From a basement in Athens to Space and beyond: the unlikely story of Climate Watch

From a basement in Athens to Space and beyond: the unlikely story of Climate Watch

We don’t have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it. Yes, it’s a bit early for towel day. But i could not think of a […]

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Earth Day special: on big issues, breaking news, and using data and tech to get insights and build stories

Earth Day special: on big issues, breaking news, and using data and tech to get insights and build stories

Earth day is one of those things pretty much everyone can stand behind. With virtually all scientists and the vast majority of the public acknowledging the fact that climate change is an imminent threat that must be dealt with, it marks an occasion for awareness and action. This year in particular, it coincides with a […]

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The evolution of Retail and what to do with your Big Data

The evolution of Retail and what to do with your Big Data

SPS Commerce is one of the biggest vendors in the retail domain. They act as a clearing house for retailers, connecting them with vendors. The recently published Gigaom report 2nd generation cloud architecture triggered their interest and we had a chat, and here are some of the thoughts and lessons on retail that came as […]

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Intellectual property thoughts: on Ideas and Patents

Intellectual property thoughts: on Ideas and Patents

Recently we have seen 2 US court rulings that could bring on important changes in intellectual property, one related to Patents & Ideas and one to Copyright & APIs. Even though at first it may seem this is only relevant for the US, as anyone who has ever been involved in IT Entrepreneurship can tell […]

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Personal Data from the Source: How and Why Consumers and Marketers Can Connect

Personal Data from the Source: How and Why Consumers and Marketers Can Connect

We saw in the previous posts a couple of examples of online marketing gone wrong. The common thread for these examples, and others like them, is the desire marketers have to reach out to new audiences – which is perfectly normal. But in many cases what they are doing is using a new medium – […]

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Online Marketing and Data Protection: Dos, Don’ts, and a hint for a way forward

Online Marketing and Data Protection: Dos, Don’ts, and a hint for a way forward

We have seen how marketing campaigns can backfire when common sense and CRM – MDM are missing from the mix. To err is human of course, so we should be forgiving both as IT professionals and as consumers, provided that we see tangible recognition of errors and a commitment to make amends. In this post, […]

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The wrong strategy, the wrong way: cold-calling your way to marketing, technical and business failure

The wrong strategy, the wrong way: cold-calling your way to marketing, technical and business failure

Do you think cold-calling still works? Trying to sell random stuff to random people on the phone is not exactly the most unobtrusive, effective or sophisticated strategy. It’s the kind of thing I would expect and advise especially technology companies to stay away from, for a number of reasons. This is an account of the […]

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Twitter doesn’t like me, but it’s nothing personal: stock plunges, engagement, and walled gardens

Twitter doesn’t like me, but it’s nothing personal: stock plunges, engagement, and walled gardens

I’m a very late joiner on Twitter. Even though as an analyst being active on Twitter is something that has come to be part and parcel of the job, i used to joke about my “no Twitter by Design” strategy. I had my reasons, some having to do with me, some with Twitter itself. Now […]

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Tim Berners Lee Keynote in World Wide Web Conference 2012

Tim Berners Lee Keynote in World Wide Web Conference 2012

Distributed, Collaborative Decision Making? Music to my ears – we should be doing more of that On the opening day of www2012, Tim Berners Lee gave an inspirational keynote. I found it to be inspirational because it focused on what matters most, imho: the social and political aspects of technical design and decisions and the interplay among […]

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