Recap WITI Orange County - March 20, 2014

A taste of the future - 'SMAC' dab in the midst of emerging technology

WITI Orange County's March event was well attended as the group explored trends in SMAC (Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud). Four panelists kicked off with 7 minutes of personal tech passion.

Don Piluso (Slalom Consulting) began his '7 minutes of tech passion' by reiterating the need to adopt Social Media within the enterprise. Gen Y will require a high degree of collaboration, instant gratification, and access to the creative energy of their peers. Whether in the form of physical, virtual, or organizational walls, any current barriers that prevent collaboration need to be removed. He cited that within a 20 minute span on Facebook, millions of photos are uploaded, new friend requests sent, and links are shared. These interactions are occurring in the workplace on personal devices whether or not they are officially sanctioned by the enterprise.



Emily Diaz (Microsoft) posed the compelling questions of "Why we should care about sugar cane?" and "What do Neanderthal's have in common with Susan Sarandon?" A hot commodity, sugar cane is the world's most valuable biofuel. Cloud computing provides the ability to scale DNA analysis in ways that were not possible when genetic mapping was first introduced. Beyond commercializing genomics, imagine if we could eradicate malaria by re-engineering the mosquito? Imagine if we could engineer disease tolerant crops to safeguard food supply in areas of the world with the greatest need?

After reading so much about it online, did you ever want to take Google Glass for a test drive? Members of our WITI Orange County network had that opportunity to do so as Mickey Williams (Neudesic) shared his passion for the Internet of things. We are entering an age where hot spots are omnipresent and devices are passing personal data to the cloud. Devices such as FitBit and Google Glass have ushered in a new age of smart consumer devices. Social implications become quite interesting. Mickey summed it up by saying that it is a two edged sword "Devices can help you, or can track you," depending on your viewpoint.

Mary Hamilton (Accenture) concluded the 7 minutes of tech passion with a show and tell of consumer objects that were created using 3D printing. While human organs have been to date successfully printed (ears we are told), fortunately, no such bio-specimens were passed around! By 2021, the capitalization of 3D printing services is estimated to reach 10 billion dollars. From design (rapid prototyping) to supply chain efficiency, 3D printing is expected to drastically alter manufacturing as we know it. WITI Board member Della Mahone raised a poignant question "Do we anticipate 3D printing to be a job creator, or job eliminator?" Hamilton replied that we are too early in adoption to tell.



CG Senior VP Laura Muller then kicked off open Q&A with the panelists by delving into important social questions about collaboration and the free flow of information. Would there be a public backlash against Analytics if the public felt that big brother was watching? The panelists believed that what we gain from collecting data is too valuable and that people would be willing to trade privacy for benefits accrued. However, "data collection needs to be tempered with transparency," noted Emily Diaz.

The enterprise also has much to gain from being open to social media. Top executives are increasingly encouraging use of tools like Yammer. Internally, social media platforms can be leveraged to solve problems and respond to customers. One executive in the WITI OC audience raised concerns over security. In response, Mickey Williams dispelled the myth that Social Media, Cloud and collaboration mean that we don't care about security. In fact, "Next generation data centers are extremely locked down." Emily Diaz added that "Security is of utmost importance. While you may be concerned about the perils of data centers in the cloud, keep in mind that with geographical redundancy, your resiliency zone can become globally distributed."

We were very glad to have had such a diverse and knowledgeable panel join our March WITI OC event. Our network Director, Kathy Lomax, received peals of laughter and amusement as she cleverly concluded the evening's takeaway: "Let me see...if I wrap up our discussion tonight, what I can do with emerging technology is use Google Glass to look at myself, map out my DNA, check it into the internet via cloud technology and print a secure clone of myself using a 3D printer... did I get that right?"

Opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of WITI.