As a white male tech professor I’m not exactly the go-to demographic for creating a feeling of inclusion among marginalized students. There are lots of faculty who look like me and who don’t address inclusion not because they don’t care, but because they’re afraid that they’ll step on some unseen third-rail of diversity and unwittingly cause offense. Timidity is cowardice – we need everyone in the industry working toward inclusion. It’s good for business, good for products, and good for society. There are plenty of ways that even a BOWG (bald old white guy) like me can create a more encouraging and inclusive classroom experience. One is simply and sincerely to ask colleagues from underrepresented groups what one can do that would be helpful. Here are some other, very simple thoughts.

Showcase Diverse STEM Stars: Use your classroom or office wall space to highlight framed covers and articles with STEM stars that look like your students. Robotics star Jorvon Moss aka Odd_Jayy was recently on the cover of Make and is framed on my wall. So is an article on MIT grad Joy Buolamwini who researches fairness and ethical machine learning. I’m constantly learning iOS skills from Tunde Adegoroye(Tundsdev), Craig Clayton and Ish ShaBazz (who gives a very inspiring talk on Programming with Purpose worthy of student sharing). Dave Cancel and Elias Torresare building one of Boston’s star firms that has recruited many of my students and have often shared thoughts and inspiration as LatinX founders. There are MANY others (do an Internet search, ask friends). The Wired magazine covers of female engineers Limor Fried and Simone Giertz also take up space on my office that would otherwise hold my degrees (students know I have a Ph.D. so I don’t really feel the need to have my degrees on my walls).

Use Social Media to Link Former and Current Students: Successful students who have overcome obstacles love to pay it forward. Encourage all of your students to connect via LinkedIn, follow on social media, and stay in touch. You can use these “alumni” of your classes for ideas such as “keep me informed of scholarships, programs, conferences and recruiting events for diverse STEM students.” And if a student comes to you with a struggle, you can connect them with an alum willing to mentor someone new to white collar job searches, navigating the job market as a non-native speaker, or other challenge not in your wheelhouse. You may have talented colleagues who are admins or faculty from diverse groups who are also willing to help, but be considerate to ask their willingness and limits, as many PoC and women STEM staff are overtaxed by having to do all the extra “diverse STEM stuff” in addition to their own job, with no additional boost to promotion or pay (if you get promoted, change this). Also — encourage students to form a club to help their prospects. A few years back I took a bunch of tech-focused female student leaders to lunch, suggested they form a club, offered my contacts list, and shut up and got out of the way unless I was asked to help. The result was the Boston College Women Innovator’s Network — one of the most active and consistently supportive professional groups on campus. You won’t have all of the answers, but you can be a super-connector to link your students with helpful resources.

Structure Courses for Success, Not Intimidation and Failure: To be very clear — many of your students from underrepresented groups will be dynamite out of the gate, but if you teach courses where some students of color & women (and really anyone) haven’t already had tech exposure and thus have their starting blocks set further backfrom Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hrs expertise goal, then discouragement is common. It’s easy for a student who hasn’t had prior STEM experience to get discouraged in classes where students who have already had STEM exposure are visibly dominant. Feelings of “I’m behind and will never catch up” lead to abandoning study. Structure your course to lower early discouragement & boost opportunities for students to hit milestones. Celebrate these. 

Flipped courses help: In these classes, follow-along, learn-by-doing lessons are done outside of class during ‘homework time’ and that learning is reinforced via in-class exercises. Students who might not ‘get it’ the first time a topic is presented can rewatch lessons as needed. Students seeking help then come to office hours with specific questions, not “I’m totally lost.” In-class, camaraderie builds as students who “get it” help those who are new to topics and you create a culture of asking for and giving help. Everyone feels better when in-class exercises replace getting steamrolled by too-fast lecturing. Yes, creating flipped class videos is a LOT of work, but high-quality work can help you reach more students. You might even be able to partner with other educators who share your goals and teaching topic. See if there is already content you can leverage (my apps course is in a playlist, so is my CircuitPython course, & there’s lots more content on my channel). If you have a committed administrator — see if you can get financial support to build flipped class content, or seek an external grant — especially if your work is focused on STEM diversity.

Grading systems should encourage improvement, not the “weed em out” engineering school crutch: Much of coding is about pattern recognition and new students often haven’t seen and used new patterns enough to reinforce logical thinking and to prompt reuse. Lower the stakes of early tests and give students an opportunity to learn from early mistakes and demonstrate they’ve acquired skills in areas that may have initially tripped them up. One way is to allow retakes with limited penalties that encourage students to stick with a topic, rather than getting discouraged by early struggles. You want your students who stumble but then state “now I see it,” to then be able to demonstrate their new knowledge and stay committed to learning. This is NOT lowering standards or providing easy As. It provides an opportunity for those who’ve not already had STEM exposure to keep at it until they catch up.

Be careful of the trap of “grade inflation” concerns: Yes — it’s very bad if we allow students to coast through classes, earning As without challenging them, and admins need to step in to address this with faculty that aren’t offering strong educational experiences. But admins also need to be aware that a numeric range is not a reflection of what’s going on inside a classroom and they need to set better faculty assessment than sloppy-simple target grade distributions. Our role as faculty is not to fit students into a bell curve of performance — it is: 1) to set a high bar for expectations, 2) expose that bar, and 3) help as many students as possible get over that bar. If, at the end of your course, students say “it was challenging, but it was worth it”, then you’re doing your job. If you’re spending time fretting over fitting students inside of administrator-set ranges, then the administrator that sets policies needs to rethink and improve faculty course assessment. 

I’ve spent a lot of time with industry partners – far more than most. I’ve led multiple week-long field studies worldwide each year, have led weekly student visits to area tech firms, and have had lots of additional contact through my own research and writing. In over a quarter century I’ve not once had a single employer tell me that they hired students incorrectly because we issued too many high grades. I have, however, regularly had practitioners lament that they desperately want to hire more from underrepresented groups. Pay attention to the real problem. If your administrators aren’t actively working to address this need, challenge them to do so. And to make sure faculty who lead the way as exemplars are compensated for their work (e.g. real, considered and weighted value during promotions, offer grants or stipends for supporting these efforts). And admins – raising money for increasing diversity in text should be among the easiest gift requests you development staff pursue. Current admins – faculty who show leadership in this area may also make strong campus leaders. When positions open on campus, move them to the top of the consideration pool.

Create courses with project focus: Nothing empowers quite like the feeling of pride students get through “I built this.” Design courses that have students build something useful. In my University intro coding class, students are pushed to go from no coding knowledge to full-stack iOS app development (accessing a database, multi-user support) in a single semester. During the course of the semester students learn to code while learning to build apps. Many students say this is the first class where they “showed off their homework.” They build fun apps, games, productivity utilities, a weather app that can show personal photos (a great gift for Mother’s or Father’s Day) and finish with a social app for restaurant reviews & photo sharing. Students end the class with a solo-developed iOS app. I’ve demanded more of students in this class than any other I’ve taught but have never had a student complain about the workload, because students feel a clear sense of accomplishment throughout the course. Are there other clever tricks you can use to make coding more fun? Python is often taught with text-driven coding that seems worlds apart from the graphical and app-driven computing most use. Can you combine python with physical computing hardware so their code flashes, senses, and does fun and useful things? Can you teach coding while building web sites and apps? You don’t need to master the fundamentals before getting code to get graphical, “appy”, or drive a speaker or LED strip. Extra bonus – my CircuitPython course has students build projects for an on-campus program for students with severe developmental and physical challenges. The experience students get: working with clients, assessing needs, proposing ideas, prototyping, and delivering final projects goes far beyond what they’d experience in standard programming or business courses. Curious how a Tech for Good project-focused course might work? Here’s a talk on the topic that I gave for Apple. 

Showcase and Celebrate Student Achievement: If you have projects — have students show these in a public forum. My courses in iOS development and Electronics Programming in CircuitPython both end with student technology showcases where everyone presents their final projects, science fair-style. Bring in pizza or snacks and have students invite friends and (if local) family. Encourage faculty, next semester’s enrollees, and potential employers to show up. If you do this, be sure to capture student work on video (if you scroll on the info pages for my SwiftUI and CircuitPython courses, you’ll see various end-of-semester highlight videos showing students demonstrate their work). Be sure to lead the video with diverse students and capture impactful quotes such as: “I’d never done this before” and “this was my first (app, electronics project, etc).” Show the video to new students at the start of the next semester. Seeing a friend succeed is a huge motivator and it also helps students recognize a resource out of class who might be a mentor. Share images and short clips of student work via social media – especially LinkedIn! I’ve had many students share that employers contacted them after I’d shared their work online. 

Apologies if this seems white-splainy or man-splainy. If you have ideas, share them in comments, although mean, snarky, trolly comments will be deleted. Nobody trying to make a difference needs to see that.

Prof. John Gallaugher teaches technology and business in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. He was also the first and only person in his family to attend university. Prof. Gallaugher is an Apple Distinguished Educator, was named a “Most Popular Faculty Member” in BusinessWeek, and was named “Guru to Grads” by Entrepreneur Magazine. His award winning textbook on technology and business has been used in courses at over 450 universities. Prof. Gallaugher’s course lectures on building apps in SwiftUI and in building hardware projects in CircuitPython are available free to all via YouTube. You’ll also find additional educational material, including course slides and exercises, at gallaugher.com. If you use his material, let him know! But please don’t ask him to review your startup pitch deck or app – he’s too busy creating impactful content and experimenting with new ways to more effectively teach his brilliant students and help other faculty.

The post Things All Can Do to Encourage Diverse STEM Students appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.

Back from a one-year hiatus with sabbatical projects to share:

New Learning Tool: Learn to Program Using Swift for iOS Development. Try it – the first 3 chapters are FREE online now. This online text offers over 70 follow-along video lessons where new-to-programming students learn coding fundamentals while also learning iOS app development concepts. Each chapter builds a different app. Videos are followed by “learning scaffolding”, a reference section, key takeaways, an online quiz, and exercises (about half of which have solutions videos). The product tackles the biggest challenges in programming courses: Students struggle to absorb everything in lecture-style classes, but with videos, they can go back and re-watch, pause, and repeat lessons as much as needed. And a first programming class with app development leaves students feeling motivated and empowered. Faculty realize that teaching programming is “heavy lifting” – keeping current with tech, planning lectures, and lots of student follow-up. The flipped class turns the programming course into one of the lightest lifts for faculty. Lectures are handled by the product, exercises and online quizzes are already created. Faculty spend class-time presenting exercises while students work along (in a lab or with laptops) solving problems (and faculty have all the solutions to quickly demonstrate at the end). Interested? Offer the product to strong students as an independent study – then hire them as TAs when you roll out the full course. Course also works well for online courses, traditional classes, and independent learners. Beta version 2.0 is up and includes Xcode 9 & Swift 4 (more content tweaks and improvements along the way). Want to see the product (and student results) in action? Check out our #BCSwift video from last semester. It includes scenes from our student app showcase, featuring apps developed by students who had never previously taken a collegiate programming class. Offer the class that accelerates job and internship offers, where students are proud to show off their homework, and that reduces your teaching burden.

New Version: Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology v. 6.0 (Aug. 2017) is out. The product is so fresh that the Amazon Chapter even includes information about the Whole Foods purchase, as well as Amazon’s other brick and mortar efforts. As always, topics remain consistent, but students love the currency and cutting-edge coverage that wraps durable management concepts. Join the hundreds of schools already using the text. More info on the latest update at: https://gallaugher.com/book. And a huge and heart-felt thanks to all of the faculty, alumni, practitioners, and students who have supported this work and continue to fuel its success.

4 Ways Amazon is Changing Whole Foods
Consumers can start seeing the results of Amazon’s $13.7 billion of Whole Foods in their pocket. Prices will be lower on staple items. Kale and avocado lovers, rejoice. Amazon Prime members can also expect additional savings and special perks when shopping at the “Amazon arm in your Neighborhood.” You’ll see more of Whole Foods’ products available on Amazon, too. And if you live in a no-doorman apartment or other location where delivery is less convenient, some Whole Foods will be rolling out Amazon delivery lockers. The Amazon Chapter in our latest IS Book covers the Amazon Go experimental store (which Grad TechTrekkers stopped by, but couldn’t enter, earlier this year). Imagine a Whole Foods without the checkout lines + the extra space eliminating cash registers could free up. The rise of AI-friendly graphics processors is also mentioned in the “Fast/Cheap Technology” chapter our new text, a great way to relate what Amazon is doing to Graphic/ASIC/FPGA-fueled machine learning and cloud-driven computer vision.

How Netflix Knows Exactly What You Want
Four out of five of the shows watched on Netflix were found by its subscribers thanks to firm-powered recommendations offered them. So why is Comedy in your fifth row, but in your cousin’s 25th? Here’s a quick look at how the profiling process works, from human “taggers,” who first screen every program and catalog various elements used by the firm’s profiling algorithms, to the firm’s increasingly sharper data-slicing algorithms, and the role of “taste communities.” Netflix has been another staple of our IS Book – a quick read for faculty looking for additional weight in their knowledge drop.

How I Built This: Featuring Rent the Runway’s Jenn Hyman [Podcast]
NPR’s podcast series has been a great way to get first-person insights from entrepreneurs. Jenn Hyman & Jenny Fleiss’ Rent the Runway is an amazing example of so many tools leveraged by today’s entrepreneurs: The Sharing Economy, Big Data, Social, Killer Logistics, Weighing an Omni-channel experience, and more. Our TechTrek NYC students have had the good fortune to meet with alums at Rent the Runway for the past several years (including VP Brooke Brown), and we’ve had a Rent the Runway chapter in the IS Book since version 5.0. Listen up and get inspired!

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Some quick #BCventures notes:

• Built-at-BC Jebbit has scored $6.8 million of Series A funding. Jebbit CEO Tom Coburn, along with fellow alums Peter Bell, and Miguel Galvez, have also expanded efforts to support the most promising BC startups through a new SSC Venture Partners.
• #BCTechTrek and #TechTrekGhana alum Josh Coyne has joined legendary Sand Hill Road VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufiled Byers. Past TechTreks have visited KPCB, and Partner Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends deck/talk is required reading shared with all of our students. We look forward to having an Eagle in that nest.
• BC-alum-founded SyncOnSet/Wymsee won a 2016 technical Emmy for their industry-leading software tools [demo video] now used in many of the TV and Film productions you enjoy (and yes, they help power Game of Thrones).
• Get insights from BC Alum, perennial #BCTechTrek host, and WePay co-founder Rich Aberman, talking “WePay and the Evolution of the Payments Industry” in PYMNTS. A must read for all those interested in FinTech.
• #BCTechTrek students Dan Marino (aka “Quarterback”) and Ben Li, have been hustling with their Built-at-BC startup, VenU, which promises to help the events industry by gaining insights on who’s actually showing up at events. Find out more
• To be clear, there are far more profs on The Heights that deserve recognition on this list, but it’s great to see alumni-powered #BCTechTrek get a shout-out. Thanks to all who make this such a special experience, and to Ameet Kallarackal for such kind words.

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Personal note: If you find me winking at you, or not recognizing you entirely, I promise I’m not trying to be a creep (and remain very happily married). I’ve had a bit of a vision setback this summer. Myopic macular degeneration (which I’ve had in left-eye since age 30) has spread to my (formerly good) right eye w/an especially troublesome and long-lasting spot, so I’m adjusting to blurred vision in the center of everything I look at, and shifting to rely on my (once weaker) left eye. I’m optimistic that treatments will curtail the problem (I remember hearing about Avastin on an earlier #BCTechTrek – now I’m being treated with it – keep at it, Genentech!), and my fingers are crossed there won’t be too much right-eye damage. It won’t impact much of my day-to-day. Prof. Peter Sterpe has so kindly agreed to swap his IS halfs for my Excel halfs in ISYS1021 so I don’t have to teach Excel, too, for the first time – MUCH appreciated. I’m still getting around on my own, I’m able to read my smart-phone w/reading glasses, do computer work, and I shouldn’t otherwise be held back, save for being told not to run while vessels are still active (NYC in November looks like it’ll be absent my horrendously slow plodding). Do say “Hi” – recognizing faces while walking is tougher than before, but aside from seeming a bit “off” in how I hold my head, the winkiness, or not “seeing” you right away, I’ll be fine.

The post Build Apps, New Book, WF/AMZN, Netflix profiles, Rent the Runway insights, plus #BCventures – The Week in Geek™ – Aug. 28, 2017 appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.

Version 5.0 of my textbook Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology, has just been published and is ready for Fall classes! Faculty can request a copy here. While topics, theory, and content remain consistent for year-to-year teaching, seventeen chapters have received an update to keep material as fresh and topical as possible. You’ll find everything from the Dollar Shave Club acquisition to Uber’s retreat from China mentioned in the new version. Eight new videos have also been incorporated into the book – from tech-powered drone flights delivering medical supplies in Rwanda to video of Apple’s iPhone-recycling robot, Liam. For more details on the new version, check out the chapter-by-chapter changes. At less than $25 for the web edition, the text continues to be offered at a price point of roughly 1/10th the cost of leading management textbooks, and is still cheaper than the coursepacks and Chegg offerings that many profs use. With roughly 400 universities adopting the text, it’s been great to see the far-reaching impact of the project. I remain so grateful to all who have adopted the text and helped spread the word. My tremendous thanks to you! More info at https://gallaugher.com/book.

Sabbatical Note: I’ll be very tough to reach until January 2017. I’m on sabbatical this Fall and while I’d remained heavily involved with the University during my last two sabbaticals, I’m currently working on some new teaching-focused projects that require a great deal of time and focus. If all goes well, I look forward to sharing these with faculty and students when I return early next year!

China Sends the World’s First Quantum Satellite into Orbit
The recent launch of a Chinese communication satellite will test principles that could lead to impossible-to-eavesdrop communication.  The satellite uses subatomic quantum particles which are destroyed as soon as they are measured.  Relaying transmissions from Beijing and the western Chinese city of Urumqi wasn’t easy, although it does appear initial experiments have worked.  One researcher describes it as ” like tossing a coin from a plane at 100,000 metres above the sea level exactly into the slot of a rotating piggy bank.”  The satellite was dubbed Micius after a 5th century B.C. philosopher who opposed offensive warfare.  While many issues remain to be addressed before snoop-proof communications can be sent, should these experiments prove successful, they may usher in a new era of highly secure communication.

Uber Sells Chinese Operations to Didi
Uber threw in the towel on a business estimated to be losing $1 billion a year, announcing that it was backing out of China, selling its in-country business to Didi.  Didi, already China’s strongest ride-sharing firm, has been growing even more formidable.  The firm is backed by China’s largest Internet firm, Tencent, and has enjoyed a privileged position on wildly popular WeChat.  Last year Didi joined forces with Alibaba-backed Kuaidi (the merged ride-sharing firm rechristened as Didi Chuxing).  Earlier this year Apple made an additional $1 billion investment in Didi.

As a business subject to two-sided network effects, the lead firm in a market is almost certainly to continue dominance. All else equal, app users favor a service with more drivers, while drivers need more app users to make more money.  Uber’s China retreat also underscores how tough that market has been for US tech firms. Google left, eBay was crushed, and Facebook still hasn’t been allowed in.  Uber’s CEO spent a lot of time in China, and the firm’s retreat from the market is likely a disappointment, but it may not be a loss. The deal made Uber the largest shareholder in Didi’s business, Uber gets a Didi board seat, and Didi gets a seat on Uber’s board, plus invests $1 billion in Uber’s global business outside China. Uber claims it’s already profitable in the U.S. and Canada, and by shedding a business hemorrhaging cash, Uber will likely have an easier time with an IPO.

At the time of the deal it was unclear what this would mean for Didi’s partnership with Lyft. In the second quarter of 2016, Lyft only had 5 percent of all U.S. ride-hailing transactions vs. Uber’s 72.5 percent share (taxis had the rest, underscoring Uber’s utter dominance of the industry).  As Uber’s experience in China and our Network Effects chapter both illustrate, Lyft will have a tremendously difficult time trying to catch a leader with such a market advantage.  For a deeper look at Uber’s success and the impact of ride-sharing in the US, check out the excellent infographic below by the folks at Certify.com:

$1 Billion for Dollar Shave Club: Why Every Company Should Worry
Viral videos alone don’t make a winning firm, but Dollar Shave Club founder & CEO Mike Dublin (who trained with the legendary comedy group Upright Citizens Brigade, launching pad for comics including BC alum Amy Pohler) leveraged spot-on timing in an irreverent video to launch his low-cost, direct-to-consumer brand of men’s razors. In three months, the video below, which cost just $4,500 to produce, was widely shared via social media, receiving over 4.75 million views from consumers who would never think of posting a Gillette commercial on Facebook or Twitter. Four years later the firm had a $200 million-a-year sales run rate, an 8 percent market share, and was bought by Unilever for $1 billion. Expansion beyond razors included One-Wipe-Charlie adult bottom-wipes.  Shaving was ripe for disruption.  High-margin blades are often kept in theft-proof cases that require customers to seek out a staffer just to pick up a grooming staple. Operations are ultra-lean.  Blades manufacturing is outsourced to S. Korea’s Dorco, much of the firm’s technology runs offsite on Amazon Web Services, distribution has been shifted to a third-party, and the firm had only 180 direct employees at the time of the sale. The viral video, which is how many of us first heard of the firm, underscores ultra-lean mega-brands built seemingly overnight.  The NY Times article also raises important questions about income inequality: The payday is a huge win for the firm’s founders, investors, and many of its small cadre of employees.  But it also signals how those without skill to be disruptor instead of disrupted are being increasingly swept into the ruble of relics.

Moore’s Law is Running Out of Room, Tech Looks for a Successor
Fast/cheap technology, fueled largely by the unprecedented economic gravy train of Moore’s Law, will hit a wall as chip manufacturing hits the yielding hand of God.  At some point the logic etched in silicon or other materials simply can’t shrink smaller than molecule, and the practical limit of a few molecules of separation may be about a decade away.

Successor technologies are many, although a clear winner with price/performance benefits of traditional chip manufacturing is yet to emerge. Using the material graphene as a replacement for silicon dioxide and other current semiconductor materials, would allow for smaller, faster, less power-demanding chips, but those will eventually hit a shrinkage wall, too.  Quantum computing leverages the same physics principles in the Chinese satellite launch mentioned in this post, and if calculations can move from bits that are ones and zeros to qubits that can be one and zero (Canada’s Prime Minister is happy to explain this to you), and if it can be perfected, it’ll blow the roof of calculation possibilities. Says the CEO of quantum computing pioneer D-Wave: “A thousand qubit computer can be in 2 to the 1,000 states at one time, which is 10 to the 300th power, [yet] there’s only 10 to the 80th atoms in the universe.”  Early buyers of the firm’s $15 million highly-experimental machines include Nasa, Lockheed Martin, and Google.  Researchers at the search giant published a paper last year showing comprehensive tests solving certain problems 100 million times faster than a classical computer.  Sounds impressive, but it only works on certain calculations, meaning even if quantum computing can be perfected (still a big if), it may only have limited use.  Still, one promising area is in solving optimization problems that underlie a core of machine learning and artificial intelligence.  Want to fool around with a quantum computer? IBM has made a 5 qubit machine available over the web.

Google Taps Machine Learning to Lure Companies to Its Cloud
Want to tap into advanced machine learning software for things like image identification and audio transcription?  No need to write your own code – Google will sell you these as services offered through its cloud computing unit.  Now a kid with an app can buy burly AI that either didn’t exist or would have required rooms of skilled techies and a hothouse of servers less than a decade ago. Adrian Cockcroft, a celebrity in cloud-circles as the former Netflix tech head & now a fellow at Battery Ventures, puts it this way: “Startups don’t have to hire a bunch of researchers and do research anymore. Amazon and Microsoft and Google and IBM have it as a service.”  Google’s simple API calls will allow you to leverage their tech to automatically detect faces, landmarks, logos and other features in images – just 60 cents to $5 a month for every 1,000 uses.  Use more and you get a lower price. Want to experiment? The first 1,000 monthly uses is free.

Google is serious about building the cloud biz, which lags significantly behind overwhelming industry leader, Amazon, which some claim has more than 10 times the capacity in use than the next 14 largest cloud firms combined.  Google has hired Silicon Valley legend Diane Green, the former VMware CEO widely credited with building a the multi-billion dollar virtualization and cloud software empire so vital to EMC today.

Customers running code in the Google cloud include Disney Interactive and Coke, which used Google to provide needed capacity for a digital-heavy World Cup marketing campaign.  While many of these firms hire cloud providers to scale up with increased capacity, new services allow anyone with a credit card to piggyback off the AI R&D race being run by the giants of tech.

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Lots of #BCventures news!

• Another #BCTechTrek student with a successful exit. Congratulations to BC MBA and Grad TechTrek alum Todd Roitfarb, who served as CEO of fintech firm InvestSoft and who will lead efforts within a unit of the firm’s new parent, investment information giant, Morningstar.
• BC alums Nick Rellas and Justin Robinson have raised another $15 million for their built-at-BC alcohol delivery business, Drizly. Approaching profitability, Drizly will be in 30 cities by year-end.
• Congrats BC alum @TomCoburn1, CEO of founded-at-BC Jebbit, & my TA, BC sophomore and #TechTrekGhana alum @branickweix on making The Improper Bostonian’s 25×25  I can assure you they are not only proper, but most excellent, as well.
• #BCTechTrek enjoyed a visit to the Boston offices of BoltVC, hosted by BC alum Le Zhang who was incubating his food-services operations tech startup, Squadle. The company, which counts Sonic, Hyatt, and Chick-fil-A as customers, was accepted into the recent batch of the elite 500 Startups accelerator class.  Go, Le!
• Wonderful to see Julie Bacon take her founded-at-BC idea of the Women Innovator’s Network to this year’s Nantucket Conference as part of the Young Entrepreneurs Program.  Interested in supporting Women in Tech on campus? Reach out to @BCwinnovators on Twitter.
• Joining Julie in the program was Liz Powers of Artlifting. The firm was started by Liz and her BC alum brother Spencer (dad is a BC Business Law prof), and enables artists who are homeless or disabled to make money and find an outlet for their work.  Read more about the firm at: http://www.artlifting.com/pages/press
• Are you a runner & in Central Square? BC alum-backed Heartbreak Hill Running Company has added a Cambridge location to their Newton and South End stores. Run by – there’s always water out front to quench your thirst.
• Congratulations to BC Egan Chair, Prof. Jim Gips, father of the free assistive technology CameraMouse, on hitting a major milestone – the three millionth download! Check out this video of the product in action.
• More great insights from BC IS Prof. and Sloan Management Review Big Data editor @Ransbotham. Read “How to Make Data Experiments Powerful“
• Want more BC Prof biz-tech insights? Check out @ProfKane’s work in Deloitte University Press on “Aligning the Organization for its Digital Future“.
• Carroll School Powers Family Dean Andy Boynton shares insight on the importance of a “Don’t Do” list, a lean-focused philosophy popular with the late Steve Jobs.
• Wonderful to see Forbes, Rough Draft Ventures, and investors Ashton Kutcher (yes, the actor has put serious coin in the tech world) and Gary Oseary tapping BC’s Shea Center team for their $1 Million Change the World Competition.  A great opportunity for BC.
• Interested in what some of the baked-at-BC startups are up to? Come out to the Soaring Startup Circle Startup Celebration.  For the last several years the SSC has provided summer office space, mentorship, and an educational program to competitively selected BC student startups.  This year’s event will feature a fireside chat with BC startup legend Dave Balter, CEO of Mylestoned and Partner at Boston Seed Capital. Wednesday, August 24, 2016, 6:30–10 p.m., WeWork, 745 Atlantic Avenue, Boston.
• Students interested in startups & entrepreneurship should also consider Sequoia-backed student-focused Start @ a Startup Conf. always outstanding.  October 14-15th, 2016 | New York City. Deadline approaching. Apply here!

The post New Book, Quantum Satellites, Uber, Moore’s Law, Dollar Shave Club, Machine Learning plus #BCventures – The Week in Geek™ – Aug. 22, 2016 appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.

Meet Our Students!
Boston College Alumni in the Bay Area – Meet our Undergraduate ‪#‎BCTechTrek students, see student poster sessions on their businesses & campus leadership efforts, and hear a great panel on Tech for Social Innovation with alums from Google’s Project Link (Ghana & Uganda) and VotoMobile, among others. We hope to see you there! Signup here!  Wed., March 9, 2016, 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM, Garden Court Hotel, 520 Cowper Street, Palo Alto, CA.

Also, see the newest BC innovators at the 1st annual Demo Day for the Accelerate@Shea program, Thursday, March 3rd from 6:30-8:00pm, Fulton Honors Library.

Facebook Learns To Make Money Where There Isn’t Much
Firms that earn money on ads have often struggled in emerging markets, but Facebook is working hard to prove that emerging markets pay.  At the beginning of 2012 the firm’s ARPU (avg. revenue per user) was just 32 cents across Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, but by the end of the year ARPU in this market spiked 4x to $1.22. Sure, Europeans are worth $4.50 on avg, while US & Canadian users bring in a whopping $13.54, but the emerging market numbers are impressive.  Nearly 63 percent of Facebook users in emerging markets use the service each day.

To help Facebook managers gain empathy for users in markets where bandwidth is scarce, the firm runs “2G Tuesdays” at its Menlo Park headquarters.  Facebook’s acquisitions have also helped improve emerging market performance.  The Israeli duo of Snaptu and Onavo, which provided critical tech to run Facebook on non-smart feature phones, and to accelerate app performance while burning less battery power.  The firm’s Facebook Lite option for emerging markets takes up less than 1MB of space, skips videos, and only loads hi-res images when needed.  The Facebook Creative Accelerator helps brands build engagement campaigns compatible with slower connections and which won’t eat up a user’s data budget (often loaded from pay-as-you go scratch cards). The firm’s slideshow ad format presents a series of images in an experience that mimics video without the heavy data demands. TechCrunch reports that Coke reached 2 million Kenyan and Nigerian consumers using these techniques, claiming a 10 point campaign awareness lift. And while not a revenue earner, the Facebook sponsored Internet.org and it’s Free Basics effort is now in 38 countries, offering free data for Facebook, Messenger, Wikipedia, health info, and civil resources. The effort is not without its critics.  India has banned the effort based on net neutrality concerns, but it remains to be seen if other nations will shun efforts that provide even a subset of free services access. Pushing the envelope even further, Facebook is experimenting with solar-powered drones and lasers to bring more bandwidth to underserved areas.

Not Another African Tech Article
Zimbabwe-raised Clinton Mutambo takes to TechCrunch, offering an important counter-balance to the lavish ‘Tech in Africa” boosterism.  Mutambo makes the case that articles lumping “Africa” together as one are actually doing a disservice to the uniqueness and complexity of each of the continent’s 54 diverse states. Understanding conditions helps explain the rise of mobile money in places such as deeply-challenged Somalia or the within the unique regulatory and competitive environment of Kenya which fueled M-Pesa.

But Mutambo provides some often underreported (at least in the West) success stories.  Among them, Africa’s first tech unicorn, Mo Ibrahim’s Bessemer-backed Celtel which sold in 2005 to MTC for $3.3 billion, minting about 100 millionaires from the founding team.  And for all the talk of China playing in Africa, few know that South Africa’s Naspers Media Group was an early investor (and is now the largest shareholder) in WeChat parent Tencent, the world’s fifth largest Internet company.  Savvy S. Africans turned $32 million into holdings valued at roughly $58 billion.

There are lots of reasons for sub-Saharan tech optimism.  When running our TechTrek Ghana program, we are clear that this isn’t service learning (as laudable as many of those efforts are).  Our students are in-country learning in master class sessions from Ghanaian technologists and entrepreneurs targeting opportunities in Africa and beyond. We visit Rancard, Intel Capital’s first investment in Africa, Sproxil, which has saved lives through using mobile devices to uncover pharma fraud. Esoko, which empowers farmers with phone-delivered, playing field leveling information and education. And MEST, whose alumni have attracted western investment and acquisition.  These efforts may rate below the Valley’s unicorn metric, but they underscore tech-fueled empowerment that fast-cheap tech delivers at the intersection of commerce and innovation.

Want more? See Knowledge@Wharton’s report “The Entrepreneurs Spurring Africa’s Rise.”  And those looking to connect with some of the continent’s most innovating minds should seek out the MIT Africa Innovate Conference, run each year in Boston (and scheduled for April 8-9, 2016) . The full day on Saturday is a required class for our students & has included many of the individuals and firms mentioned in the articles above.

Is This How the Robot Revolution Starts?

If you haven’t seen the new video for the Google-owned Boston Dynamics Atlas robot, you should really check it out.  The bot ambles around on two legs, makes its way through snow-covered woods, lugs around warehouse boxes, and then endures taunting with a hockey-stick wielding human bully who taps packages out of the bot’s way and pokes it in what comedian Seth Meyers calls “the most Boston way to treat a robot“.

Tidbits

• How to get a job at Startups article along with Slide Show – a great post & deck from our friends from Boston-based @NextViewVC
• Students & Profs: Tech once again makes strong showing in Best Jobs in America
• Draper Competition for Collegiate Women Entrepreneurs. Apply by 3/21.
• Women in Tech should also reach out to SheStarts, co-founded by BC alum & Startup attorney @nmcremins, who has been a dynamite help for BCVC & Soaring Startup Circle these past several years.
• Really cool graphic on tech industry acquisitions.

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Lots of #BCventures news!

• Need UX Feedback? @RileySoward‘s Startup CampusInsights “Reveals What Students Really Think of Your App” Meet Riley and his team at the March 9 BC TechCouncil event.
• Riley’s work was also profiled in the Huffington Post “From Ramen Noodles to Startup Innovation: A Story About Seizing Opportunities“
• USA Today profiles BCVC finalist @angelajin54 and her positive-image t-shirt business, 1950 Collective, which grossed $200K it’s first year.
• NYTimes Profiles @ArtLifting which is using art to “Helping Homeless Artists Turn Around Their Fortunes.” The firm was founded by BC alum @powerssp & his sister, Liz.  Both are children of BC Business Law Prof. Powers.  And there’s more on Artlifing from the Daily Free Press in the piece “ArtLifting creatively uplifting to low-income artists“
• Congratulations to the @BCalumni in this year’s Forbes #30Under30 @staffw of http://cat.aly.st  (Energy) & @AkashJC (Law/Policy) and #BCTechTrek alum @PhilDumontet (E-Comm). Congrats! Thx to BC Public Affairs for keeping us posted.  Follow BC online via: bc.edu/social
• BizJournals/BizWomen Profiles BC alum & @EmpireAngels cofounder, Samsung VC’s @cmbechs. Christina Bechhold’s angel firm counts Larry Summers & Sequoia India as co-investors (Empire Angels was also co-founded with #BCTechTrek alum @grahamgullans). Can’t wait to see her when she hosts #BCTechTrek NYC in March at the Samsung Accelerator.
• BCVC winner @SavvyAlexa gets coerage for her firm that’s “Prepping Girls for STEM by Letting Them Design 3D-Printed Shoes“
• The 2015 BCVC Winner ‪@MyCoreHub, veterans of last summer’s Soaring Startup Circle, launches an Airbnb-style coworking effort.
• Congrats to BC alum @Narodny cofounder of @Grovo on the learning platform’s $40M round! And from Fortune.
• For more on Grovo, see: “Growing a Startup Engineering Team from 8 to 30“
• Congrats to former student @andrewboni cofounder of @iterable and vets of 500Startups, on the e-mail marketing firm’s $8M raise
• Congrats #BCTechTrek alums @cbrablc and @joshuaejackson, who have been part of the early success for recruiting platform SmashFly, which recently scored a $22 million road.
• Awesome student project alert: Over winter break, my TA, #TechTrekGhana’s Branick Weix was involved in a sea turtle migration research project in Costa Rica. Check out the cool pics & videos.
• “Machine Learning and the NFL Field Goal” a piece by current student, #BCTechTrek alum, and soon-to-be Googler @jmzledoux
• Great seeing BC alum & @Jebbit CEO @TomCoburn1 in @Entrepreneur discussing the value of culture/team building
• Check out the Q&A with the founded-at-BC Drizly team.  And if you haven’t yet, give their booze-ordering app a try. They’re now 20+ markets coast to coast.
• Congrats to WSJ reporter & BC Alum ‪@DaveCBenoit on being named Business Journalist of the Year.
• Dell to bring SecureWorks public, and of course there’s a BC connection.  The security firm was founded by BC alum Mike Cote.  The firm is see as Dell’s “lynchpin for growth.”
• Bitcoiners, check out the interview with BC Alum @RyanSelkis, Director of Growth at DCG and Team Lead of CoinDesk. Ryan is also credited as the guy who blew open the Mt. Gox. fiasco.
• Check out “The Rise of Visual Content” in @mitsmr by @BCInfoSystems @profkane & #BCTechTrek alum @AlexandraPear43.
• Great insights from@BCInfoSystems @profkane “What Companies Should Learn About Social Media From American Politics” in Sloan Management Review.
• And from@BCInfoSystems Prof. @Ransbotham see “ Avoiding Analytical Myopia“
• Should people who discover a software vulnerability make the information public?  Full disclosure leads to attacks, but attack activity ends sooner, write @BCInfoSystems Prof. @Ransbotham and his co-author, Sabyasachi Mitra.
• And have you met @BCinfosystems @BCInfoSystems Prof @geowyn yet?  He’s a teaching juggernaut who has led optional workshops on APIs and SQL.  Check out the profile “With heavy metal and humor, Wyner takes the fright out of IT.”
• BTW: Prof. Wyner was my brewing partner for the inaugural batch is “Collaborative Consumption: the Beer for the Sharing Economy.” Alums, let me know when you’re stopping by & I’ll bring you in a bottle of the Belgian Dubbel.
• Many of you know @BCBusinessLaw Prof. David Twomey as an internationally known arbitration expert, whose service includes appointments by Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, William Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  But recent beneficiaries of Twomey’s tenacity and research depth include the members of the Boston College 1940 Football Team. Twomey makes a compelling case, setting the record straight that the team indeed should be considered the 1940 National Football Champions.
• Thanks to graduating BC senior @shalinmehtabc for the kind words in the Humans of BC posting, but the kindest words need to go to the @BCalumni who have partnered with us to make our programs possible.  We all are grateful for your continued support.

The post Lots of #BCventures news, Meet Our Students, Facebook, AfriTech, Robots and more – The Week in Geek™ – March 2, 2016 appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.

Inside Apple on 60 Minutes
While our TechTrek courses get an opportunity to visit Apple HQ at 1 Infinite Loop each Spring, Charlie Rose and team take everyone for a deeper look at America’s most profitable and most valuable firm. Apple is on track to sell it’s billionth iPhone in the next year. BC alum/trustee and Apple SVP Phil Schiller chats with Rose about Apple’s relentless product intro cycle, which often pits one product against another. Jony Ive is interviewed in his design lab, complete with black shrouds covering the labs unreleased projects. Notable: in 15 years only two designers on Ive’s team have left Apple. The piece offers an inside look at design work, including milling machines, color choice, and a prototyping process where “every tenth of a millimeter is sacred.” One segment shows the 200-plus precisely calibrated components that make up the iPhone camera, all packed in a flat area about as wide as your thumb knuckle. Another segment includes Apple Retail Chief Angela Ahrendts showing the warehouse where ideas for the Apple retail stores are mocked up (Apple stores have the highest sales per square foot of any US retailer in any industry).

Tim Cook’s discussion ranges widely: encryption, manufacturing, his work advocating for diversity and human rights, and he offers a breathtaking view of Apple’s massive new circular space-ship-style headquarters, mid-construction (including the first installation of what will be ‘miles’ of the world’s largest curved pieces of glass. Even if you saw the program on TV, visit the 60 Minutes Overtime site for neat additional video and content, including a segment titled “How to get a job at Apple.” And for more on Apple, see a series of charts from Quartz, including the growth of Apple’s $250 billion cash pile, Apple’s 3 largest very stock buy-backs, and Apple (still with an amazingly low PE) far outperforming the S&P500.

Netflix Socks
Ever fall asleep during binge watching, only to wake up way further into the series than when you nodded off? Netflix has posted plans for a hacking project that solves this problem. “Netflix Socks” use a tiny Arduino microcontroller, an accelerometer, an IR LED, and some other gear to detect when you’ve stopped moving your feet to automatically pause your stream. For those using our textbook, it’s the Netflix Chapter meets our Moore’s Law/IoT Chapter. Netflix even posts knitting patterns so you can pearl-two with your perl code, creating socks based on Netflix shows like “Master of None”, “House of Cards”, and “Daredevil”. Let me know if you give this a try! Would be fun to get the BC CS Society to run a Netflix Socks session at their monthly Project Night.

SEC Approves Plan to Issue Stock Using Bitcoin’s Blockchain
Our textbook has a section on Bitcoin in the “Disruptive Technologies” chapter, and while the future of bitcoin as a currency is uncertain, we point out that blockchain technology, the fast, secure public ledger underlying bitcoin, has the potential to revolutionize all sorts of transactions – securities, transfer of goods ownership, confirming property titles. Some of the more pioneering efforts using this technology are from online retailer Overstock.com. The firm was one of the first large retailers to accept bitcoin as payment. Since then, we’re now able to buy bitcoin with paypal, but this isn’t really where the action is since few consumers use bitcoin. Of greater note, in June Overstock used the blockchain to issue private bonds, which don’t require explicit regulatory approval. And now the firm has received SEC approval to issue public securities using the blockchain. According to Wired, Overstock uses homegrown technology from its TØ.com subsidiary, and plans to build a business offering blockchain services to other firms. Overstock isn’t alone. Nasdaq is prepping blockchain tech to oversee trades in private firms, and has stated that (pending approval) this could be used for public stock trades, as well. In addition to being fast, reliable, secure, and low-overhead, the blockchain could also close market inefficiencies and weaknesses, such as the condition known as naked short selling, where traders sell stocks that don’t exist. Earlier this fall, a consortium of some of the world’s biggest banks announced they were working with NYC startup R3 on a separate, non-bitcoin blockchain-leveraging tech for the quick transfer of assets between firms. And IBM has been experimenting with its own blockchain technology for uses as varied as tracking Internet of Things devices, and contract management. With more sites allowing people to measure their bitcoin profit, it is clear that there will be a rise in the need for using Bitcoin as a clear value of currency. If you have an account, you can Login to Bitcoin Profit Here to view your Bitcoin shares and profits, and you can also access this to make an account if you are looking to invest in Bitcoin. Once you’ve invested, you’ll notice that there are a range of different shops and websites that do accept Bitcoin currency. This could be of use to you, or you might want to save your Bitcoins to invest in something in the future. To see some of the current places where this form of money is accepted, you could look at https://coinsspent.com/ or other pages similar to it.

Venture Capitalists Answer Questions on How to Approach Them
Sitepoint’s piece is a must read for any entrepreneur, with useful advice for job seekers, as well. Several helpful pointers are offered by BC alumnus and Sequoia Capital partner, Pat Grady, including the vital tip to “Make your email short“, often a challenge for collegiate-aged entrepreneurs used to producing massive portfolio packets for admissions and other applications.

Jobseekers, also see the notes from a top recruiter on what they see after 30 seconds with your resume. A great post shared by BC alum Katey Sullivan, who recruits tech talent for Facebook.

Activision Goes Hollywood
The size of the video game industry often shocks non-gamers. Example: Amazon’s 2014 billion-dollar acquisition of Twitch (which boasts the viewership of a mid-sized cable channel). Activision’s co-President Nick van Dyk (a former Disney strategy VP) states that the firm’s “Call of Duty IP is much greater than the core IP of Marvel. Our players spent 14 billion hours last year of playing and viewing our content. To put that in perspective, that’s more time spent watching every movie released last year in every movie theater in the world.” Activision’s reach extends from the MMORPG World of Warcraft, to its announced $5.9 billion acquisition of Candy Crush maker King. People in the former can only dream of being so rich by buying wow classic gold to build their stocks, whilst the latter has a firm hold in the mobile gaming market. Says van Dyke, “People in this space are playing over a thousand hours a year of video games relative to the two hours they spend on a Spider-Man comic book. It’s a different level of immersion and engagement. Comic books are a nearly $1 billion industry, which is dwarfed by the revenues the games business brings in.”

The Future of the Grocery Store
The video clip below from the Future Food District at the Milan 2015 world expo shows everything from robo-baggers to food origin tracking. More video content is available from CNBC. A provocative and thought-provoking piece to share with students.

Fun Fact: Half of the Top 10 in Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year listing run tech firms.

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Lots of #BCventures news!

• Congrats @BCalumni who co-founded firms that were winners of this Fall’s BostInno 50-on-Fire: @Drizly, @Buildium, @DraftKings & @nmcremins of @She_Starts.
• Congrats @ChaseMcAleese (Jebbit/TechStars & PrettyInstant/Y-Combinator) & current BC student @RileySoward (Campus Insights, Dorm Room Fund, Highland Capital intern) on being named to BostInno’s “25 under 25”
• Soward was also profiled as the youngest person on the 25 under 25 list. His Campus Insights firm provides highly regarded UX consulting. TechTrek West – the Palo Alto native will be out to visit you in March!
• Congrats to #BCTechTrek ’15 student Claudio Quintana named one of the nation’s “Best and Brightest Business Majors” by Poets & Quants.
• The Huffington Post interviewed Jebbit CEO Tom Coburn on how his built-at-BC startup grew into a $3.3 million firm.
• Also congrats @lacostejonathan of Jebbit, named 2015 Emerging Executive of the Year in Massachusetts by the MassTLC!
• TechCrunch reports that Data-Driven health insurance provider @clover_health has been backed by Sequoia Capital, with BC alum and TechTrek host, Sequoia’s @mikedixonsc, leading the investment.
• Bizjournals profiles Squadle, co-founded by BC alum @le_isms. The Cambridge startup’s software is now used by big chains including Dunkin’ Donuts, Chick-fil-A, and Sonic. Le kindly hosted a #BCTechTrek Boston visit to Bolt, the hardware-focused VC backing the firm, last Spring.
• Congrats to @WePay co-founded by BC alums @billclerico and @richaberman, recognized as one of the fastest-growning private firms in the country.
• Want more from Clerico? Check out his interview with Wharton’s Startup School Radio.
• Congrats #BCTechTrek alum @JoshuaJBerk, founding member of the firm Localize, which recently raised a $1.1 million round. Localize automates translation services and counts Uber and Microsoft among its clients.
• BostInno profiled @ArtLifting and how their big firm focus helps provide income and opportunity to the homeless. The firm was co-founded by BC alum @powerssp (son of Biz Law prof. Powers).
• Love that BC Alumna @JackieDeLaw is profiled as part of the effort behind ‘Made in Boston’ that’s working to build a hub for consumer startups.
• BC IS @ProfKane has a new piece in Sloan Management Review on “Setting Up Digital to Tell Stories to a Global Audience“
• BC IS Prof. @ransbotham was in the Boston Globe, covering his Sloan Management Review work on “When is Too Much Data a bad thing“
• Congrats to BC Professor & IS Dept. Chair Rob Fichman who, along with U. Michigan Prof (and former BC IS prof) Nigel Melville honored for Best IS Publication on their work: How posture-profile misalignment in IT innovation diminishes returns: Conceptual development and empirical demonstration.
• BC Law Prof. David Twomey sets the record straight on BC Football’s 1940 National Championship. Yes, BC Football did have a national championship team.

The post Apple on 60 Minutes, Netflix socks, Blockchain breakout, Approaching VCs, Activision Goes Hollywood, Future Grocery Stores, Job Advice & #BCventures – The Week in Geek™ – Dec. 22, 2015 appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.

• James Loftus, Partner, Andreessen-Horowitz (a16z) – Corporate Development Team: Twitter: @loftusbc
• Miguel Galvez, co-founder and CEO, NBD Nano (founded on campus, past winner of BCVC): Twitter: @galvezmi.
• Adejire Bademosi, Public Policy and Community Outreach, Twitter (and formerly of CODE2040.org): Twitter: @adejirebademosi
• Matt Ricketson, Software Engineer, Apple TV, Apple, Inc.: Twitter: @ricketson_

Moderated by BC Marketing Prof. Bridget Akinc – Twitter: @profakinc

Share widely – we hope to see you there!

How Apple Built 3D Touch
In early September Apple introduced a host of new products, including the nearly 13” iPad Pro and the related Apple Pencil precision writing tool, a new Siri-enabled and gaming-ready AppleTV, and the 6s iPhones with pressure-sensitive touch among its new features (watch the keynote here). Some of the critique of Apple’s product launch as ‘incremental’ seems way off base. The iPhone 6s may look nearly identical to a 6, but 3D Touch promises a radical improvement in the ease of multi-tasking and getting to the task-at-hand, perhaps the biggest interface evolution since Apple introduced its smart phone. On the challenge of solving the touch problem, Apple’s Craig Federighi says “you think you want to detect force, but really what you’re trying to do is sense intent. You’re trying to read minds.”

Apple TV, with voice-activated search that surfaces available content in multiple apps is nothing short of revolutionary. Commands seem really robust, including “What did she just say” which rewinds 15 seconds and briefly turns on close captioning. The ‘no channel’ TV future will be embraced by content providers who are free to charge for content or run ads as they’d like. Apple becomes a conduit to bring in more business, not a competitor that’ll take it away. Within TV, the switch from Apple’s elegant UI to disparate apps may seem a bit jarring at first, but Apple has a slick SDK, and will continually refine UI recommendations that will help everyone play nice, and look good while doing it. A new TV app store accompanies the new tvOS, and gaming functions.

Regarding the critics; as Bloomberg points out, “the appreciation of excellence fades when your customers are conditioned to expect it.” Tech critics aside, apparently what’s not fading is customer desire. iPhone 6s pre-orders sold out in China in the first 12 hours.

Moore’s Law is Dead (but not on Mobile)
There are a couple fascinating charts in this ReadWrite piece showing how the calculating performance of Moore’s Law has lagged on laptops, but vastly leapt ahead of curves in mobile devices. Similar charts showing the increase in Apple’s AX processors were referenced in Apple’s Sept. keynote.

When One App Rules Them All: WeChat Explained
One of the world’s most important mobile platforms is rarely used by Americans. Connie Chan’s excellent piece on the Andreessen Horowitz a16z blog provides lots of insight, especially key given that “many of WeChat’s most interesting features – such as access to city services – are not even visible to users outside China.”

Launched roughly four years ago by China’s Tencent (a leader with the wildly popular QQ desktop messenger), WeChat (known in China as Weixin for “micro letter”) is a mobile messenger and is often compared to WhatsApp, but WeChat is really more of a portal, a platform, or almost a mobile operating system. Users can “hail a taxi, order food delivery, buy movie tickets, play casual games, check in to a flight, send money to friends, access fitness tracker data, book a doctor appointment, get banking statements, pay their water bill, find geo-targeted coupons, recognize music, search for a book at the public library, meet strangers around you, follow celebrity news, read magazine articles, and even donate to charity … all in a single, integrated app.” Many of these features are available through the millions (that’s not a typo) of “lightweight apps” that run inside WeChat. With that kind of influence, the WeChat standard is almost like a more functional (think integration with payments) mobile subset of the web itself. The app has over 600 million users and even more impressively, an estimated Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of $7. Check out the many screenshots in this piece, including the adorable plush that allows WeChat control for a real-world child’s toy.

WeChat hits on many themes of our course: the rise to mobile, platform and standards competition, network effects, and more. Chan’s article is definitely worth a read!

A Look at Facebook’s Privacy Settings
Facebook is another company that has expanded beyond service to become a wide-reaching platform. Consider something like Facebook log-in. When you use your Facebook credentials to enter a third-party site, that site’s operators can personalize your experience – surfacing friends on the site, content they’ve posted, and leveraging your Facebook profile photo, among other things. Your moves on that site can also filter back to Facebook, influencing what you see in your feed and the ads that you’re shown. Check out this post from Wired that demystifies Facebook privacy settings, and helps you understand how your data is shared, used and how you can be in control of limiting or expanding what’s offered up.

Social Media from Clinical Trial Participants Tipping Off Investors
Consider this: patients enter a critical clinical trial for a firm’s treatment for damaged spinal cords. They begin to post results long before the company has collected data and reported this back to the FDA – way before Wall Street or anyone else is supposed to get ‘official’ public notification of the results. And the stock price moves based on the posts. This happened when a small number of patients in InVivo’s clinical trial used Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Vimeo, and GoFundMe to share their “triumphs and setbacks.” The result is what one analyst called “the perfect storm of social media interplay with share price.” The Boston Globe story is an insightful look at a case where the promise of uncertain but potentially life changing new treatments, insight-hungry investors, and front-line patients mix in a social media free-for-all.

The Startup Scene’s Favorite Front Page Gets It’s Own Techie AMAs
When BC alum & Google Director Marvin Chow spoke with our students last year he advised those not already in the know to check out Product Hunt – a place where the technorati share and rate their favorite up-and-coming products, apps, and online services (books and games, too). While we can all watch the buzz, only an elite few get to contribute. An exclusive group of roughly 1,800 members (mostly investors, entrepreneurs, developers, and tech journalists) are cleared to post products for consideration. An additional 17,500 users can comment and suggest products. This exclusivity among the ‘big megaphone’ thought leader crowd can create buzz to push breakout awareness. Examples: “the e-commerce tool Subbly, whose signups nearly quadrupled and paying customer base quintupled after being listed on Product Hunt, and Point, a browser extension that drew compliments from high-profile VCs Kevin Rose and Michael Arrington after reaching Product Hunt’s top slot.” The site’s now going mainstream with Product Hunt Live, a feature akin to Redit’s AMA (Ask Me Anything). Snoop Dogg launched his latest album on Product Hunt, and expect more mainstream appeal to follow.

Zara’s Founder Now World’s 2nd Richest Person
An interesting tidbit for those teaching with the Zara chapter in https://gallaugher.com/book.

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A bit of #BCventures news:

• Congrats to thredUp, and their BC alum founders and perennial #BCTechTrek West hosts @jamesreinhart & @oliverl. The category-leading online destination for buying & selling high-quality ‘pre-owned’ fashions, has raised $80 million to place it half way to unicorn status.
• BC alum @Seany_Biz will be on campus to discuss opportunities at Venture for America, often described as an AmeriCorps for Startups. September 24, 2015, 7 00 PM 8 30 PM, Gasson Hall Room #306.
• LOTS from BC Prof Sam @Ransbotham Deoderizing Your Data,  Telling Data’s Story with Graphics (an interview with the CIO of Constellation Brands), and Sam’s featured participation in an Internet of Things Webinar, all through the Sloan Management Review.
• BC’s New Faculty profiles includes our new IS Dept colleague Prof. @Zhuoxin_Li. Welcome, Allen!
• Are you a BC Computer Science Alumnus? (like myself).  A networking event is being planned. Please contact Kaitlin.Ardiff@bc.edu for details and to be part of future e-mail updates.
• BC Hit #30 in the latest US News National University rankings, our highest position ever.
• BC has launched the Shea Center for Entrepreneurship. The new Center will be an umbrella for all things startup happening at BC, a catalyst for new firm creation, and a venue for helping making students ‘startup ready,’ even if they’re not set on being founders. Coverage includes info from Marketwatch and the BC Chronicle. Follow them at @BCSheaCenter. Special thanks to Carroll Dean @andy_boynton and congrats to the team behind the effort.

The post Come See Eagle Innovators Thursday 9/17, Apple’s Innovations, Moore’s Law + Mobile, WeChat Explained, Facebook Privacy, Social Media + Insider Trading?, Product Hunt, plus BC’s New Shea Center for Entrepreneurship – The Week in Geek™ – Sept. 14, 2015 appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.

New Version 4.0
Version 4.0 of my textbook has just been published and is ready for Fall classes! Faculty can request a copy here. This latest version of the text includes a new chapter on Rent the Runway, and how the firm’s young women entrepreneurs built a “fashion company with a tech soul” that has attracted over 5 million customers. Concepts from the sharing economy, two-sided markets, social, mobile, multi-channel, big data leverage, and tech-fueled operations are all covered. Disruptive Innovation now gets its own chapter. New coverage includes minicases on “Mickey’s Wearable” (Disney’s billion dollar MagicBand and MyMagic+), Big Data at L.L. Bean, Spotify’s DJ in the cloud, Watson in your child’s toy, Amazon’s new robotic distribution centers, and much more. From Alphabet at Google to Zara’s new firm-wide RFID program, you’ll find lots of content to engage your students (and some new embedded video, too). Here is text taken from my publisher’s announcement, a link of Topics taken from the Table of Contents, and an update list on chapter-by-chapter changes for those faculty moving from v. 3.0 to v. 4.0. At less than $25 for the web edition, the text continues to be offered at a price point of roughly 1/10th the cost of leading management textbooks, and is still cheaper than the coursepacks and Chegg offerings that many profs use. With over 1,300 adoptions, it’s been great to see the far-reaching impact of the project. I remain so grateful to all who have adopted the text and helped spread the word. My tremendous thanks to you! More info at https://gallaugher.com/book.

Mary Meeker Internet Trends
Tops on my ‘must read’ recommendation short-list is the annual Mary Meeker Internet Trends slide deck. Also catch the video of the KPCB partner blasting through her massive (196 slides) and deeply insightful deck at the Re/code Code Conference last May.

Netflix Secret TV Lab
The Netflix global subscriber base is over 62 million and growing. That gives the firm a lot of clout, and it’s using these numbers to push TV makers to optimize the Netflix experience. The “Netflix Recommended TV” label awards the distinction to firms based on several criteria such as speed, easy access, fast startup/instant on, quick resume, and sets offering remotes with a Netflix button. The firm found many top-selling TVs, even high-end ones, didn’t make the cut. A team of secret shoppers buys TVs direct from retailers to avoid getting ‘ringer’ TVs that perform better than off-the-shelf panels. They’re tested in a shielded ‘Faraday Cage’ and go through several simulations, including spotty WiFi reflective of many homes and cable subscribers. Scenarios (shutting things off for a phone call or to check a score, then resuming) are tested for best-experience results.

More evidence of Netflix growing influence: the firm represents close to 6% of TV viewing in the US, and accounted for 43% of the network TV ratings decline during a recent quarter. Recode quips on the frenemies-style hand-wringing the firm is generating in the industry, writing “Netflix uses TV’s old shows to build its own business, which eats into TV’s business. Then Netflix uses the money it makes from TV’s old shows to make new shows of its own — so it can eat into the TV business some more.”

Inside Google’s Secret War on Ad Fraud
A team of over 100 at Google are actively fighting the mob’s attempts to highjack your computer and siphon billions from the online ad industry. AdAge offers a fascinating look at the secretive Google team and the badguys, the deeply skilled global mafias, that they’re battling. As our students learn in class, much ad fraud happens via botnets where organized crime takes over personal machines to secretly click ads owned by the crime syndicate. By infecting computers like yours and issuing unseen commands (you may not even know your machine is ‘surfing’ in the background), criminals avoid detection by diversifying IP addresses, geographies, and building scale that looks like patterns visiting a popular site. Some sell botnet access in sophisticated online black markets where sellers are rated with Netflix-like star ratings and funds are held in escrow to insure a deal’s integrity. But Google’s scale gives it the big data size to identify truly random patterns from those created by criminals (see image above where uniformity on left and middle suggest a computer’s and not a human’s clicks). With this kind of scale, Google knows what regular traffic patterns are – date, time geography, reasonably average click-through rates, how they vary in the face of current events, and much more. Faculty wanting to teach students more about ad fraud (and how it’s fought) can see Chapter 18 in our textbook.

Silicon Valley’s Top Firms, 2015
This searchable database from the San Jose Mercury News can provide some fascinating insights. Click columns to get a sense of who’s tops in revenues, profits, CapEx, headcount, and more. Faculty: this is a fun thing to share with new business students who are just getting a sense of differences in various industries and markets. Too bad the Fortune 500 stopped doing this, but kudos to the Merc for stepping up, even if it is just focused on the Valley’s biggies.

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It’s been a while since the last blog post. More great #BCventures news from our students, alumni, and faculty! For startups, do consider following them on AngelList for updates, investment info, and job openings.

The only way we’re going to get more women interested in tech and entrepreneurship is to step up and provide mentoring and resources. Hugely proud of the new BC Women Innovator’s Group @BCwinnovators. Boston Magazine profiled the group’s founding. Interested in getting involved? See: IS Academy Pres ‪@ayako_mikami and BC’s Google rep ‪@techarev. BC Prof. Bridget Akinc is their advisor.

Congrats to WePay! CEO Bill Clerico (co-founder of BCVC and a vet of our first TechTrek) and his Eagle co-founder Rich Aberman, have raised $40 million more for their payments juggernaut. New investor FTV Capital led the round, with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten and existing investors Highland Capital Partners, August Capital, Continental Investors and Ignition Partners also in.

WePay’s Clerico leads the Inc. Magazine piece on “Why Fintech Is One of the Most Promising Industries of 2015” while BC alum and Sequoia Capital partner Pat Grady is also quoted.

Alcohol delivery service Drizly, founded on campus by BC alum Nick Rellas when he was an undergrad, raised an additional $13 million to expand their national reach (already at 15 markets coast to coast). Backers include the hugely influential Wine and Spirit Wholesalers of America (looking to Drizly to beat back Amazon), and Polaris Ventures. Nick has been a host to our students as well as a mentor and on-campus speaker. Keep inspiring the next gen, Nick! The Drizly and WePay funding came within days of each other. $53 million for #BCventures in one week – not bad!

Wired turns to Jim Lucchese, BC alum and CEO of Spotify-owned The Echo Nest in the piece “Inside Spotify’s Hunt for the Perfect Playlist”. By analyzing the listening habits of millions and deciphering what tastemakers and others are saying in blogs and online posts, no one knows more about what’s hot than The Echo Nest. Now that personal DJ in the cloud is bringing its Big Data brain to help you discover tunes you’ll love. Jim has hosted our students for #BCTechTrek Boston and arranged for a face-melting demo, and we look forward to having him speak on campus in Fall. Stay tuned!

BC Magazine profiles the alum-founded, crowdsourcing creatives at Santa Monica-based Tongal. Revenues top $25 million and clients include Lego, MasterCard, Tide, and McDonald’s. Follow alumni @dejules @robsalvi & @markfburrell for more insights.

Wymsee is hiring! The alum-founded TechStars Boston vets have industry-standard software that’s powering hit shows from Modern Family to Game of Thrones. Apply through AngelList! https://angel.co/l/xsk52

The second class of the BC alumni-powered Soaring Startup Circle looked dynamite at the BC Startup Celebration hosted by WeWork South Station where BC alum Dave McLaughlin runs the show.  All teams pitched (get their info here), and BC’s new Exec Director of the Entrepreneurship Initiative, Jere Doyle, spoke. See photos here. Not plugged in? Be sure to join BC’s Technology Council by emailing bctc@bc.edu.

PLEASE visit the Soaring Startup Circle page, try firm MVPs, download their apps, and offer them your constructive feedback. Thanks to Tom Coburn of Jebbit and the other core members of the team.  Want to get involved? Reach out to them, directly.

BC student & alum entrepreneurs take note! Thanks to alum Dave McLaughlin, WeWork Boston will extend a $1,000 credit toward a desk or office for any member of the BC community who tours WeWork before October. Just register for a tour on their site and let them know you are an eagle!

Congrats to current BC student ‪@GotcherGray and the TightSpot team on making the elite 2015 Summer@Highland class. Once again a BC team is working side-by-side with some of the best collegiate entrepreneurs in the country, gaining world-class mentoring and rocket fuel for future success.

After co-founding LocalOn BCVC winner David Tolioupov is back at it, with GoSkip, a mobile checkout solution that allows you to walk right out of the market, with your phone taking care of payment.  Read his comments in “Startups Bringing Sales, Marketing, Customer Experience Into Closer Alignment”

#BCventures show up everywhere. This piece in the Boston Globe points out that celebrity chef Mario Batali’s partner Joe Bastianich is a BC alum! New eats coming to Boston, soon!

The powerful and inspiring work of BC Egan Professor Jim Gips is profiled by the Better World Project “Labor of Love Helps Severely Disabled Communicate“.

BC Information Systems Prof. Jerry Kane has co-authored MIT Sloan Management Review’s report on how “Strategy, Not Technology, Drives Digital Transformation” in the 2015 Digital Business Global Executive Study & Research Project. Also hear his comments via podcast, too.

Want Big Data insights? Catch BC Information Systems Prof. Sam Ransbotham interviewing the CEO of data giant Epsilon in “Marketing in Five Dimensions”

Former student Jackie Ouellette gets a mention in Scott Kirsner’s insightful Boston Globe piece on the issues facing sharing economy firms as they grapple with concerns over contract workers.

Personal note: I was so honored to have received the Rev. Trzaska Faculty Leadership Award from the VP of Student Affairs office, but was really blown away when they showed me the long list of students, alumni, faculty and administrators who nominated me. Do know how touched I am that you took time from your busy schedule to share a nomination. This was entirely unexpected, but I am truly grateful. All of our programs are a team effort, and we are fortunate to have so many committed to creating great experiences for our students and University. Thanks to all who help us! Here’s the video the kind folks in student affairs created for awards night (you might be in it), but also be sure to see the more worthy students who won leadership awards this year.

The post New Textbook Version, Meeker Trends, Netflix TV, Google Fights Fraud, Silicon Valley Elite + Lots of #BCventures News: The Week in Geek™ – August 19, 2015 appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.

• 1. Setting the Stage: Technology and the Modern Enterprise
  • 1.1 Tech’s Tectonic Shift: Radically Changing Business Landscapes
  • 1.2 It’s Your Revolution: Your favorite businesses, brought to you by the 30 and under set
  • 1.3 Geek Up—Tech Is Everywhere and You’ll Need It to Thrive
  • 1.4 The Pages Ahead
• 2. Strategy and Technology: Concepts and Frameworks for Understanding What Separates Winners from Losers
  • 2.1. Introduction: Operational Effectiveness vs. Strategic Positioning. The Struggles of TiVo, the Disruption of FreshDirect
  • 2.2. Powerful Resources: What does it take to build sustained competitive advantage and what is technology’s role? Imitation-resistant value chains, brand, scale, data, switching costs, network effects, distribution channels, and more.
  • 2.3. Barriers to Entry, Technology, and Timing: Stop thinking ‘first mover’, start using timing and tech to create advantage
  • 2.4. Key Framework: The Five Forces of Industry Competitive Advantage: Understanding tech’s role in market competition.

• 3. Zara: Fast Fashion from Savvy Systems
  • 1. Introduction: Building the world’s largest pure-play fashion retailer, Zara v. Gap, Tech tackles the sweatshop
  • 2. Don’t Guess, Gather Data: Powering a better, more profitable model through technology
  • 3. Moving Forward: Excellence does not equal perfection – tradeoffs in Zara’s winning approach, plus Minicase: Prada’s tech stumbles
• 4. Netflix in Two Acts: The Making of an E-Commerce Giant and the Uncertain Future of Atoms to Bits
  • 1. Introduction: Reed Hastings, Hero to Chump to Hero, Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it better
  • 2. Act I: David Becomes Goliath: Crafting Killer Assets for DVD-by-Mail Dominance
  • 3. Act II: Netflix and the Shift from Mailing Atoms to Streaming Bits: How to win when nearly everything changes in the shift to streaming

• 5. Moore’s Law and More: Fast, Cheap Computing, and What This Means for the Manager
  • 1. Introduction: Three curves that tell the future. Your fast/cheap crystal ball. Understanding tech-driven market creation and lessons from Apple to Amazon to emerging economies to Moore’s Law in your medicine cabinet.
  • 2. The Death of Moore’s Law? Why history’s greatest economic gravy train will come to an end in your lifetime.
  • 3. Bringing Brains Together: Supercomputing, Grids, Clusters, and Putting Smarts in the Cloud. From Watson to children’s toys to practical examples leveraging the massively parallel cloud, innovator it’s time to get your geek on.
  • 4. E-waste: The Dark Side of Moore’s Law: It’s all great until it has to be thrown away.
  • 5. Mickey’s Wearable: Disney’s Magic Band: DisneyWorld dumps paper tickets for an experiencing-enhancing, wallet-connected bracelet. The inside story of making $1 billion+ in complexity turn into a dance of delight.

• 6. Disruptive Technologies: Understanding the Giant Killers and Tactics for Avoiding Extinction
  • 1. Introduction: Why are giants toppled? How to recognize the risk, and planning to be the disruptor and not the disrupted
  • 2. Bitcoin: A Disruptive Innovation for Money and More? Explaining the promise and challenges of a potentially world-changing technology

• 7. Amazon: An Empire Stretching from Cardboard Box to Kindle to Cloud
  • 7.1. Introduction: Executing a brilliant vision or an occasionally profitable, low-margin hype-machine?
  • 7.2. The Emperor of E-Commerce. A dance of robots and tech for warehouse efficiencies. The negative cash conversion cycle. Cementing scale, convenience, and selection advantages for your first choice (and often only) online shopping destination. Prime, mobile, and gadget experiments to move from shopping list to ship-it-now.
  • 7.3. Kindle on Fire: The Rise of Digital, the Everywhere Store, and New Opportunities from e-Book, Tablet, TV, and Phone. Success and struggles in platform creation. Channel pressure and disintermediating publishers from books to games to TwitchTV.
  • 7.4. Amazon and the Cloud: From Personal Storage to AWS. A multi-billion dollar business that’s used by some of tech’s biggest players.
• 8. Understanding Network Effects: Strategies for Competing in a Platform-Centric, Winner-Take-All World
  • 8.1. Introduction: Why this is often the most powerful force in tech market competition and platform creation.
  • 8.2. Where Does All That Value Come From? Exchange, stability, and a platform’s complementary benefits.
  • 8.3. One-Sided or Two-Sided Markets? Not all network markets are the same.
  • 8.4. How Are These Markets Different?
  • 8.5. Competing When Network Effects Matter: strategies for building success and challenging the leaders.
• 9. Social Media, Peer Production, and Web 2.0
  • 1. Introduction: a rundown of the web’s and app world’s most popular services. Yep, they’re all social.
  • 2. Blogs
  • 3. Wikis
  • 4. Social Networks
  • 5. Twitter and the Rise of Microblogging
  • 6. Prediction Markets and the Wisdom of Crowds
  • 7. Crowdsourcing
  • 8. Get SMART: The Social Media Awareness and Response Team: How to build and run the social side of your business.

• 10. The Sharing Economy, Collaborative Consumption, and Creating More Efficient Markets through Technology
  • 1. Introduction: a multitude of models
  • 2. Boom Times and Looming Challenges in the Sharing Economy
  • 3. Future Outlook: Established Players Get Collaborative
  • 4. Airbnb: Hey Stranger, Why Don’t You Stay at My Place?
  • 5. Uber: Sharing Economy Success from Tech-Fueled Superior Service

• 11. Facebook: A Billion-plus users, the High-Stakes Move to Mobile, and Big Business from the Social Graph
  • 1. Introduction: a 19 year old builds a service used by more than 1 in 7 people on earth. Tech, the entrepreneur’s ownership stake, and power lessons from meteoric growth.
  • 2. Disrupting Competition, Building Competitive Advantage, and the Challenging Rise of Mobile
  • 3. Lessons from Facebook as an Apps Platform: Early Promise, Continued Challenges, Mobile Missteps
  • 4. Advertising and Social Networks:  A Challenging Landscape but a Big Payoff
  • 5. A Platform Player that Moves Fast and Breaks Things: What All Managers Can Learn from Facebook’s Mistakes, Responses, and Pursuit of New Opportunities

• 12. Rent the Runway: Entrepreneurs Expanding an Industry by Blending Tech with Fashion
  • 1. Introduction: Two women build a “fashion company with a technology soul” loved by more than five million
  • 2. Founding the Business. Are We On To Something? Product/Market fit, the minimum viable product, and crafting value and delight in a two-sided market.
  • 3. Customer Engagement (Mobile, Social, and Physical Storefronts)
  • 4. Big Data for Big Results, Driving the Business Through Analytics
  • 5. Operations and Logistics: tech orchestrates “Cinderella moments”
  • 6. Expanding with New Models: your closet in the cloud
  • 7. Conclusion: Building a unicorn and paying it foward

• 13. Understanding Software: A Primer for Managers
  • 1. Introduction: What is software and why is it “eating the world”?
  • 2. Operating Systems: they’re everywhere! PC, enterprise, mobile, and embedded systems.
  • 3. Application Software: from the desktop to the enterprise. A manager’s guide to enterprise acronym soup.
  • 4. Distributed Computing, Web Services, and APIs: The platform builders.
  • 5. Writing Software: programming languages, Java’s appeal, and SDKs
  • 6. Understanding Technology beyond the Price Tag: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and the Cost of Tech Failure. A sidebar on the failure and resurrection of Healthcare.gov

• 14. Software in Flux: Open Source, Cloud, Virtualized and App-driven Shifts
  • 1. Introduction: This ain’t Daddy’s software world
  • 2. Open Source
  • 3. Why Open Source?
  • 4. Examples of Open Source Software
  • 5. Why Give It Away? The Business of Open Source
  • 6. Defining Cloud Computing
  • 7. Software in the Cloud: Why Buy When You Can Rent?
  • 8. SaaS: Not without Risks
  • 9. Understanding Cloud Computing Models: PaaS, IaaS, and Motivations and Risks
  • 10. Clouds and Tech Industry Impact
  • 11. Virtualization and Containers: Software That Makes One Computer Act Like Many
  • 12. Apps and App Stores: Further Disrupting the Software Industry on Smartphones, Tablets, and Beyond
  • 13. Make, Buy, or Rent

• 15. The Data Asset: Databases, Business Intelligence, Analytics, Big Data, and Competitive Advantage
  • 1. Introduction: a growing and unruly asset, but a potentially critical source of competitive advantage.
  • 2. Data, Information, and Knowledge: Knowing the difference makes all the difference.
  • 3. Where Does Data Come From? Internal systems and third-party sources
  • 4. Data Rich, Information Poor: Why it’s not all that easy to pull it all together.
  • 5. Data Warehouses, Data Marts, and Technology behind “Big Data”. A manager’s guide from relational to NoSQL and Hadoop, and why every ambitious manager should understand the differences. Spotify’s DJ in the cloud.
  • 6. The Business Intelligence Toolkit: Critical technologies from reporting and query tools to AI and machine learning. How LL Bean wins big with big data.
  • 7. Data Asset in Action: Technology and the Rise of Walmart

• 16. A Manager’s Guide to the Internet and Telecommunications
  • 16.1. Introduction: it all sounds impossible, but it works. Let’s learn how.
  • 16.2. Internet 101: Understanding How the Internet Works. The inside scoop on the ‘network of networks’ host, domain names, IP addresses, the DNS, and why you need to care.
  • 16.3. Getting Where You’re Going: How traffic is sent and routed. And why low latency is perhaps Wall Street’s most precious asset.
  • 16.4. Last Mile: Faster Speed, Broader Access: Wired and wireless solutions to satisfy your need for speed.
• 17. Information Security: Barbarians at the Gateway (and Just About Everywhere Else)
  • 17.1. Introduction. Anatomy of the career-crushing Target hack, and other high-profile breaches.
  • 17.2. Why Is This Happening? Who Is Doing It? And What’s Their Motivation?
  • 17.3. Where Are Vulnerabilities? Understanding the Weaknesses and Developing Defense Skills.
  • 17.4. Taking Action: as an individual and enterprise.
• 18. Google in Three Parts: Search, Online Advertising, and an Alphabet of Opportunity
  • 18.1. Introduction: Perhaps the most influential business of our time, and masters of the ‘greatest trick in business history’.
  • 18.2. Understanding Search: Guess what? You’re not really searching the Internet.
  • 18.3. Understanding the Increase in Online Ad Spending: Show me the money, and the results
  • 18.4. Search Advertising: Pennies from clicks make it rain serious coin
  • 18.5. Ad Networks—Distribution beyond Search: Everyone can Make Money from Google.
  • 18.6. More Ad Formats and Payment Schemes: Thinking beyond Pay Per Click.
  • 18.7. Customer Profiling and Behavioral Targeting: Who Are You?
  • 18.8. Profiling and Privacy: Where’s the creep-out line and why managers (and citizens) should understand this evolution.
  • 18.9. Search Engines, Ad Networks, and Fraud: The bad guys want to make money, too. Click to enrich the pockets of the mob.
  • 18.10. The Battle Unfolds: Google vs. the World and the evolution to Alphabet.

The post Topics/Table of Contents for Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology v. 5.0 (Aug. 2016) appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.

Security for the Internet of Things (IoT), devices with computing smarts, is getting better, but each connected device is a potential path for attack.  A recent report showed several major manufacturers that could allow hackers to detect when garage doors were opened, allow for the listening and recording of in-home conversations, and potentially gain control of locks or other devices connected to a smart hub. A reminder to be vigilant with product choices, configuration, and setup.

What Did Billion Dollar Companies Look Like at Series A?
A recent BC on-campus talk by Google Marketing Director, BC alum Marvin Chow pointed students to this great article in Medium.  Many of the “Unicorns” (current tech industry term for “startups” valued at $1B+) sported many of the same characteristics: Easy-to-dismiss ideas (rent space in your home to strangers, hotel style?), Competitive markets (who’d use SnapChat & WhatsApp when we have Facebook & SMS?), Reinventing existing consumer behavior (pie-growing Uber makes many drop car ownership, car rental, and public transit), Untested founders (know the world’s youngest self-made billionaire? It’s Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holms of med testing firm Theranos!). And Zero monetization (Twitter, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Instagram, Waze, among many others).

The “Unicorn” term was coined by Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures.  Lee’s original post had 39 Unicorns identified over the past decade, but Fortune has a list of over 80 current firms fitting the “unicorn” criteria.  Be cautious. Fab had raised over $300M and was thought by many to be worth over $1B.  Today the firm’s on the edge of dissolution. Real value and crystal-ball prospects aren’t the same thing. By the way, those looking to refine their ‘Valley Speak” might hear Decacorns (firms valued at $10B pre-exit) and “Dragons” referred to as those firms that return an entire fund at exit.

Moore’s Law Hits 50 but May Not Make 60
In 1965, roughly three years before launching what would become Intel Corporation, Gordon Moore wrote a 4 page paper in Electronics Magazine, noting that microprocessors, the calculating brain of computers, get faster and cheaper – roughly doubling in speed or halving in cost every two years (subsequent managerial definitions estimate 18 months).  This principle, which has become known as “Moore’s Law” works because each new generation packs transistors into increasingly smaller spaces.  Moore’s Law is simply the result of persistent advancement in the equipment used to manufacture chips, and early observations have held roughly true for half a century. But at some point Moore’s Law will run into the unyielding hand of God (Moore’s Wall) – there is a point at which transistors can’t be made any smaller.  We’re getting close.  In Q1 ‘15, more than half of the Intel chips sold used 14-nanometer manufacturing process, the generation following 22-nanometer tech. For reference, 14 nanometers is smaller than a typical virus cell, and about as thick as the outer cell wall of a germ. Intel officials think they’ve got two more generations of shrinkage with current technologies, but beyond that, no one is committing.  What will the world be like when our devices don’t get faster and cheaper? Will more computing power shift to cloud-based distributed computing? And will this expedite the need for higher-bandwidth?

Replacing Silicon with new materials (including germanium and graphene) may help. Lab work from an Aussie team showed a single-atom transistor. Diamonds and quantum computing are among many lab-based tech that also show promise, although proof of commercialization is no where in sight.  Intel is clearly looking to the future.  The firm spent $11.5 billion on R&D last year and another $10 billion on capital expenditures.  And while Intel makes mostly their own chips, the number of leading chip manufacturers cranking out brains for smartphones, tablets, and other devices has shrunk from 18 a decade ago, to only four today: Intel, Samsung, GlobalFoundries, and TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp). Bonus: The end of the article above includes video of Moore discussing his paper and technology advancement.

Netflix Subscriber Numbers Soar
A short note for those using the Netflix chapter in our textbook. Netflix stock is once again in nosebleed territory.  So much for the enduring punishment of Qwikster.  While a foreign exchange hit hurt the firm last quarter, if currencies hadn’t quirked earnings, Netflix would have crushed expectations. The firm now has over 41 million US subscribers and about 21 million in the rest of the world. Hello, Cuba!

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And more great #BCventures news from our students, alumni, and faculty!

• BCVC Winners: Congratulations to the winners of the 9th annual Boston College Venture Competition.  1st place was won by CoReHub – a commercial real-estate marketplace.  2nd place was taken by Helpers, an online tutoring marketplace.  And 3rd place was 1950 collective – a fan apparel site for popular bands.  Additional coverage by Bostinno.  BCVC has created a finalist participant page for those seeking more info on teams and founders. Past members have gone on to Y-combinator, TechStars, MassChallenge, they’ve raised millions, and have gained significant customer traction.  We expect big this from this year’s participants!
• BCVC SEED (Social Entrepreneurship) also held their finals, recently.  Winners were: 1st Place Include-Play-Learn – a program and facility empowering children with disabilities in Ghana. BC Gabelli Presidential Scholar Daniel Lundberg has been on leave in Ghana this past year launching the GhanaStrong foundation to advance these goals.  2nd place was Boston Food (contact Max Reik) – a program to deliver high-quality, nutritious food to low-income communities.  3rd place was Noggin (contact Muhan Zhang) – a communications device empowering disabled individuals, with initial prototype implemented using Google Glass. And the AARP prize targeted toward solutions helping older Americans was won by the Nutrition Network (contact Katherine Raymond).
  Congratulations to our student teams and student leadership, as well as to the exceptional faculty team. George Wyner, co-advisor to BCVC; Laura Foote, who leads the SEED social innovators; Mary Tripsas, who is spearheading entrepreneurship studies at BC; Jere Doyle, who is Executive Director of BC’s Entrepreneurship Initiative; and of course Dean Andy Boynton, who has championed and galvanized innovation across the University.
• BC students have launched the BC Women Innovators’ Network (@bcwinnovators). More to come – want in? Tweet at ’em!  Kickoff Tue 4/21 7:30pm Fulton Library w/founder @smartgirlsgroup.
• Squadle, co-founded by BC-alum Le Zhang is automating restaurant operations with tablet and other solutions.  The firm’s products are in use at big firms, like Sonic, to small food truck services. Zhang hosted #BCTechTrek Boston’s visit to Bolt VC – the now bicostal hardware-focused venture firm that provides expertise, space, and equipment to firms it backs.
• BC Law Grad Jackie De La Rosa has worked for Mark Cuban Enterprises, and recently snagged Cuban as an investor inner new startup, Oasys Ventures.
• Congrats to BC alumna Chenny Zhang on graduating from Sunnyvale’s PNP accelerator with Niting8, an interactive english learning platform targeted at the Chinese market.  Read her blog on accelerator life, app launch, China move and view her great demo day pitch.
• The BC Heights did a nice piece on Artlifting, a marketplace for artists who are homeless started by BC alum Spencer Powers and his sister (children of BC Prof. Rick Powers).
• Minding the Analytics Gap – More insights from BC IS Prof. Sam Ransbotham for the MIT Sloan Management Review.
• Social Media Benefits Lost in Translation by BC’s Prof. Jerry Kane also for MIT Sloan Management Review.
• Prof. Mohan Subramaniam co-authored a piece for Harvard Business Review titled “Are You Using APIs for Competitive Advantage?”
• BC alums – mark your calendar & sign up for the BC Spring Boston TechCouncil Event featuring the CEOs of HubSpot and Wayfair! May 20th, Liberty Hotel, Boston.

The post IoT Intruders, Unicorns, Moore’s Wall, Netflix Growth, #BCventures: The Week in Geek™ – April 18, 2015 appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.

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Facebook likes to share.  The firm has a number of well-received open source projects and the firm has “released designs for the computer servers, networking switches and the overall data center layout.A new tool, Origami Live is a mobile app that non-coders can use to prototype apps. Facebook has used a variant of the tool in many of its own projects, including Paper, Instagram, Messenger, Slingshot, Hyperlapse, and Rooms.With Origami Live, non-programmers can piece together “hundreds of tiny graphical widgets and animations into something that looks and behaves” like a real smartphone app.  Rough code for iOS and Android can be generated, which gives developers a starting point for turning the mockup into reality.Oragami Live actually runs when an iPhone or iPad is plugged into a laptop or desktop so it can leverage the larger machine’s burlier computing power, but users can demo apps on their phones and mirror to a desktop for easy display on large screens. Origami Live might be a great tool for the early-stage entrepreneurs competing in the Boston College Venture Competition (submission deadline: Sunday, March 15th, 2015 at 11:59pm, details at: http://bcvc.org).Developer tools from social firms are on the rise, and the new platform seems to be shifting from the vision of running apps inside a firm’s services (think original Farmville), to an alternate platform vision that includes providing services that power apps and, in turn, make it easier for giants to widen their reach and influence.

More exciting #BCventures news, profiling firms led by Boston College entrepreneurs and impactful writing by faculty.

• It was great seeing Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures give a shoutout to ScriptEd.org, founded and led by BC alumna Maurya Couvares. ScriptEd serves hundreds of low-income NYC high school students, provides training and paid summer internships. At a time when tech suffers from a painful lack of diversity, ScriptEd’s current student demographics are 30% Black, 43% Hispanic, 24% Asian, 3% White, and 50% female. ScriptEd was also part of MassChallenge this past year, and Maurya spoke at BC’s “Hub Innovation Comes to the Heights” last September. Want in? See ScriptEd’s internship brochure.
• BC Prof. Sam Ransbotham interviewed BC alum Jim Lucchese, CEO of TheEchoNest (acquired by Spotify) in Sloan Management Review (see “Analytics in E-Major“). Prof. Ransbotham is SMR’s “Big Data” editor. Lucchese hosted #BCTechTrek Boston’s visit to EchoNest’s Somerville, MA HQ last Fall and melted our faces off with demos linking tech, big data, and music discovery.
• Want more of Ransbotham’s “Big Data” wisdom? See his piece: “What Is Analytics Amplifying in Your Organization?” in Sloan Management Review.
• Congrats to BC alum Nick Narodny, co-founder of Grovo. The NYC-based video-training platform, which counts Arizona State and Chevron among its clients, raised $15M in its series B round.
• Congrats #BCTechTrek alum Graham Gullans, cofounder of LiftMetrix, on the firm’s 2.0 product release & partnership w/Hootsuite. LiftMetrics helps marketers determine ROI of online campaigns and the Hootsuite linkup makes the firm’s offerings even more valuable.
• Congratulations BC alum & former student Andrew Boni on $1.2M raise for Iterable, the tool to ‘Growth Hack Your Inbox’.
• Congratulations to #TechTrekGhana partner the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (or MEST) on being named one of the 10 Most Innovative Companies in Africa by FastCompany magazine.
• BC Law students got press recently for their pioneering work with Roxbury’s Smarter in the City accelerator.

The post TechTrek SF Event, Facebook Origami, SnapChat’s $19B, HubSpot’s Rise to Unicorn, and LOTS of #BCventures news: The Week in Geek™ – March 2, 2015 appeared first on Gallaugher.com - Website of Prof. John Gallaugher.