IBM ImpactTV 2012 Instant Replay: Bob Sutor On Tackling The Massive Mobile Enterprise Opportunity
Recently at IBM Impact in Las Vegas, Scott Laningham and I had the opportunity to sit down with a wide variety of great speakers, including our senior VPs Steve Mills and Mike Rhodin, whose instant replays I’ve already shared.
Most of those folks, we gave about ten minutes. But there’s been such immense interest in the enterprise mobile topic, that when we sat down with IBM’s VP of WebSphere Foundation and IBM Mobile, Bob Sutor, we spoke for a good 18 minutes.
That’s not only because Bob was a scintillating and thoughtful guest, which he always is, but because there’s a lot to talk about in the mobile space.
So much of the oxygen recently has been around Facebook’s valuation and the rise of BYOD…but there are much more practical and necessary concerns that organizations need to think about as they start to build out their mobile strategies.
Things like application lifecycle development, cross-platform development, and that bugaboo that always rears its head in the mobile conversation, security and privacy.
Bob takes them all on and more in the far-ranging interview below:
Facebook Up Front
There’s nothing like the looming shadow of the largest Internet-related IPO in history to bring out all the Debbie Downers.
Mind you, I’m in a two-day meeting in Raleigh with my teammates, so I’m supposed to be paying attention to what’s going on inside these four walls. And I mostly am.
But, I simply could not ignore this headline sent to me via email by a fellow colleague (just to demonstrate the continued critical importance of personal word-of-mouth recommendations…I can’t find out everything from watching “The View”, now, can I?): GM To Stop Advertising On Facebook.
This on the first scroll of The Wall Street Journal this afternoon.
It would be easy enough to dismiss this headline considering the source, News Corporation, which owns the Journal, which is competing for essentially the same advertising dollars — never mind that they also own that little used social network, MySpace, which once-upon-a-time was the bell of the social networking ball — but, it’s General Motors, the U.S.’ third largest advertiser in a critical category for advertising (automobiles).
According to the story, GM has spent some $40 million on its Facebook presence and plans to stop advertising there “after the company’s marketing executives determined their paid ads had little impact on consumers.” However, it also points out GM will continue to expand its use of marketing through Facebook’s pages, which is essentially free real estate.
In this case, it seems that the “owned” media is outpacing the “paid.”
On the other side of Madison Avenue, AP-CNBC recently conducted a poll that indicated more than half (57 percent) of Facebook users polled said they never click on ads or other sponsored content when they use the site. Only 4 percent say they often click on ads.
This isn’t exactly a canary in Facebook’s coal mine, however.
As I’ve tried to point out to my own troops, the shift in attention to the Facebook platform cannot be denied — U.S. Internet users now spend 20% of their surfing time there, and as Facebook creates more intersections between entertainment, retail, and commerce, I would expect that number to go up, not down!
So what if people don’t click on an ad for the new Escalade — there’s a pretty good chance a few millions of the right people saw those ads, and quite frankly, if folks’ attention is moving from the big screen to the small (and, via mobile, to the smaller), then the attention deficit economy must eventually witness the transition of ad dollars in some semblance of parity, which heretofore hasn’t happened.
It doesn’t escape my notice that this news emerges the very same week that the big broadcasters are holding their “upfronts,” where they try to sell their $60 billion of inventory as much in advance as possible for the next year to advertisers, their agencies, etc.
The New York Times’ Amy Chozick penned a piece today explaining some of the festivities at this year’s upfronts. An excerpt: “At the Fox Party on Monday, the judges for the show ‘MasterChef,’ Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, and Joe Bastianich, will personally serve a menu that includes organic salmon ceviche and a deconstructed Caesar salad accompanied by brioche Twinkies.”
Fox will be serving “veal meatballs with black truffles” along with “Manhattan mules,” a combination of vodka, ginger beer, and lime.
Traditional advertising’s Rome is burning, so why not throw a cocktail party and drink mint juleps as the last vestiges of appointment programming disappear into the Nielsen viewer diary of history?
The dirty little secret is this: We’re entering into a world where the absence of data is going to be replace by an abundance of data. Moving forward, Facebook’s problem with advertisers will not be whether or not they can share information about the platform’s advertising performance, but more importantly, which data, about which demographic, on what platform, etc.?
There will be more information than most advertisers can consume effectively, particularly those more schooled in Nielsen “set meters” than A/B splits and multivariate testing.
Yeah, sure, go ahead and pile on the new kid on the block. Mark Zuckerberg’s about to take away those truffles and Manhattan mules and your annual party is moving from up front to out back. I’d be mad, too.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the advertising world is changing, and the big screen is about to be replaced by one that will get smaller and smaller, but one that will be more and more valuable to marketers.
Like this:
What’s Your Mobile Use Case?
We’re only a week away from the start of the IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Madrid.
So I found it interesting that Nielsen would release these “hard numbers”
A recent Nielsen survey of U.S. smartphone owners who report using their mobile phones while shopping in a store, indicates that consumers use their phones differently depending on the type of store.
about how consumers like to use their smartphones, particularly when it comes to shopping.
Here’s what I see in the data: Couponing is mainly for groceries and clothes, and its geeks who use QR codes (*I* am something of a geek, and even *I* haven’t used QR codes…at least, not yet).
If you’re looking for electronics, you’re likely to read reviews via your smartphone, because you don’t want to be the only idiot who bought the thing who didn’t check out what Joe the Plumber (err, the Coder) had to say about the item before they bought it.
I have a plane to catch, but I’ll be pondering this Nielsen data as I check in to find the status of my flight…on my LG dumb phone.
Like this:
Kooch!
Okay, golf fans, if you watched the Tournament Players Championship this weekend, you know you hardly have reason to complain.
All around nice guy and professional golfer, Matt Kuchar, follows a shot during his victory at this weekend’s Tournament Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponta Vedra Beach, Florida.
Other than Kevin Na’s “yips,” which seemed to bother co-playing partner Zach Johnson during Saturday’s third round more than it did anyone else, weren’t quite enough to keep Na from leading as they walked into the final round yesterday.
But it was Matt Kuchar (everyone on the course just yells at him, “Kooch!”) who walked away with his biggest ever title on Mother’s Day, a sweet birdie putt on the 16th at Sawgrass all but cementing his victory.
Scotland’s Martin Laird and the ever fashionable Ricky Fowler, who finally won his own first PGA Tour victory just last week at the Wells Fargo Championship, were hot on Kuchar’s heels, but they’d fallen too far away by the time they reached 16, 17, and 18, the winding hat trick of a finish at Sawgrass that includes the infamous 17 “island” green.
Zach Johnson had been on a bit of a tear of his own, starting the round at 7 under and only four behind Kuchar, eagling the par-5 second and getting to 11 under with a birdie on the par-5 16th — no Master’s par 5 layups for Johnson at Sawgrass!
But Kuchar refused to fall back to the pack.
In terms of drama, there was plenty of it, but most of that drama came from other players.
As Kuchar approached 17, the victory clearly in view, I could only pray, “Kooch, don’t slop another one in the water!” which so many others had done during the week. But no, he put it safely in the middle of the island green and two-putted for his par.
On 18, he hit a nice solid drive in the middle of the fairway (remembering there’s water all along the left side of the hole) and talked sports with his caddie as they walked up towards the green.
No biggie, Kooch seemed to be saying, but it was a biggie indeed, and elevates the well-liked Kuchar into a whole new class of the game.
Which is perfect, because it’s just in time for the coming U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. If there’s not been enough drama for you this year on the PGA Tour, I hope and expect June 14-17 at the Olympic Club to be about as much drama as a golf fan can stand.
More on that in future posts…but for now, let’s celebrate Matt Kuchar’s well-deserved and long overdue “big win” — the 33 year-old “kid’s” been at since he won the U.S. Amateur in 1998, and finally he can say he belongs in the big leagues.
And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy!
Happy Anniversary, Deep Blue
It was fifteen years ago today that the IBM chess-playing supercomputer, Deep Blue, beat he-who-shall-remain-nameless, a world grandmaster, after a six-game match, which brought two wins for IBM, one for the world champion, and three draws.
On May 11, 1997, an IBM computer called IBM Deep Blue beat the world chess champion after a six-game match: two wins for IBM, one for the champion and three draws. The match lasted several days and received massive media coverage around the world. It was the classic plot line of man vs. machine. Behind the contest, however, was important computer science, pushing forward the ability of computers to handle the kinds of complex calculations needed to take computing to the its next stage of evolution.
It was classic man-versus-machine, but underlying the mythology that enveloped the John Henry storyline was something far more important: The opportunity to push the frontiers of computer science, to push computers to handle the kind of complex calculations necessary for helping discover new pharmaceuticals; to conduct the kind of financial modeling needed to identify trends and do risk analysis; to perform the kinds of massive calculations needed in many fields of science.
Solving The Problem That Is Chess
Since artificial intelligence emerged as a concept along with the first real computers in the 1940s, computer scientists compared the performance of these “giant brains” with human minds, and many gravitated to chess as a way of testing the calculating abilities of computers. Chess is a game that represents a collection of challenging problems for minds and machines, but had simple rules, and was thus an excellent testbed for laying the groundwork for the “big data” era that was soon to come.
There’s but no question that Deep Blue was such a powerful computer programmed to solve the complex, strategic game of chess. But IBM’s goal was far deeper: To enable researchers to discover and understand the limits and opportunities presented by massively parallel processing and high performance computing.
IBM Deep Blue: Analyzing 200 Million Chess Positions Per Second
If, in fact, Deep Blue could explore up to 200 million possible chess positions per second, then could this deep computing capability be used to help society handle the kinds of complex calculations required in some of these other aforementioned areas.
Deep Blue did, in fact, prove that industry could tackle these issues with smart algorithms and sufficient computational power.
I recalled earlier this year in a blog post my own experience witnessing the Deep Blue chess match. It evoked a lot of nostalgia for me and so many others.
IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer could explore up to 200 million possible chess positions per second on 510 processors. Juxtapose that with IBM Blue Gene’s ability a few short years later to to routinely handle 478 trillion operations every second!
But it also laid a foundation, paving the way for new kinds of advanced computers and breakthroughs, including IBM’s Blue Gene and, later, IBM Watson.
Forever In Blue Genes
Blue Gene, introduced in 2004, demonstrated the next grand challenge in computing and was both the most powerful supercomputer and the most efficient, but was built to help biologists observe the invisible processes of protein folding and gene development. Deep Blue was also one of the earliest experiments in supercomputing that propelled IBM to become a market leader in this space to this day.
Fifteen years on, we’ve seen epic growth in the volume and variety of data being generated around the planet, via business, the social media, new sensor data helping with instrumentation of the physical world vis-a-vis IBM’s smarter planet initiative. We’ve created so much new data that, in fact, 90% of the data in the world today was created in the last two years alone!
Calling Doctor Watson
Most recently, IBM embarked upon the next wave of this computing progress through the development of IBM’s Watson, which can hold the equivalent of about one million books worth of information. But make no mistake, Watson’s significance wasn’t just the amount of information it could process, but rather, a new generation of technology that uses algorithms to find answers in unstructured data more effectively than standard search technology, while also “understanding” natural language.
The promise of IBM Watson is now being put to productive use in industry — as an online tool to assist medical professionals in formulating diagnoses; by simplifying the banking experience by analyzing customer needs in the context of vast amounts of ever-changing financial , economic, product, and client data; and, I’m sure, other industries near you soon.
Those early chess matches were exciting, nail-biting even (and who’d have thought we’d ever say that about chess?)! But they pale by comparison to the productive work and problem-solving IBM’s Watson, and other IBM technologies, are now and will continue to be involved with as the world of big data matures and becomes adopted by an ever-increasing audience.
You can now visit Deep Blue, which ultimately was retired to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
But its groundbreaking contributions to artificial intelligence and computing in general continues, and now extends well beyond the confines of the chess board.
Dead Solid Perfect
Don’t think for a moment I didn’t notice that the PGA’s Tournament Players Championship tournament started yesterday down in Ponta Vedra Beach, Florida.
I’ve been busy this week, but not sooo busy that I would ignore this classic golfing event.
It is a tournament that began the week with Phil Mickelson’s induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame, along with Scottish golfer Sandy Lyle, Peter Alliss, and Hollis Stacy, and the incomparable Texas sportswriter, Dan Jenkins (author of Dead Solid Perfect and Semi-Tough).
You can watch some highlights of Dan’s acceptance speech, along with Phils’ and others, here.
It’s worth the price of admission just to hear Dan Jenkins riff the names of all the famous golfers he has either 1) played rounds of golf with 2) had cocktails with 3) written stories about.
Jenkins related one story in particular, whereby one of the greatest golfers ever, Ben Hogan, offered to give Jenkins golf lessons, three times a week, for four months, to prepare Jenkins to compete in the National Amateur.
Jenkins thanked Hogan profusely for the offer, but explained that all he’d ever wanted to be was a sportswriter.
Hogan looked at him like “he’d looked at other people, with that cold stare,” and, Jenkins explained, “you don’t know if you’re going to get a bullet in the head or a dagger in your heart. And so you just wait for him to speak.”
Finally, Hogan smiled and said, “Well, keep workin’ at it.”
“And that,” Jenkins explained, “is what I’ve been doing for the last sixty years.”
As for Michelson’s speech, get your box of Kleenex ready.
Phil, whom you could argue is still “mid-career,” especially based on his recent golfing performance, explained that “We’re all in it together to enjoy this great game.”
He thanked everyone, “for competing with me…for your friendships. This has been so much fun and I love sharing this with everybody.”
He also went on to thank his fans, but with his typical good humor explained, “The fans have made this such a fun ride. It’s been their energy that has pulled me through. I’ve tried to reciprocate by launching drive after drive in their general direction.”
The audience, and I, found that one liner hilarious!
I actually had the good fortune to be hosted by the PGA at Ponta Vedra back in 1998, when we were featuring them as a customer in our advertising campaign.
I saw the World Golf Hall of Fame right before it was open to the public (I really must get back there!), and I also had the special privilege of giving the TPC Sawgrass Course a go.
I wasn’t playing nearly as much golf during those times, so my game was middling at best.
But, I made it through the round okay, and when I hit 17, the one with the floating green, I think I tried three times before the ball finally stayed on the green (I chuckle to this day when a pro drops a ball in the water on 17. I did NOT laugh when Angel Cabrera dropped four of them in the water there yesterday. Remember that nightmare hole inTin Cup???)
On 18, with that perilous water that essentially makes up the entirety of the hole’s left perimeter, I decided I would hit irons all the way. My drive was a three-iron that faded left and settled about three feet from the water. So much for playing it safe!
My second shot was another long iron, which landed promptly on the green about six feet from the hole.
I sank the putt and ran giggling off the green, and have never been back.
I birdied 18 at TPC Sawgrass playing only irons.
Take that, Phil Mickelson!
turbotodd
