In May of this year, IBM's Watson computer system, famous for winning the TV game of Jeopardy, entered into the realm of customer engagement.

In May of this year, IBM's Watson computer system, famous for winning the TV game of Jeopardy, entered into the realm of customer engagement.

IBM's Watson, the famous cybernetic winner of the TV game show Jeopardy, is only the tip of the iceberg with respect to upcoming developments in analytics. We are on the verge of creating a whole new range of computing mechanisms based on analytics and real-time processing, which will put current devices to shame.

I have read a number of books recently as preparation for one that Piet Ribbers, Ron Blitstein, and I are completing. Here are three that have really gotten my attention:

"The more you learn about the possibilities of the IoT, the more you realize we have only dipped our toes into this fathomless ocean of data possibilities -- and associated privacy and security concerns."

-- Rebecca Herold, Guest Editor

"The more you learn about the possibilities of the IoT, the more you realize we have only dipped our toes into this fathomless ocean of data possibilities -- and associated privacy and security concerns."

-- Rebecca Herold, Guest Editor

With the popularity of "design thinking," companies are encouraging their designers to be in the field interacting with end users. Like any other new methodology or process adoption, design thinking requires a fair bit of change in the mindset of designers along with some new skills.

In this Advisor, I will briefly explain the design thinking process and detail its skills requirements. My intent is to help companies to be better prepared to embrace design thinking.

The standard design thinking cycle is shown in Figure 1.

Back in April, I discussed a mobile app undergoing trials with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) designed to provide foot-patrol officers with fast, easy access to information assembled from various separate databases when they attempt to investigate a building or question a pos

Back in April, I discussed a mobile app undergoing trials with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) designed to provide foot-patrol officers with fast, easy access to information assembled from various separate databases when they attempt to investigate a building or question a pos

Over the years, the progression from transactional data as the basis for most management reporting and business intelligence activities has increased rapidly. Right now the industry is going through a major set of transitions, with the latest being explosion of Big Data initiatives.

Over the years, the progression from transactional data as the basis for most management reporting and business intelligence activities has increased rapidly. Right now the industry is going through a major set of transitions, with the latest being explosion of Big Data initiatives.

The proliferation of mobile devices for business use, driven to a considerable degree by bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives, serves to increase corporate interest in enterprise app stores. To date, however, adoption of enterprise app stores has been somewhat limited, and, for the most part, primarily by larger organizations.

The proliferation of mobile devices for business use, driven to a considerable degree by bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives, serves to increase corporate interest in enterprise app stores. To date, however, adoption of enterprise app stores has been somewhat limited, and, for the most part, primarily by larger organizations.

This year is my 50th working in IT. I began as a part-time programmer while I completed a law degree (now that seems like a non sequitur, but it's how it happened). The technology was certainly rudimentary: punch cards, very slow tape drives, the first really usable commercial disk drive (not RAMAC but an actual removable multisurface drive), chain printers.

Problems are mostly caused by people. Thus, if one can improve the people factor, it stands to reason that the success of projects will increase.

In my experience, the three important factors that contribute to making people more successful in software development are: