Lessons of Leadership from Classical Music
Please enjoy the lesson that Benjamin Zander teaches us on leadership. This is a wonderful 18 minute talk given by Zander at a recent TED conference. The TED (stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design) web site has many other great talks as well. Enjoy!
Moving Forward
Last week we released a new Beta web site: LDS Maps.This is a web site that people use to locate LDS buildings all over the world. This will eventually (probably July) be the replacement for a tool called Meetinghouse Locator on lds.org and mormon.org.
We'd love for people (members of the Church and non-members alike) to check it out and give us your feedback! This is only a beta so you will probably see some glitches, performance problems, incorrect data or issues with the design. When you do, let us know about them!
For members of the Church, if the meeting times are wrong then please let your ward clerk know. He can change the meeting times in his system (MLS).
If you see any other problems, including incorrect locations for buildings, click on the "Feedback" button in the web page itself and let us know what you think. With your help, we'll get any incorrect information fixed quickly!
Also feel free to give feedback in the comments here.
We are integrating this technology into the next generation of our web sites so that members of the Church can easily find who lives in their ward or branch boundaries and where. We will also be working on Spanish and Portugese versions, as well as versions for mobile devices.
We'd love for people (members of the Church and non-members alike) to check it out and give us your feedback! This is only a beta so you will probably see some glitches, performance problems, incorrect data or issues with the design. When you do, let us know about them!
For members of the Church, if the meeting times are wrong then please let your ward clerk know. He can change the meeting times in his system (MLS).
If you see any other problems, including incorrect locations for buildings, click on the "Feedback" button in the web page itself and let us know what you think. With your help, we'll get any incorrect information fixed quickly!
Also feel free to give feedback in the comments here.
We are integrating this technology into the next generation of our web sites so that members of the Church can easily find who lives in their ward or branch boundaries and where. We will also be working on Spanish and Portugese versions, as well as versions for mobile devices.
Top 10 Disruptive Technologies
Last month, Gartner identified the top 10 disruptive technologies for 2008 - 2012. And the list is pretty accurate:
We're already trying to figure out how to deal with some of this stuff. Disruptive? Yes. Scary? Definitely. How does a CIO (or IT manager) deal with, embrace or hold off new technologies?
Virtualization is a great example. In our data centers we face the same problems most I.T. shops do: not enough power or cooling. Answer? Virtualization! We're virtualizing servers with technology built into IBM's AIX platform and also with VMWare.
The plus is that it's easier to get servers stood up, each server is cheaper and the utilization is much higher overall. This saves on both power and cooling which is the original problem. The downside is that servers are so easy to requisition that they proliferate like wildfire. Without strong change management processes it can get crazy. And the management tools for virtualized servers aren't mature enough yet. It's clear we're getting value out of virtualization, but is it worth the challenges it presents? I think so; I wish I were more sure.
Web mashups are another interesting one. Users are hurling their data out from the corporate firewall onto the Internet and using various web mashups to create interesting new apps. It's great for the end-user! But the I.T. professional is having fits with security, code management, etc.
All of these new technologies bring both promise and pain. The job of the CIO and the I.T. professional is to understand them and help our business partners see the potential and recognize the risks.
What a fun time to be in information technology!
- Multicore and hybrid processors
- Virtualisation and fabric computing
- Social networks and social software
- Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
- Web mashups
- User Interface
- Ubiquitous computing
- Contextual computing
- Augmented reality
- Semantics
We're already trying to figure out how to deal with some of this stuff. Disruptive? Yes. Scary? Definitely. How does a CIO (or IT manager) deal with, embrace or hold off new technologies?
Virtualization is a great example. In our data centers we face the same problems most I.T. shops do: not enough power or cooling. Answer? Virtualization! We're virtualizing servers with technology built into IBM's AIX platform and also with VMWare.
The plus is that it's easier to get servers stood up, each server is cheaper and the utilization is much higher overall. This saves on both power and cooling which is the original problem. The downside is that servers are so easy to requisition that they proliferate like wildfire. Without strong change management processes it can get crazy. And the management tools for virtualized servers aren't mature enough yet. It's clear we're getting value out of virtualization, but is it worth the challenges it presents? I think so; I wish I were more sure.
Web mashups are another interesting one. Users are hurling their data out from the corporate firewall onto the Internet and using various web mashups to create interesting new apps. It's great for the end-user! But the I.T. professional is having fits with security, code management, etc.
All of these new technologies bring both promise and pain. The job of the CIO and the I.T. professional is to understand them and help our business partners see the potential and recognize the risks.
What a fun time to be in information technology!
Gen Y is Changing the Web
Generation Y is the generation born approximately between 1981 and 2001. They are primarily the children of the baby boomers.
Here are some key characteristics of this new generation (mostly from the the Wikipedia article on Gen Y):
This will be an influential generation.
Here's a great article on how they are changing the web (or is the web changing them?). It's worth a read.
Here are some key characteristics of this new generation (mostly from the the Wikipedia article on Gen Y):
- Represent about 70 million consumers in the United States
- Earn about $211 billion and spend about $172 billion per year (They will probably be primarily responsible for the health-related decisions for their parents, the baby boomers and thus control a lot more future "spend").
- 97% own a computer
- 94% own a cell phone
- 76% use instant messaging
- They tend to move jobs more than ever before
This will be an influential generation.
Here's a great article on how they are changing the web (or is the web changing them?). It's worth a read.
New Blogs
Since the inception of this blog I've been a little confused--sometimes blogging to an "Information Technology" audience and sometimes blogging to non-techies who are curious about media.
We've created a new blog, focused on the latter audience. It's called LDS Media Talk. In that blog, Larry Richman (LDSWebGuy) and I and several others will talk about media issues and how they affect families.
In LDS CIO I will blog to I.T. professionals, both to techies and to people interested in the business of I.T.
As usual, your comments are welcome!
We've created a new blog, focused on the latter audience. It's called LDS Media Talk. In that blog, Larry Richman (LDSWebGuy) and I and several others will talk about media issues and how they affect families.
In LDS CIO I will blog to I.T. professionals, both to techies and to people interested in the business of I.T.
As usual, your comments are welcome!
Comments ON
Some of you have indicated that comments being OFF by default discourages people from commenting because you don't see your comment show up immediately.
So….
Comments have been turned ON by default. Comments that are off topic (like advertisements for multi-level marketing jobs, requests for me to review a resume and anything disparaging of the Seattle Mariners) will be deleted. J
Behave yourselves!
So….
Comments have been turned ON by default. Comments that are off topic (like advertisements for multi-level marketing jobs, requests for me to review a resume and anything disparaging of the Seattle Mariners) will be deleted. J
Behave yourselves!
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