October, 2011

Paul Gillin

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How Will Computers Serve Us in 2020?

Paul Gillin

Live-blogging from the IBM Watson University Symposium at Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management. . Panel discussion: What Can Technology Do Today, and in 2020? Moderator: Andrew McAfee – MIT Sloan, CDB. Panelists: Alfred Spector, Google; Rodney Brooks, MIT, Heartland Robotics, David Ferrucci,IBM. Alfred Spector, Google. Spector : We focused in computer science for many years on solving problems where accuracy and repeatability was critical.

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Facebook Tips for Midsize Businesses

Paul Gillin

With Facebook presenting a tempting target of 800 million potential customers, small businesses are flocking to social network as a fast and easy way to generate business. But many SMB’s don’t take full advantage of the Facebook platform because they’re intimidated by the learning curve and the technical knowledge that Facebook applications demand.

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Know Thy Customer

Paul Gillin

In his book, The New Know , Thornton May makes a case for data analysis becoming the next frontier of corporate evolution. Having spent the past 15 years getting their transaction systems in place, businesses will now turn their attention to making sense of the massive amounts of data they are collecting. The result will be a transformation of corporate productivity fueled by deep insights into customer needs.

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Direct Marketing Doesn’t Have to Suck

Paul Gillin

In the weeks leading up to the Direct Marketing Association annual conference in Boston this week, exhibitors were out strutting their best stuff. Last week I got two letters in the mail that appeared to be personally addressed to me in a feminine hand (right). Both turned out to be promotions for companies exhibiting at the conference. One employs people to hand-address envelopes so that they appear to come from a friend.

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David Ferrucci on Building the World’s Smartest Computer

Paul Gillin

Live blogging Dr. David Ferrucci’s address to the IBM Watson University Symposium at Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management. Ferrucci was director of the IBM Watson project. Ferrucci tells a story about his daughter’s quote: “Interesting things are boring.” Because that was her frame of reference. Interesting things involve a lot of complexity that makes them boring (to people who aren’t explicitly interested in them).

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Economic Disruption: We’ve Seen This Before

Paul Gillin

Live-blogging from the IBM Watson University Symposium at Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management. . Closing Remarks By Martin Fleming, IBM Chief Economist. If we look at the global economy over the last 250 years, we’ve seen five waves of technology change: Industrial Revolution. Age of Steam and Railways. Age of Steel, Electricity and Heavy Engineering.

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How Will Technology Affect Employment?

Paul Gillin

Live-blogging from the IBM Watson University Symposium at Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management. . Panel discussion: How Will Technology Affect Productivity and Employment? Moderator: Erik Brynjolfsson – MIT Sloan, CDB. Panelists: David Autor – Economics, MIT; Irving Wladawsky-Berger, MIT, IBM Emeritus; Larry Katz, Harvard; Frank Levy, MIT.