John Hearne, Head of IBM Cúram Solutions, IBM Software Group
By John Hearne
I recently read a story about an elderly woman with a heart condition. She lives in a building without air conditioning and there was concern that a hot and humid day in July could easily put her health at risk and possibly lead to a costly ER visit.
As the story pointed out, the reality is that a few hundred dollars for an air conditioner could solve the problem before it ever happened.
Of course, to case workers at social services agencies around the world, the difficulty of identifying interventions before situations become critical is not news.
In a perfect system, an individual’s health needs would be understood not only medically, but also in the context of their lifestyle, living environment, family conditions and other social factors. Making this information readily available to health and case workers would help them spend more time in the field where they are needed the most. Continue Reading »
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Steve Hamm, IBM Writer
By Steve Hamm
In the coming era of cognitive systems, fundamental changes will be required at each level of technology–from nanotechnology to the software programming layer. These shifts will require remarkable feats of science and engineering. Yet it’s possible that even greater challenges will come as we go about harnessing the new technical capabilities and using them to solve the world’s most challenging problems. So it will be essential for tech companies like IBM to form deep collaborative partnerships with organizations that possess domain expertise, including those in health care, financial services, media and government.
This was one of the messages delivered by John E. Kelly III when he spoke last evening at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. Kelly was interviewed by John Hollar, the museum’s president, in the institution’s Revolutionaries speakers’ series. Just minutes earlier, the two had participated in a photo-op in the museum’s new IBM Watson exhibit. IBM has donated the stage set it built for the Jeopardy TV quiz show, where Watson in 2011 defeated two past grand-champions.
Patty Fritz, Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Operational Excellence, UCB
By Patty Fritz
Despite afflicting 65 million people worldwide, including nearly 3 million Americans, epilepsy remains one of the least understood and most individualized chronic conditions. A recent special issue of the medical journal, The Lancet, highlighted the significant unmet medical needs in epilepsy and called on public health officials to treat this disease as a global health priority.
To address this pressing public health issue, global biopharmaceutical company UCB and IBM have announced phase one completion of a proof of concept project that will use Big Data and advanced analytics to potentially offer more personalized care to millions of people living with epilepsy.
Currently, a team of IBM researchers is poring through de-identified, anonymous data on more than 1.5 million U.S.-based epilepsy patients – approximately half those affected by the condition in our country – using machine learning tools and patient similarity analysis. The goal of the project is to demonstrate that an interactive system can be developed that translates massive amounts of patient data and scientific insights that healthcare providers can consult at the point of care to inform their treatment decisions. Continue Reading »
By Michael Karasick
Michael Karasick, Vice President and Director, IBM Research-Almaden
The world is on the cusp of a new era of computing, which we call the era of cognitive systems. New computer technologies are coming that will help people and organizations penetrate complexity and make better decisions. At IBM, we believe that this coming revolution in artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the way business is done and dramatically accelerate innovation. Cognitive systems will enable humans and machines to interact together and achieve things that neither could do on their own.
The victory of IBM’s Watson on the TV game show Jeopardy! was one of the milestones in this new phase of computing. Scientists at IBM and elsewhere are pushing the boundaries of science and technology fields ranging from neural networks to machine learning to create machines that sense, learn, reason and interact with people in new ways.
(IBM Research Director John Kelly is speaking about the future of computing today at 7 p.m. Pacific Time at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. His book about the new era, Smart Machines: IBM’s Watson and the Era of Cognitive Computing , will be published in the fall by Columbia University Press. To read a free chapter now, go to the Columbia University Press web site.
Patrick G. Childress, Program Manager, Real-Time Events, Global Business Services, IBM
By Patrick G. Childress
One of my favorite parts of summer, much to my wife’s chagrin, is watching golf on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes it’s on in the background while I’m tending the grill, and other times I’m parked on the sofa seeing who can sink that 30-footer to win the tournament. I enjoy watching the pros hit shot after shot that I can’t ever seem to pull off myself.
Working at IBM, I am fortunate to be able to combine my love of golf with my day job of managing and designing new mobile applications as part of the IBM Interactive design team. Over the past 15 years, this team has been developing unique digital experiences for clients. Most recently, we were tasked with designing and building a new iPad app for the United States Golf Association (USGA), to launch in conjunction with the 2013 U.S. Open, the largest golf tournament in the U.S. Continue Reading »
Elizabeth O’Brien, Worldwide Sponsorship Strategy, IBM
By Elizabeth O’Brien
Big Data is a term we hear a lot about in the business world. But these days, thanks to the insatiable hunger for player, team and league stats and analysis, it’s also becoming widely used in the world of sports.
In tennis, for example, Big Data includes tournament, match and player stats, things like serve speeds, rally counts, winners and aces. But more important than what Big Data includes, is how it is used to enhance and, in many ways, transform how we experience and enjoy the sport of tennis.
This week marks the 28th year of IBM’s partnership with the French Tennis Federation in support of Roland Garros (also known as the French Open). IBM brings a suite of solutions to Roland Garros, all centered on real time and historic Grand Slam data. We capture, analyze, secure, store and distribute the data—in fact Big Data is the heart of our collaboration with the FFT. Continue Reading »
Jeffrey Rhoda, General Manager, Global Government and Education, IBM
By Jeffrey Rhoda
Governments have always been great at collecting data. From the smallest regional municipality to the largest country in the world, public sector organizations cull vast amounts of information to balance the needs of their residents and businesses and ensure ongoing economic growth.
With the global economic recession lingering, government leaders are under continued pressure to make better choices, deliver results and demonstrate greater accountability.
Take, for instance, the data collected and utilized by government taxation departments. The reputation and integrity of an entire government can be at risk if the public questions the credibility of the data produced or processed by this department.
The Finance & Local Taxation Bureau of Ningbo, a seaport city in the Zhejiang province in China, was drowning in data – data that was mostly unreliable and varied. To remedy the situation, the bureau leaders instituted a new system that structures and extracts data in real time. Continue Reading »
Les Rechan, General Manager, IBM Business Analytics
By Les Rechan
Corporate finance is often thought of as the central support system of an organization. It is key to ensuring that the organization not only survives, but thrives. While the core function of the CFO has remained consistent, the responsibilities and approaches of the position are rapidly evolving.
Over the next five years, the role of the CFO will continue to transform under the influence of analytics. As the primary guardians of information across all lines of business, CFOs can and should foster an analytics culture to support fact-based decision making.
Some CFOs are already ahead of the pack, applying analytics to their data to uncover hidden pockets of profitability. As data continues to grow, those CFOs who uniquely capitalize on it can proactively set leading business strategies. In fact, Gartner predicts that the amount of data stored by enterprises will grow 650 percent by 2018. Continue Reading »
Dr. Glenn Omura, Associate Professor, Michigan State University, Broad College of Business
By Dr. Glenn Omura
Earlier this year I spoke with Manoj Saxena, General Manager of Watson Solutions at IBM, about developing a scale-to-measure customer engagement. We agreed that as businesses look for ways to retain existing customers and attract new ones, the question of what resonates with consumers and makes them loyal customers is increasingly top of mind.
In my research and work as a marketing professor, I’ve seen how organizations have succeeded in marketing to various population segments, and also how they’ve fallen short of their customers’ expectations.
The traditional way of marketing is no longer sufficient, particularly when dealing with a younger, tech-savvy digital consumer – the Millennial. Research shows that Millennials are optimistic, confident and pragmatic, are seeking more personalized attention and engagement. Smart businesses need to make sure they’re meeting those needs. As companies increasingly apply technology to satisfy the daily consumer demand for greater individual productivity and immediacy, they may be giving up relationship-building for the sake of efficiency.
Can companies have both? Continue Reading »
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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. Continue Reading »
