Scan Monthly No. 025March 2005 |
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Signals of Change
Service Science
SoC093
IBM is interested in championing service science as an academic discipline, much as the company did with computer science in the 1950s. Georgia Tech and the Haas Business School at the University of California, Berkeley, apparently think it's a good idea too.
Blogging as a PR Tool?
SoC094
Corporations are exploring the utility of blogs as public-relations tools. But if, as blogging proponents argue, the key to success for a blog is honesty and credibility, how does a blogger maintain independence and credibility with the public while on the corporate payroll?
Robots Learning New Moves and Moods
SoC095
Building learning capabilities into robots is the next step in robotics. If robots can learn, their creators don't have to program them with knowledge of the infinite number of potential situations the robots will face—the robots will figure it out as they go.
Coping with Climate Change
SoC096
Regardless of their origin, human or otherwise, changes in the world's climate will influence economies and businesses across the globe. Changes in the weather will alter agricultural production and trade, insurance costs, resource costs, and scores of other factors important to business. Building some strategic flexibility into the corporate plan may pay off sooner than some analysts expect.
Evolving Manufacturing
SoC097
Resource costs and constraints combined with pressures to develop more environmentally sustainable design and manufacturing processes have opened the door to new ways of thinking about priorities, processes, and products.
The Stem-Cell–Research Race
SoC098
California's $3 billion planned investment in stem-cell research is just one of many bets on the table. Such investments enrich the soil in the field of stem-cell research, but one needs more than fertilizer to grow a good crop.
Insights
| Impact/Uncertainty Dynamics in Corporate Decision Making | View full summary |
| D05-2502 | Download this Insight |
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Increased competition, accelerated speed of technological developments, shifting consumer preferences, globalization, proliferation of business models, real-time access to information, intellectual-property challenges, regulatory forces, and many more sources of constant change in the business environment make two crucial managerial tasks increasingly complex and difficult. The first task is to identify issues that potentially open business opportunities or pose imminent threats. The second task is to select the issues that require instant attention or monitoring so that a company can avoid being blindsided and disadvantaged in the marketplace. This study presents a tool that SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRIC-BI) applies to help companies develop an overview of issues and separate important issues from the ones that do not require immediate attention. The impact/uncertainty framework enables companies to adopt a proactive corporate culture that shapes the business environment instead of depending on reactive responses that attempt to recover from missed developments in the external environment. Author: Martin Schwirn. 15 pages. |
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| Health Care and Life Sciences: Prime Candidates for the Semantic Web | View full summary |
| D05-2503 | Download this Insight |
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Two domains with the most obvious need for rationalization of vast volumes of data are those of life-sciences research and health care. Not only are researchers inundated with unprecedented amounts of raw data, but they have no means of employing computers to assist in the analysis because of data incompatibilities created by different computer systems or database formats. In the health-care field, the most daunting silos of data incompatibility derive primarily from organizational incompatibilities as patient records from one clinic or hospital are unrecognizable by other clinics and hospitals. Life-sciences researchers and health-care professionals are increasingly turning to the concepts behind the Semantic Web as a potential means to optimize data structures and standards in order to share information across disciplines, organizations, and business areas better. 9 pages. |
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Calendar
Scan™ Abstract Meetings
Scan abstract meetings (in which SRIC-BI [now SBI] staff participate in a free-form discussion of current Scan abstracts) are open for client observation/participation on:
- 18 May 2005 at 9:00 am
- 20 July 2005 at 9:00 am
- 21 September 2005 at 9:00 am
- 19 October 2005 at 9:00 am
- 25 January 2006 at 9:00 am
- 22 March 2006 at 9:00 am.