We've been here for over a year and have settled in nicely to the bright space featuring gorgeous, original ironwork complemented by new, sleek and frosted glass walls. I do love it here; every morning as I walk through the door I say a short little thank you to the powers that be. For you see, our office feels like a home.

But it's not the space that evokes that feeling, it's the people. So when Eric told us this week that he was leaving to become the Dean at Vanderbilt's Owen School of Management, I saw us all react much as a family would. There was clear elation for his success twisted up with sorrow for losing him. My colleagues have been together for over a decade and I've been lucky enough to spend nearly four years here working to bring technology to Tuck. It's been a great ride and I've been learning and smiling the entire trip! Now, I simply have to keep reminding myself that change is good.

Please swing up to the center and say hello. We would love to see you and show you the space.

Indeed, empirically showing the link between IT and healthcare cost and quality has been stubbornly hard. Our own research in the center has found hospitals that migrated to modern electronic health records do achieve statistically significant quality improvements. But the improvements are small leading many to question the Obama administration’s $27 billion investment in health IT. Brent Ahrens (T'97 and General Partner at Canaan Partners) argued at the same alumni panel that heath tech start-ups must be able to draw a clear line between their solution and cost reductions. At the national level, the challenge is showing how cost savings on paper translate into reduced healthcare spending.

Yesterday in our Britt Technology Impact Series, Robert Mead (Senior Vice President at Aetna), argued that spending it is not a technology problem but rather a market failure. Hospitals providing the same services, like a CT scan or radiation treatment, charge wildly different amounts and patients have little reason to question the costs because the bills are paid by others and patients have no point of price comparison. Without market pressure, there is little incentive for hospitals to invest wisely and reduce costs. Interestingly, Mead believed IT might be part of the solution. Aetna’s CarePass mobile platform provides apps that allow patients to see prices at competing pharmacies and hospitals. By making prices transparent, he hoped patients would be encouraged to think like consumers, pressuring providers to actually reduce costs. Certainly patients have reason to act more like consumers: Mead noted workers have absorbed more than half of the increase in healthcare costs in the last five years.

Robert Mead, Aetna's SVP of Marketing, Product & Communications Presents at Tuck:

Nordstrom has been a breakthrough leader in the retail space when it comes to enhancing the online shopping experience. As one the first big retailers to adopt a full-scale online channel for its customers, Nordstrom continues to innovate on its e-commerce platform to provide the best customer experience. In addition to an enhanced iPad app, Nordstrom recently updated its website, integrating not only online inventory but also in-store inventory to provide its aspiring customers with multiple options to leisurely shop. Nordstrom has taken a huge step forward in integrating the online inventory with in-store inventory, a step that few competitors have been able to follow – it shows customers in real time where a product is available and when they can expect to receive. Utilizing this real-time data service for customers has proven to increase same-store sales for Nordstrom and beaten the department store average.

But Nordstrom’s isn’t stopping there. Announced by Nordstrom’s chief financial officer on the 2011 year-end earnings call, Nordstrom is doubling down on the web, announcing $1 billion investment in its e-commerce channel over the next five years. Nordstrom has invested in partnering with JMP software to understand product and brand relationships for their customers. The idea is to figure out how to promote the right products and brands to the right customers – with goal of making customers happier but also to maximize revenue during the process. Nordstrom’s can use the analytical data from the JMP software to figure out which segments of customers are more like to buy brand Y after buying brand X – the idea is that Nordstrom can make better promotion and merchandising decisions while making it easier for customers to find exactly what they want.

At the 2012 Shop.org Summit, Jamie Nordstrom, President of Nordstrom Direct, gave the keynote speech on what makes Nordstrom so successful. Nordstrom emphasized the focus on customer service and part of that customer service is personalization. Nordstrom acknowledged that five years ago using personal data to advise customers about what they might like seemed “creepy,” but now Nordstrom believes customers have shown they want a more personalized experience. Nordstrom advises that possessing knowledge about a customer will play an increasingly large role in building loyalty with her, similar to the likes of how an iTunes or Netflix builds loyalty by providing relevant recommendations.

How does Nordstrom collect that customer data? Nordstrom has a widely popular Fashion Rewards Program that allows shoppers great benefits such as free alterations and early access to anniversary sales. In order to gain these perks, a shopper must have a Nordstrom credit card or a Nordstrom Visa card that tracks the shoppers spend and rewards points. Nordstrom has upped the ante in 2012 by adding even more benefits to shoppers by lowering status thresholds and offering cash back on purchases in an effort to grow its customer base. What we’re interested to see is how Nordstrom will use this shopper information moving forward to provide even more tailored shopping experiences for its customers.

To Nordstrom, building loyalty isn’t only about miles, points and discounts; it’s about giving people something personalized and relevant that they value – that is what Nordstrom banks on for what’s going to make customers consistently loyal to its brand in the future.

“In fact, National Research, a health care data firm, reported that 96 percent of almost 23,000 consumers it surveyed said they use Facebook — that’s right, Facebook — to find information about health care.”

Welcome to the new world of social media!

That was my take away from our deep-dive into mobile technology as well as from our visit with Roger McNamee when he proclaimed that the future of digital development is unequivocally HTML5.  Since that time, the center has created a mobile app to support our Britt Technology Impact Series (BTIS) in both android and apple as well as a gorgeous, iPad-only app to showcase our long form content. (I posted a blog entry about the iPad experience previously.) We also recently launched an iBook by taking the learnings from the BTIS look at cloud computing and making it multi-touch, interactive and consumable on an iPad.

So when Dean Johnson came to me and said, "Kelli, let's relaunch my 'Professor site' in HTML5," I wasn't surprised and was also very excited by the prospect. However, I wasn't prepared for the rollercoaster ride that lay ahead. After completing a creative brief, I posted our project on guru.com, which claims to be the largest marketplace for freelancers. The site allows you to post your project, confirm qualifications, look at reviews and browse work histories. This experience was rather interesting; within 24 hours of posting our project, we received a dozen quotes from a few firms in the states but the majority were in India, having names like Bahatech and Pro Web Solutions. Their capabilities, cost and claims were all across the board.

After selecting 6 firms that could possibly fit our requirements and budget, I began doing Skype interviews and checking references. We ended up selecting one firm out of Gujarat, India and began the process of creating a project timeline, when one of my reference checks was answered via email. The message was essentially, "DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS FIRM. WE PAID IN FULL AND NEVER RECEIVED A THING." That, combined with three Skype IMs and two emails from the firm requesting full payment, sent us back to the drawing board.

A contract was signed in May of 2012 with a firm based out of Pennsylvania (with developers in India.) The site launched this month. Needless to say, this was one of the most difficult projects I've ever managed. The firm was young, their process wasn't clear (to neither them nor to us) and deadlines weren't respected. Does our site look great across iPads, iPhones and android phones - you be the judge. Is it truly responsive? No, but I believe the HTML5 inherent to the site delivers some very slick functionality. 

If you are looking to make your content truly responsive, do your homework. Look at the best of breed vendors first and work your way back, (firms like Endplay.com for example) always start with the end-user experience as the ultimate goal you won't compromise on and don't let developers double-talk you with programming-language capabilities and limitations. Digitally, nearly anything really is possible today. And that's truley exciting. 

But that is the deal: neat free applications in exchange for private data. Only idealists can expect otherwise. And most of the time, I am more than happy with the deal. I love free email, keeping up with far-flung friends and finding bargains. But when Main Street adopts the same data practices, it sometimes gets scary.

Last week, I stopped into Sears in West Lebanon NH to pick up some sanding disks. Paying in cash at 10:44 a.m., the nice man (associate No. 16733) at the register asked for my phone number. I paused for a moment, considering what that might mean. Of course, I knew that Sears would use that information to track my purchase. I guessed that I would get some sort of reward, a flier in the mail or possibly an unwanted phone call at dinner. But because I study the business use of data, I readily give out private information just to see what will happen. I am my own guinea pig.

So I rattled off my number. My receipt showed that my sale for $7.98 generated 80 “shop your way reward” points, giving me a balance of 947. I didn’t even know I had been collecting reward points or that Sears had a loyalty program.

However, what happened within a few minutes surprised even me. At 10:45 a.m., my wife received an email from sales associate No. 16733 announcing my purchase, carefully itemized: two packs of hook/loop sanding disks. She saw that I paid cash and even how much change I received. Along with the transaction details was an offer for $50 off a refrigerator and recommendations for three other products related to my sanding disks (masking tape, green coating material and more sanding disks).

If this had happened on Amazon, I would have shrugged it off as another funny set of recommendations. We have all purchased items only later to be marketed strange things — like the time my wife purchased a toilet flapper for a repair job I was doing and months later still receives offers for toilet accessories. But this was Sears in West Lebanon! And I had only provided my home phone number. The email went to our family account, which is most closely followed by my wife. What if it had been her birthday present? Or maybe a replacement for that flower pot that I had accidentally cracked that morning and was hoping to replace before she noticed?

Here is the point: I don’t recall ever opting in to Sears connecting my home phone and family email. I didn’t present any loyalty card at the checkout. Unlike Facebook or Google, there was no exchange of personal data for a neat free service. I wasn’t earning miles with my Visa card. I was simply shopping with cash at a local store I have patronized for years. And wham — out came the offer. It was like having the sales attendant lean over the counter and plant a big sloppy kiss right on my lips for spending $7.98! I just didn’t see it coming or want that contact.

Welcome to the world of Big Data, where everyone from your local hair salon to Home Depot is combining and processing years of collected data about you to try to sell you something more. When it is done well, in the context of consenting adults, it can delight. But when done poorly and without consent, it feels more like being groped in a dark parking lot.

This fall the Center for Digital Strategies at Tuck is hosting a series of talks on Big Data that is open to the public. For more information about the series, visit the Britt Series page.

An earlier version of this article was published in the Valley News (9/2/12).

Coordinated by the Center for Business and Society the students worked in teams to brainstorm challenges facing 26 local nonprofits.  For example, at High Horses in Norwich, the team learned how therapeutic horseback riding can help those with mental or emotional challenges improve patience, trust, and self-worth.  The students worked to think through survey approaches to help High Horses better understand how they are meeting the needs of their recipients.

Other teams across the valley rolled up their sleeves and fired up their laptops. For example, in White River Junction, teams worked at the Upper Valley Haven and Listen’s Teen Lifeskills Center.  At the Haven, the team worked with Executive Director Sara Kobylenski to brainstorm ways to handle growth while maintaining a focused strategy.  Like several other local nonprofits, the Haven also participates in the Revers Fellows Board Program that places second year MBA students on the board of local nonprofits.  The program supports the Upper Valley community while encouraging students to continue their involvement with nonprofits in the communities in which they will live as Tuck alumni.  Last year, I worked with two Fellows to think through the Haven’s response to Hurricane Irene and develop plans for future disaster response. 

From serving meals to the homeless to developing long-term funding strategies, Tuckies learn the close link between business and community and the great joy of serving.

T14s learning to ride at High Horses

Listen’s Teen Lifeskills Center

In my speech today, I talked a bit about the Tuck community and the responsibility that comes with it.  One of the things I love most about Tuck is the luxury we have of working and living in a small community at a personal scale.  You are not a number at Tuck – you are a person.  That community extends beyond Tuck Drive to this special place we call the Upper Valley.  Really, it is just a little hamlet and like Tuck you are not anonymous in the Upper Valley.  We all shop at the Coop, head to Murphy’s to watch a game, and slip off for romantic evenings in little restaurants tucked into corners of the valley.  Tuck students are part of the Upper Valley fabric – and part of my life outside of Tuck in many ways.  We hike together, ski together, and serve needy folks in our community together. We sit next to each other at the Hop, in church, at weddings, and funerals.  Over the years, Tuckies have eaten many meals at our house, taught our kids in school programs, watched our house when we were away, and walked our dogs.  That closeness is all part of the Tuck experience.  And I can’t help but think it is one of the most important things the students will take with them 22 months from now.

Special thanks go to my colleague Tim Paradis, the entire CDS team and our developer, Blue Pane Studios, for their collaboration on this project.

In 1978, engineers at Sony successfully married a compact playback device with lightweight headphones to create the prototype for a product that would become a worldwide hit. In 1979, the 'Walkman' was introduced in the Japanese market, selling out its entire stock of 30,000 units within the first three months. Sony kept apace with its rivals. For a decade after its launch, Sony's Walkman retained a 50% market share in the U.S. (46% in Japan) in a space teaming with competitors, even as it enjoyed a price premium of approximately $20 over rival offers.

Jump ahead to the late 1990s, when the sun had set on cassettes as the favored music delivery format in favor of compact discs and, for the technologically savvy, digital mp3 files. But electronic firms around the globe were betting that the CD would soon follow the cassette into extinction. Which mp3 player would get there first and become the next 'Walkman'? In 1998, South Korea's Saehan Information Systems created the first portable digital audio player, MPMan. It sold 50,000 players globally in its first year. By the launch of the iPod in 2001, there were approximately 50 portable mp3 players available in the U.S.--and no firm had achieved anywhere near the dominance that the Walkman had enjoyed 20 years earlier.
Compared to the Walkman and cassettes, the story was very different for mp3s. You couldn't purchase them in traditional retail settings. Downloading an album--legally or not--could be a multi-hour affair. It didn't matter that MPMan was first--it wouldn't have mattered if they were 6th, 23rd, or 42nd. Without the widespread availability of mp3s and broadband, the value proposition could not come together.

The MP3 player market did eventually consolidate around a dominant product, Apple's iPod. But the iPod, launched in late 2001-- three years after the MPMan--was anything but a first mover. How can we understand the iPod's success despite its delayed entry?

IPOD WINS ... THREE YEARS LATE

Apple waited, and then waited some more--until it finally made its move, putting the last two pieces in place to create a winning innovation: an attractive, simple device supported by smart software. Steve Jobs knew that, on its own, the mp3 player was useless. He understood that, in order for the device to have value, other co-innovators in the mp3 player ecosystem first needed to be aligned. And, in October of 2001, when Apple announced the iPod, those pieces were solidly in place: both mp3s and broadband were finally widely available.

The first generation iPod for Macintosh retailed at $399, had 5GB of capacity, and could store up to 1,000 songs. It boasted an intuitive interface design and was, for its time, lightweight. But the value of the device was cemented by its seamlessness with the iTunes music management software. Despite being available only for Mac users, the iPod was the fastest selling mp3 player to ever hit the market.

In April 2003, Apple announced the iTunes Music Store, an online retail hub where customers could browse and purchase music for 99 cents per song (or $9.99 per album). By 2005, iTunes' library had grown to 1.5 million songs. Although Apple would make scant profit from selling songs at 99 cents per download (it had sold nearly 8 billion songs by the end of 2009 but, with Apple's ten percent commission, that only translates to $800 million in revenue--before accounting for the cost of running the store; trivial when compared to $22 billion gained in iPod sales at that time, the iTunes store gave the iPod legitimacy in a world of shady mp3 accessibility.

According to NPD Group, sales of portable CD players were still more than double those of mp3 players during the holiday season of 2004. But between the third quarters of 2004 and 2005, sales of the iPod had leapt 616%. As the same customer base kept repurchasing new and better iPods, Apple's profits soared: by 2008 it had captured 48% of the mp3 player market share. SanDisk's Sansa mp3 player was the iPod's closest competitor with 8% market share.

Few would deny that the iPod is a great product, surpassing any other mp3 player offering. But is it six times better? Apple was, after all, three years late. But perhaps this logic should be flipped: perhaps everyone else was three years too early. As we'll see again in the case of the iPhone, Jobs tended to be late for everything because he wanted everything to be ready for him. Reflecting on catching technology waves in 2008, he said, "Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you're going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely, it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years." Jobs's discipline paid off. In the three years between the launch of MPMan and the iPod, each element in the mp3 player ecosystem turned from red to green. Instead of waiting at the red light with everyone else -- wasting precious resources and time -- Apple drove right on through a green light towards victory, becoming, according to the Economist, "the Walkman of the early 21st century."

 Experience more in, The Wide Lens.

Blair Westlake, Corporate Vice President of Media & Entertainment in Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business group, told a Senate committee this week that we will see “more change in the next 18 months in the TV landscape than we did in the past five years.” Westlake, who was at Tuck last month as part of the annual Entertainment, Sports & Media Symposium, predicted in part that TV will allow for two-way interaction. He pointed to the example of a forthcoming Microsoft program called “Sesame Street Kinect” that will allow children to use voice and gestures to, say, count along with Cookie Monster. In fact, they’d be able to see themselves on-screen thanks to the Kinect’s camera. I can’t imagine what I would have done to stand next to Cookie Monster as a kid. The testimony before the Senate’s Commerce Committee came as lawmakers consider the Next Generation Television Marketplace Act, sponsored by South Carolina Senator Jim Demint and Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise. 

The bill would remove some rules put in place in 1992 that govern cable companies and broadcasters. Regardless of where people stand on the issues, what I find exciting is the notion that viewers soon could experience the kind of gains in service that they had when they ditched their flip phones for smartphones.

That doesn’t mean that Hofmann is ignoring other reasons for mobile adoption and taking the plunge into developing corporate mobile apps.  He sees the productivity reasons, the process efficiency reasons, the agility reasons. But first and foremost for VW is the impact on job satisfaction for each and every VW employee. They see user satisfaction as being a key to attractive work. “User satisfaction = Motivation = Satisfaction at Work”, as one of the bullets on a slide read. And with that, they believe, will come an enhanced opportunity to influence and win the war for talent in the coming years.

Hofmann pointed out that this had some implications for the approach to mobile and mobile apps. Implications for co-development, more agile development, and real ease-of-use. This echoed many of the things I have come to believe over the last six months:

• What has come to be known as “mobile apps” are about a lot more than mobile use—they are about a quick way to accomplish a specific task or drill to specific information efficiently;
• More so than in prior types of applications, an appealing and intuitive user-interface is a necessity—“finger-swipe” simplicity is a must;
• Mobile technology is indeed causing a rethink of many processes—the impact will be more profound than we first thought.

But the really interesting aspect of this was VW’s clear driver for mobile: the winning of the talent war.    

Martin Hofmann, CIO at VW Group, speaking at the Hamburger IT Strategietage in Hamburg, Germany.

The innovation game is changing. Delivering great products is no longer sufficient for success. And as the Fire's limited memory, ho-hum processor, and and lack of camera demonstrate, great products may not even be necessary. Rather, what matters is delivering great solutions.

This shift from products to solutions matters to everyone. In industries ranging from consumer electronics to construction and from media to mining, the firms seizing the lead are those that can best align ecosystems of offers and partners.

In the past, product-focused success depended on exploiting capabilities — in branding, manufacturing, distribution, etc. — to deliver the best product. In contrast, today's champions focus on carrying over relationships — with both consumers and partners — to deliver the best experience.

For example, when Apple expanded from music players to phones, it carried over to the iPhone not just the technology and software that powered the iPod but also users' entire music collections and its music store's entire supplier base. This was not about creating switching costs (iPod users could continue to listen to their iPod while using Nokia phones). Rather, it was about leveraging existing relationships to create enhanced offers (by porting over your iTunes collection, Apple made the iPhone more valuable to you). By carrying over elements from the iPod ecosystem, Apple gave the iPhone a running start.

In the rush to match the pieces, most of Apple's rivals have missed the critical connections that draw the entire ecosystem together into a coherent whole.

The big exception is Amazon, With the Kindle Fire, which was introduced last year, it is pressing forward with a full-fledged ecosystem strategy. It is pairing substantial carryover (the entire range of its ebook activities coupled with current users' ebook libraries) with substantial investment. Amazon is sacrificing hardware margins to position the Fire as a low-priced tablet and is subsidizing the participation of book publishers and movie studios in order to allow its core Amazon Prime customers to access books and videos with the device.

It pursued this very same course with great success when it launched the original Kindle in 2007. The big difference is that the eReader market of 2007 was an open field; the tablet market of 2011 had a dominant giant. Jump-starting a competitive value proposition this time around required a significantly larger ecosystem footprint and, as Amazon's investors know all to well, a significantly larger investment.

Amazon is differentiating itself from Apple in terms of both its footprint and its profit model. Apple captures the bulk of its profits the moment an iPad is sold, while its partners capture value over time as users consume services. In contrast, Amazon's profits accrue over the lifetime of the customer with every on-platform purchase In this regard, Amazon's incentives seem more aligned with those of its media partners ("we win together over time") than Apple's with its partners ("I win first; you later...maybe").

Aligning, enticing, and — occasionally — subsidizing partners are the new ante in the ecosystem game. Amazon and Apple will go down as case studies in alternative strategies for succeeding in ecosystems. Their product-focused rivals will illustrate what it means to be "stuck in the middle."

Originally published in HBR Blog Network; March 19, 2012.

Ron Adner is an award winning strategy professor at the Tuck School of  Business at Dartmouth College. His new book on ecosystem strategy is The Wide Lens: A New Strategy for Innovation  (Portfolio/Penguin).

With Windows devices now representing less the 50% of internet-connected devices (from 95% four short years ago), Roger argues that everything has changed. Winners are those building the hyperweb to exploit the rapidly expanding hypernet (internet + carriers). Losers are those who can’t make the jump to the mobile world. With the first wave of the “social web” over, Roger advised the students to focus on companies that power or benefit from hyperweb+hypernet – think HTML5. 

This video is a must see for anyone thinking about a career or investing in tech and is just plain fun for anyone who likes to think about the changes happening all around us. Of course, when you finish the talk, enjoy the concert – brought to you via Moonalice’s own HTML5 experiment.

Roger visits the CDS office and shows his Moonalice HTML5 site on our iPad. (l to r) Hans Brechbühl,
Kelli Pippin, Roger McNamee, Eric Johnson, Juhee Kwon and Tim Paradis.

This weekend I finished reading Ron Adner’s new book The Wide Lens.  Anyone interested in understanding the explosive app economy will find this new book invaluable.  Many authors today are chanting “ecosystem.” Few provide any real insight on how ecosystems develop or how managers can build successful ecosystems.  Adner helps managers step back and really understand the ecosystem in which their new initiative must thrive.  Through stories of success (Apple iPod) and failure (Michelin run-flat tires), Adner uncovers hidden ecosystem elements that dictated the eventual outcomes.  These stories and analysis make The Wide Lens a great book.  But Adner delivers something far more valuable than historical analysis.  He identifies five ACTIONABLE levers that managers can use to reconfigure their ecosystem and ensure success.  These pearls make the The Wide Lens a must read for CIOs working on corporate app initiatives or for anyone launching a new product or service.

Walking into Tuck’s Conway Foyer area, which often is populated by student orgs publicizing their events, offered something new during Tech@Tuck. I found vendors like Global Relief Technologies (GRT), (pcitured below) which specializes in providing vital, time-sensitive information to groups that operate in extreme environments. Through use of its cloud-based platform, called Rapid Data Management System, GRT connects relief organizations, disaster-management teams, and military operations with data critical to the success of their roles. From my conversation with the GRT rep, I could better understand the real-world uses of a cloud-based system. For example, relief workers during the Katrina crisis would have greatly benefited from the enhanced connectivity to other workers and the data now available through GRT’s platform. It became evident that a clear, tangible benefit to cloud was the creation of product offerings and services that were previously unavailable, such as GRT’s Rapid Data Management System.

The panel discussion with executives from Amazon, AT&T, Cognitive Electronics, Google, and IBM, further grounded both the advantages and drawbacks of cloud computing. These points are a few of the many remarks that I found interesting:

• The cloud offers immense potential to startups, requiring significantly smaller capital investments in infrastructure, platforms, and applications than ever before, while also providing flexibility to easily and economically scale business.  Amazon’s Peter Vosshall pointed to the success of Animoto, a startup that enables users to creatively combine photos, videos and music. Animoto used Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) web service to capture Facebook’s enormous user base interested in Animoto applications. This required scaling from “40 to 4,000 instances in a very short period of time”.
• The full benefits of cloud computing might not be realized by established firms for a long time. IBM’s William Tworek commented that the “variability“ in a cloud-based model in terms of pricing, contracts, and billing is incompatible with many accounting and financial systems.  Billing systems were mostly built to handle consistent monthly charges, so adding variable rates based on the cloud-pricing model presents a significant challenge for some firms. Companies often make the decision to forgo the potential cost savings of pay-as-you-go to avoid addressing changes to internal processes.
• The dangers of cloud use stem less from outages and hackers, but rather from uneducated users. As the lead of IBM’s cloud security strategy and implementation, Tworek provided key insights into what he perceives are the real threats. While the cloud offers users agility to try new things, this new power must be coupled with appropriate education and skills. “What we see in terms of security risk [and] security incidents in the cloud are largely from business-line types of adapters going out and using cloud service to do something very agile, some advancement for the business,” he noted. Security issues arise such as disabled firewalls or weak passwords due to the lack of awareness.  
• Many advantages of cloud favor people who are more comfortable operating in this medium, such as application developers. AT&T’s Steven Caniano cautioned that while the barrier to entry is now low for developers, capitalizing on innovations will still require an infrastructure for proper distribution and marketing.

I truly enjoyed attending the Tech@Tuck conference. For me, a Tuckie who enjoys business and technology, the conference provided an informative, interactive medium to better understand the buzz about the cloud. Now, when I hear the words “cloud computing”, I’ll recall the experiences and conversations from Tech@Tuck. You can say my frame of reference will be less “in the clouds."

Experience highlights of the panel discussion here: 

Well, surveys show the majority of enterprise Cloud adopters do see reductions in costs. But, surprisingly, the annual cost savings are quite small. Almost 60% of surveyed enterprises reported <$20K in savings. Even more interesting, only 14% of these firms downsized their IT departments while 20% actually increased their IT departments. One could argue that the cost savings will come in time as companies learn to more effectively utilize the Cloud (e.g. need to hire Cloud experts initially, headcount reductions take time). But, I have different hypothesis: The Enterprise Cloud is not about cost reduction, it’s about innovation and competitive flexibility. There are definitely cost efficiencies with the Cloud, but I believe the real value proposition to enterprises lie in the flexibility the Cloud provides. The Cloud reduces the time it takes enterprises to develop, test and deploy custom applications, thus dramatically improving time to market. For example, a normal 12-week development cycle drops to ~3 weeks in a Cloud environment. This frees resources to spend more time investigating new ideas. Thus, IT’s investment focus will shift from a maintenance (Keep the lights on.) mentality to an innovative (How do we change the game?) mentality. And, as more enterprises embrace the Cloud, this innovation flexibility will be required to remain competitive.

Ultimately, in the next five years, I predict the key adoption drivers for the Enterprise Cloud will shift from cost-based reasons to ones of innovation and competitive flexibility.

In other news, Oracle has announced its intention to acquire Taleo, a provider of cloud-based work force management software for $1.9 billion. The acquisition will extend Oracle’s cloud offerings as it seeks to compete with SAP in the space. An interesting fact about the acquisition: Oracle paid an only 18% premium for the company, compared to the 52% premium SAP paid in December for Success Factors, a company similar to Taleo. Why such a sharp drop in price premium? There has been a large amount of consolidation in the space. Could this consolidation be slowing because fewer and fewer “matches” are possible as companies such as SAP, IBM, and Oracle build out their cloud solutions? It will be interesting to see whether the deals continue, and whether the remaining independent providers are able to compete with the so-called one-stop cloud shops that these large software companies seem to be building. There is no doubt that the space is becoming more and more competitive. How will the smaller players differentiate themselves?

On the other hand, we had to say goodbye for now to Boris Otto, our visiting research fellow from Germany, (and SAP!) I already miss his gracious, "Good morning Kelli" and "See you tomorrow Kelli" that I received every day for more than a year. Boris is off to the University of St. Gallen to continue his research on corporate data management and we look forward to crossing paths with him again during CISO workshops or CIO roundtables. 

I really must thank Boris because his legacy at the CDS goes beyond cheerful greetings or his vast knowledge of big data and enterprise software -- Boris' suggestion that we offer espresso and install a bistro nook was taken to heart by Hans and the team. We purchased a DeLonghi Nespresso machine and may now offer guests a delicious, rich, frothy beverage when they visit.

I feel very lucky every day when I come to work. Not just because of the heritage, accomplishment and prestige that exhudes from these halls of learning nor the new office space which feels like a home away from home. 
I feel lucky because of the truly amazing and gifted people I have somehow become fortunate enough to rub elbows with everyday.

Mostly, I'm lucky to miss saying good morning to Boris.

Boris sent us this pic from St. Gallen!

We discussed five overarching trends that we agreed were defining the current wave of technologies:

• The consumerization of information technology
• Cloud computing
• Mobility
• Social media
• Big data

Some in the group saw the consumerization of information technology as an overarching trend, with all the rest as subsets or derivatives thereof, while others defined consumerization more narrowly as “bring your own device” (BYOD) or the influence of consumer applications on the enterprise.

The majority of the group felt that the trend towards mobility was having the biggest impact today and was fundamentally changing the nature of work. And most agreed that it was the “big data” trend that was the least mature and would bring the most future impact. The consensus was that, despite what many of us might consider to be a lot of data available currently, we have not seen anything yet: the volumes of data in the future from sensors, location technology, machine-to-machine communications, measurement devices, and technology embedded in products will bring orders of magnitude more data yet. Interestingly, cloud computing emerged as viewed as the last impactful of the five trends.

We will soon publish the overview from this roundtable, so stay tuned.  You can also see an analysis of these five trends that one of the participants, Dion Hinchcliffe of the Dachis Group, did on his blog on ZDNet.

Data breaches in the healthcare industry could bring more serious results than other industries, since healthcare data can be misused to more various frauds (e.g., billing for services not rendered, billing for a higher reimbursable service than performed, performing unnecessary services, unbundling of tests and services to generate higher fees, durable medical equipment fraud, pharmaceutical drug diversion, outpatient surgery fraud, and Internet pharmacy sales).

With the increased concerns, the US Government has increased the severity of fines for security violation, ranging up to $1.5M. Thus, we demonstrated how a healthcare organization’s security practices (including security applications, policies, and procedures) and culture influence information security and regulatory compliance.

This study found :

• IT security systems and security policies are synergistic, having complementary effects.
• Audit practices help an organization detect and report breaches rather than prevent breaches.
• Security cultural values significantly influence compliance and information security
• A top down approach improve information security rather than compliance.
• High collaboration makes information more exposed to risks while improving compliance.

Comments are welcome. The presentation poster is below:

Teaching high school students about security:

It has been a wild year for Groupon in the run up to the IPO.  In three weeks of trading, it has seesawed from the introductory price of $20.  In just the last 10 days, it raced above $26 and bottomed out around $15.  Today it ended trading at $17.50.  It will be interesting to see if Groupon can execute against the vast opportunity of social media.

Wilson Hall
 

I immediately dialed up Tuck's talented videograher, Heather Gere, and showed her some incredible examples of the cinemagraph including these and these (scroll down to the Machine Head, the 31st pic down, to be fully creeped out),  and she was instantly excited too. We sat in front of a white board discussing all sorts of options:

• The green Tuck Shield sign in Mclaughlin Atrium opens up to reveal the CDS mobile app, and starts floating through the screens
• A golden retriever frolics in the snow in front of Tuck, with static snowflakes but a moving retriever
• And last, but probably the hardest to pull off, the CDS team in front of the fireplace in Stell Hall with flames a'moving and our iPad all bright!

To make a  long story less long - the CDS team embraced the idea, agreed to pose for numerous shots and Heather worked her magic. The results are below. Gorgeous, yes. Innovative, obviously. Fully planned, not at all! I pride myself with being the sort of marketing professional who starts with the end in mind. Each project demands a full creative brief including timeline, audiences, budget and description. But, my friends, I currently have a live chat window open with Constant Contact for it seems that not only do animated gifs not play in Outlook 2007 or 2010, but they also insert a frame or a table into the email that throws all the alignment askew. I have my web developer looking into our homepage movie player as it seems our jquery slideshow won't display animated gifs either. I've sent emails to my comcast and gmail and hotmail (don't laugh) accounts multiple times, testing and praying and testing. I've written to Geoff Bronner to find out if our intranet or our on campus displays can play the gifs. I've posted it on our Facebook page; failed.

All of this, and no proper home found for our gifs.

Through this experience,  the sexy and slick name, "Cinemagraph" came to be just an "animated gif".  I am slamming myself for not properly exploring the distribution of our greeting initially and I wonder how many other innovations have met this sort of end, being disgracefully thrown into a blog written by a blogger who very few people read.

If you do happen to be reading this, please post any suggestions you may have concerning the proper home for Heather's gorgeous creations. And of course, Season's Greetings to you!

Besides security, Enrique noted that the hype around the cloud has created many myths including:

• There will be a “big switch” – He argued that the switch will take more time than many believe and that enterprises will maintain a substantial IT infrastructure far into the foreseeable future.
• Cloud computing is IT commoditization – Rather than commoditizing the role of enterprise IT, the cloud will focus the IT organization on higher value-adding business activities.
• Cloud comes in a box – He argued that “cloud in a box” offerings are overpriced and that firms should focus on assembling low-priced commodity components.
• Customers are moving to “the” cloud – There is no such thing as “the” cloud.  Rather the cloud is a collection of publically available services.

View the video highlights of Enrique's talk:

Target team strives to restock toy aisle on Black Friday.

LeapPad sold out!

Hot Wheels (and our pick, Video Racer) well stocked.

Ariba is a fascinating case study of a procurement firm that survived the B2B boom of the later 90s and subsequent melt down. Cloud is “back to the future” for Ariba. In my supply chain IT class at Tuck, we were imagining all enterprise spend in the cloud a decade ago. Today Ariba is seeing many of those 1990s dreams come to life with thousands of vendors and buyers transacting on its platform.

I really like Kent’s view of cloud. It is a big “C” view built on community, where participants find meaningful interactions and groupings that keep them coming back. Watch his interview with me for all the details.

He believes enterprises spend too much time and money maintaining computer networks. These tasks draw attention from helping customers and innovating. “The Internet – this idea that everything is network-connected – makes it possible to turn these computing resources into a utility the same way we have a power grid that delivers power through an outlet,” DeSantis told a standing-room-only audience at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. DeSantis, who studied as an economist, is drawn to cloud computing in part for what it can enable. He noted that financial firms such as hedge funds are among the customers of Amazon’s elastic cloud, which expands and contracts to meet customer demand. “They can spin up large amounts to compute before the market opens and during the course of the day and then shut them off when they’re not using them at night.” The benefits of flexibility extend far beyond Wall Street. “Social gaming and social media companies are using it because they can scale up and scale down to meet the viral traffic that's generated for their app,” he said. Research firm Gartner found in a survey of 2,000 CIOs that nearly half expect to run most of their applications and technical operations in the cloud within five years.This variability of cloud technology lets enterprises avoid having racks of servers sit idle when demand drops, DeSantis said. “It’s literally sitting there in the data center empty and so this is waste. And where there's waste, there's probably opportunity.”

Amazon’s cloud division, Amazon Web Services, began in 2002. In the years since, cloud computing technology has been gaining broader acceptance in the marketplace. Ultimately, DeSantis expects clouds will underpin much of how enterprises and consumers interact with technology. “There's no reason why everything that people do with the computer can't ultimately be delivered as a service.” The promise of cutting costs and avoiding homegrown IT headaches is compelling. So what stops more enterprises from adopting cloud technology? One holdup is over security. An enterprise running its own network can maintain constant scrutiny over its systems. This deep involvement might bring reassurance but DeSantis warns against feeling falsely secure. He acknowledges there are risks with any system but contends that many enterprises are ill-equipped to fight threats that are growing ever more sophisticated.

“You remove a bunch of threat factors by moving stuff in the cloud but we also introduce them,” he said. At the cloud level, however, it can be easier to marshal more resources for security. DeSantis predicts that continued improvements in cloud technology will further ease worries about safeguarding data. “As that innovation increases … I think we're going to end up with a more secure computing environment.” He likens many existing enterprise networks to an egg, with only one layer of protection. “It’s a hardened exterior with a mushy interior,” he said. “If you're an attacker, and you get inside that data center, typically you can walk around and find all sorts of stuff.” DeSantis said Amazon’s use of so-called virtual private clouds is helping reassure some customers. An enterprise using this technology can cordon off its own section of a so-called public cloud, which is used by a variety of companies. The enterprise can then outfit its allotted space with additional layers of security. “We've done a lot of stuff so that it's pretty easy for customers to put additional segregations inside their environment so if they do find that they're compromised in some way that they can provide more blast-radius control.” Consulting firm Accenture predicts that a mix of public clouds and private services will become the primary model that most enterprises use. Beyond security, there are worries about the reliability of cloud networks. In April, an outage among Amazon servers left thousands of Web sites inoperable. The problems knocked out some sites for more than two days.

DeSantis said the company is learning from the disruption. “Internally, we've made some adjustments in terms of resourcing to make sure that we double down and fix those.” He said the experience has helped the company “think through other exposures that we have that might not be blatantly obvious.”“It’s not like … oh, I stub my toe on the bed but rather, you know, where else in my house I might have stubbed my toe?” The outage was a rare event for Amazon and received widespread attention. The company has announced numerous changes following the problem. Gartner predicts that by 2015, eight in 10 enterprises that rely on cloud computing services will insist on independent certification that a provider can get operations and data up and running after a disruption. Amazon and other cloud providers will continue to address important concerns about security and reliability. Still, more enterprises will choose to access services from remote servers as doing so becomes more like plugging in a toaster. The simplicity will be too alluring to ignore, DeSantis predicts. “As much as I'm happy with what we built so far with AWS and EC2, customers are still doing way too much work for themselves.” 

Look for further discussions about cloud technology on our site and through other Britt Technology Impact Series events. Next up, members of the Center for Digital Strategies’ Corporate Roundtable weigh in during CIOs in the Cloud: Pinning Down Risks and Rewards.
 

Though the velocity and amount of questions we entertained gave me frightening flashbacks of 12-hour tradeshows at the Javits center, our time was well spent. Armed with iPads, QR posters, brochures and a banner - we were ready for a presentation but surprised by the amount of students we actually spoke to one-on-one with pointed questions and interest. Students inquired over and over how they could become involved with the center in their first year since our Fellow's Program is exclusively available to second years. We were pleased to take that opportunity to describe our Britt Technology Impact Series and its focus on cloud computing this year - ensuring everyone that the mobile app, email, tuckstreams, visix and social media will alert them to upcoming panels and events, (such as the Amazon event we had last week.) Obviously, we encouraged engagement on facebook, chatter and twitter as well and invited MBAs to stop in and see our new space. We love visitors and are always happy to discuss technology.

If you were at the fair, is there anything you suggest we come prepared to share next year? 

It was an honor to be included with the student-run clubs at this event and we're grateful for the opportunity to speak with everyone in person. The Dean speaks about the eight Centers and Initiatives and their importance at Tuck in his recent video address to Alumni. It's worth a listen if you've missed it.

At the Center, I've been privileged to be part of the team that has developed two mobile apps. Actually, the second app was developed for Android and for iOS so I could say three apps and not be incorrect. Our overarching goal in creating these apps was to support our Britt Technology Impact Series (BTIS) which is our offering to MBA Students. The series brings executive perspectives to campus and illuminates a current technologies' impact on individuals, enterprises and value chains through panels, interviews and speaker events. The mobile apps were developed to showcase the learnings from past series and communicate details about upcoming events, speakers and companies. Specifically, the app features the written series summary/overview manuscript and videos of panels and speakers. We chose to work with Blue Pane Studio and the experience was a true pleasure. In the spirit of learning in partnership through experience, we developed a Tech@Tuck app (which is the yearly crown jewel event in our BTIS series) and later, a full scale BTIS app that includes Tech@Tuck and everything else that comprises the series. How exciting! An e-marketing addict at heart - the concept of actually being in my constituents' pockets at all times is like an anthropologist moving to Machu Picchu: heaven! 

That said, I was haunted by the words of the SVP from FLO TV, Jonathan Barzilay, stating that apps are like pixie dust. And he's right. I mean, how many apps do you revisit? Stickiness is a huge consideration. Also, there are 200,000 apps in the Android shop now and 425,000 in Apple's app store. These huge numbers massively effect findability, right? The bottom line being that no one is going to stumble upon your App. 

I'd like to share top-level lessons gleaned  from this experience:

• Start with a clear creative brief that begins with the end in mind. Include precise milestones in the development phase, download goals and an integrated plan for promoting the app.
• Concerning the promotion of your app, consider QR codes that link to your app; put them on all print communications, on your office door, everywhere. You can even brand them now >
• As with all marketing, know your audience. If you don't know who you're speaking to, you'll never reach them. Are they rocking Android devices or only iPhones? Do they want to consume your content on an iPad? Are they prone to read long chunks of content or would they prefer sound bites?
• Make sure your developer understands the Android and Apple markets and development requirements (Blue Pane does) as they certainly are different. 
• If you do chose to develop an Android and an Apple app, make sure you have only one back-end admin system for both. You don't want to be maintaining two databases.

We've since retired our Tech@Tuck app and have focused our mobile attention into our BTIS apps. We have metrics on the app and have enjoyed watching the progress and updating content.

Please, if you've developed and marketed apps too, feel free to share your lessons here. If you'd like to hear me talk about the QRs and app in video, please visit our YouTube channel. I'd also be remiss if I didn't invite you to download our Android or Apple App and test drive for yourselves. I welcome feedback.

By the afternoon, the Tuckies lost themselves in the sea of presentations, booths, and discussions. CDS Fellow Anant Shivraj gushed about “fantastic sessions on post-merger integration issues and in-memory computing” while Julien Kervella collected swag from the likes of Cisco and HP. Coupled with a Sting concert and day at the beach, maybe Sapphire will become another spring tradition for tech-minded Tuckies.

(l to r) Professor Eric Johnson, Elissa Kline T'11, Julien Kervella T'11 and Daniel Torres.

Second, many companies run their data resource according to the ostrich principle: Head in the sand and hoping nothing catastrophic will be happen because of poor data. Without being an expert in enterprise risk management, I am relatively sure this is not considered "best practice". In fact, many data quality problems represent risks to the company. Not being compliant to the latest European Union directive on the registration of chemical products or delivering the wrong insecticide product to a leading agricultural customer are severe risks a special chemicals manufacturer, for example, must manage proactively. However, since it has been going well over the last years why take action now...Third, Data Governance is not a hot topic for many professionals. In the competition for awareness and resources, Data Governance does not seem to be well-positioned in comparison to issues like "Marketing Strategies in China", "Leveraging social media for business value", "Optimizing our service and product portfolio."

Obviously, the topic of Data Governance needs people who speak in favor of it. So, I will try to make a contribution:

• Due to its company-wide scope and the focus on data which is used across the boundaries of individual business processes and functions, Data Governance is at the core of a company's business operations. Understanding corporate data means understanding the "DNA" of a company.
• Data Governance is multidisciplinary and requires proficient skills in communicating a complex problem to various stakeholder groups.
• Working in Data Governance can be fun. Don't believe it? Ask the community of professionals in the Competence Center Corporate Data Quality (CC CDQ, cdq.iwi.unisg.ch).
• 

Pic taken during a recent consortium workshop at Competence Center Corporate Data Quality in St. Gallen.

Alex Dudley, the VP of Communications at Time Warner Cable, (the cable company who supports our BTIS series) said it best today, “There is no risk-free way to embrace social media” and I couldn’t agree with him more. But for every broken guitar, Greenpeace attack or spring-clothing launch during an Egyptian uprising, there is the real opportunity to instill a shared corporate vision, grow a brand community of mavens and connect on a more personal level with customers, employees and detractors than was ever possible before. That’s power – and I dig it.

Alex Dudley, VP of Public Relations, Time Warner Cable. View more about this panel >

I think one of the most interesting elements of Amazon’s fulfillment network is its ability to scale during peak holiday seasons. Besides scaling each of its fulfillment centers through labor and shift adjustments, Amazon also relies on cloud fulfillment capacity in its suppliers. Setting up fulfillment operations at supplier distribution centers allows Amazon to ship directly from those locations during crunch periods. These virtual fulfillment operations are enabled through a set of Amazon fulfillment tools including IT, hardware, and processes that bring fulfillment operations to life for short periods – much like retailers such as Toys "R" Us use pop-up stores in vacant mall store fronts. The concept gives new meaning to cloud services – both virtual and physical.
 

Source: BusinessWeek. Click for a slideshow of Fernley

Applying this example to business management, the Roundtable discussion concluded that analytics requires a deep understanding of the business processes to find the right data and then convert it to real information and ultimately business intelligence. Business analytics is not a fishing trip, blindly trolling oceans of data for insight. Rather it is combining sophisticated analysis with human intelligence to produce real business breakthroughs. Sometimes that means less data is more insight. In every case it requires managers to be actively involved in the knowledge generation process.

1. Brick-and-mortar retailers should not neglect the potential of mobile technologies to drive foot traffic and enhance the in-store experience.

2. Mobility presents a unique opportunity to personalize experiences within the store environment and to strengthen bonds between shoppers and brands. That said, a cookie-cutter mobile approach will do little to differentiate a retail experience. Rather, each unique retailer requires a customized blend of mobile features and offers that align with shopper demographics and attitudes as well as retailer brand identity.

3. Despite the hype surrounding companies using mobile advertising to drive brand awareness and revenue, mobility remains an emerging technology.

One particularly interesting area is the use of social games to drive significant interaction with a retail brand. Last week I moderated a panel on social gaming at Tuck’s Media Symposium where we explored this idea. Chris Mahl (SVP and Chief Brand Alchemist, SCVNGR) described how SCVNGR works with retailers like Neiman Marcus to create social games that bring participants into the store.

Experience the interview with Chris Mahl, SVP, SCVNGR:

Besides talking about the future of content delivery, Mike gave the students advice about pursuing careers in technical roles. He noted that the key to success was bridging the gap between technology and the business. Too often techies can’t crawl out of their love for the technology itself to see how it can impact the firm and eco system around them. Mike said his career was defined by his ability to understand how new technologies translated into time and money.

Watch CDS Fellow Elissa Kline's interview with Mike.

In the interest of full disclosure, Tuck and Time Warner Cable share a business relationship.

Instead of offering the standard (but true) marketing response, "To increase brand awareness and distribute our content and learnings to a broader audience," I said, "Because today, people chose how, when, where and on what device they consume content. We chose to offer our findings, expertise and learnings in the broadest sense possible in hopes that our constituents will remain personally connected to our efforts. And at the same time, we hopefully create conversations and strengthen all our relationships."

I sort of impressed myself with that, sort of.

Would your response be similar?

Interesting "twitter cloud" of our follows, thanks to TwitterSheep. 

Now I'm off to hear today's expert talk to us about virtual collaboration. We are hosting John Lester, Director of Community Development at ReactionGrid. Catch him on Twitter >
 

As a standalone player focused purely on software, SAP is embracing it’s ecosystem of partners to make its offerings easier to implement and use. Starting with the costs to implement, SAP is working to reduce the typical 6:1 ratio of implementation to software cost. Bill noted that typical enterprise CIOs spend 80% of their budget just keeping the lights on. SAP would like to cut that in half, helping their customers’ focus more of their IT spend on innovative initiatives that drive business growth.

Looking ahead, SAP sees mobility as a game changer for enterprise systems and is focusing both development and M&A activity (think Sybase) to get there first.

On life, Bill reminded the students that passion is the key to success. He also told them not to be afraid of pain. Recounting how he preserved through a seemly bad career decision, he emerged from the “pain cave” with a stronger sense of self. “It is those painful experiences where you really learn who you are, what is important, and what you really care about.” Finally, he urged the students keep in mind that life and business leadership is a “short visit.” So “don’t just be great at the office – be great at home.”

View video interview with Bill >

This is the view outside my office window right now. The storm has most certainly arrived, but tomorrow's Tech@Tuck will go on! My colleagues and I are busy finalizing all the details. David R. Godsman, VP of Global Web Strategy  at Starwood Hotels and Resorts will actually be joining us via the web. No need to worry about the experience, however, as the audience will be able to view Mr. Godsman's face and hear his voice in real time. I'm hoping the remainder of our panelists, vendors and visitors find travel tomorrow uneventful as we'll discuss the hot topic of "Social & the Enterpise." I am pleased we are illuminating the diverse social technologies available to industries. It's such a noisy world we live in: my igoogle page has over 53 RSS feeds that I claim keep me up-to-date; my 'smart'phone is constantly buzzing at me; Microsoft Office Communicator is constantly popping in my face, my iPad apps are now pushing messages my way; some days I go cross-eyed managing content across multiple social channels, and, oh yeah, that spectacular original digital brand maven - OUR WEBSITE. But it's all so invigorating.

I used to think that our human race was so overly connected and slammed by this noise that ironically, we no longer knew how to really connect with one another .... but I retract that now. I think most of us have climbed the social tech and mobile tech learning curves and know how to make them work for us in our own way. Personally, I know I haven't felt this connected with my colleagues, co-workers, family or friends in many years. I say,  "God bless this connectivity, bring on 'anywhere' and yes, I look forward to the day when authentication delivers my content and my ability to communicate on whatever form factor I so desire and from where ever in the world I may be!"

What do you think - are we too connected? And will the term, "social" in regards to technology fade as it all becomes viewed as simply another digital communication channel?  

We welcome input on this - any thoughts on companies that could demonstrate their social products or social businesses here at Tuck? 

Even in this quaint and quiet northeast corner of our country, I am daily reminded of the exceptionally exciting time we live in. The advancement of social tools combined with the reach of mobile technology continue to drive this spectacular engine we call "life" forward so quickly and in such a connected manner. When I graduated college 11 years ago, I couldn't imagine where the worlds of email, ecommerce and computer-enabled innovation would bring us. (I remember one class I took on photo editing; that screen looked NOTHING like PS does today!) And now as I have a hand in developing mobile apps for our students to consume, coordinating panels with business experts discussing topics such as cloud computing or the new world of socially-empowered customers, I am repeatedly invigorated by the world today's students are building and thriving in. It's a noisy world, for certain. But making sense of the noise and harnessing its power for maximum impact ... well that's the good stuff.