Turbo Video Dispatch #4: Turbo Finds Some New Intelligence

No jokes about the headline, please.  I’ve always been a little slow, so I need as much new intelligence as I can get.

Before you click on the video, a quick housekeeping tip: Tonight’s networking event is being moved indoors to Baynote rooms A, B, and C (not the Mandalay B rooms A, B, C, as I reported in the video).

As if it makes any difference…by the time I figure out how to navigate this place, it’ll be time to leave!

Enjoy the video update!

New Intelligence for a Smarter Planet

Steve Mills kicked off today’s keynote session at the Information on Demand Conference here in Vegas with a look at how we can build “New Intelligence for a Smarter Planet.”

As an IBMer myself, I’ve followed the evolution of this initiative (I hesitate to call it a “campaign”) with great fascination, both as a marketer but also as a student of the world.

For me, the essence of smarter planet is this: We on the globe face some substantial challenges, but if we do things smarter, and if we better gather and use information and data that is everywhere around us, we can make some substantial forward progress, save lives and resources, and create a better world.

It’s a hard value proposition to argue with.

Yes, we believe IBM technology can, and already is, playing an integral role in facilitating this evolution towards a smarter planet. Specifically to this conference, IBM Software and Information Management software.

Steve started his discussion with a few thousand attendees this morning by articulating some of these pressing problems: We live in an incredibly fast changing world, we have enormous inefficiencies, there are loads of opportunities to change things for the better.

By way of example, he mentioned that fresh water is soon to be the scarcest commodity on the planet, but that if we work smarter, not harder, we can improve our use of the limited water resources we do have.

He explained that a smarter planet is one that is instrumented, interconnected and intelligent.

Instrumented meaning the opportunity to measure inputs and outputs in ways previously unimaginable, to the end of obtaining new and invaluable data.

Interconnected meaning everything, including people, objects, pipelines…use your imagination…are connected one to the other.

And intelligent, meaning we use the instrumentation and interconnectedness to derive new value and insights about the world around us.

Sounds easy, but with the information explosion we’re witnessing, we generate and collect more data than we take advantage of.

Steve informed us that 52% of users say they don’t even have confidence in their everyday information.

All of which leads many to pose the question: What does it mean, and what does it take, to be smarter?

And to provide an answer, Steve then discussed a number of IBM customers who are already well on their way to creating new intelligence (with some assistance by a distinguished panel of several of the IBM customers featured):

• Galway Bay, Ireland, for example, which is creating a smarter water management system.
• Geisinger Health System, which uses IBM InfoSphere Information Server to help doctors deliver better case through evidence-based medicine.
• The New York City Police Department, which built a crime-information system using Cognos 8 Business Intelligence software and which has criminals in NYC running for the exits
• HRAFN, a food producer in Norway using IBM Sensor and Actuator technology to track food through its lifecycle and ensure its safety and compliance with regulatory bodies

If you’ve not read the overview of what constitutes a new intelligence for a smarter planet, you can do so here, and just below you can click to watch the TV spot we recently produced to highlight the importance of fostering this new intelligence.

Putting data into action!

Tuesday AM @ IOD

Hey there, IODers…the full tent is in full swing here in the Mandalay Bay H, the Zippers have just left the stage, and we’re now watching a video about Smarter Cities.

Speaking of which, a quick announcement: Tonight’s networking event is being moved indoors to Baynote rooms A, B, and C.

Hope to see you there!

Mashing Pumpkins: New IBM Cognos Mashup Tool

I remember my first mashup.

It changed the way I thought about the Internet.

You’re hearing from someone who still remembers gopher and WAIS, mind you.

But you never forget your first mashup.

Mine was HousingMaps…as I’m sure it was for so many others.

But to see the geospatial relationship between Craig’s List apartment listings and Google Maps…well, it was like seeing Geranimals for the first time.

The mixing and matching provided an elegant intersection of two critical information sets, and in the process revealed all kinds of information that otherwise would have remained hidden.

But there’s another first…So far as I know, this is the first time IBM has ever released breaking news, unembargoed, to bloggers in advance of the major media.

For my money, even as an IBM communications person, we’ve just passed a milestone not unlike the bump we passed over with the advent of HousingMaps.

And so here’s the news: As part of its continued focus on business analytics, IBM is announcing tomorrow…err, tonight…an expansion of its industry-leading enterprise mashup portfolio.

This includes the latest version of IBM Mashup Center, as well as a new offering from our friends at Cognos, the IBM Cognos 8 Mashup Service.

IBM is also announcing some new clients that are already gaining value and helping their organizations use information as a strategic asset (another key meme emerging here at Info on Demand 2009).

Here’s the mindblower: Every day more than 15 petabytes of data are created, and mashups can help folks make sense of too much information (there it is again).

Mashup technologies can empower not only the business decision makers — they can also help decision-makers at the employee level to gain new insights from previously hard to access data (from places far and wide, say, like the Cloud?)

By way of example, Kent County in the U.K. is using IBM mashup technology to bring transparency to government, by offering its citizens a pilot program with 570 different information feeds that can be combined and shared online.

Sunshine, my only sunshine…you make me happy, when MPs are expensing their moats….

So let’s say you’re moving out to Ramsgate and you want to build a mashup that reveals several variables: average household income, school enrollment levels, location of doctors accepting new patients…you get the gist.

In terms of the hard news, the new IBM Cognos 8 Mashup Service provides an API that automatically and securely exposes content from IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence as a Web service for use in other operational applications, business processes, and mashups.

This capability is going to help Cognos BI end users to more easily (and quickly) make informed business decisions in their daily context.

People like me!  People who are constantly being asked for the latest and greatest Web metrics data, for example!

Call it useful IT for the common people!  Woo hoo!

By way of example, say you have Dilbert the sales manager who is responsible for many retail outlets.

This new tool will help Dilbert easily overlay sales reports onto his GIS app to gain a quick, visual snapshot of store performance and, more specifically, identify trouble spots where they’re not selling as many Dilbert pellets.

That way, he knows who to sic Dogbert on to increase those pellet sales!

In conclusion…did I really just write that?…The latest version of IBM Mashup Center software is expected to be available in November, IBM Cognos 8 Mashup Service in December.

You can check out details of the Cognos solution on SlideShare.