IBM Voices

Network visualization and pivot tables

Michelina M Jones — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:21:18 GMT

Guest post from Frank van Ham, Master Inventor, Information Visualization and Visual Interaction Expert

Many years ago I pursued a Computer Science PhD by trying to find better ways to give people insight in the structure of large networks. With large network data, I mean data that describes connections between entities. You might think about the local network of your friends on Facebook, a very large database of phone calls between different people, relationships between different genes in a genome or software dependencies in a large code base. Network data can be found in almost any context, but traditionally we haven’t been very good at giving users an overview of what is going on in said network. Visualization is a critical component here, as it’s very hard for humans to form a mental image of what is going on without actually seeing a visual rendition of the network in question. To prove my point I’ll let you make a mental image of this set of network data (without grabbing pen and paper, no cheating!).

[(1->2),(2->3),(1->4),(2->5),(3->6),(4->5),(5->6),(4->7),(5->8),(6->9),(7->8),(8->9)]

The most straightforward way to approach the problem is to create tools that extract the network data from a database and subsequently render this network. Arguably this helps the user figure out what is going on, detect high level structure and maybe be triggered for further investigation. There are plenty of algorithms that will convert the dataset I described above into a visual representation of a 3x3 grid. Watching these algorithms perform their magic can be mesmerizing and the images they generate can certainly be captivating in some cases. For example consider these displays of the Internet backbone (left) and a network of gene interrelations (right).

Captivating maybe, but I’d argue that they’re not particularly useful to learn anything from the underlying data itself. The most we can glean from these diagrams is a rough clustering of nodes (assuming the clustering we find is not an artifact of the layout algorithm). The visualization research community (including myself) has developed a number of methods to avoid having to deal with hairballs, such as adjacency matrix representations, clustering methods, visual distortion techniques, different layout techniques or data abstraction techniques. All of these make the problem somewhat less glaring, but none of them really solves the core issue, which is mostly one of too much data at the wrong level of detail. The core problem is that there is not one fixed level of detail: depending on the task I’m interested in, I might need to investigate my data from a different perspective.

So, let’s step back to back to business analytics for a moment. One of the key interfaces to data in many of today’s business analytics application is the pivot table. Pivot tables allow us to very quickly aggregate millions and millions of data rows into smaller grids that summarize the data into typically two dimensions and plot aggregated number at the intersection of different members. Many basic visualizations (though not all of them) are just different renditions of data in a pivot table. For example here are a number of dashboards generated by IBM Cognos Insight, which are driven by the crosstab definitions above the table.

IBM Cognos Insight driving visualizations through crosstabs.

Crosstabs for structured data can generally be defined by assigning one categorical set of values to the rows, one categorical set of values to the columns and designate one numerical attribute to drive the values in the grid. This allows me to generate rollups of my data from different perspectives: I can view total amount sales by business unit and geography or I can view the total number of products sold by product color and age category.

Now consider a usecase where I’m operating an international airline. I have a very large database of flight bookings from each of my customers. Each flight consists of a number attributes, including origin airport code, destination airport code, customer id, flight designation, booking date, price etcetera. Just like I would do with normal business data I can generate crosstabs that would explain me the total revenue booked per destination airport by year, by dragging years to the columns, destination airport to the rows and selecting the sum of the price as the measure I want to display inside the grid. However, I can also generate a crosstab that would give me the total number of passengers travelling between different airports, by dragging destination to columns, origin to rows and selecting a count function on customerid as the value I want to display in my grid. That will get me a weighted matrix of the number of connections between airports which I can then easily convert into a graph display.

Converting a crosstab (left) into a network display (right).

Even though a five by five crosstab could be considered as small, in many real world cases the number of rows and columns can be in the hundreds. Often I don’t want to report network data at that high level of detail and I want to report on aggregated number of passengers travelling between states, not between airports. In that case, I can specify that the data on both of the edges of my crosstab should be aggregated up to the state level in almost exactly the same way as I would for a regular crosstab. The same comment goes for weighting the connections based on the aggregated revenue for each leg. All I’d have to do is select a different value to display in the cells.

We can roll up networks, just like we can rollup pivot tables.

In the above small sample cases, I’ve reduced the number of nodes in my diagram by aggregating connections up to higher levels in the associated hierarchies. Though in the sample the reduction is small, you can imagine that I could easily aggregate arbitrarily many connections into a much smaller number of aggregated connections. If you compare the two network layouts above you’ll see aggregation is consistent: if there is a connection between two airports, there will be a connection between their associated states at the higher level. The one disadvantage is that the aggregated crosstabs will generally be much denser than their non-aggregated counterparts, which in turn makes layouts harder. This can be partially solved by applying a filter to all resulting cells based on simple weight or more complex statistical properties.

The idea I’ve sketched here is not new of course, as the core ideas behind it appeared in an existing approach called ‘pivotGraph’ for networks, which defines similar rollup operations. I think one powerful, yet underexplored, approach for gaining insight into networks is similar to the one we use for gaining insight into large amounts of transactional data: by providing users with a flexible means to generate aggregated summary data along dimensions of interest.

Why stop the insight with this article? Visit IBM’s visualization hub, IBM Many Eyes and join over 100,000 like-mined visualization enthusiasts, academia and professionals, including additional insights from Frank van Ham and other IBM visualization luminaries.

Frank van Ham is a well-known research scientist and an IBM Master Inventor with over a decade in experience in designing and deploying interactive information visualization. Some of his past projects include Many Eyes, a site for collaborative visualization and SequoiaView, a visual disk browser. Dr. van Ham currently works with the IBM Business Analytics division on integrating visualization into IBM's product portfolio.

Vision 2013 wrap-up: Sales Performance Management

Michelina M Jones — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:35:26 GMT

Guest post from Michael Meisenheimer, SPM Industry Solutions, IBM Business Analytics

Follow Michael on Twitter @mikemeisenheime

Vision 2013 in the books, having brought together more than 1,200 participants from sales operations, incentive compensation, finance and risk to learn, share best practices, network and have some fun. We were thrilled that people from across different industries, company sizes and locations (record for the longest journey? Sydney to Orlando!) found common purpose in their goals of driving growth, managing risk and optimizing performance.

Over three days we heard from some outstanding keynote speakers like Les Rechan, General Manager IBM Business Analytics and Jim Kavanaugh, Vice President and Controller, IBM. The special sales performance management event Monday evening brought with it a night of mystery, as our special guests read palms, told fortunes and entertained the attendees with magic.

Kicking off day two, Harry M. Jansen Kraemer Jr., Professor of Management and Strategy at Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and Former Chairman and CEO of Baxter International talked about the impact values-based leaders can have on the organization when they "do the right thing". We also heard from Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour, America’s First African-American Female Combat Pilot. Vernice used her personal journey to encourage the audience to create breakthroughs in their own lives.

I’d like to extend a huge thank you to the customer speakers that shared their stories. The conference participants receive a tremendous amount of value from these sessions. I’d also like to thank our partners who supported Vision; without you we wouldn’t have been able to put together such a successful event.

Market leading new products and product enhancements. Best practices from customers, industry experts and IBM team members. Making new connections and networking. By themselves these three things made for a memorable week. But let’s be honest; a private evening at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios provided the icing on the cake.

Again, thanks to everyone who attended, spoke at and supported Vision 2013. And with this year’s event coming to a close, now is the time to mark your calendars for next year. For Vision 2014 we’ll be back in Orlando May 18 – 22.

We look forward to seeing you there!

For more info:
If you missed the livestream, listen to the recorded Vision 2013 keynote sessions.

When Disaster Strikes in a Socially-Connected World

Werner Kruck — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:20:47 GMT

Werner Kruck, Chief Operating Officer, Security First Insurance Company

By Werner Kruck

You may think of Twitter and Facebook as a way to catch up on the latest gossip, but social media often becomes a critical lifeline and communications channel after a natural disaster. In addition to using it to locate loved ones, friends and emergency resources, people affected by a natural disaster often turn to social media to contact their insurance company for information and to start the claims process. Homeowners insurance companies must prepare for the reality that today’s policyholders will use any means available to connect with them, including posting a question or comment on the company’s Facebook page or Twitter account.

Florida homeowners insurance companies are extremely prone to the challenge of dealing with disaster in a socially connected world – Florida has more property and people exposed to hurricanes than any other state in the nation. As the fourth largest homeowners insurance company in Florida, Security First Insurance Company understands the importance of adapting to the widespread use of social media and leveraging modern technology to improve the recovery process for our nearly 180,000 customers. As a result, we have partnered with IBM and Integritie, an IBM-business partner, to develop Social Media Capture, Control, Communication, and Compliance (SMC4).

SMC4 integrates social media and email communications, and using IBM Content Analytics with Enterprise Search and IBM Content Collector for Email, the system automatically prioritizes and routes incoming requests to the appropriate employees based on the content of the message. SMC4 enables Security First Insurance Company to effectively manage a high volume of requests we anticipate to receive after a hurricane and improve the response time to our customers. SMC4 also uses IBM FileNet Content Manager software to archive all communication for compliance review.

The challenge for companies responsible for assisting customers after a disaster in a socially connected world is capturing and prioritizing all incoming messages and developing a quick and appropriate response. According to the American Red Cross, at least 76 percent of the general public would expect assistance to arrive within one to three hours from posting a request for help on a social media website. Built on IBM software, SMC4 eliminates silos and redundancy—expediting the resolution process for policyholders and allowing us to follow through on our promise to be there for Floridians storm after storm, year after year.

Technorati Tags: Big Data, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, mobile computing, smarter mobile computing, smarter social business, social media

How Digital Marketing Helped Decide the Outcome of the Presidential Election

Steve Hamm — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:14:41 GMT

Teddy Goff

Teddy Goff led a team of more than 200 people focused on digital media for President Obama’s re-election campaign. They generated more than 133 million video views, developed innovative tools to build grassroots communities, and raised more than $690 million. Recently, he and two colleagues formed a strategic marketing consultancy, Precision Strategies. Here, Goff talks about the importance of cultivating relationships and how President Obama’s re-election campaign ultimately relied on the effective use of predictive analytics.

What was the digital campaign’s key contribution to President Obama’s re-election?

It put supporters back into a primary role. We realized the most important thing we could do on the digital side was to cultivate relationships with the supporters on e-mail, Facebook, Twitter. We wanted to keep them inspired, engaged and informed. If we gave those people a reason to hit the retweet button every now and again, hit the share button, they could reach almost everyone in the United States more powerfully than we as a campaign operation ever could. President Obama on election day had about 34 million Facebook fans. Those people were friends with 98 percent of the U.S.-based Facebook population, which is more than the number of people who vote.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Why are social networks so powerful in politics and business?

Social networking technologies are giving ordinary people more resources, more access to information and to each other. People are so turned off to politics today. They’re turned off to political advertising. But they trust their friends. It’s the same in business. Every business is going to be increasingly relying on ordinary people to transmit their messages. Everyday people can do a lot of damage if they’re not getting a positive experience, or they can become the best marketing engine a business could hope for.

Did you deliberately craft a system of engagement across platforms?

We tried to think about our relationships in as holistic a way as possible. Political campaigns have often thought about online supporters as being a different constituency than offline supporters; volunteers as being different from donors. But most volunteers donate and most donors volunteer. So you’re able to get a much more complete picture of a person if you integrate all sources and we had some success doing that. We wound up toward the end with a unified database that pulled in donor data, online data from clicks, and volunteer data, as well as commercial data. That gave us a much more comprehensive picture of who people were, so we could serve them better.

Can you talk about the importance of authenticity in an age of social media?

It’s simple. You can’t fake it. You cannot use a lot of banner advertising or a clever tweet to paper over the fact that your product is no good or your corporate values are awful or that you don’t treat people well. All of these changes in technology are making companies be better because they’ve got no choice. They can’t get away with not being authentic. Sure, your tweets should be clever and your banner ads should be great, but all of that stuff decreases in importance as the Internet imposes greater accountability and visibility into the business.

Do you have any advice for how companies and can be more agile in this world of real-time information?

Well, the first thing I would talk about is structure. I do some consulting with large corporations that have a marketing department and a sales department and a PR department and a communications department and maybe a brand department. It’s an organizational scheme that pre-dates the Internet. That may have worked for creating a TV ad or a press release, but that’s not a process conducive to firing off a tweet out during the Super Bowl blackout because every department is fighting over the new toy. By contrast, in the Obama campaign, we didn’t have to deal with legacy systems, and so there was never a question that digital would be a free-standing department co-equal to everything else. As a result, we didn’t have to have a cross-departmental battle over every last thing or argue our case to a manager who was coming at things from a completely different point of view. I guess the point is that certain structures and incentive systems prevent agility. It’s better to not have to contend with that.

How did you use predictive analytics?

We predicted where people stood, how likely they were to vote, and even the likelihood that our contact would have an effect. Our analytics team not only predicted how people were going to vote but also how people were going to vote at various times of day. In a way, the entire campaign was predicated on a couple of big predictive models. A campaign has a finite number of door knocks or phone calls that they can make or commercials that they can run. So the whole ballgame is making sure you use those resources as efficiently as possible. You never, ever want to send a volunteer to go knock on a door where the person is not going to vote for President Obama because that’s one fewer door knock you can make. There were certain situations where we determined that a token knock actually had a counterproductive effect. So we weren’t only looking for undecided voters; we were looking for persuadable voters likely to be moved in the right direction. That’s all predictive modeling.

What’s next in your career?

Social media and the Internet are forcing people and organizations and governments to do better work and treat people in a more responsible way. Being involved in that, I think, is a real privilege. I’ve done that in the political world. Doing it in corporate settings or with non-profits sounds like a pretty fun way to keep that going. I do think that certain kinds of injustices, whether it’s bad behavior by companies or politicians, are inevitably going to go away. But it makes a big difference whether they go away in 10 years because people like me are screaming for change at the top of their lungs or in 100 years because the practitioners wind up drowning in the rising tide that they didn’t see coming. Look at what’s happening right now around marriage equality. The issue has completely turned around in nine years and the Internet is driving that. It’s probably inevitable that this issue will be resolved, but I’m a 27-year old gay man and I’d like to see this issue resolved by the time I’m 35 and not 50. The Internet gives people like me the ability push things more quickly than they otherwise could be. I think that’s a good thing, and a good way to spend one’s time and energy.

Technorati Tags: IBM, obama, Teddy Goff

Celebrating our first birthday – A real case implementation with ISDM

Sergio Varga — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:13:21 GMT

In commemoration of the first birthday of the IBM PureSystems family of solutions I decided to take a look at Continue reading

How Cognitive Technologies Can Help Transform the Way Companies and Consumers Connect

Guest — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:13:01 GMT

Manoj Saxena, General Manager, IBM Watson Solutions

By Manoj Saxena

Social and technological shifts are driving rapid change, altering ways in which individuals interact with one another, learn, and attend to their personal and business needs. These shifts offer the potential to strengthen the relationships between companies and their customers—enabling more individual and directed communication and allowing organizations to cater to individual needs. Yet, for many, today’s online customer experiences lack personalization, timeliness and trust.

But what if companies could offer their customers the kind of personalized and knowledgeable assistance when they’re online or on the phone that people have come to expect from top-flight customer service delivered in person?

We believe that a new generation of cognitive systems will do just that. They will provide individuals with intelligent personal digital assistants that interact with them, answer their questions, and help them make complex purchasing decisions or solve problems they’re having with products like cell phones, computers and consumer electronics devices.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A first step in this journey happens this week, when IBM introduces the Watson Engagement Advisor. The technology underlying this service is based on IBM Watson, the computer that beat former grand-champions on the TV quiz show Jeopardy!. Our research and development staff has made Watson 75 percent smaller, 25 percent faster, and have been working hard to improve Watson’s ability to answer consumer-oriented questions. For the first time, with the engagement advisor, we’re bringing Watson to the masses.

Consumers will be able to experience this new level of personalized service through the brands they already have relationships with—their banks and investment advisors, their phone service providers, insurance companies, favorite stores and other trusted organizations. For instance, a bank might offer Watson directly to customers on Web sites and mobile devices to help give them insights regarding retirement and various types of savings instruments like 401K accounts. An individual may begin a dialogue with Watson on their smartphone, but continue later from where they left off on their PC or tablet. Alternatively, a telecommunications firm could equip their call center agents with Watson to assist customers in troubleshooting a problem with a product, service, or billing issue.

(Check out images of the IBM Watson Client Engagement Advisor)

These amazing new capabilities are the next steps on the journey to the era of cognitive systems. We at IBM foresee a dramatic improvement coming in the way people interact with organizations and the role computers will play. The cognitive systems of the future will provide deep reservoirs of knowledge and sharp insights combined with an understanding of needs of the individuals they’re serving. The result will be transformational—helping people and organizations interact, learn, grow and make better decisions.

Since shortly after Watson’s debut on Jeopardy! two years ago, IBM has been improving the technology and finding new uses for it. Our early efforts focused on particular fields, such as health care, where cognitive capabilities can help physicians and patients make more personalized decisions about treatment and care. Now, with the IBM Watson Engagement Advisor, we’re widening the scope that the technology addresses. It’s gratifying and exciting to see how rapidly this technology is developing. And, as far as I’m concerned, this is just the start. This next era of computing is going to touch all of our lives in positive ways we can’t yet imagine.

Technorati Tags: Big Data analytics, business analytics, cognitive systems, IBM Congnitive Computing, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, Jeopardy, smarter analytics

How Innovation Can Fuel Smarter, Faster Financial Advice

Guest — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:11:06 GMT

Joyce Phillips, CEO Global Wealth and Group Managing Director, Marketing, Innovation and Digital, ANZ Banking Group

By Joyce Phillips

It used to be that next generation technology to make humans smarter, faster and at the top of their game was the stuff of cinema and science fiction.

Here at ANZ, we are exploring a groundbreaking solution that holds this very same promise – a cognitive assistant, if you will, that can empower our regional bank advisors to better serve our two million wealth management clients.

To understand why and what we’re doing to foster this innovation, it’s important to start with the perspective of the customer.

Imagine yourself entering a regional bank branch. You’ve arranged an appointment with the branch’s financial advisor, to discuss the life you want for you and your loved ones upon your retirement, and the solutions you need to achieve it.

Two of the key questions you and your advisor need to address are: what types of insurance, retirement and banking solutions do you have now, and do they cover you in a way that will safeguard your assets and yield a secure, well-funded retirement.

The fact is, many customers don’t know the answer to that question.

We do our best to choose the vehicles that can grow assets, protect them and prepare us for retirement. But amidst market fluctuations, changing needs, and a host of new financial solutions and strategies being brought to market every day, it’s hard for customers to gauge whether their trajectory is safe and sound – and in turn, ask the right questions of our advisors.

But what if financial advisors had access to everything they need to know about a customer’s portfolio, with a click of a button – informed by an instant, 360 degree view of what’s right and what needs to be fixed, to usher that customer into the retirement they deserve?

This is where technology comes in; but not just any technology.

The natural resource that can fuel a smarter, faster customer experience is Big Data, or the vast amount of electronically generated and stored information – ranging from account information to market research – that can piece together that 360 degree view for the financial advisor.

ANZ is collaborating with IBM to give our advisors that ability to harness information and make smarter, faster financial recommendations – enabling a customer experience that is simple, safe and steeped in data-informed insights.

The technology that will get us there: Watson, a cognitive computing system that is tailor-made for the customer experience, based on its ability to grasp the subtle context of questions posed in human language, search through a universe of Big Data to find the exact answers its users need, and deliver fast, evidence-based recommendations that can fuel a financial advisor’s advice to clients.

And that is how we’ll empower our advisors to be smarter and faster: by leveraging a groundbreaking innovation that can think like a human, and serve as a dedicated assistant, researcher and guidepost for ANZ’s top-flight team of advisors.

Technorati Tags: ANZ, Big Data, Big Data analytics, Financial Services, ibm watson, innovation, smarter analytics, smarter banking, Watson

New Study: Top Marketing Challenge is Creating and Sustaining Growth

Guest — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:10:15 GMT

Kim Whitler, Contributor for the Forbes CMO Network and Professor at Indiana University

By Kim Whitler

What are the biggest challenges facing marketers across the globe? According to a hot-off-the-presses study conducted globally by IBM (500 marketing managers) across 15 different industries, creating growth (through the acquisition of new customers) and sustaining growth (through superior loyalty) is at the very top. Forty-two percent of respondents suggested that acquiring new customers and 36 percent suggested driving loyalty and satisfaction were the biggest challenges facing their organizations.

While these results aren’t earth-shattering as it is likely that a survey a decade ago would have yielded a similar pattern, what is surprising is the items at the bottom.

Only 21 percent of the respondents suggested that measuring ROI was the most challenging problem they faced, behind branding, leveraging data, understanding and effectively using social channels, and creating positive experiences for consumers. A few years ago, measuring ROI was at the top of everybody’s list. This perhaps suggests a sign of the times – that a tough marketplace, increased competition, a more global marketplace, and more savvy consumers has made growth especially challenging.

Other key findings from the survey suggest that the marketers who are driving better firm results are doing something different than their less successful counterparts. They tend to be significantly more adept at tracking, technology, and analytics and use these tools to develop more sophisticated and adaptable solutions. They are more engaged in all customer service interactions and tend to personalize marketing offers. In short, stronger firm-wide leaders are more engaged in all customer interaction, and seem to have greater competency in what is necessary to be successful today.

What Does This Mean For Marketers?

Marketers Matter: While the importance, value, and role of marketers – and marketing – in the firm may be debated, this suggests that marketers are focusing on what they can uniquely deliver, which is growth. Many functions are focused on internal operations and are not directly responsible for creating and sustaining growth in the same way that marketing is. This data suggests that when it comes to building growth, marketers are focused on being the growth engine for the firm.
Learn From the Successful: With unprecedented change and the plethora of articles talking about what marketers need to do to manage growth (e.g., manage big data, collaborate with finance and IT, integrate an omni-channel world, etc.) what needs to be done is clear. What isn’t clear is how to do it. A next step from this research that would be valuable is to create case studies of what the top marketers are actually doing that enables them to be successful. While there are a myriad of conferences for C-level marketers, what is missing is a business-school like approach to understanding how to solve these complex problems. A 1 hour discussion can’t really completely dissect the challenges associated with making this happen.
Acquire the Right Skills: This research suggests that the individuals who are driving better firm results just seem to be more competent at navigating the more analytical, technical, and complex environment that exists today. People who went to business school 20 or 30 years ago either need a refresher course or need to generate the intellectual capital required of today’s environment.

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Follow Kim on twitter @kimwhitler and read her columns at Forbes.com.

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Big Data analytics, IBM Smarter Planet, Indiana University, innovation, smarter marketing

An Inflection Point for CFOs: The Need to Anticipate Change

William Fuessler — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:08:42 GMT

William Fuessler, Financial Transformation Leader, IBM Global Business Services

By William Fuessler

I have always loved the finance profession, and thrived on the challenging nature of the business.

No two days, no two weeks, or two months are ever the same.

Change is virtually the only constant in today’s business. Within the past decade, the rising forces of digitization, globalization and Big Data have accelerated the pace of change and have made the landscape fiercely more competitive.

Having an intimate view of the business, finance leaders have access and insight over details large and small related to business unit performance, costs, trends in customer growth and paths to innovation. They know the peaks and valleys, the risks and rewards, and what’s working, and what’s not.

Armed with this insight, finance leaders have the power to extend their influence over decisions related to a broad set of priorities related to corporate spend, new product development, customer growth strategies, R&D, HR/talent investments, and acquisition strategies just to name a few areas.

But knowing the business isn’t sufficient anymore. Maintaining the financial integrity of the business is a given. To stay ahead, CFOs need to nimbly anticipate and respond to change. The winners can proactively influence business strategy and predict certain outcomes.

Today we are convening a forum with an esteemed group of 100 CFOs and CIOs in NYC to discuss the evolving role of the CFO, the role that technology, process, data and skills play in the enterprise, and the threats and opportunities associated with Big Data and advanced analytics. I am excited to engage in a dialogue with my finance and IT peers about the future of my function, something I care deeply about.

This much is clear: we are at an inflection point – and the CFO’s role is on the verge of change. It’s not about keeping score and analyzing the past – but about having the headlights and insight to capture the growth opportunities that matter. The recent IBM IBV CFO Study has found that CFOs who excel at both using analytics for business insight and driving finance efficiency continue to outperform their peers across all phases of the economic cycle.

The CFO can be the pacesetter to bring the discipline of the back office to the front office. The true change agents will drive business model innovation to drive a continuous cycle of transformation. That’s the shining promise, power and potential of the profession in the future.

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Follow the discussion at www.ibm.com/finance.

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Big Data analytics, CFO, chief financial officer, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, smarter analytics

Empowering a New Era of Risk Management with Analytics

Michael Zerbs — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:07:12 GMT

Michael Zerbs,Vice President, IBM Risk Analytics

By Michael Zerbs

Sensitivity around risk management is no longer solely a concern for large financial services organizations. In an economy still freshly scarred by the global financial crisis, what we are seeing is a pervasive questioning of the fundamental assumptions that large organizations, and individual investors so easily took for granted pre-crisis.

Questions that are now top of mind include, do I fully understand risk exposures across my organization? Can I trust my governance processes to sufficiently ensure accurate risk reporting? Can I accurately quantify the riskiness of a transaction? And, is my point of reference for riskiness really reliable?

These questions – while shaped by evolving risk regulation – are business issues, not compliance issues. Organizations in a wide variety of industries now understand more than ever that risk is intrinsically bound to decision making, and that navigating this relationship between risk and decision making is critical for performance. Our clients are challenged to operate and perform optimally in an environment that is increasingly complex, regulated and competitive. However, thanks to analytics they now have the tools at their disposal to harness insights that simply were not previously available.

Click here to view the embedded video.

IBM is excited to be leading the charge in this space, investing in key technological advancements that will address the evolving risk needs faced by our clients.

Of course, technology alone is not the answer. The successful adoption of an enterprise risk management platform requires a truly pervasive approach to risk management. To that end, IBM has sponsored The Risk Enabled Enterprise – a two-year research initiative by Chartis Research, the leading provider of research and analysis for risk technology. Research will cover key enablers such as culture, organizational structure, data, systems and processes.

To learn more about this research initiative, see last week’s blog by John Macdonald. I explore a similar theme in my latest editorial article, with a focus on trust. That is, trust in the quality and reliability of the underlying data and operational processes, trust in the integrity of the analytics, and trust in the management processes driving reliable actions emanating from risk insights.

We explored these topics and many more and from a variety of angles at Vision 2013, IBM’s premier global conference for finance, risk and incentive compensation professionals. If you missed it, I encourage you to check out the Livestream of the Risk keynote session.

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Big Data analytics, Financial Services, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, risk management, smarter analytics, smarter financial services

Weekly Round-up: May 24, 2013

GBYehuda — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:47:31 GMT

Articles from across the Web that we found interesting, the week of May 20, 2012.

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

This week: Portals.

Learn 10 key mobile terms in five minutes

David Judge — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:15:30 GMT

In the mobile space one thing is clear: we are awash with acronyms and terms that can be confusing! With this in mind, the following is my attempt at demystifying these terms in order to help you understand what fits where, when and how:

1. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is possibly the most recognized acronym when it comes to enterprise mobility, and in one way or another it’s intrinsically linked with all the other terms described here. Put simply, BYOD programs allow an employee to access corporate resources from a personally owned device rather than having to utilize one that is corporately owned and supplied. “Bringing your own device” theoretically means that you get to use your device of choice and also operate one device for both work and personal use.

2. MDM (mobile device management) refers to the software and processes that control device-level security and access policies on a mobile device. Examples include setting the strength of password required for a user to access the device, or selecting and enforcing a blacklist of applications that cannot be installed. MDM can also be used to control and manage access to secure email on a mobile device as well as provide a platform for an enterprise application store. Obviously MDM can support BYOD and corporately owned devices by providing the management layer for ensuring that devices are secure at a device policy level. Tools such as IBM Endpoint Manager, MobileIron and Airwatch are just a few examples of MDM software.

3. MAM (mobile application management) shifts the focus of access control from device-level policy to individual application-level policy. Examples include being able to set copy and paste ability on individual applications, or setting password and password strength. MAM is seen as the next wave of MDM, and many MDM providers are supporting the ability to add MAM to new and existing applications. In truth, you are likely to need a combination of both for BYOD and corporate devices.

4. MIM (mobile information management), like MAM, is another method of controlling access granularity on a mobile device. MIM, however, places the access control onus on the data rather than the app. For example, email attachments containing sensitive data could be encoded with a specific set of access parameters. These parameters could define the approved applications and security configurations that must be present on the device in order to actually access the information that you received.

5. MEAP (mobile enterprise applications platform) is a software platform for developing, integrating and deploying mobile applications. MEAPs differ from traditional development environments by providing bundled functionality specifically designed to help ease the mobile application development process. As well as the development tool, MEAPs also provide the relevant components and software infrastructure to support the mass deployment of mobile applications. IBM Worklight is an example of a MEAP, and a great introduction to the platform can be found here.

6. MAPM (mobile application platform management) is an entity either in house or outsourced that manages the technical environments that house the MEAP and the mobile applications developed using the MEAP. MAPM services will include the design and implementation of enterprise infrastructures to support production and test environments, and will provide the ongoing service desk to monitor and support the infrastructure.

7. Containerization was originally the ability to utilize application containers to isolate and control access to corporate resources on a mobile device. Email is the most well-known example. Containerization has certainly evolved and is now providing users with a completely separate workspace or persona on the device. This persona typically houses all the corporate data and applications and is centrally managed by IT.

8. VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) enables users to remotely access dedicated desktop sessions that execute all processing directly in the data center. Connecting to the desktop is initiated by the user through a local client or web browser that when accessed utilizes an efficient desktop delivery protocol such as RDP, PCoIP, ICA or HDX to display the desktop session on the user’s screen. This remote delivery mechanism using only a protocol means that desktops can be accessed from literally any device—or, to qualify, any device that can interpret the display protocol.

9. Workspace aggregators are solutions with many moving parts! Their aim is to provide users with a single sign-on portal to access their desktops, applications and data from any mobile device. Examples of workspace aggregators include VMware Horizon and Citrix Cloudgateway.

10. EMM (enterprise mobility management) cannot be attributed to a single solution; rather, it encompasses all of the tools, technologies and processes that are implemented within an enterprise to manage mobility.

So to pull it all together you would:

Implement a BYOD program to allow employees to use their personal mobile devices in the enterprise to access corporate resources
Use MDM to control device policy and configure security access on mobile devices
Use MAM to control security and access to individual applications on mobile devices
Use MIM to control security and access to individual data on mobile devices
Use a MEAP as a platform to develop and deliver your mobile applications
Use MAPM to manage your MEAP
Implement containerization to control access to corporate resources on a mobile device
Implement VDI to manage and provide user desktops from the cloud
Implement a workspace aggregator to consolidate access to users’ desktops, applications and data from the cloud (theoretically on “any device”)
EMM? The tools and technology for managing all of the above!

Did you learn something in five minutes!? Let me know your thoughts or follow me on Twitter @themobilejudge for all things mobile.

Technorati Tags: BYOD, Containerization, Enterprise mobility management, IBM Endpoint Manager, IBM Worklight, Mobile application management, Mobile device management, Mobile enterprise applications platform, Mobile information management, Virtual desktop infrastructure, Workspace aggregators

The post Learn 10 key mobile terms in five minutes appeared first on IBM Mobile.

PureSystems: An Expert Solution to simplify IT – Taking center stage at SolutionsConnect 2013

Els Luunk — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:11:15 GMT

The information technology eco system is evolving and rapidly transforming as you read this. If you and your organization Continue reading

The Top 5 Checkpoints to Building a Smarter Workforce

Guest — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:53:38 GMT

Troy Kanter, COO of Kenexa, an IBM company

By Troy Kanter

Successful organizations typically recognize three critical facets of their workforce. For these companies, it’s all about capability (what the workforce already knows); capacity (what it has the ability to learn); and culture (what it can do collectively).

Understanding the three C’s is just the first step in the process of creating a Smarter Workforce. In my experience, it’s critical to answer five key questions regarding the design of the workforce to help ensure success, both for the employee and the organization.

1. What are the core components that are critical to the success of your organization?

Much like buying a car, what feature or capability denotes a successful purchase? Is it safety, gas mileage, speed or something else? It’s the same with business. For some companies, they need their workforce to deliver tailored solutions for customers. For others, it’s important to deliver top-of-line customer service, or expertise or creative ideas.

2. What are the job “families” within your workforce that are critical to success?

In other words, what job families will help set your business apart from your competitors? You can determine this by analyzing workforce data and pinpointing the critical areas that impact your bottom line most. For example, one company we worked with analyzed its data to discover that customer service was the No. 1 driver to sales. When they started focusing on delivering better customer service, profits rose.

3. Now that you recognize your most critical job family, how do you attract the very best people for those jobs?

By analyzing your workforce through the scope of human insights and behavioral science, you can create a blueprint that helps you understand the capacity, capability and cultural tendencies of your most successful employees and discover ways to find more people who are like them. Until now, these characteristics were determined only by feelings and intuition. When you attract and hire the right people for the right job the first time, your employees are more engaged, turnover falls and productivity rises.

4. What motivates or demotivates your best talent?

This starts by knowing where and how to source the right people (both internally and externally) by administering assessments and employee engagement surveys that test for the attributes your workforce needs to be successful. You also must know your current workforce in terms of skill and experiences. A Smarter Workforce motivates its employees based on what they know about their most successful people.

5. What tools do you need to empower your workforce and measure success?

Smart companies use enterprise social tools to build relationships and skills, provide feedback and deliver information that is timely and useful. They survey employees to assess engagement and drive performance. And they use data analytics to glean insights into their workforce that were never available until now.

When companies discover the answers to these questions, they create a Smarter Workforce. A workforce where time-to-hire is reduced, productivity is increased, turnover is lowered and retention is increased—in turn, the business is able to get products to market faster, increase flexibility, share collective intelligence, be more creative and innovative, drive higher revenue growth and truly understand how employees impact the bottom line.

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For more information about Smarter Workforce, please see IBM’s POV* in today’s Wall Street Journal and view additional resources here.

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Big Data analytics, IBM smarter analytics, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, Kenexa, Smarter HR, Smarter Workforce, social business, talent acquisition

Big Data In Danger of Definitional Overkill

james-kobielus — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:41:36 GMT

Big data evangelization is not for the faint of heart. At a recent industry panel that I was on, the moderator joked that there must be a petabyte-scale big-data cluster somewhere brimming with definitions of big data.

Connected devices are taking over the world

Martin Keen — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:15:24 GMT

Next time you're home, take a look around and count how many devices you have that can connect to your home wifi. Almost certainly there are phones, laptops, tablets, and probably a desktop computer as well. Collectively, these connected devices are forming the Internet of Things – the internet of the future that smartly integrates billions of devices and processes across industries and global locations.

Continue reading

South side story: IT integration and reality

Timothy Durniak — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:45:43 GMT

What if there were a way for the agencies responsible for improving housing and those providing healthcare, counseling, food assistance and job training to communicate? Investing in IT infrastructure can provide productivity multiplier effects that lead to improved services.

Continue reading

PureSystems for Managed Services Providers: Learn more at the IBM Edge2013 MSP Summit

Todd Austin — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:03:08 GMT

These days, businesses are turning more and more to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) for their IT needs. What’s driving this Continue reading

We heart z/OS BCPii

Pratin Ashtekar — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:03:22 GMT

By Karen Ransom, Lead Function Tester for z/OS BCPii and

Rita Beisel, Information Developer, IBM System z Information Solutions

Welcome to the first entry in our z/OS BCPii blog. BCPii is rapidly becoming a favorite with z/OS clients as they discover how easy it is to create BCPii applications to manage their installations accurately and efficiently. The BCPii team is eager to open up a new fun and informal communication channel with our clients. Our blogging team is diverse and includes members from BCPii development and test, information development, and customer support. We are here to help and are enthusiastically planning BCPii topics for future blogs. Here's a sampling of some of our future BCPii blogging topics:

BCPii Basics: How to use BCPii to manage your installation
An interview with BCPii Lead Developer, Steve Warren
A look at the easy-to-use summary tables for HWIQUERY and HWISET, HWICMD, and HWIEVENT
An introduction to the BCPii samples
How to use the BCPii APIs for z/OS UNIX
How to use BCPii REXX support
BCPii installation and setup tips
How to create a BCPii app to automate LPAR setup
The 10 most frequently asked questions about BCPii
How to avoid the most common mistakes of BCPii users
Introducing IBM products that use BCPii

We're even planning a 'Dear BCPii' blog (similar to the beloved 'Dear Abby' column) where the BCPii team members answer your most pressing BCPii questions, so don't be shy about posting them. If you have additional BCPii topics to suggest, or a cool BCPii app that you would like to share, let us know. It would be great to get some 'I Love BCPii' testimonials from our satisfied BCPii users out there.

We hope you'll become a regular reader of our blog and be inspired to participate! We'd love to get a conversation going with you.

Karen Ransom is an Advisory Software Engineer and the Function Test Team Lead for BCPii. She has 28 years of z/OS development and test experience, spanning the IPCS, SLIP, GRS, Parallel Sysplex, and BCPii components. She enjoys gardening, and walking or biking the beautiful trails in the scenic Hudson River Valley of New York State.

Rita Beisel is an Information Developer at IBM in Poughkeepsie, NY. She has experience writing for z/OS MVS, z/VM, RACF, DB2, and DFSMS and has several published articles in IBM's Hot Topics magazine. She also likes to do interface design, surveys, and usability testing.

What Does Big Data Have To Do with Tiny Atoms?

greateribm — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:02:53 GMT

By now, you’ve probably seen the landmark IBM achievement that is “A Boy and His Atom” – the world’s smallest film – that was made by moving atoms with a Scanning Tunneling Microscope.

See the movie that holds the Guinness World Records™ record for the World’s Smallest Stop-Motion Film:

In this article from smartplanet.com, IBM Research Scientist Andreas Heinrich, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, CA, ties it all together by explaining what Big Data has to do with tiny atoms and the world’s tiniest film.

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What is Big Data?

Video: A Boy and His Atom: How It Was Made

Greater IBM, what did you think of this IBM Expertise article, part of our May series on emerging trends? Let us know in the Leave a Reply field below.

- Posted by Regan Kelly