The Indiana Pi Bill, Ellen Pao, and IBM

IBMjapancoverThe Indiana Legislature is in the news for passing a state law considered by many to be anti-gay. It reminded me of the famous Pi Bill — Bill #246 of the 1897 Indiana General Assembly. There’s a good account of the bill on Wikipedia, but the short story is a doctor and amateur mathematician wanted the state to codify his particular method of squaring the circle, a side effect of which would be officially declaring the value of π to be 3.2.

The bill was written by Representative Taylor I. Record, sent to the Education Committee where it passed, went back to the Indiana House of Representatives where it […]

By |March 30th, 2015|2015, Books, Government, history, law, Venture Capital|53 Comments
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Reporter’s Notebook: Yahoo, IBM, IEEE and me

presspull

I haven’t been writing as much lately. This has been for several reasons, some of which may surprise you. It’s true I’ve had to spend a lot of time fending-off attacks from IBM corporate (more on that below) but I’ve mainly been at work on two secret projects. One is a new documentary series for PBS and the other a new technology startup I’m doing with a partner. The PBS series will be announced when PBS decides to announce it but most of the shooting is already done. The startup has taken the traditional VC route and looks, surprisingly, like it will actually be funded. Evidently if your idea is wild enough and […]

By |February 19th, 2015|2015, cloud computing, Companies, Industry, Media, Television, Venture Capital|70 Comments
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IBM is right, I am a gadfly


gadfly2gad·fly
ˈɡadˌflī/
noun
 
  1. a fly that bites livestock, especially a horsefly, warble fly, or botfly.
    • an annoying person, especially one who provokes others into action by criticism.

Sometimes being a gadfly is exactly what’s required. That’s certainly the case with IBM and has been for the almost eight years I’ve been following this depressing story.

Gadflies came up because IBM finally reacted today to my last column predicting a massive force reduction this week. They denied it, of course — not the workforce reduction but its size, saying there won’t be even close to 110,000 workers laid off — and they called […]

By |January 26th, 2015|2015, Breaking News, Companies|176 Comments
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IBM’s reorg-from-Hell launches next week

Ginni_RomettyIBM’s big layoff-cum-reorganization called Project Chrome kicks-off next week when 26 percent of IBM employees will get calls from their managers followed by thick envelopes on their doorsteps.  By the end of February all 26 percent will be gone. I’m told this has been in the planning for months and I first heard about it back in November. This biggest reorganization in IBM history is going to be a nightmare for everyone and at first I expected it to be a failure for IBM management, too. But then I thought further and I think I’ve figured it out…

I don’t think IBM management actually cares. More on this later.

IBM […]

By |January 22nd, 2015|2015, Breaking News, Companies, Privacy and Security, strategy|232 Comments
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2015 Predictions: It’s about the money, stupid!

MaxHeadroom460It’s time, finally, for my long-delayed 2015 predictions. Things just kept changing so fast I had to keep re-writing, but have finally stopped. 2015 will definitely be the Year of Monetization, by which I mean it’s the year when the bottom line and showing profits will become a key motivator in almost every market. And while profit — like beer — is generally good, it isn’t always good for everyone. So here are my 10 predictions in no particular order.

Prediction #1 — Everyone gets the crap scared out of them by data security problems. In many ways this was set up by 2014, a year when, between Edward Snowden and Target, […]

By |January 16th, 2015|2015, Business, cloud computing, Companies, mobile technology, Predictions, Privacy and Security, wearable technology|102 Comments
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