of IT’s mission. “We moved away from running IT as a traditional order-taking organization to a digital products group. That shift has spanned people, processes, and the technology itself,” says Yochem.
The not-invented-here syndrome has no place in a dynamic and creative IT organization. At BDP, this has meant adopting new software development processes and hiring software developers from startups and from large software engineering organizations, as well as working with them as business partners.
Become an early adopter of new technologies
IT used to be a conservative place, avoiding anything that has not first worked elsewhere. Not anymore. Yochem: “BDP, like a lot of other large companies, has always been a fast follower, adopting technologies only after they were well proven in the industry. Today, we are an early adopter of new technologies.”
Yochem has opened up her “software shop” to new sources of ideas, tools and technologies, from startups to universities to anyone who may supply “capabilities that are not yet commercially available.” There is an evaluation process in place, allowing her team to “quickly absorb, test, and utilize emerging technologies, and discard them if they are not appropriate and don’t give us a leg up on our competition.”
Work with colleagues and customers as a true business leader
As technology is increasingly an integral part of the services BDP offers, IT is engaged with all the right constituencies throughout the product lifecycle. “You see us out on sales calls, you see us talking to an existing customer, you see us very much plugged in with BDP’s operational leaders,” says Yochem. “We are engaging as true business leaders who just happened to have extreme technical depth.”
Yochem sits on BDP’s management committee and observes that “we all recognize the changing landscape of our customers’ businesses and the new opportunities we have to help them. Technology is a large and critical part of this evolution.” She adds: “I’m not trying to lead from behind in this role.”
Be fast, be flexible
Like other leading-edge IT organizations, BDP’s has adopted the Scrum project management and product development methodology and shifted to a DevOps environment, eliminating previous bottlenecks. Yochem: “Our business community has embraced Scrum as a way to allow for projects to take off before they have all of their requirements defined. If there is a delay in a project, it’s almost never development-based, it’s because the requirement still has to be flashed out. The pace of development is no longer a barrier for us to do anything.”
Bring in new skills and talent to create a continuous learning environment
Over the last three years, the IT organization at BDP has considerably expanded the range of skills it looks for in hiring. One set of new skills it has brought in relates to open software. “We have on staff many open source contributors,” says Yochem. “Because of that level of familiarity, we have great confidence in mainstream open source capabilities.”
Another set of new skills is that of data scientists. Their predictive analytics expertise is helping IT to move from reporting on past activities and present transactions to assisting with decisions about future actions. The dashboard BDP provides to its customers now includes scenario planning capabilities.
The talent mix and the varied responsibilities of the IT organization facilitate the creation of a continuous learning environment. The new dual role of the IT organization, maintaining the IT infrastructure and creating new digital products, creates an opportunity for what Yochem calls “cross-pollination.”
She says: “I don’t want to take a group of people and tell them ‘you’re keeping the lights on’ and say to another group of people ‘you are all about game changing work.’ My job is to see that the entire staff is energized and excited and able to see a career path and every week they take something valuable from their work.
We have been able to do some rotating between the teams that are doing the digital products work and the teams that are maintaining the legacy systems. That helps those who may not have exposure to more contemporary technology and it helps the people who were brought in to do the game changing work understand more about the context in which they are operating. Even the new capabilities that we’ve built have to work with our legacy systems that are core to our business.”
Engage with the broader community
It should be clear from the above that a large dimension of IT transformation is pivoting it from an internally-focused, secluded organization to an externally visible, engaged business partner. But going beyond colleagues, customers and partners, Yochem sees IT as an active player in society at large.
“We have a responsibility to engage with the broader community in a way that is constructive,” says Yochem. “We may be in a position to help the body of knowledge as technology evolves. If we don’t help, who will? Also, that’s how we grow as individuals and ensure that our perspective is constantly expanding in a way that’s beneficial to the companies, customers and communities that we serve.”
For CIOs, this means among other things, seeking opportunities to serve on non-profit or community organizations’ boards. Acting on what she sees as her broader responsibility, Yochem is serving on the board of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, which provides low-cost funding for affordable housing and community development to member financial institutions in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. “For me, I feel as if not only am I serving on a corporate board, but also serving a worthy, deserving organization,” Yochem told Forbes’ Peter High last year.
This is certainly not your father’s IT organization. Fast, flexible and creative, practicing disciplined risk-taking and opening up to external influences, cultivating new skills and engaging with the world, New IT is both supporting and driving the digital transformation of the business. Many organizations today are just starting their digital journey or have already taken significant steps toward infusing information technology, automation, and data analytics into their processes and offerings.
Yochem believes that most businesses that provide services to either consumers or other businesses “will be largely digital in the future.” The challenge for these businesses is to accurately gauge the demand for digital experiences by their constituencies, both customers and employees. “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should,” says Yochem.
Another challenge is to understand the potential impact of digital transformation on the business. “Businesses that approach digital transformation only in a sense that it would provide tremendous productivity gains are probably not going to be the game changers in their industry,” says Yochem.
Instead, better focus on the new business opportunities: “The companies that are looking at digital transformation as a way to better serve and overserve and perhaps serve in any number of adjacent ways their customer base or even shifting into a new customer base with adjacent product offering, are the companies that will find themselves at the leading edge of digital transformation. I believe that’s were the focus should be and the productivity gains will follow.”
Yochem believes that the CIO is “perfectly positioned” to lead the digital transformation. Companies should not isolate their digital initiatives and put them in “one bucket,” she advises. As business leaders become more digital-savvy, “every line of business and every functional area will use transformational technology.”
In this new era where the lines separating business and technology leaders increasingly blur, Yochem believes the CIO will have a role similar to that of the CFO. “Just like the CEO will not make many moves without the approval of the CFO, the same is going to be true for the CIO. But that doesn’t mean you will not allow the business lines to pursue technology similar to the way they look after their own finances today,” says Yochem.
The increasingly significant and visible role the CIO and other tech leaders play in digital transformation leads directly to Yochem’s prediction for the coming year:
“In 2016, we’ll see more board room response to the increasing importance of technology to their business strategies, products, and customer interactions. This is due as much to the operational risk element of cyber security as it is to the realization that the people creating technology for the company have a disproportional influence and impact on the company’s future. Boards will seek to add business-fluent tech talent—directors who can speak to the possibility of tech as well as cultivate tech acumen of board members.”
All businesses are now digital businesses and technology is a key topic of discussion and action for corporate boards everywhere.
Originally published on Forbes.com
Israeli Internet of Things (IoT) Landscape
1) IoT is booming with activity in Israel. According to the landscape research, there are around 330 Israeli IoT companies. As Israel is home to approximately 6,100 active startups in total, IoT represents a surprisingly whopping 5% of the Israeli startup ecosystem! These companies pertain to all verticals, stages, and levels of the stack, and address unique problems across many major markets.
2) Israeli IoT leverages Israel’s strengths in sectors like healthcare, life science, and cyber security. Given Israel’s historical proficiencies, it is not surprising that most of the IoT activity in Israel plays to the country’s unique strengths in areas such as healthcare, science, and cyber security, in new and interesting ways. For example, one Israeli company in the cyber security vertical is Argus Security, which is building a “firewall” for the connected car, defending your vehicle from being compromised by outside attackers, especially hackers that can take control of your car remotely! If, on the other hand, you’re less worried about hackers and more worried about calories, Consumer Physics’ molecular pocket sensor allows you to measure the physical world around you, including food, medicine, plants, and more. For instance, you can scan a piece of cheese and find out complete nutritional information like calories, protein, fat, etc.
3) The Israeli IoT industry is still far from mature. Regardless of sector, most companies on the landscape are stuck in the middle stages of their lifecycle, i.e. the R&D or initial revenues stages. Moreover, nearly 80% of companies are focused around the applications category rather than other levels of the stack (such as IoT platforms or components). This unbalanced distribution in terms of stage and level suggests a severe lack of infrastructure and maturity in this market wherein startups have not yet found their long-term product-market fit or verticalized their supply. However, this also represents an opportunity for companies to capitalize on such “whitespaces” in the landscape, particularly around the platform level where the numbers indicate that it is still early in the lifecycle curve.
What IoT means for Israel
As opposed to the belief that Israel will never be a leader in IoT, we found that if Israeli entrepreneurs can capitalize on their existing IoT-related proficiencies, they can dominate in this space. This is mainly because in Israel IoT already actually has strong, real context. In other words, the sectors that are currently most relevant to IoT – like cyber security, ag-tech, and healthcare – also happen to be the ones in which Israel is already the most advanced around the globe. For example, Israel has some of the most cutting-edge cyber security and defense expertise in the world thanks to elite Israeli military technology units. Team8, one of our most recent cyber security investments, brings together top Israeli cyber talent and ideas to build new technology companies that challenge the current cyber security paradigm. Furthermore, Israel’s rich agricultural “pioneer” history – when early settlers turned to innovation in order to transform what was then an arid desert into fertile land – has enabled Israel to establish itself as a world leader in ag-sciences and ag-tech like Netafim, the world’s first surface drip irrigation technology. This is why we developed our Farm2050 initiative to support such innovation. Not to mention that Israel is only the size of New Jersey, yet holds the most medical device patents per capita in the world. These existing proficiencies have positioned Israel to become a mighty force in IoT going forward.
Not only can Israel benefit from its existing strengths, but also IoT has come along at just the right time for Israel, and is thus enabling it to penetrate new markets that were historically impenetrable. Specifically, Israel has never been very successful at building consumer-facing startups, especially consumer hardware, but today this is changing. As Israeli companies transform their approach in dealing with global markets and have new distribution channels like Kickstarter, at the same time IoT has reinvigorated the consumer devices market. This convergence of factors has created a meaningful window of opportunity for Israeli entrepreneurs to get back into the consumer and hardware spaces.
Posted in Internet of Things, Misc, startups
Tagged innovation endeavors, Israeli startups
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The IoT Startup Landscape (Infographic)
Wearables
A category of wrist, body, and head-mounted devices that we have previously looked into. Most of the companies in this subset of IoT are makers of consumer fitness bands and smart watches. Other products in this area include more specialized infant wearables (Owlet and Sproutling), smart apparel made by Lumo and OMsignal, as well as advanced biometric sensors like Thync‘s mood-elevating head-mounted wearable.
Connected Home
The connected home category encompasses everyday devices such as August and Lockitron‘s connected door locks, and Ring‘s doorbell system.
Infrastructure and Sensors
Companies here are are building out the networks and developing physical sensors that will undergird the Internet of Things. mCube and Valencell are sensor developers, and Ineda Systems makes SoCs (systems-on-a-chip) for IoT and wearable applications. Jasper and Arrayent provide cloud-based platforms for storing and harnessing the data from connected networks.
Healthcare
IoT startups in the healthcare space range from consumer-friendly tech like Kinsa‘s smart thermometer, all the way to clinical-grade sensors such as Quanttus‘ wearable patient monitor.
Smart Utilities & Energy
Startups in this map area develop tech that enables more efficient use of water and electricity. Rachio and Banyan Water, for instance, make systems for water and irrigation usage. Companies like Enlighted use connected hardware for optimizing electricity and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) usage.
Industrial IoT (IIoT)
A fast-growing subspace of the IoT, the industrial IoT aims to create networks that are tailored to asset-heavy industries such as manufacturing, logistics, mining, and agriculture. Tachyus and GroundMetrics, for example, make sensor systems for the oil and gas industry. Similarly, Worldsensing and Eigen Innovations offer data solutions tailored to heavy industry.
UAV / Drone
As they grow increasingly autonomous, drones will provide new and complementary sources of data to IoT-powered systems. Skycatch, for example, employs UAVs to capture data for the rendering of construction sites in 3D. Consumer drones like those manufactured by DJI Innovations, 3D Robotics, and Yuneec were also well-represented.
Connected Car
The connected car category is a large space in its own right that we’ve detailed in greater depth, but notable startups like Metromile are using the IoT to transform car insurance by creating a new type of “per-mile” usage-based insurance premium. Other companies like Zubie and Automatic market devices that capture data and allow drivers to track and improve driving habits along with APIs for third-party services built on top of the device and software.
Retail Tech
Startups here are using connected devices to improve the retail experience. Estimote and Cloudtags use connected sensors and mobile apps for a more interactive shopping experience. Theatro makes an enterprise wearable for retail and hospitality workers. And Momentum Machines is developing robots to automate food production.
Wearable technology market expected to reach $31.27 billion by 2020
Wearable technology is gaining popularity at a rapid pace, and it has gone beyond just connected eyewear and smartwatches with new products such as wrist bands, smart shoes, smart apparels, and more. Companies are creating apparel, accessories, and fitness wear that can do everything from monitoring heart rate to charging a smartphone. The overall wearable technology market for wearable technology is expected to reach $31.27 billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 17.8% between 2015 and 2020.
Some of the key players in this industry include Adidas AG (Germany), Apple, Inc. (U.S.), Fitbit, Inc. (U.S.), Garmin, Ltd. (Switzerland), Google, Inc. (U.S.), Jawbone, Inc. (U.S.), LG Electronics Inc. (South Korea), Nike, Inc. (U.S.), Pebble Technology Corp. (U.S.), Qualcomm, Inc. (U.S.), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (South Korea), Sony Corporation (Japan), and Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd. (China).
Source: MarketsandMarkets
2 Billion Photos are Shared Daily on Snapchat, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr
| Flickr | 1,000,000 |
| 400,000,000 | |
| 70,000,000 | |
| Snapchat | 760,000,000 |
| 700,000,000 |
Source: Photoworld
Music Streaming Patterns in India, US and Singapore
Devendra Desale reports for KDnuggets on Saavn presentation at Strata Singapore:
Rishi Malhotra, Cofounder and CEO, Saavn shared how a music streaming company who has a large portion of mobile users (95%), has used this rich data to improve their services. Data has to be part of company “Eat data for breakfast” is of the motto of the company. Their datasets act as proxy for billion users, track how user access the service and find patterns. He emphasized on the data ripple reflect, and how corporates should consider collaborating and developing cross-industry strategies based on data.