collaboration

The CTOvision.com blog has moved!

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If you have found this post you might be looking for our new location.

The CTOvision.com blog has been operating on its own server for quite a while now, and we continue to provide content on items of interest to enterprise CTOs.

Please follow us at http://ctovision.com

Thanks!

Bob Gourley

This entry was posted in CCSA, CERT, chief technology officer, Cloud, collaboration, Computer Security, CTO, Web/Tech and tagged , , , , , , .

Vivek Kundra: Still the Alpha CTO and now the First Fed CIO

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Vivek_Kundra.jpgToday’s news on Vivek Kundra’s role in the federal space made me think of another CTO, Yuvi Kochar. Yuvi, the CTO of the Washington Post, is a great connector of CTOs who leads the informal collective of the Washington Area CTO Roundtable.  Although I had heard Vivek speak a time or two, the first really deep interactions I had with
Vivek were through Yuvi’s work in service to the tech community and I much appreciate that.

For a quick update on Vivek from a CTO perspective see: Read the rest of this entry »

This entry was posted in Apps for Democracy, chief technology officer, Cloud, collaboration, Computer Security, CTO, CTO Principles, Disruptive IT, Enterprise, Great CTOs, Mashup, Technology Leadership, Vivek Kundra.

Vint Cerf of Google and Bob Gourley of CTOvision.com on CIO Talk Radio

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On Wednesday 28 Jan 2009 at 10am Eastern I’ll be on CIO Talk Radio with one of the stars of the global technology community, Vint Cerf.  

The topic we will be discussing is the next technology revolution in the US and how it will start.  Vint is fantastically qualified to discuss this topic, and I’m honored to be sharing a microphone with him and look forward to learning from the interaction.  Every time I get the pleasure of interacting with Vint it ends up influencing me.  I hope to capture some of our interaction for future blog posts here at ctovision.com

Vint’s bio is incredible and I learn something every time I read it.  I’ve pasted it below.  

But first more on CIO Talk Radio.  CIO Talk Radio is an Internet radio talk show, broadcasted live every Wednesday at 9:00 AM Central/ 10:00 AM Eastern, about how technology has changed and is changing the way we live our lives as well as do business.  Guests are business leaders, subject matter experts, and thought leader who are responsible for shaping the way we use technology. Visit the site at: http://ciotalkradio.com and click on LIVE BROADCAST to listen. A popup window will open and if you have Windows Media Player installed, in 10 – 15 seconds, you will listen to the live radio. In case of issues you may also open broadcasting station websites.  Call 866.472.5790 to ask questions during the live broadcast.

Now for that incredibly interesting bio:

Vint Cerf
Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google

Vinton G. Cerf has served as vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google since October 2005. In this role, he is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies to support the development of advanced, Internet-based products and services from Google. He is also an active public face for Google in the Internet world.

Cerf is the former senior vice president of Technology Strategy for MCI. Previously, Cerf served as MCI’s senior vice president of Architecture and Technology.

Widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his colleague, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet. Kahn and Cerf were named the recipients of the ACM Alan M. Turing award in 2004 (sometimes called the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science”) for their work on the Internet protocols. In November 2005, President George Bush awarded Cerf and Kahn the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award given by the United States to its citizens. In April 2008, Cerf and Kahn received the prestigious Japan Prize.

Prior to rejoining MCI in 1994, Cerf was vice president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982-1986, he led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet.

During his tenure from 1976-1982 with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Cerf played a key role leading the development of Internet and Internet-related packet data and security technologies.

Vint Cerf served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000-2007. Cerf also served as founding president of the Internet Society from 1992-1995 and in 1999 served a term as chairman of the Board. In addition, Cerf is honorary chairman of the IPv6 Forum, dedicated to raising awareness and speeding introduction of the new Internet protocol. Cerf served as a member of the U.S. Presidential Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) from 1997 to 2001 and serves on several national, state and industry committees focused on cyber-security. Cerf sits on the Board of Directors for the Endowment for Excellence in Education, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Advisory Committee and the Board of the Avanex Corporation. He also serves as 1st Vice President and Treasurer of the National Science & Technology Medals Foundation. Cerf is a Fellow of the IEEE, ACM, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Engineering Consortium, the Computer History Museum, the Annenberg Center for Communications at USC and the National Academy of Engineering.

Cerf is a recipient of numerous awards and commendations in connection with his work on the Internet. These include the Marconi Fellowship, Charles Stark Draper award of the National Academy of Engineering, the Prince of Asturias award for science and technology, the National Medal of Science from Tunisia, the St. Cyril and St. Methodius Order (Grand Cross) of Bulgaria, the Alexander Graham Bell Award presented by the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, the NEC Computer and Communications Prize, the Silver Medal of the International Telecommunications Union, the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Award, the ACM Software and Systems Award, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the Computer and Communications Industries Association Industry Legend Award, installation in the Inventors Hall of Fame, the Yuri Rubinsky Web Award, the Kilby Award, the Rotary Club International Paul P. Harris Medal, the Joseph Priestley Award from Dickinson College, the Yankee Group/Interop/Network World Lifetime Achievement Award, the George R. Stibitz Award, the Werner Wolter Award, the Andrew Saks Engineering Award, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, the Computerworld/Smithsonian Leadership Award, the J.D. Edwards Leadership Award for Collaboration, World Institute on Disability Annual award and the Library of Congress Bicentennial Living Legend medal. Cerf was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2006.

This entry was posted in chief technology officer, collaboration, CTO, Disruptive IT, Enterprise, Gourley, Great CTOs, standards, Technology Leadership, The Future of Technology.

Social Media and the National Security Professional

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This is an update of an article I published last August in Social Computing Magazine (a great enterprise Web2.0 site edited by Dion Hinchcliffe).   A key goal of this piece has been to encourage more in the national security world to use capabilities like Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, and of course Twitter.  If you know someone you would like to encourage to use these sites please feel free to lift from this.  If you know of other sites or capabilities that deserve this sort of tutorial please let me know.

Another key goal of this paper is to enhance the security of our nation, and my thesis is that by getting more senior thought leaders into these web2.0 capabilities we can do just that. 

Social Media and National Security Professionals

24 January 2009

Bob Gourley

Social
Media is a term used to encompass a wide range of technologies used to
enhance shared meaning among participants.  When properly used, Social
Media capabilities also address the information explosion we are all
experiencing.   Social Media includes weblogs, wikis, email, instant
messaging, tagging and broadcast text. Popular social media services
include such familiar names as AIM, TypePad, Facebook, LinkedIn,
Twitter and Plaxo.

This note captures some tips and techniques for the use of social media focused on national security professionals.

First,
for context and background, let me start with the analogy of
traditional media and it’s still significant contribution to dialog in
the national security space.  Great thinkers with something to say
frequently author an editorial submission to news outlets.  Examples
abound, but as a reference let me point out the thought provoking piece
by Mark Lowenthal in the 25 May 2008 Washington Post titled “The Real Intelligence Failure? Spineless Spies.” 
Here one of the more elegant writers in the intelligence community laid
out his personal views and made a contribution to the dialog on the
intelligence community.   This type of article is of value in helping
us collectively think through some key issues.  The article also
underscores that the explosion of social media does not eliminate the
need and value for authoritative voices.

Now let’s discuss how new media helps the dialog.

With
new media, you do not have to be one of the leaders of the national
security domain to publish your thoughts.  You can establish your own
blog.  There are many services that do this. The most popular ones are Moveable Type and TypePad.  I like them both and have used both.  If you are just starting out I recommend you sign up with TypePad.  You can have a blog up in minutes, and with a little more time
you can have your own domain and a blog configured with your own
design.  Having a blog does not mean you are automatically an expert,
but when you have something to say you will have a path to say it.

Part
of the power of new media is that capabilities like blogs give more
people an ability to inject ideas into the dialog, and in many national
security issues more brains with more ideas can be a significant
enhancement to the dialog.  But new media gives even more benefits. 
New media gives others an ability to discover and comment on your
thoughts.  For example, blogs all come with rich commenting and
moderating features so others can share thoughts and endorse, critique,
or add to your original post.  This provides a way to highlight good
ideas from social media.

New media is also known for speed.  The
instant your thought is published you can have it provided to others
via RSS feeds, by e-mail push, and by alerts to Twitter, a micro
blogging site which is also being used by a growing number of national
security professionals.

To see how Twitter works, visit my site at http://www.twitter.com/bobgourley
.  You will see a series of small posts made by me.  Some were
automatically created when I posted to my blog.  Others were either
sent in from my cell phone while I’m on the road or from my computer at
home.    If you desire to “follow” me on twitter all you have to do is
sign up for a Twitter account and click the “follow” button.  Then you
can read those micro posts whenever they are made.  You can also find
other national security professionals to follow on Twitter, and they
will be able to find you as well. For example, from my page, look for
the graphic that shows Lewis Shepherd and click on his head.  You will
see his Twitter site. Or if you don’t remember what Lewis looks like
can click on the list of people I follow and find him there.  
Following feeds like this will keep you informed of key meetings,
conferences and events and of course blog posts.   Producing your own
Twitter feed will provide you with a way to contribute to the dialog.

Another tool of increasing use by people in this discipline is LinkedIn.  This is a site that lets users add a bio or resume and then helps
them manage their social network.  LinkedIn lets you connect to others
on the site who you know.  You can help out people you know who might
need to meet someone you know and vice versa. This site is very helpful
in learning a bit more about people before you meet with them and in
staying in touch with people when they change positions. LinkedIn also provides simple ways to communicate with others, either all at once or direct person to person and I frequently hear from other CTOs via this path.  How do you
get started with LinkedIn?  Sign up for an account, fill in as much of
your bio as you are comfortable sharing, and follow the instructions to
find people you already know and connect with them. 

A site with a different but somewhat related functionality is Plaxo
and I also recommend you create an account there.  Plaxo specializes in
contact management.  You can keep your entire address book there. 
You can also synchronize Plaxo and LinkedIn so if one of your contacts
changes their information in LinkedIn it will update Plaxo.
Additionally, you can have your blog and your Twitter feed
automatically update Plaxo (many readers in the national security space
prefer to read blogs via Plaxo).   The way to get started here is to
log into Plaxo, create an account and upload your address book to it by
following your instructions.  Is that safe?  It is at least as safe as
having your address book on your own computer.  I’ve never had any
problems doing that.

Another key social media site is Facebook. 
A growing number of national security experts are using Facebook to
stay in touch with friends and associates.   It is also a good method
for communicating. You can send private messages to Facebook users and
can also send open messages to them by writing on their “wall”.  You
can configure Facebook to display your latest blog posts and twitter
feeds.   You can join up with Facebook from their site, and then
Facebook’s “friend finder” will help you find the right people to
connect to.

Now let’s continue our discussion on the article Mark
Lowenthal published.  In this case, if you had an opinion on his
content you could post a note at the Washington Post website, and I
noticed many did.  Because the Post is an old media powerhouse they
seem to publish most comments, which has the benefit of letting you see
a spectrum of thoughts.   You can also post comments in your own
blog.   I published my thoughts on Mark’s piece here. 
My blog automatically sent word to Twitter, Facebook and Plaxo when I
did.  It also automatically pinged some key blog search engines so they
could access my content.  Another friend of mine in the community
posted his views on his blog.  Other friends on Twitter began dialog
with me via that channel.  And other associates began an e-mail dialog
with me on the issues raised by Mark.   So within a matter of minutes
wide swaths of people were engaged in collaboration and discussion on
the topics Mark noted.

Perhaps the greatest power of new media,
however, is when it is used to accelerate new ideas that were not
identified by one of the greats like Mark.  For example, I recently
read a Twitter post from a thought leader in this new space named
Jeffrey Carr (see his Twitter Feed at http://www.twitter.com/jeffreycarr)   
He posted a short comment about a blog entry he wrote and said it
included “3D imaging and Virtual Earth – mind blowing video http://bit.ly/3SxtdA
”   His Twitter post alerted me and I checked out his blog and yes, he
was right.  I saw a YouTube video that was absolutely mind blowing and
of direct relevance to others in the national security space.  And the
video, frankly, could change things more dramatically and in a more
positive way that Mark Lowenthal’s well thought out piece ever could
(Jeffrey you rock!). So I’ll be blogging about Jeffrey and will be
talking about the capability he highlighted when I attend a major
intelligence conference next month.  Jeffrey’s other readers in the
national security space will also be considering the significance of
his posting and the result will likely be an acceleration of a
capability into the fabric of the national security apparatus, thanks
to social media.

Another example of the power of social media for
national security professionals is in coordinating action and
participation prior to conferences.  How do you decide which
conferences to attend?  I try to pulse experts to see who else is
going.  Once I make up my mind I let everyone I network with know I’ll
be there so they can advise me of their intentions and so we can
arrange side bar meetings as required. This is all so simple in the
world of social media like Twitter, Plaxo and Blogs.

So a key
benefit of Social Media for national security planners is to accelerate
good ideas, whether they be good ideas for policy or good ideas for
technology.  Social Media can also be leveraged to address the
information explosion by enabling people to enlist the capability of
others to seek out and bring the right information to your attention. 
These others can be crowds, random individuals, fields of experts or
trusted friends.  Which of these you leverage can vary from subject to
subject or task to task.

Is there a dark side for national
security?  What are the risks of social media?  Perhaps the greatest
risks are that we not fully engage in the power of these tools,
especially when adversaries are not constraining themselves.   But
there are risks to mitigate in our use of new media.  These include
risks to the confidentiality of ongoing operations and in some cases
risks to personal security.  By identifying these risks and taking
steps to address them now we can accelerate the use of new media faster
through the community.

I have personally encountered several
other examples, but it seems we have just scratched the surface on the
benefit of these capabilities to our nation’s security.  New thinkers
are pioneering paths that are already helping the nation come to grips
with some significant issues. With more participation by thinkers like
you the contributions of social media will likely grow in importance.  
So please, if you have not started engaging in social media sites yet,
jump in now.

Bob Gourley
http://ctovision.com

This entry was posted in Barak Obama, chief technology officer, Cloud, collaboration, CTO, Enterprise, Facebook, LinkedIn, obama, Social Computing, Technology Leadership, The Future of Technology, Web 2.0, Web Services, Weblogs and tagged , , , , , .

Federal Government Technology Directions and the Fed CTO

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Technologists in and out of government have been very excited about the work of the Obama transition team, especially the work of their technologists.   A group known as the TIGR (Technology, Innovation and Government Reform) Team has brought some of the best and brightest minds together to strategize and impact the action plans of the federal government.

We have now been treated to an insider’s view into the workings of this team.  The Change.gov website posted a 4 minute video introducing these thinkers and showing us some of the dialog underway.  See it below:

The video shows glimpses of the entire team, but features :

  • Vivek Kundra, CTO of Washington DC
  • Beth Noveck, Author and idea generator who has written on topics like “Wiki-Government”
  • Andrew McLaughlin, head of global policy and government for Google.
  • Dan Chenok, a former IT executive and Obama advisor.
  • Blair Levin, Telecom analyst and former FCC executive.

Watch the video to see them in action!  Listen for the term “mashups.”  And a good definition of cloud computing relevant to the federal enterprise.

For those who have made it a hobby to speculate on who Obama’s CTO will be, I think the answer now is that it almost doesn’t matter which of the nation’s great tech leaders will be selected.  We know whoever it is will stand on the shoulders of giants and will be served with a group of advisors who have mapped out a vision and an action plan for success (whoever it is, I just hope to have dinner with periodically to pick his or her brain and see how I can serve from the outside- I sure want to see them succeed).

Now things are about to get exciting!  Time for all of us to do what we can to ensure the visions of this group become reality.

This entry was posted in Apps for Democracy, chief technology officer, Cloud, collaboration, Computer Security, CTO, Disruptive IT, Enterprise, Google, Great CTOs, innovation, Mashup, R&D, Social Computing, standards, Technology Leadership, The Future of Technology, Vivek Kundra, Web 2.0, Web/Tech and tagged , , , , , .

Government 2.0 Camp 27-28 March 2009 in DC

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Have you ever heard of an Unconference?

Have you ever heard of a BarCamp?

If these are new terms please read on, there are some important aspects of these concepts that CTOs should be familiar with.   And there is a specific BarCamp Unconference coming up 27-28 March in the DC area focused on Gov2.0 that I’ll mention below.

But first, back to those two terms.

An Unconference is a participant driven conference, normally facilitated, but never dictated.  Unconferences are centered around a theme or a purpose.  For more on Unconferences see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference

You can think of a BarCamp as a type of unconference.  BarCamps are a network of user generated conference that are open, participatory events based on workshops.  They have been commonplace in the open source community, but have also been applied in other areas, even political organizing.  For more history see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcamp   But if you really want to know what a BarCamp is, go to one and contribute and see how you can change the world.

A great opportunity to contribute is coming on 27 and 28 March.  The Government 2.0 Camp, organized by three widely followed experts in social media and collective action (Maxine Teller, Peter Corbett, Mark Drapeau) is a 100% participant planned, not-for-profit event that will bring together leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share government 2.0 initiatives that are already in process and to collaborate about leveraging social media tools and Web2.0 technology to create a more efficient and effective government– Government 2.0.

Maxine Teller writes that:  “The
unconference format embodies these same collaborative principles as our
nation’s democracy–of the people, by the people, for the people–and
thus, is the ideal structure for the topic of Government 2.0.  This
event is a tremendous opportunity to practice what we preach and create
something better collectively than we could individually.“

This event will be happening at a great time.  The Obama administration will have been on scene long enough to have mapped out not only their strategy for the future but strengths, weaknesses and gaps in pursuit of their strategy.  With input from feds in the know, the attendees at this event may be able to help address gaps and contribute to the technology path of the nation in ways that are hard to predict, but likely very positive.     

To learn more about the event and to sign up for it (and to help plan for and sponsor it), see the event wiki at: http://barcamp.org/Government20Camp

To register for the event visit the site at: http://gov20camp.eventbrite.com

I hope to see you there. 

This entry was posted in Apps for Democracy, Barak Obama, chief technology officer, Cloud, collaboration, CTO, Disruptive IT, Enterprise, innovation, obama, Technology Leadership, The Future of Technology, Vivek Kundra and tagged , , , , , , .

Cloud Computing and Net Centric Operations

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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
 

This entry was posted in Adobe, AFCEA, chief technology officer, Cloud, collaboration, Computer Security, CTO, Cyber Initiative, Disruptive IT, DOD, Enterprise, Network Security, Technology Leadership, Thin Client and tagged , , , .

CTOvision.com and Facebook Connect: A Request

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Movable Type recently announced an exciting new way for blogs like CTOvision.com to leverage the Facebook Connect API.  I’ve just integrated these capabilities into my blog and have deployed a Facebook application page to act as the hub for these features. I would greatly appreciate it if you would test this out and give me some feedback.

Background:  The Facebook Connect API lets users share their information with third party websites and applications.  Users can dynamically connect their identity information in ways that respect their privacy choices.  Basic profile info, photos and information can be shared.  The current version of this capability offers more trusted authentication, better ways to stay in touch with friends and family, and stronger, more dynamic privacy.    Movable Type has provided plugins and integration guidance to enable blogs like CTOvision.com to leverage these capabilities.

Potential Benefits:  When you log into the CTOvision.com site using your Facebook account, you get the full features of a CTOvision.com account without having to create a new login. If you choose, your Facebook profile name and picture can automatically be shared with this and other Movable Type blogs.  And you will be able to see which other friends of yours are commenting on this site.   Additionally, when you comment, you will have the option of having your comments posted to your Facebook wall. 

The Request:  I would really appreciate it if you would help me test out these features on this site.  Please try logging into CTOvision.com with your Facebook account and after you do, leave a comment on this post.   If you share your comment on your Facebook page that would be appreciated too. 

Please let me know if you have any suggestions/comments/thoughts on ways this can be better integrated into the site. 

This entry was posted in collaboration, Connect, Enterprise, Facebook, Identity Management, innovation, Mashup, Social Computing, Web Services, Web/Tech, Weblogs and tagged .

A look ahead: Some technology developments to expect in 2009

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Flexible_display_rollout
2008 was a year of rapid changes for Chief Technology Officers.  We should expect 2009 to move even faster.  Where will the biggest trends take us?  I offer some considerations below.  Please
look these over and give me your thoughts.   Push back if you have
disagreement.

First, my overall advice for CTOs in 2009… Just like the new thin interfaces you will be testing in your lab… be flexible.   Now here are some more thoughts on what's in store for CTO s in 2009:

  • Here is a no-brainer: Increasingly CTOs will leverage social media to
    collaborate.  Things are moving so fast that we all like to network to
    seek help on big things and to get advanced warning on what is coming
    next.  More of us will be on Twitter, in Facebook, and writing blogs. 
    And this is a good thing.
  • "Mashups" will still be very
    important as an enterprise objective in 2009 (and beyond).   And the
    company that will help accelerate them into the federal enterprise is
    JackBe.  They do things in a way that enterprise CTO s like.  They build
    in connections to governance, security, identity management.  And they
    play well with the entire ecosystem so you don't have to rework all
    legacy just to use them.  Of course web2.0 will remain a key trend, but mashups takes web2.0 to a new, more mission-oriented level and for enterprise players the mission is what is important.
  • An approach we will all learn to love and follow is "context
    accumulation".   This very important term was coined by Jeff Jonas, and
    I think Jeff is going to have all of us moving out on that in the next
    12 months.   If you agree, visit his blog and by all means help others
    understand why this is really the only way we humans stand a chance of
    surviving/thriving in the onslaught of data.
  • Federal acquisition of IT will still be criticized for all the
    reasons it always has been.  But there will also be an acceleration of
    a dramatic positive change brought about because of open source
    software and a new appreciation that IT acquisition processes
    (RFI/RFP/FAR/DFAR based purchases) do not apply to software that is
    free.  Free software is not being bought, it is being used, for free. 
    The whole reason the FAR exists is to ensure when the taxpayer's money
    gets spent it gets spent wisely.  When things are free the FAR has less
    applicability.  Services for open source are being bought and since
    that uses government money of course the taxpayers will continued to be
    served by the same FAR-type processes that are meant to ensure open
    competition, but that is not for free open source software, that is for
    services to configure and manage the software.
  • Will this be the year of enterprise security?  We have been banking on that for a long long time.  We know the answers on how to make enterprises more secure.  There is a great recap of some of the most important components of security in the CSIS report.  But there are many more things that can be done as well. My goal, as captured here, is to improve security by two orders of magnitude within the next 24 months. 
  • Netbooks, Thin Clients and Cloud Computing will accelerate
    throughout the technology landscape, especially inside the federal
    government.  These trends in both devices and the cloud components are directly related and are also benefiting from the global, unstoppable trend toward open computing
    (open software and open standards).  One to watch in this area:  Sun
    Microsystems    .   But also track the dynamics of the netbooks providers. 
    Dell will get serious about netbooks, but Acer will continue to grow
    market share.
  • A key accelerator of Cloud Computing has been the powerful technologies of virtualization, especially those of VMware.  Open source and other virtualization capabilities are coming fast too.  Trend to watch in 2009 is the arrival of higher order, more elagant capabilities to manage virtualizaiton accross large enterprises.  VMware and Opsware (HP) will continue to evolve to do this, but Appistry, Vizioncore, Xsigo and Sun (and others?) are coming fast.    
  • Increasingly leaders will recognize that concepts of operation that
    require humans to tag and create metadata are sub-optimized.  When busy
    people are tasked with burdensome tagging operations they too
    frequently become tempted to cut corners and rush the process.  Over
    time, meta data generated this way just becomes meta crap.  This
    growing recognition in the federal space will sweep in new technologies
    and new approaches to discovery of content.  One to watch to solve this
    issue:  Endeca, because of their approach to visualizing information and enabling human to computer iterative examination of data. 

    Stainless_steel_foil_display

  • Flexible computers will arrive in production this year for early
    adopters and many CTOs will use them in labs to assess applicability
    for massive deployment in the coming years.   These flexible computers
    are the ultimate thin clients.   Backends/servers/architectures
    developed for the cloud perfectly suit ultra thin, flexible computing
    devices. For more on this hot topic, start at the site of the Flexible Display Center at ASU.
  • Collaboration will increasingly be seen as the means to link human
    brains together.   Collaboration tools that are stand alone stovepipes
    will be a thing of the past.  Users will collaborate using the entire
    technology environment:  voice, video, data, whiteboard, chat,
    application sharing, info discovery will increasingly be integrated
    into a single fabric.  Key players here:  Adobe, Microsoft and Cisco.
  • In a big change for how money is moved in major enterprises, the CIO
    will be given responsibility for the energy budget.  This will encourage
    CIOs to modernize to conserve energy, since money saved from energy
    costs can be invested back in modern IT.  This will be a very virtuous
    cycle, that saves money for organizations, saves energy, and modernizes
    IT.   
  • In a stunning turn, IPv6 will be rapidly adopted, not by enterprises,
    but in homes.  The major home communications provider that delivers
    full IPv6 to home environments (and to cell phones) will have an incredible advantage over
    competitors and will dominate.  The many rich features of IPv6
    delivered to consumers will finally push enterprises everywhere to move
    out on IPv6. 
  • In 2009, as in every year prior and for most into the future, there
    will continue to be bad people using technology to do bad things. 
    Enterprises will move to protect info, but bad guys will keep moving to
    get the data.   And the use of social networking tools by terrorists
    will likely grow.  This is not a foregone conclusion, but I'm not
    personally sure what can be done to mitigate the use of advanced
    technology by bad people, other than to say that we good people need to
    work together more to stop them, and my hope is that we can keep 2009
    safe and secure.

Thoughts/comments/suggestions?  Please let me know what you think.

This entry was posted in chief technology officer, Cloud, collaboration, Computer Security, Connect, CTO, Cyber Initiative, Cyber War, Dell, Disruptive IT, endeca, Enterprise, Facebook, Great CTOs, Identity Management, Mashup, microsoft, Netbooks, Network Security, Open Source, Social Computing, Sun, Sun Ray, Technology Leadership, The Future of Technology, Thin Client, Twitter, Vision, Web 2.0, Web Services, Web/Tech, Weblogs.

What if you could show key Social Media/Web2.0 sites in one graphic?

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Socialmediamap
Overdrive is a company that specializes in helping others leverage the social media landscape.  They produced a great graphic that gives at least a high level overview of the key social media and web2.0 world.  Click on the image here for a larger view download the PDF here: Download social-media-map.pdf (1330.3K)

I really like this graphic for a couple reasons.  One is that like many other people I long for ways that can help me visualize and grasp things in this fast moving space.  I know this does not capture all the social media sites and I know the categories are not as clean as depicted here.  But still it is GREAT context and will be helpful to me in explaining to others some of the fast moving cloud based services out there (note to overdrive: please find room to add a section on cloud services, like cloud based office automation).  

Another key reason I like this is it proves Overdrive's assertion that they are a company that can demystify online tools and help companies leverage these capabilities.  The fact that they are letting any blogger anywhere post this graphic on their site is proof that they understand how these things work.  Companies who want to make it in social spaces should give first then receive later.

How did I find this cool graphic?  Friends at Facebook sent it to me.  I found this cool social media reference through a cool social media site.

This entry was posted in chief technology officer, Cloud, collaboration, Computer Security, CTO, Disruptive IT, Google, SOA, Social Computing, standards, Web 2.0, Web Services, Web/Tech, Weblogs.