David Ing

If credibility of universities in credentialing declines, can alternative institutions such as badging recognize skills and knowledge in broader T-shaped people? Both students and postsecondary institutions are increasingly embracing the ideal of the “T-shaped” graduate, who combines deep “vertical” knowledge in a particular domain with a broad set of “horizontal” skills: teamwork, communications, facility with [...] - David Ing

At #ibmimpact, Mike Rhodin says big data is more than volume, have to deal with variety, veracity and velocity. Deterministic programming can’t handle big data, have to use probablistic programming - David Ing

The Future of Intelligent Middleware, IBM Research at Impact 2013 Conference Contextual analytics Continuous insight Demos Key technical problems: unstructured, unstructured, semi-structured; have been working on scale OR performance, not both, which will happen in a clustered environment Why is contextual analytics important? An urgent need to understand information, particularly asynchronous ones Scenario: financial company [...] - David Ing

IBM Research (Tamar Eilam, Gosia Steinder, Seetharami Seelam, Yuqing Gao), IBM Impact Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada This digest was created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker’s presentation(s) and comments from the audience. The content should not be viewed as an official transcript of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a [...] - David Ing

IBM Impact Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada This digest was created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker’s presentation(s) and comments from the audience. The content should not be viewed as an official transcript of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not [...] - David Ing

At #ibmimpact @srabrams on IBM Global Technology Outlook preceding 3 in-depth sessions. Mega Trends: A. Growing scale / lower barrier of entry (users, transactions, computations, data); B. Increasing complexity / yet more consumable (data and data management, workloads, discovering insights, interaction); C. Fast pace; D. Contextual overload. Major Waves of Technology. Back office computing, Client-server, [...] - David Ing

At #ibmimpact, @mwieck describes a new kind of system with 3 systems of interaction: 1 systems of engagement (e.g. mobile); 2 systems of record; and 3 the Internet of things; all tied together in the cloud - David Ing

Employers can tap a greater pool of potential by considering the long-term unemployed over people who churn through jobs.  What’s the catch? Employers should be realistic that training is an investment in human capital, that can pay off in better employee retention. There are two labor markets nowadays. There’s the market for people who have [...] - David Ing

Can online education serve both practical knowledge and technical knowledge? David Brooks cites Michael Oakeshott, which leads to positioning in comparison to Michael Polanyi. What is a university for? [....] My own stab at an answer would be that universities are places where young people acquire two sorts of knowledge, what the philosopher Michael Oakeshott [...] - David Ing

Apache OpenOffice still appears to be the leader. LibreOffice is installed by default with Ubuntu 12.04. It stands to reason that there is a bigger base of existing OpenOffice users than LibreOffice ones, both among individuals and corporations, thanks to its long history and name recognition inside and outside the open source community. Its also [...] - David Ing

While finishing the Ph.D. that I restarted 10 years ago is near top-of-mind, the priority falls when the prospects of completing the degree are considered. After my early retirement last fall, I started looking seriously at academic positions, and the prospects in Canada didn’t seem great.  Melonie Fullick, a Ph.D. candidate at York University writes: [...] - David Ing

On the public listserv discussing Robert Rosen’s work for April, anticipatory systems defined by a journalist reflects incomplete background research by citing Daniel Dubois.  The discussion opened with: In a very typical example of how rhetoric, marketing, and computational politics work, the computing industry types have now glommed onto the phrase “anticipatory systems” and are using it [...] - David Ing

Has the west fallen into a mental trap of innovation as overly structured and capital-intensive, losing the pioneering spirit? Jugaad, says Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu and Simone Ahuja of U. Cambridge Centre for India and Global Business, comes from India, but may have also been present in the innovation in pre-industrial America before 1900. This approach—whether [...] - David Ing

Designing a city simultaneously for the levels of pedestrians, cars and bikes reflects systems operating at multiple levels of scale. In Tianfu Ecological City, feet will rule — along with the people who use them. “It should be easier to be a pedestrian than a motorist,” says Kindel. “That’s the reverse of the thinking in [...] - David Ing

Information-driven change in cities, says @MESHCities, needs new skills, institutions and companies to empower people to design smart, responsive cities.  Designing for change is different challenge from designing for a static environment. Most designers, unfortunately as yet, do not have the breadth of experience not to mention the inclination to deal with the new complexity [...] - David Ing

Should the path to corporate sustainability and CSR be a return to the values in family businesses?  While we could contrast the western style of leadership as different from Chinese (traditional, not contemporary) social practices, I am reminded that I’ve described IBM as the most Chinese business I know, with some uncles that you can [...] - David Ing

Higher education has innovators dilemma with MOOCs, says @claychristensen, via Gary Metcalf, who cites Bela H. Banathy. Howe: Why is higher education vulnerable? Christensen: The availability of online learning. It will take root in its simplest applications, then just get better and better. You know, Harvard Business School doesn’t teach accounting anymore, because there’s a [...] - David Ing

Should economic activity be measured as positives minus negatives, as Dan O”Neill (U. Leeds) says, in a Genuine Progress Indicator? At the moment, our main economic indicator is GDP – gross domestic product. This is simply a measure of money changing hands in the economy. If I go out and buy a beer a pub [...] - David Ing

@huima I am looking forward to your report to the CALMAlpha combination of Cynefin with Agile and Lean at the Agile Finland event.  Dave Snowden and I did cross paths when we were both at IBM, but haven’t really ever worked together. We are getting spoiled in Helsinki as Dave Snowden and Joseph Pelrine are [...] - David Ing

Resilience instead of strength, systems instead of objects, says @Joi Ito, to manoeuvre through disruption brought by technology. Ito: What you need to do is understand these changes are happening, and build systems and governments and ways of thinking that are resilient to this kind of destructive change that is going to happen. It’s a [...] - David Ing

Reactivated RSS reading on @feedly in anticipation of the demise of Google Reader by July.  Feedly features have improved a lot since I last tried it.  In addition to browser version, installed Feedly app on Android tablet, so reading stays synchronized.  Cleaned up OPML reading list while I was trying out the new interface. Tip [...] - David Ing

Former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew was interviewed on future U.S.-China relations by The Atlantic. I am a big fan of his 2000 book “From Third World to First“. How should U.S. policies and actions adjust to deal with the rise of China? For America to be displaced, not in the world, but only [...] - David Ing

Frugal Innovation: How can we develop and apply novel technologies that underserved communities can afford and sustainably use over time? How can these technologies improve the quality of life for individuals while simultaneously catalyzing economic transformation? Via Frugal Innovation Lab | Santa Clara University School of Engineering at http://www.scu.edu/enginee.... Eight core competences of frugal innovation: [...] - David Ing

@ Claude T. Bissell Building, Faculty of Information (iSchool) - Lectured for @prof_lyons at Intro to Service Science class a U.Toronto iSchool, with Nancy Isozaki from City of Toronto. Prof. Kelly pointed out to class that Nancy and I obviously have a prior professional relationship across organizations. - David Ing

@ The Burgernator - Burger for lunch in Kensington Market. Started out for dim sum, but young women in the group preferred ground meat and poutine. - David Ing

@ Ouzeri - Wide variety of mezes with Aalto U. team and supervisor, building energy for upcoming competition at Rotman School. - David Ing

@ Humber Bay Park West - Orientation stop for Pia, Emma and Jenni, as they've been fighting jet lag from Finland. Daylight, but cloudy day on Lake Ontario is as dreary as Helsinki on a dark day. - David Ing