Tag Archives: technology

Benefits of the Greenfield Approach

In the AIM course that I am leading right now, we talk a lot about innovation and the best ways to introduce a new product, process, or technology. One way to introduce new products or features is the incremental approach. This adds new features to an existing technology. Another method is the greenfield approach, where a new application or technology is developed with no consideration of what has been developed in the past. The term greenfield comes from the construction and development industry to define land that has never been developed, as opposed to brownfield, where you need to demolish or build around an existing structure. There are advantages and disadvantages to the greenfield approach that I would like to explore in this post.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The advantage to a greenfield approach is that you can start fresh without any legacy equipment or applications to work with. You are free to innovate without having to consider previous iterations and restrictions. You are not tempted to create a small incremental change but are free to reinvent the core processes that were in place.

The disadvantages are high startup costs. With nothing already in place, you need to create new infrastructure, procedures, and applications. The fresh possibilities can be exhilarating, but the high initial costs can be daunting.

Greenfield in Action

In 2006, Hewlett-Packard used the greenfield approach when deploying new worldwide data centers for internal applications. They built six new data centers in Austin, Houston, and Atlanta and stocked them with new HP servers. All applications were ported to these new servers and off of the local servers in computer rooms and data centers around the world. I was involved in transitioning applications and shutting down the small computer rooms. There was a lot of weeping and wailing because people could no longer walk down the hall to visit their favorite computer. Some applications had to be shut down because they could not be ported to the new computers. In the end though, this approach yielded three main benefits:

Reduced infrastructure and support costs from shutting down inefficient small computer rooms in many locations around the world;
Decreased number of applications and data stores; and
Improved computing capabilities, including enhanced disaster recovery.

There was an initial $600 million investment into these new data centers and equipment, but the cost was quickly recovered in better efficiencies and reduced support costs. This also showcased HP capabilities for external customers.

Greenfield Innovation At Work

When I was in Dubai in 2013, my host explained to me how a speeding ticket is distributed in that country. There are cameras located along the main highways and when you exceed the posted speed limit, the camera takes a picture of you, complete with license plate, and sends a text message to the phone that is registered to the owner. The owner can then pay the fine from their smart phone. Dubai is a relatively new country without a traditional traffic control system so they abandoned the old school police speed trap and court systems for this streamlined fine and pay system.

While not completely greenfield, I am also excited about the new parkbytext system in Ireland, the UK, and other locations, and a similar system in Russia. You can pay for a parking spot by texting your information and—in the case of the Russian system—you even get a refund if you leave the parking spot before your time expires. Associated with these systems is an app that allows you to locate an available parking spot. These are examples of where the traditional infrastructure and processes were abandoned in favor of a completely new approach.

Thoughts

It’s not always possible to start fresh, but it frees you up to imagine different innovations without being encumbered by structures and legacy systems. Do you have any examples where you were able to design something from scratch? Was it daunting or liberating? Let me know.

About Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

The Virtues of Flesh Sensing Technology

I was visiting with a friend this weekend and he showed me his table saw from a company called SawStop, based out of Tualatin, OR. He is a part-time woodworker and cabinetmaker and, while his table saw is certainly nicer than mine, I was most intrigued by the safety features. SawStop has a patented flesh sensing technology that stops the saw and drops the blade within milliseconds if it detects skin. Instead of an amputation, you come away with a scratch. If you have been reading this blog for very long, you know that I love unique technology applications so I had to find out more about this one.

History

SawStop was formed in 2000 when cofounder Steve Gass invented the saw brake and sensing technology that is used in their cabinet and portable table saws. He shopped the invention to the likes of Ryobi, Craftsman, and Black & Decker but could not come to an agreement with any of them. In 2005, he gave up and manufactured the saw himself through the SawStop name. The other manufacturers were interested but were hesitant to raise the price of their product to compensate for this additional safety technology.

How It Works

The SawStop carries a small electrical signal through the blade. When skin contacts the blade, the signal changes because the human body is conductive. When the signal changes, a spring loaded aluminum brake is released into the blade, slowing it from 5000 RPM to 0 in approximately 1/200ths of a second. The force of the brake also drops the blade below the surface in that same amount of time. It ruins the brake, which is a relatively inexpensive replaceable cartridge, and also breaks the blade, which can be replaced. Comparatively though, it is less traumatic to replace saw parts than to lose a finger. This is incredible technology that can prevent a lot of woodworking accidents.

Fast Forward

This safety technology has only been available in the SawStop large cabinet saw up until early this year when the company also introduced a portable table saw with the same technology. Bosch’s new REAXX portable jobsite table saw, available this fall, is the first saw to copy the flesh sensing technology since it was developed in 2000 and commercialized in 2005.

Thoughts

So while I love this application of technology, my bigger question is this: why did it take so long for a competitor to copy this proven safety feature? Would consumers pay extra for this if it were available, or are we focused only on cost? I chose this blog topic today to highlight this technology but also to ponder on the bigger economic questions of safety features and marketability of a product. Let me know your thoughts.

About Kelly Brown

Will Technology Change How We Value Art?

$Colorful computer generated fractal art in swirls of browns, greens and golds.$ I enjoy listening to classical music but am not a big fan of synthesized music. Maybe I have worked around computers too long to appreciate the fact that a computer can produce art. In other words, I question whether the bridge between technology and art can actually be bridged. I wonder also about computers that can produce visual arts. Are they comparable to those works created by a traditional artist? Will computers ever make traditional sound and visual artists obsolete or does their value lie in aiding the human creation process? Lately, I have been reading about some new applications that may be spanning that bridge between art and technology.

Sound Machines

German industrial automation company Festo has developed a robot controlled

music system that consists of five self-playing instruments. The system can “hear” or record a melody, then improvise and play it live with electrically controlled mechanisms that consist of one string and a sliding bar, which simulate fret action or the left hand of a musician. A hammer simulates right hand plucking or hammering or stroking of the string. They have built this mainly as a showcase for their factory automation capabilities, but it holds some real promise for creating and playing computer-controlled music.

Fine Art

Kenichi Yoneda, aka Kynd, is trained as a fine artist but has recently been creating computer-generated art that looks like traditional artwork in different simulated mediums. He is currently an electronics designer who programs computers to create artwork that looks like the real thing. His work can simulate oil, watercolors, or other techniques. To be clear, this is not a robot with a palette but digital artwork generated on a computer and printed or just displayed on digital monitors. Lately, he has been experimenting with artwork combined with sound in an attempt to improve on traditional computer animation. The results are very unique and engaging.

Thoughts

The two thoughts I have are these—first, what is art and second, how do we define it? I believe art is a personal expression. What is considered art by one person is simply noise to another, whether that be audio or visual arts or a combination. Secondly, will we, or have we already created a computer that will be able to create Mozart concertos, the works of the Rolling Stones, or artwork to rival Rembrandt or Andy Warhol? If so, will we still hold it in the same high regard as works created by an individual through training and inspiration? Do we value computer-generated artwork the same as human creations?

As we continue to refine computers and try to endow them with humanistic capabilities and reasoning through advanced algorithms, it is reasonable to think that we will have to face that question. What is art? What will art museums look like in the future? I would love to hear your opinion so that we can explore this topic further.

About Kelly Brown

Making Education Accessible and Affordable

How can we creatively make higher education more affordable and accessible? I am wrapping up preparations for a course on innovation later this month and my thoughts turn to ways to apply innovative ideas to higher education. There are some new ideas that have developed over the last several years such as online delivery, but they have not always been implemented in a deliberate and holistic manner. I am hoping that you will weigh in and help me figure out how we can create new solutions to this long-standing problem.

What Is Our Mission?

Harvard professor Clayton Christensen suggests that there are really three purposes of higher education and that we as universities and colleges often dilute our focus and try to cover all three areas with a confusing combination of products. The three suggested areas are:

knowledge creation, or research;
knowledge proliferation, or teaching; and
preparation for life and careers.

Christensen claims that universities use three different business models to deliver these value propositions, creating confusing products in the process. He suggests that we be clear and purposeful about our mission, our value proposition, and how we deliver our product. This clarity can help reduce program administrative costs and therefore help reduce tuition.

Innovations in Education

Universities and colleges have been working through different delivery methods in recent years to make higher education more accessible. Several of these have been centered around online delivery. Correspondence courses have been available since the mid-nineteenth century and as technology and networking improved, these morphed into online courses. To make education more accessible, massive open online courses (MOOCs) were developed that enrolled thousands or even tens of thousands of students in various subjects. These are free or low cost but do not generally grant credit. Some universities such as Stanford are experimenting with hybrid MOOCs whereby a student can take the online course and apply and pay for credit. The University of Pittsburgh is experimenting with what they call a HOOC or a hybrid open online course. In this model, the course is offered online and onsite simultaneously and at some point during the course, the online students can join the onsite students synchronously, often offering input through tweets or other discussion applications. Online education—in all its forms—has made learning more accessible to those that are not near a college or cannot take courses at the time prescribed.

Employer Criteria

One of the most important factors in aligning higher education with employment is understanding what an employer wants in an educated worker. Are they looking for someone with a broad four-plus year education and exposure to many ideas and thoughts, or are they looking for someone that has proven mastery in a particular area? Would a series of technical certificates prove the worth of a potential employee, or do they need to produce an advanced degree from a recognized college or university? I believe the problem is two pronged and we need to address both areas. As mentioned earlier, universities need to develop expertise delivering in a prescribed area rather than trying to cover all business models. Additionally, employers need to be precise in their requirements for employment and not add layers of education that are unneeded. If we can tackle these two areas, then we can come closer to matching delivery to expectation and drive down the overall cost of education while increasing accessibility.

Thoughts

Do you have specific thoughts on innovations that will help lessen tuition and make education more accessible? I know that greater minds than mine are working on this very problem and I welcome your input and ideas. Perhaps together, we can come up with a solution.

About Kelly Brown

The Future of Self-Driving Cars

I own a sports car that requires all of my attention while driving. I love driving it but from time to time I think about what it will be like to drive (or ride in) a self-driving car. According to a recent article, at least two automakers are only five years away from production of self-driving cars. I think I would be bored, but I can see the advantages of being able to get caught up on work or sleep or enjoying a good book during commutes. It would be like having your own chauffeur. I was curious as to what the future holds, so I did some research.

Computers vs. Humans

In the article mentioned above, self-driving cars have been in 11 accidents in the last six years and Google claims its cars were not at fault in any of them. Perhaps the future of self-driving automobiles lies in providing transportation for people who do not drive well or choose not to drive. When it comes to driving, do you trust a computer or a 17-year-old?

The Future Is Now

The early components of self-driving cars are already available. Adaptive or autonomous cruise control is an option on several foreign and domestic vehicles. This technology typically uses radar to sense the distance between you and the car ahead of you. It will then actively brake or accelerate to maintain a safe distance between the two vehicles. Unfortunately, it is less effective in rain, fog, or snow.

Acura’s Lane Keeping Assist System uses a camera mounted between the rearview mirror and the windshield to track whether you are staying in your lane. If you veer outside the lines, then the car will warn you and also apply light torque to the steering to guide you back into the lane. In theory you can drive without hands on the wheel, but a dashboard warning will appear if you do it for very long. If you signal for a legitimate turn or lane change, then the system will assume that you are in control and not try to nudge you back to center.

Crash avoidance systems are also available now. Other technology exists, but needs to be integrated and perfected before going into mass production.

Thoughts

Google’s self-driving cars are set to hit the streets this summer in neighborhoods around the Mountain View, CA campus. Self-driving cars are on the near horizon, but there are social and legal issues to deal with. For example, should laws be different for self-driving vehicles? In the event of a traffic infraction who is responsible, the car or the driver/rider? How can a self-driven car help certain segments of the population? I will explore these questions in future blog posts.

About Kelly Brown

Technology in the Air

In light of upcoming summer vacation plans, I want to look at how technology works behind the scenes to keep us safe and comfortable as we travel. Recently I was on a plane and, as I often do, I looked in the cockpit at the instruments. I was amazed at the array of gauges and computer screens available to the pilots. How far have we come in the last 100 years in terms of technology in a plane? Is it better for the pilot? Is it safer for the passengers?

Electronic Flight Bag

My son is taking flying lessons and his flight bag seems to get heavier by the day. Every pilot takes a similar bag into the cockpit and it carries flight maps, aircraft operating manuals, and other documentation. Fortunately, an electronic flight bag has been developed that allows pilots to download maps and other useful information to a tablet. The iPad seems to be the tablet of choice for pilots and can be updated at airports or real time through wireless 4G. They can also hold apps such as weather maps, FAA updates, and GPS navigation aids. Such technology makes critical information much more accessible to the pilot.

Passenger Entertainment

There are many networked systems running in a plane, including the navigation systems, the point-of-sales systems for purchased food and beverages, and the passenger entertainment systems. On top of that, wi-fi has been added to many flights. It is a miracle that it all works and is a testament to good systems architecture and a robust network. I flew overseas last year and the plane had a seatback entertainment system with what appeared to be an endless array of music and movie choices. More recently I flew with a small airline that rented tablets connected wirelessly to an on-board server, with movies and in-flight entertainment. The options continue to grow as airlines try to differentiate themselves and become more sophisticated in their technology offerings.

Who’s Flying the Plane?

I read about the advent of driverless cars, but will we see a pilotless passenger plane anytime soon? Drones are available now that can take payloads that range from cameras to missiles. Passenger planes have autopilot, which can be used once the plane is in the air, but a human still takes off and lands. In a recent article, experts speculated on future technology that could possibly push pilots out of the cockpit. This debate has intensified since a German pilot deliberately crashed an Airbus A320 into a mountain last month. Completely remote aircraft management is being researched. In fact, remote control airports are already in use in Sweden and are being considered in other locations. The question I ask myself is do I trust the plane to a pilot or a programmer?

Thoughts

If your travels take you on a plane this summer, I hope you will appreciate the technological changes that have come to the airline industry, both for your safety and comfort and to help those charged with getting you safely to your destination.

About Kelly Brown

All Things Old Are New Again

Some days, it seems like all things old are new again. The retro movement is bringing back products that I thought would stay buried forever. In this blog post I will review a few products from the past that have returned with a new twist.

Polaroid

I thought the Polaroid brand had disappeared until I saw an ad for a new Polaroid camera. This does not look like anything I remember, but amazingly it still has the instant print feature. Thanks to a technology called ZINK (Zero-Ink) these cameras print images instantly while saving them digitally. This new technology uses heat to excite color molecules embedded in special paper that are then arranged to form a print of the image you captured. Just like the cameras of old, you have to buy packs of special paper and you get the classic Polaroid border.

Classic Video Games

Old arcade games such as Pong, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders are available again through the various app stores. Perhaps it is refreshing to go back to 1972 to try your hand at Pong after being challenged by the complexity of modern video games. A dot and two paddles seem pretty simple today but it was cutting edge when Atari created the first arcade games. Instead of pulling out our smart phone, we actually had to go to the arcade in the mall and pay a quarter for the privilege of testing our skill and hope that our initials would appear in the hall of fame. Swedish airports have capitalized on this nostalgia kick by installing classic arcade games that will take any currency. While waiting for your luggage you can try your hand at Ms. Pac-Man, and all of the money the machine takes in is donated to the Swedish Red Cross.

Old School Telephones

That same smartphone that now plays video games used to be a hardwired telephone complete with handset. The old school phone is new again, but with a twist. The iRetroPhone is a dock and charger that lets you use an iPhone as a rotary dialer with a traditional handset. Touted benefits include comfort, shielding from any radiation, and complete access to your phone screen while talking. As in the days before cordless phones, you have to stay within cord-length of the IRetroPhone, but it does provide for a bit of nostalgia.

Cassette Tapes

While vinyl records have been making a comeback for several years, cassette tapes are just now rebounding. All of my cassette tapes are garbled from bleed-through and years of storage, so someone must have done a better job preserving them than I have. There is a growing market for old cassette tapes and some independent labels are recording new material on tape. While the market is still small, it is growing in some circles. Sony has developed a tape that will hold 185 terabytes of storage. It has the same form factor as a cassette but uses different materials. If used for music it will store 47 million songs, but it will most likely be used as a backup medium for large data centers.

Thoughts

What is behind the push to recreate old form factors using new technology? Are we trying to return to what we perceive were simpler times, or is this a backlash to increasingly complicated technology that is sometimes not so user-friendly? Cassette tapes were fun, but for reliability give me solid-state memory any day. Are there old technologies you wish would make a comeback? Will we some day witness a revival of eight-track tapes? Let me know your thoughts.

About Kelly Brown

Women: Technology Pioneers

Grace Hopper, 1961. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-1114)

March is Women’s History Month so I am highlighting women in technology. There are many women who made contributions to computing, education, design, and communication. I will spotlight just a few here and encourage you to read about others. Perhaps there are some within your own family who had an early impact on the technology that we enjoy today.

Ada Lovelace

Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, is the first to come to mind when I think of women of technology. Born in 1815 in England to poet Lord Byron and his wife, she showed an early aptitude for analytics. Beginning in 1833, she partnered with Charles Babbage to develop plans for a difference engine and later an analytical engine. These were some of the earliest ideas for a mechanical computer. Of the two, she was better able to articulate the promise and purpose of these inventions and completed much of the documentation. She is widely cited as author of the first algorithm.

The First Computers

During World War II, female mathematicians were hired to do calculations for tables of firing and bombing trajectories. They were known as “computers.” They did much of their work with calculators that were mechanical and driven with electric motors.

According to Kay Antonelli, one of the early computers:

“You’d do a multiplication and when the answer appeared, you had to write it down to reenter it into the machine to do the next calculation. We were preparing a firing table for each gun, with maybe 1,800 simple trajectories. To hand-compute just one of these trajectories took 30 or 40 hours of sitting at a desk with paper and a calculator. As you can imagine, they were soon running out of young women to do the calculations.”

Fortunately, the ENIAC computer was developed in 1945 to automate a lot of the processes. As a result, many of the early “computers” became the first programmers for the ENIAC.

Grace Hopper

Commmodore Grace M. Hopper, Courtesy U.S. Navy DN-SC-84-05971

Grace Hopper graduated from Vassar College in 1928 and joined the faculty shortly after as a math and physics professor. She took a leave from teaching in 1944 to join the Naval Reserves. She was assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University where she worked on the first Mark series computers and later on the ENIAC and UNIVAC. She had a talent for programming and in particular for natural language programming, and is credited with popularizing the term “debugging.” She helped develop the forerunner to COBOL, one of the first programming languages to move away from machine language, or ones and zeroes. Next time you pull up your favorite programming language, thank Rear Admiral Grace Hopper.

Anita Borg

Anita Borg was a brilliant computer scientist and a proponent of women in technology. She received her PhD in computer science in 1981 and developed a specialty in high-speed networking and high-speed memory systems. In 1994, she helped create the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference. In 1997, she founded the Institute for Women and Technology, which is now the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. She once stated that her goal was to have 50 percent representation for women in computing by 2020. While we are still not at that level, the efforts of Anita Borg, Grace Hopper, and others are bringing us closer.

Thoughts

Many of the earliest pioneers of technology and computing were women, by choice or by circumstance. As we celebrate Women’s History Month in March, take a moment to remember their contributions and encourage young women to follow in their footsteps and build on their legacies.
About Kelly Brown

Data in the Dirt: Technology in Farming Redux

Last year I blogged on unique uses of technology in farming. Spring is in the air here in the Pacific Northwest, so I want to revisit that thread and highlight a technology and company born right here at the University of Oregon. This company is researching the interaction between plants and fertilizers, particularly nitrogen. They have developed a technology and device that will allow a farmer or grower to monitor the nitrogen level of the soil, thus preventing excess fertilization and runoff.

SupraSensor Technologies

SupraSensor Technologies was formed in 2012 from the graduate work of Calden Carroll in partnership with his professors, Darren Johnson and Mike Haley. They discovered that the interaction between plant cells and their nitrogen level could be measured. Nitrogen fertilizer is water soluble and excess nitrogen runs off and mixes with the water table. In some areas of the country, there are large algal blooms that were fed by runoff. Algal blooms change water pH and oxygen levels, which harm fish and other organisms, and some species of algae are toxic, even deadly, to people and animals.

Field Nutrient Sensors™

Carroll and other researchers did not stop at identifying this molecular interaction. They developed a device called a Field Nutrient Sensor™ (FNS™), which measures the nitrogen level in the soil, just below root level. This information is collected wirelessly so that a farmer can determine precisely where to fertilize and when to stop. It is estimated that 30 percent of all fertilizer runs off, so this device would reduce the use of chemicals, thus saving money for the farmer and promoting a sustainable and healthier farm. Collecting the data wirelessly is much less labor intensive and yields more accurate and timely data.

Farming Meets Information Technology

SupraSensor Technologies has test sensors in the field right now and is seeking funding for commercialization. It has secured seed funding from the National Science Foundation and through state and national grants. The ability to collect this important data means that farms will now need information technology experts to not only help with the data collection and wireless networking but also with data analytics to create a coherent picture of the health of the farm, the plants, and the soil. Information technology is emerging from the computer room and finding its way to the farm, the manufacturing floor, the research site, and wherever data is being turned into solutions for a better world.

Thoughts

There are many opportunities developing for IT professionals and it is an exciting time to be involved in tackling real world problems like healthy farms and sustainable ecosystems. Do you know of other technology and research breakthroughs that you would like me to highlight? Let me know if have you cool things that need to be shared.

About Kelly Brown

All Things Health

I have blogged in the past on the Internet of Things (IoT) and also on health and technology. Today’s post is about the intersection of those two areas. It is about how the Internet of Things can keep us potentially safe and healthy.

Tracking Your Health

With the introduction of the Apple Watch yesterday, Apple also introduced ResearchKit, a follow on to HealthKit that was introduced last year. This allows you to participate in research studies through your iPhone. Hardware on the iPhone such as voice recorders or motion sensors can help you track steps taken or voice patterns that may detect the onset of Parkinson’s disease. This data can then be shared, with your permission, with researchers so they get a much larger global sampling for their studies. Of course, the data is also available to you as well so that you can monitor and be an advocate for your own health. Perhaps, you are not getting as much exercise as you need or perhaps there are early warning signs of a chronic disease that you need to pay attention to. It would be great to have a device that would detect the early signs of a stroke and alert you and others to the possibility—early detection and intervention is critical in this case.

Smart Health

In a recent article by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, she highlights some devices in the intersection of Internet of Things and health monitoring. Among the devices she mentions are these:

Scales that monitor not only your weight but also your body composition. This is a great way to closely track your health day to day and over a long period.
Beds that monitor your heart rate, respiration rate, motion, and “bed presence” or how long you have been in bed can help you track your health through nonintrusive means. These measures can give you early warning signs of health issues.
Toilets that can monitor your weight, BMI, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels. This is important to help you understand when you are becoming pre-diabetic and need to change your diet or exercise routine.
Motion monitors such as FitBit or the new Apple Watch which remind us through a chime or haptic feedback when we have been sitting too long or have not completed our 10,000 steps for the day yet.
Smart lamps designed to change light intensity depending on the time of day and also monitor your sleep (or lack thereof) and remind you when it is time to retire by a friendly blink. These are connected to your home network and can be controlled through your smartphone.

Thoughts

Where some see opportunity and peace of mind, others see intrusiveness and privacy issues. We can now monitor very detailed health information and share that with our doctor or in the case of ResearchKit, researchers trying to develop a breakthrough to eradicate, or at least control common health issues. A blessing for some, a potential health information breach for others. I think that, by combining health monitoring and the Internet of Things, we can enjoy unobtrusive devices that let us be in charge of our own wellness and health. Let me know what you think. Do you use health monitoring devices? Do they work for you? I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

About Kelly Brown