Businesses May Benefit From Imitating Strategies of Second Best
August 2, 2012
TIME recently published a potentially controversial piece called “We Should Follow Those Who Finish Second, Not First.” It defies the common logic that we should look up to the best and brightest minds when developing business strategies.
According to the article, research suggests that the most successful and extraordinary performers may not have the best methods. Rather, greater value can be found in the strategies of those companies that are just under the top tiers of their field.
Some reasons for this assessment? a series of experiments, conducted by Jerker Denrell of the University of Oxford and Chengwei Liu of the University of Warwick, modeled after the results of a game played in many rounds found that:
“Over time, the most skilled players came to inhabit a second tier of reliable competence. Those who succeeded spectacularly — who took their places in the first tier — were often not the most skilled, but rather were those who got some lucky breaks early on or took big risks that happened to pay off. Emulating these top performers would probably lead to disappointment, since imitators would be unlikely to replicate their good fortune.”
While the article makes some interesting points, whatever happened to winning? If Google is number one in search, does that mean we should strive to be more like Bing?
Jasmine Ashton, August 2, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
News Corp., Paywalls, and Online Economics
August 1, 2012
Most businesses are simple. Buy low. Sell high. When I worked at Booz, Allen & Hamilton in the pre-azure chip days, a joke was popular. I jotted down its particulars and it resonated with me when I read “The Daily Lays Off a Third of Its Staff.” The Daily was one of those digital innovations which would pump much needed revenue into a real journalistic operation owned by the News Corp. I know should have a more open mind, but when I hear “News Corp.”, I associate the firm with allegedly inappropriate methods of information collection. I will work on becoming more open minded and understanding. Really, I promise situationally right this instant.
A happy quack to Image source: Tainted Pen at http://taintedpen.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-form-breadline.html
And the joke:
A graduate of an Ivy League MBA who worked as a manager at a financial services firm walked out of her building in Midtown. Waiting to cross Lexington, a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce pulled up. The window slid down. A voice said, “Remember me? We were in MBA school together.” The Ivy Leaguer said, “Yes, but you quit during the first semester. Nice car. What are you doing now?” The limo’s occupant said, “I buy those little paper cocktail umbrellas for one cent each in Shanghai and I sell them to bars worldwide for 10 cents each. That 10 percent mark up produces a lot of dough.” The window slid up and the limo took off.
Yep, pretty good income but not so good math. When something works, apologies and Excel speed skating don’t make much difference in my opinion.
The News Corp. story of the staff cutbacks at the News Corp.’s The Daily is an example of a company unable to generate income. Good math or bad, when a good idea produces lots of revenue, the exact math does not matter too much. When a business cannot generate revenue, then I watch cutbacks, fancy dancing, and ostrich-like maneuvers. Like my beloved boxer Tess. If she turns her head and cannot see me, she thinks I cannot see her.
Here’s the passage I noted in the “real” journalists write up about his employer company engaged in “real” journalism:
News Corp. officials have publicly defended The Daily, which News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch thought would serve as a template for newspapers’ transition to the tablet era. Murdoch’s team worked closely with Apple and its late CEO Steve Jobs to produce a publication initially tailored for the iPad. But while Daily executives say they now have more than 100,000 paying subscribers for its iOS and Android editions, the paper hasn’t been able to live up to Murdoch’s expectations, and the money-losing publication has been under scrutiny since launch.
SharePoint 2013 System Requirements
August 1, 2012
Bjorn Furuknap is again hot on the trail of recent SharePoint activity. With the release of SharePoint 2013, much discussion has taken place surrounding system requirements. While Microsoft initially made a report that requirements would not change from 2010, it seems that is not entirely truthful when referring to SharePoint Server 2013.
Furuknap gives the rundown:
Short story: If you plan on doing development work on SharePoint Server 2013, you need a minimum of 24 GB of RAM. That’s assuming you are NOT going to need Visual Studio, which will only add to that number.
Wow, we were overwhelmed by this number. Most small organizations are not going to want to invest in a separate and beefed-up machine just for SharePoint Server work. In addition, customization is discouraged with SharePoint 2013, so developer work will come at more of a premium as well.
For organizations that need to overcome these challenges, we recommend a smart third party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. Serving as a compliment to an existing infrastructure, or as a standalone solution, Mindbreeze can run on the Cloud, is highly scalable, and receives an efficiency update every quarter. See what users are saying about Fabasoft Mindbreeze, and why they were not willing to settle for SharePoint.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 1, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
A Bold Assertion: eDiscovery Promises to Reduce Some Costs
August 1, 2012
Virtual Strategy Magazine recently wrote an article about “Quantum Discovery’s Predictive Coding Expertise Saves Client Over $1 Million in Attorney Review Fees.” Anyone who saw the headline would immediately click on it, wondering how they could save money with their attorney. Quantum Discovery, a top eDiscovery and forensic technology provider, was hired by a Top 100 Law Firm to analyze a 415GB dataset, containing 2 million records. After preliminary work, Quantum Discovery realized the job was too big for the client’s budget, so they asked for help.
“Quantum Discovery suggested to the Litigation Support Manager and Joe Eaton, Partner and Vice Chairperson of the Litigation Department, that the case team should consider utilizing Lateral Data’s Viewpoint TAR (Technology Assisted Review). Due to recent court rulings and articles associated with the benefits and advantages of predictive coding, Mr. Eaton decided to proceed using TAR. ‘We were looking for ways to save our client money while providing an accurate and reliable document review in a short time frame and thought this new technology being utilized by Quantum may provide a favorable vehicle to do so,’ said Mr. Eaton.”
Teamed with Lateral Data, Quantum Discovery’s software provided the vehicle for a cost-effective solution. The client was not charged an exorbitant amount of money and the case was resolved in a timely manner, relatively unheard of in the court system. On the surface, eDiscovery appears to be a money saver. In today’s economic climate, any cost cutting assertion is likely to get broad consideration. Everyone needs to believe in the tooth fairie.
Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Dassault Partners with Washington Tech Colleges
August 1, 2012
All industries have data – some more than others though. And some industries, especially those that fall under manufacturing, have engineering nightmares when data management solutions don’t do what they are supposed to. Many times it is software error but many times it is also human error. That is why according to the Market Watch article, “Dassault Systemes Partners with Washington State to Prepare the Next Generation of Aerospace Innovators”, the state of Washington’s community and technical college system has partnered with PLM provider, Dassault, in an effort to train future aerospace workers so that they are ready to use data management solutions their first day to work.
As the article explains,
“Washington has already invested $4.8 million for aerospace training and apprenticeship programs during Gov. Gregoire’s administration. With this agreement, the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges is purchasing foundational applications of Dassault Systemes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform, including CATIA and ENOVIA. The platform will be implemented during the 2012-2013 academic year, with 34 of the state’s two-year colleges each having access to the software.”
Dassault’s generosity is quite profitable for the company securing their stronghold as one of the industry leaders, but they are not the only company carving a niche for themselves in complex manufacturing. Inforbix, an up and coming provider of new data management solutions, says this about their offerings:
“Inforbix is a young up-and-coming company thinking BIG about the data challenges in manufacturing companies. We’re thinking how to combine elements of Open Source and data analysis with an understanding of manufacturing data to deliver an affordable data solution for companies of all sizes.”
We recommend that any company struggling with data management issues whether it is software or human related contact Inforbix for new solutions to old problems.
Catherine Lamsfuss, August 1, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Big Gun Discusses Authorship Program
August 1, 2012
Have you noticed the little author profile pictures that have begun popping up in Google results pages over the past year or so? If you are curious, you may want to see Search Engine Journal’s “Google Authorship: An Interview with Google’s Sagar Kamdar.” One of many Googley efforts at social search, Authorship is an program for verifying Web page authors. Writer Grant Crowell reports:
“Kamdar explained to me that the Authorship program was based on the premise that content associated with a real identity is often of higher quality than content published anonymously. . . .
“Of course, one of the important reasons that Google implemented the Authorship program is to help them identify duplicate content. Some authors have had problems with others ranking higher than them in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for their own original content. Authorship is supposed to push the original author to the top of the rankings when someone does a search for their article.”
That’s great! But wait just a moment– Google’s method is to have authors point their pages to their Google+ profiles. One could be excused for viewing this as yet another way to push Google+ onto the world. Google would stand to gain if every author without a Google+ account took on a patina if inauthenticity. Not so good for a writer like me, who is too stubborn to bow to the Google+ takeover (so far, at least.)
From the interview, we learn that Authorship does not, as of yet, directly factor into the search ranking algorithm. Instead, it is one of several “social signals” that are used to weight search results. The write up notes that the inclusion of an author photo can be a valuable tool; people like to click on pictures. Such are the observations of an SEO pro.
Cynthia Murrell, August 1, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Infographic Presents Google Ad Numbers
August 1, 2012
With more on the softening of objectivity, Search Engine Journal presents, “Are Google Ads Winning? A Data-filled Infographic.” The infographic, created with recent data by marketing software vendor WordStream, is generously titled, “The War on Free Clicks: How Pay-per-Click Ads Are Taking Over Google’s Search Engine Results and Why That’s Good for Marketers.” The write up shares:
“Have you noticed all the paid listings and PPC ads that are taking over your Google search results pages? WordStream has, as well. Here’s a quote from Larry Kim, Founder and CTO:
“‘…we did some research to see how those changes impacts where users click on Google search results. The results were astonishing: Clicks from paid search now outnumber clicks from organic (un-paid) search listings by nearly 2:1 for high commercial intent keyword searches in the USA.'”
Yes, good for marketers. The trend could also be good for the rest of us if, as the infographic suggests, business manipulate “organic” results less as their outright advertising performs better. It would be a nod to honesty, though, if Google more noticeably separated out the paid results at the top of the page; the panda- and penguin- laden infographic says that nearly half of users can’t identify the paid ads unless separated into a right-hand column. I humbly suggest a difference in font. Simple, right?
Anyone interested in the paid ad versus optimization issue should check out this annotated image. At the very least, the pandas and penguins should keep you entertained for a minute or two.
Cynthia Murrell,August 1, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Disagreement on Value of Big Data
August 1, 2012
Is the Big Data phenomenon good or bad for society? The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center recently performed a study that gathered some pretty strong opinions on both sides of the issue, we learn in MediaPost’s “Pew: Value of ‘Big Data’ Debated.”
The survey asked over a thousand technology pros about Big Data, and more than half of them agreed that, by 2020, it will be a “huge positive for society in nearly all respects.” Researchers noted that:
“Big Data proponents predict continuing development of real-time data analysis and enhanced pattern recognition that could bring revolutionary change to personal life, business, and government.”
Probably so. However, a sizable minority (thirty-nine percent) disagree with the rosy outlook, asserting that, by 2020, Big Data will prove to be “a big negative.” I suspect that a field of (informed) non-technical respondents might have turned up an even larger proportion of naysayers. Writer Mark Walsh tells us these survey takers:
“. . . noted that the people controlling the collection and management of large data sets are typically governments or corporations with their own agendas. Dissenters also pointed to a shortage of human curators with the tools to sort through the glut of data, increasing the possibility that data can be manipulated or misread.”
Also true. Hmm.
The write up is an interesting read, and the opinions that accompany the survey results even more so (if you have the time to go through them). My take—like any powerful invention, Big Data collection and analysis can be employed for weal or woe, depending on who’s using it. Where would our society be if we rejected every technology that could be used nefariously? I’m afraid that individual, corporate, and governmental integrity are still the keys. Yes, even now.
Cynthia Murrell, August 1, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Bad News: Online Advertising Declines in Value
August 1, 2012
Is there trouble ahead for Google revenue? Slate prompts that question with its post, “The Decline of Google’s (and Everybody’s) Ad Business.” Writer Hugh Pickens notes that, unlike print ads, online advertising loses value over time. Google’s reported cost-per-click revenue has been dropping more each quarter—by 16% most recently, 12% last quarter, and 8% the quarter before that. The write up observes:
“The daily and stubborn reality for everybody building businesses on the strength of Web advertising is that the value of digital ads decreases every quarter, a consequence of their simultaneous ineffectiveness and efficiency, writes Michael Wolff. ‘The nature of people’s behavior on the Web and of how they interact with advertising, as well as the character of those ads themselves and their inability to command attention, has meant a marked decline in advertising’s impact.’ This isn’t just Google’s problem. Overall, Internet advertising has decreased in value over the years as online advertising continues its race to the bottom.”
Google is actually in a good position to weather this storm, since it has widened its revenue stream well beyond AdWords. Many other companies, however, must be scrambling for another way to keep the coffers full.
Cynthia Murrell, July 31, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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