Adobe
Intelligence Community Executive Forum and Carahsoft
Carahsoft is a fantastic company in Reston, VA run by the hardest working, most modest, ethical, business leader I have ever met. His behind the scenes style means he would probably not want me to mention much more about him, but if I have your curiosity up about them you can read more here (read the one about their winning the Smart CEO magazine Future 50 in Jan 2009, or Fairfax County economic development authority award for 2009, or other award after award after award).
One thing I like about Carahsoft is their desire to help government customers think through hard problems and their desire to help their extended team mates and partners learn about customer hard problems so enterprise solutions can be developed. One of the many ways Carahsoft does that is by hosting venue like the Intelligence Community Executive Forum (ICEF). This periodic venue brings together executives and thought leaders from government and industry to listen to lesssons learned, hard problems and successes in creating CONOPs to address mission needs.
I’ll be helping Carahsoft with the next ICEF on 17 Feb 2009. This one will focus on collaborative enterprise solutions like those provided by Adobe. Panels will be held on topics like real-time collaboration, secure information sharing and Integration/web2.0.
Please check out the agenda and register if you can make it. More info is here: http://www.intelligencecommunityexecutiveforum.com/
Cloud Computing and Net Centric Operations
I’ve just posted a draft paper on my site on the topic of Cloud Computing and DoD’s Net Centric Operations. My intent with this paper is to keep beating it up till it is in condition to publish, and I would value your comments on the paper. Please check it out at:
13Jan2009_Computing_and_Net_Centric_Operations.pdf
One of the things I learned while pulling together this info is that honest people disagree, sometimes vehemently, on exactly what the term Cloud Computing means. For that reason I recommend anyone writing or briefing the topic start with a definition right up front. For the purposes of the paper I’m working on for DoD I mention two ways to look at the term. For most users, they view anything done elsewhere as “cloud” computing. For most technologists and architects they view “cloud computing” as a much more elegant term which implies new ways of providing capability on demand by use of virtualized resources, pools of storage and other scalable computational resources.
Note, I’m very thankful to the dozens of friends and associates who have already commented on this paper. Most initial dialog I had on the paper was via Twitter, which once again proved to me the value of that cloud based capability.
Bob
The Technology Implications of the Obama Win
There are several megatrends sweeping the technology industry today. Some of them are about to be accelerated.
I like to use five key topic areas to track megatrends in IT:
– Globalization and increasing internationalization of IT and demographic shifts
– Increasing open development of software and hardware
– Power, Cooling and Space (PCS) impacting data centers and every place computing is done
– Increasing pace of technology development and probability of disruption
Over the past two months two major events have occurred which are impacting these trends.
The
first was the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resulting cascading
effects on the financial industry. The impact on IT spending and the
movement of more enterprises to grid/cloud computing because of that
are still being assessed, but for some thoughts see: Wall Street Crisis
The second was the Presidential election of Barack Obama.
Disruptive Technologies List Updated
The list of the positive technologies I believe all enterprise Chief Technology Officer s should be tracking has now been updated. Please check it out at:
http://www.ctovision.com/disruptive-technology-list.html
I try to keep this list up by remaining in dialog with enterprise CTO s and soliciting their feedback on the list. I also keep watching what the venture capital folks are investing in and try to closely track what the big IT firms are up to. The result is the list.
I’ve also started writing slightly more detailed reviews of key positively disruptive technologies. I post them under titles “Disruptive Tech:…” and you can find links to those pages on the right hand side of the CTOvision.com blog.
For now this list includes:
- Disruptive Tech: Adapx
- Disruptive Tech: Adobe
- Disruptive Tech: Agent Logic
- Disruptive Tech: Attensity
- Disruptive Tech: Basis Technology
- Disruptive Tech: Centrifuge Systems
- Disruptive Tech: CopperEye
- Disruptive Tech: Endeca
- Disruptive Tech: Forterra Systems
- Disruptive Tech: Initiate Systems
- Disruptive Tech: Inxight
- Disruptive Tech: Language Weaver
- Disruptive Tech: MetaCarta
- Disruptive Tech: PixLogic
- Disruptive Tech: Quantum4D
- Disruptive Tech: Triumfant
See also:
Special Request: Collaboration Tool Survey
With the help of vizu.com I have just created an online survey I’d appreciate you taking a quick look at. The survey is located at this link: http://www.ctovision.com/collaboration-tool-survey.html and is also, for now, along the lower right hand column of the CTOvision blog. You can enter your responses either place for a look at results.
The point of the survey is to get a quick feel for collaboration tools that CTOvision readers use. I don’t know what results to expect, but if there are conclusions of note I’ll blog about them here.
Thanks in advance
Bob
The New Acrobat.com vs The New Acrobat Connect
My last post was all about a conclusion I made in my personal collaborative tool of choice. After evaluating many capabilities I settled on Acrobat Connect, a hosted collaborative environment that has a version that exceeds my needs for a very low cost.
Then I saw the new online system just announced by Adobe called Acrobat.com Acrobat.com provides even more collaborative features, like a better way to share audio (you can still use their free conference bridge but can also use VOIP by sharing your microphone, for example). But Acrobat.com also ties together all the other online office capabilities, including a word processor (Buzzword), PDF file format converters and means to save and exchange files with others. There is also a developer API.
The entire interface is GREAT looking. But also of note, Acrobat.com is free to sign up for. That beats the low price of Adobe’s connect.
Enter my office: using Adobe Acrobat Connect
I have picked a primary online meeting tool for my consultancy (Crucial Point LLC). Although I will use any tool a client or associate needs me to use, the tool I prefer is Adobe Acrobat Connect.
Why did I select Adobe Acrobat Connect? A key reason is that no downloads are required for this to work (assuming, of course, that you have flash player installed on your system, which 98% of the computers on earth already do).
Clayton Christensen, Disruptive Innovations and Enterprise IT
Today I got to meet one of the most influential
thinkers/speakers/writers in the globe today– Clayton Christensen. He
spoke to a small group of technologists (CIOs and CTOs) at the Cisco IT
executive forum, and held us all spell-bound by his fascinating (but
sometimes dismal) projections based on his understanding of some major market forces.
Although I recognize most of the thoughts he presented from his
books and articles, it was good having his personal context. It may
help some of those concepts to sink it a bit more, and will help me as
I try to maintain an eye on the horizon for the next technology
disruptions.
One thing I realized right away is that I have been using the terms
he coined a little bit differently than he does. I hope that is just a
matter of perspective and not a misuse of the concepts he articulates
so well.
CTOvision Blog 