CIO focus in 2010 - Light-weight Services
I agree with the results of the Gartner study reviewed in this Infoworld article. Small, very focused projects are getting prioritized. Our 2010 roadmap is filled with smaller projects.

According to the Gartner survey, the top 10 technology priorities for 2010 are (our top 5 are in bold):

1. virtualization
2. cloud computing
3. "Web 2.0" collaborative technologies
4. networking and VoIP
5. analytics and business intelligence
6. mobile
7. data and document storage and management
8. services and service-oriented architecture
9. security technologies
10. IT management

They do not explicitly mention it, but we have seen an uptick in the adoption of SAAS products that can be deployed quickly. We are more focused on SAAS over SOA.

CES 2010
I really enjoyed my trip to CES after 2 years.

What I loved:

• 3D Plasma TVs from Panasonic; 6.9 mm thin LED TV from LG (I did not manage to check-out Sony's 3D TVs)
• 3D movies (clip from How to train a Dragon from Dreamworks)
• real-time 3D movie editing on Intel platforms
• Project Natal (coverage on cnet) at Microsoft (human body as game controller)
• Nokia's approach to impacting the lives of the poorest while building a very successful global company (Project Progress with lonely planet has some excellent stories and videos)

What I Liked:

• Netbook from Nokia
• Netbook from Sony
• Blackberry Presenter
• Flo TV from Qualcomm
  
• New Intel processors
• Ford's approach towards building automobile technology

So What?

• Microsoft Windows 7 and Zune HD
• Intel Appup
• CE companies have suddenly turned green
• PCs and TVs will seamlessly inter-connect and that is useful

Big Disappointments:

• No Apple, Google, Dell, HP, etc.
  
• Lack of tablet PCs
• eReaders
• Lack of Mobile Software Companies at CES
• Power outage before the first keynote

Cool Geek Toys

• Parrot AR.Drone controlled by an iPhone
• Cool Robots from Japan (mainly toys)

I also tweeted from the conference.

Senator Mark Warner @ TiE-DC
Attended the Annual Gala of TiE-DC (re-named from The Indus Entrepreneur to The International Entrepreneur). Senator Mark Warner delivered the Keynote. His message to entrepreneurs, focus on: Energy, Education and Equity (over debt).

Here are a few pics and coverage of the event on Bisnow.

Vivek & Aneesh
Fed CIO and CTO talked about the open government directive during a web-cast this morning:



The web drives Transparency. Transparency in a Democracy is very empowering!

Chris Hughes
Co-founder of Facebook and developer of mybarakobama.com

I attended a interesting talk by Chris hosted by the TechCouncil of MD earlier this week. Two major successes at such a young age! V Impressive! I wanted to hear what he had to say.

Chris started by noting that Information is a record of an idea. The significant change is that Information now distributed very quickly via networked screens. The web allows everyone becomes an author and as a result, people are overwhelmed by information - and it isn't getting better anytime soon.

A few metrics from Facebook:

• 350 mil users
• 50 pct users come back on any given day
• average user has 130 friends
• 70 mil users access the site using mobile devices

His thoughts about Facebook that I found interesting:

• You come Facebook as yourself, use your real name and meet people you know. This is unlike any other site.
• It is a collection of a closed networks
• Trust and privacy are paramount: Facebook is planning to release a feature to allow users to create lists of friends and then expose certain content to a specific list - I eagerly look forward to this!
  
• Facebook respects the power of the crowd
• Ensuring that the platform is useful to the users is the only way to remain relevant and keep the users engaged. This was the key focus when Chris developed mybarakobama.com.
  
• The turning point was when they opened up Facebook as a platform to allow anyone to develop applications on (repeated by Apple on iPhone and by Twitter)
• Facebook lets 350 million people create Information: digital imprints of all out actions, ideas, etc.
• All functionality is developed in a interative manner: start simple, see what works, iterate

How is the web changing society?

• transparency
• choice
• ability to create

Here are a few links to media coverage for the event: photos from the event on Flickr, an article on The Washington Business Journal, Tech/Fed Bisnow’s article, Bisonow's article and comments on Network Solutions.

Cutting out Google ... may not be as bad for WSJ as it sounds
If you are associated with the media industry, you are watching this news very closely.

I have spoken with many people on what they thought about the Rupert's potential deal with Microsoft. Everyone either believes it is terrible idea or that, with their backs to the wall, the news media industry needs to do something drastic or be ready to be subjected to constant blood-letting over the next several years.

Here is why I feel that this may not be all bad for WSJ: If you are NOT a WSJ subscriber and search for and find a link to a WSJ article on Google, Bing or any other distributor of news, you are allowed to read that one article but not navigate to any other WSJ content. WSJ gives non-subscribers access to that one article for two reasons:

1. To get a chance to try and convert you to a subscriber. I am very sure that the conversion rate is dismal.
2. Monetize the click by displaying ads. The CPM rates on these ads must be terrible as the WSJ does not know you and your interests. The search engine provides the search term used by you to get to the story. However, click-through rates for ads determined by search terms must be very poor.

This is why the deal makes sense.

If you are wondering how it applies to the other News Corp properties, here is a Guardian article on how James Harding, editor at The Times, feels about putting their content behind a subscription.

Marketing in the Social World ... Listen before you speak
Read this article on the WSJ. Marketers are now scouring the web to determine what potential customers are talking about and aligning the message to what the customer is interested in. Fascinating!

The traditional - ask a focus group a bunch of questions and figure out what works is just too slow and, quite frequently, misses the mark.

If properly analyzed the volumes of data generated on the web can provide some very eye-opening insights. More and more, "I believe ..." is turning to "I know because ...".

Let users pick their Enterprise Technology?
A recent article in the journal has generated a lot of discussion around how to bridge the enterprise vs consumer IT gap. As usual, it is not as simple as the author makes it sound. The level of flexibility that an employee enjoys should strike the right balance between user productivity, security and cost to acquire and support. Each worker, team and business have different needs and each organization needs to make the right decision for each user. Adopt new technology at the pace that makes sense for your business.

It is important to evaluate a user's needs, determine the most appropriate solution and deliver it quickly. Be flexible and keep an open mind!

7 Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs
Interesting slide-show on CIO Insight.

Pricing the Cloud
Tony has captured a lot of my thoughts on how cloud computing needs to be priced and consumed in this article. Read the main CIO Insight article on Cloud's Sky High Hype here.