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Do Voters Love the Candidates… or their Fonts?

Posted on March 29, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama have chosen distinctively different typeface fonts for their campaign posters, bumper stickers, and TV-ad logos.

Obama uses sans serif Gotham. McCain uses sans serif Optima. Only Clinton uses a serif, New Baskerville. According to the Los Angeles Times yesterday, many typographers are following the usage choices closely, and now some political analysts are finding message in the medium; Obama’s choice is “the hot font of 2008,” Clinton’s font flourishes “conjure trustworthiness,” while McCain’s communicates an “old-fashioned yet quirky vibe.”

ANALYSIS: Anyone who remembers their first experience with a personal computer’s word-processing program recalls that initial thrill when the realization hit: I can choose any font? I can choose any font!!!

Billions of funky emails, resumes, and yard-sale posters later, we’re all perhaps jaded by the profusion of font styles, and tend to have built up biases and defenses regarding certain looks.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Government, Microsoft, Society, Technology | Tagged: 2008, Aric Sigman, Barack, Barack Obama, campaign, campaigns, candidate, candidates, Clinton, communication, communications, computer, computers, consultants, culture, election, election 2008, elections, font, fonts, Gotham, Government, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, IT, John McCain, LA, LA Times, LAT, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, marketing, mass media, McCain, media, Microsoft, New Baskerville, news, newspaper, Obama, optima, personality, political campaign, political campaigns, political consultant, political consultants, politics, poster, posters, presidency, president, presidential campaign, press, psychology, Simon Daniels, Society, speech, speeches, speechwriting, tech, Technology, television, Tobias Frere-Jones, TV, typeface, typefaces, typography, vote, voter, voters, voting | 2 Comments »

A Roadmap for Innovation – from Center or the Edge?

Posted on March 28, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Fact: In marking its five-year anniversary earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security released a fact sheet touting the department’s accomplishments in that time, including “establish[ing] the Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) to provide a 24-hour watch, warning, and response operations center, which in 2007 issued over 200 actionable alerts on cyber security vulnerabilities or incidents. US-CERT developed the EINSTEIN intrusion detection program, which collects, analyzes, and shares computer security information across the federal civilian government. EINSTEIN is currently deployed at 15 federal agencies, including DHS, and plans are in place to expand the program to all federal departments and agencies.”

Analysis: I’m not going to write, in this post at least, about US-CERT and EINSTEIN in particular. I will point out that some writers have been skeptical of “Big DHS” progress on cyber security up to now, and the anniversary was an occasion for much cynical commentary.

Charles Cooper in his popular Coop’s Corner blog on CNet wrote that “when it comes to network security, DHS appears to be more of a wet noodle than even its sharpest critics assumed… Talk with security consultants and former government officials involved with DHS and you come away wondering what these folks do all day.”

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Intelligence, Microsoft, R&D, Technology | Tagged: 2.0, AJAX, back-office, budget, bureaucracy, business, CERT, Charles Cooper, cio, cloud, cloud computing, cloud services, cm, CNET, cocom, cocoms, code, configuration management, Coops Corner, cyber defense, cyber security, cyberdefense, cybersecurity, danoviz, data, data centers, datacenter, datacenters, Department of Defense, development, DHS, DIA, DoD, e2.0, EA, einstein, enterprise, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise architecture, finance, gadget, gadgets, Government, hardware, Homeland Security, information assurance, information management, information security, infosec info sec, infrastructure, innovation, Intelligence, intrusion detection, iraq, IT, IT management, j2, korea, management, Mary Legere, mashup, mashups, Microsoft, Microsoft PopFly, Mike Pflueger, MNF-I, NCSD, network, network security, networks, operations management, ops management, patch management, Pentagon, pflueger, PopFly, programming, R&D, Rod Beckstrom, ROR, Ruby on Rails, S+S, SAIC, service-oriented, services, SOA, software, software plus services, south korea, tech, Technology, USFK, web, web services | 6 Comments »

The Future of Enterprise Computing – and Social Computing

Posted on March 26, 2008 by lewisshepherd

I wrote the other day about how highly ranked the University of Virginia’s undergrad business school is (a close second in BusinessWeek’s annual ranking), and mentioned that one reason is the creative research and programs they sponsor.

In fact, thanks to UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce, I enjoyed a great day recently exploring some of my favorite topics with leading experts. I was an invited speaker at their one-day conference on The Future of Enterprise Computing on March 14th, presented by McIntire’s Center for the Management of Information Technology (CMIT). It was a fascinating day….

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Intelligence, Microsoft, R&D, Society, Technology | Tagged: 2.0, Accenture, Andrew McAfee, blogging, blogs, Brian Weston, business, business school, Business Week, BusinessWeek, Chris Rasmussen, CMIT, college, Computerworld, computing, conference, DIA, DNI, e2.0, enterprise, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise computing, futurology, Government, grad school, graduate school, Harvard, Harvard Business School, Hinchcliffe, IC, innovation, Intelligence, Intelligence Community, Intellipedia, IT, Jeff Kelly, JWICS, Live Labs, McIntire School, media, Microsoft, Microsoft Research, ODNI, Paul Daugherty, R&D, research, Ryan Nelson, social networking, social networks, Society, tech, Technology, Troy Raines, University of Virginia, UVA, walled garden, Walled gardens, Web 2.0, wiki, wikis, XML | 2 Comments »

Top Undergrad Business Programs in the U.S.

Posted on March 20, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: In the recently-released annual BusinessWeek ranking of top undergraduate business programs, Wharton (the feeder program for UPenn’s better known Wharton MBA program) once again leads the field, and the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce again comes in second. The Top 10 this year are:

1. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
2. University of Virginia (McIntire)
3. Notre Dame (Mendoza)
4. Cornell University
5. Emory University (Goizueta)
6. University of Michigan (Ross)
7. Brigham Young University (Marriott)
8. New York University (Stern)
9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
10. University of Texas-Austin (McCombs)

ANALYSIS: My alma-mater bias compels me to mention that “The big news this year is the University of Virginia,” as noted by Louis Lavelle, Business School editor for BusinessWeek, during an online chat outlining the results. “It really gained on Wharton. The ranking is based on an ‘index’ number, and the No. 1 school is always an index number of 100. Last year Virginia was way behind — it had an index number of 92.7. This year it was 99 — a virtual dead heat” for the top spot.

Oddly, my grad-school alma mater Stanford, which ranks high perennially on MBA program lists, has no undergraduate business school or program, so it’s missing from this list entirely.

The big question is, what explains movement in the ranks? What are some schools doing right, and some wrong?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Government, innovation, Society | Tagged: Brigham Young University, business, business school, Business Week, BusinessWeek, campus, CMIT, college, colleges, commerce, Cornell, education, Emory University, Georgetown University, Goizueta, GSB, Haas School, IT, John Griffin, Julian Robertson, Louis Lavelle, MBA, McDonough School, McIntire School, MIT, Notre Dame, NYU, R&D, Stanford, students, tech, Technology, UC Berkeley, UNC, universities, university, University of North Carolina, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, University of Virginia, UPenn, UT, UVA, Virginia, Wharton School | 2 Comments »

Massive Data Centers, Right in your Cellphone

Posted on March 6, 2008 by lewisshepherd

I try to keep my cellphone on “vibrate” during meetings; no one needs to know my taste in ringtones. But more importantly, I keep it on so that I can use the browser and web search ability, which I wind up doing almost as often as I check my email.

Yesterday was a good example of the utility of ever-handy web search. My group and I had brought together an international group of government officials to visit Microsoft Research’s annual TechFest. Tuesday was the “Public Day” with the media and outsiders allowed, so we spent that day at the Microsoft Convention Center with Craig Mundie, Rick Rashid, and a hundred others, but Wednesday morning we offered a series of side briefings for the group at Microsoft’s Executive Briefing Center, on topics of interest to large government and defense agencies. Topic one was data centers.

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Microsoft, R&D, Technology | Tagged: cellphone, Chicago, Computerworld, Craig Mundie, data centers, DIA, Government, innovation, IT, IT architecture, James Hamilton, Live Search, Microsoft, Microsoft Research, mobile, R&D, research, Rick Rashid, search engines, servers, Sun, tech, TechFest, Technology, white papers | 1 Comment »

Silverlight 2.0: It’s “1 better than 1.0”

Posted on February 22, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Filed under: Government, innovation, Intelligence, Microsoft, R&D, Technology | Tagged: .NET, Adobe, ASP.NET, browser, browsers, Digg, Firefox, Flash, Government, IE, innovation, Intelligence, Intelligence Community, IT, LINQ, LINUX, Microsoft, RIA, Safari, Scott Guthrie, Silverlight, software, software development, tech, Technology, Web 2.0, Wikipedia, XAML, XML | 6 Comments »

Opening Doors to Interoperability

Posted on February 21, 2008 by lewisshepherd

I had to write a freshman term paper on Immanuel Kant, and chose as a topic his role in sparking the German Enlightenment, from which I at least learned the word Aufklarung … which surprisingly doesn’t come up much in normal conversation, even when I’m in Germany. But I’ve been thinking about that movement and its ramifications quite a bit, because of the ongoing technology enlightenment driven by “open-source” approaches.

When I announced I was joining Microsoft, several of my friends in the open-source-software “movement” raised their eyebrows and ribbed me for joining the dark side… although the brighter ones also pointed out several important trends and markers through 2006 and 2007, changes in Microsoft behavior and approach which appeared to signal that the company was tacking in a much more open direction. Ray Ozzie’s joining of the company, and his announced projects, were taken as significant, along with several software launches (both in the Live world and elsewhere) with fundamentally open foundations.

Today the company is making public what Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie are calling “important changes to our technology and business practices that will enhance the interoperability of our products and expand the technical information we share with developers, partners, customers, and competitors.” All to the good, including more comprehensive information about the new “Interoperability by Design” approach.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Government, innovation, Microsoft, R&D, Technology | Tagged: .NET, enlightenment, Government, IT, Kant, Microsoft, Microsoft Live, Microsoft Office, open source, open source software, Ray Ozzie, SharePoint, software, Steve Ballmer, tech, Technology, Windows Vista | 3 Comments »

The Future of Army’s “Future Combat Systems”

Posted on January 24, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Fact: The U.S. Army is currently in the midst of a multi-year, $6 billion software development program which it says “dwarfs Microsoft Windows.”

Analysis: The Washington Post did a long piece on the U.S. Army’s gargantuan Future Combat Systems program today, not overly critical but quite skeptical.

Some highlights of the program itself, which has its own comprehensive site maintained by the Army:

FCS is the “Big Kahuna” of Army modernization, full-on system-of-systems;
It’s a $200 billion program, called the most thorough modernization of the Army since WWII;
All depends on a massive software development effort led by Boeing;
The S/W development cost alone is around $6 billion (H/W costs are much larger, for the actual weapons, tanks, etc.).

When I was serving at the Defense Intelligence Agency, I was aware that (a) everyone associated with FCS had their fingers crossed and eyes closed when talking about it; (b) everyone not associated with it used the same tone of voice about FCS as they used about FBI’s Virtual Case File and NSA’s Trailblazer – two well-known large-scale failed technology programs. Many people who know more about FCS than I do consider it a pipe-dream (here’s a good Heritage Foundation backgrounder on the program). Yet the program continues to spend billions and the Army is slogging on with it.

So here’s what I really think about it: Continue reading →

Filed under: Government, Microsoft, R&D, Technology | Tagged: Army, Boeing, boondoggle, Defense Department, DoD, FCS, Future Combat Systems, IT, Microsoft, net-centricity, Pentagon, R&D, software, software development, Vista, Windows Vista | Leave a comment »

VC-like Beauty Contests for Government

Posted on November 13, 2007 by lewisshepherd

Fact: In Mumbai, according to a Wall Street Journal/Hindustan Times Livemint report, “Thirty start-ups have made it to the business plan showcase at TiE-ISB Connect 2007, which closed submissions on 30 September. The annual networking event for entrepreneurs organized by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) along with the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, will be held from 14-16 November. TiE received close to 400 entries this year….”

Analysis: The Bubble Redux has brought with it a resurgence in business-plan competitions, typically with a panel of venture capitalists as judges. Now along comes YouBeTheVC.com, launched by Mark Modzelewski of Bang Ventures in Cambridge, Mass, who says the competition combines “venture capital and ‘American Idol’ with a little bit of wisdom of the crowd thrown in.” And, believe it or not, he’s got Curt Schilling (yes, of the Red Sox) as a judge – along with web-based voters.

That idea may only surface new contenders for Henry Blodget’s “Bonehead VC Pitch of the Month,” but I’m considering starting a new competition, a beauty-contest to find the best business-plan beauty-contests.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Government, R&D, Technology | Tagged: business-plan, DIA, India, innovation, IT, Mumbai, R&D, VC | 2 Comments »

Alien bites man biting dog

Posted on November 8, 2007 by lewisshepherd

Fact: On Nov. 6, 2007, the Washington Post covered the intelligence community’s new “All-Source Intelligence Environment, known also as Alien.” According to the column, the Defense Intelligence Agency team behind the project is running a “government collaboration with private vendors to develop new ways of using personal information and intelligence.”

Analysis: Columnist Robert O’Harrow and the Post posit a looming Orwellian context for DIA’s efforts to live up to the reform challenge imposed by the 9/11 Commission and WMD Commission. Those highly-regarded reform efforts encouraged the Intelligence Community to increase its use of so-called “open-source” information, and to promote information sharing and wider access across agencies to important data. Mr O’Harrow’s article by contrast worries that “the potential outcome is meaningful — if you’re interested in security, privacy and the war on terror, that is.”

O’Harrow also warns of something he calls “the security-industrial complex,” a theme he has sketched in even more purple prose in his recent book “No Place to Hide.” That book’s hyperventilating account of the modern surveillance state received less-than-stellar reviews even from some on the left; Matthew Brzezinski writing in no less than Mother Jones (the proud flagship of liberal journals) pointed out that “the brains behind the security-industrial complex are not setting out to create an Orwellian state, but rather to use cutting-edge technology to track down murderous extremists.”

Alien And that, accurately enough, leads to Alien. The truth about Alien, fortunately, is benign, at least for Americans concerned about privacy issues. The Post’s misguided premise, that Alien is “about new ways of using personal information,” strays from the fact that DIA information is solely on valid intelligence targets and non-US persons only. “Both the law and strict oversight enforce this,” reads one poster’s critical reply to the column, calling it “off-base.”

Those readers interested in a sounder, less shrill discussion of Alien and its technology, intent, and safeguards, can find several articles in more sober publications like Signal magazine, Government Computer News, Military Information Technology, and InformationWeek.

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Filed under: Government, Intelligence, Technology | Tagged: Alien, Big Brother, cant, DIA, hyperbole, IC, Intelligence, IT, Washington Post | 10 Comments »

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Do Voters Love the Candidates… or their Fonts?

Top Undergrad Business Programs in the U.S.

Massive Data Centers, Right in your Cellphone

Silverlight 2.0: It’s “1 better than 1.0”

Opening Doors to Interoperability

The Future of Army’s “Future Combat Systems”

VC-like Beauty Contests for Government

Alien bites man biting dog