Notes from the Consultant’s Jungle

An article appearing today on Reuters describes how researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University’s Machine Learning Department have been experimenting with brain activity related to thinking of words.  The process involves capturing MRI images of a person’s brain as they are shown and asked to think about specific words.  The image captured on the MRI of the [...]

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We’ve become fairly comfortable with the structure of our IT organizations, but new trends in technology product development are increasingly challenging these traditional models.
In the traditional (i.e., over the past 10 years or so) IT organization we have roughly aligned the organizational chart with a logical stack corresponding to our data processing footprint. We [...]

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Over the past year, the European Commission has been sponsoring the development of a Data Center Code of Conduct to address the increasing energy consumption, environmental, economic and supply security concerns of the data center community.  If you’d like to read it for yourself, it can be found here.
This is an interesting endeavor, especially with [...]

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I learned this morning that Jayshree Ullal has decided to leave Cisco to pursue other opportunities.  Given that I find myself often working with the folks at Cisco on strategic technology initiatives, it makes me sad to see Jayshree move on.
On several occasions I had the pleasure of working with Jayshree on forward looking technologies under [...]

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In many discussions about Web 2.0 technologies’ role in the enterprise, it’s interesting to me to notice the skeptical voice and contrarian opinion. These are valuable points of view, and essential for one to properly vet the application of the technology in terms of value delivered to the Business.
Many times, the contrarian voice represents the [...]

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Our world has lost a tremendous mind, a gargantuan talent, and a wonderful man. Robert Rauschenberg passed on last night at the young age of 82. Rauschenberg was one of the most influential American artists of our life time. His pioneering of assemblage and juxtaposition of images created a window of enlightenment through which many [...]

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That was quick.  Just this morning HP admitted it was in “talks” to acquire EDS and a few hours later it’s official.
HP will acquire EDS for $13.9B and brand it, “EDS- an HP Company” (creativity evidently didn’t get in the way of announcing the deal).  The new business unit will maintain its EDS centricity… with [...]

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The Internet is going mobile. ‘Big news, right? Well, with the open-access provisions attached to the auction of the 700 MHz spectrum, the continued success of open-source public VoIP applications, and open platforms such as Android and OpenMoko, things are really accelerating.
The auction of the 700 MHz spectrum comes with the requirement that the winning [...]

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The OSI Stack is a subject about which I’ve written and spoken numerous times over the past couple of years. I think there’s some opportunity now to be creative with the notion of a new, contemporary, business-driven, systems stack. This will be the subject of several posts, but let me begin by recapping my idea [...]

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How much thought do you give to your company’s corporate core values? Are you able to say (without looking them up on the website) what they are? Once you look at them again, to what extent do you think those values reflect the behavior of the company to its Customers? What about to its employees?
It [...]

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