by Thomas Otter | October 26, 2011 | Comments Off
I’ve just read Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s Race against the Machine in one sitting when I have masses of other pressing stuff to do. It is short, sharp, engaging and easy to read. Put down that Scandinavian crime novel, ignore your travel expense application issues and read this book instead. I’m perhaps reading too much into [...]
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Category: books history innovation software industry Tags: book review
by Thomas Otter | March 24, 2010 | Comments Off
I’m featuring two academics for this year’s Ada Lovelace day. It is an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science. Firstly: Dr Sue Black. I’ve not met Sue, except on twitter, but I have admired her efforts to support Bletchley Park for some time now. She blogs about [...]
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Category: Events history software industry Tags: ada lovelace day, ald10, finding ada, Sue Black, Theano
by Thomas Otter | July 24, 2009 | 1 Comment
Watch here if it doesn’t display. It is full of excellent nuggets. Obsess about your customers, not your competitors. Invent. Think long term. Be prepared to be misunderstood. I wonder how many other CEO’s could present their business principles in this precise yet genuine way? I believe the presentation was mainly aimed at the [...]
Category: CEO Law books history politics Tags: Amazon, Bezos, copyright., kindle
by Thomas Otter | July 1, 2009 | 3 Comments
St Petersburg has had several name changes in its 300 years or so of existence, being known as St Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad and then back to St Petersburg. Czars, revolutionaries, dictators and democrats have all left their mark on maps, signs, history books and now navigation systems throughout Russia and the former Soviet Union. In [...]
Category: history software industry Tags: history, naming conventions, software companies
by Thomas Otter | June 16, 2009 | 1 Comment
Jim and I published a first take on the SuccessFactors deal with Siemens. Gartner clients see Siemens to Provide Important SaaS Talent Management Test Case (G00168920), 15-JUN-2009. Last week I suddenly felt like one of those people you meet in IT who keep telling you that computing hasn’t really changed since punchcards or Fortran, and [...]
Category: HR SAP SaaS history software industry Tags: back to the future, SaaS, SAP, SuccessFactors
by Thomas Otter | March 23, 2009 | 2 Comments
Sometime ago Suw kicked this off . Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a [...]
Category: history Tags: ada lovelace, AdaLovelaceDay09, ALD09post, bertha benz
by Thomas Otter | February 5, 2009 | 2 Comments
No, this post isn’t about the founding of HP or Apple. It is about this shed. (photo via wikipedia) This is not just any shed. It is part of Bletchley Park. It is here that women and men deciphered codes in WWII. It is here that the first practical computers were used. There is a [...]
Category: history software industry Tags: Ava Lovelace, Bletchley Park, Turing
by Thomas Otter | January 28, 2009 | 3 Comments
from rpongsaj‘s flickr cc license (thanks) Today is International Privacy Day, and it is all over the blogosphere. This is a good thing. Generating awareness about privacy is goodness indeed. But I find Eric’s position on Techcrunch that losing your privacy is the price to pay for on-line participation and collaboration rather depressing. The [...]
Category: Social Software history privacy software industry Tags: international privacy day
by Thomas Otter | January 24, 2009 | Comments Off
I’m not a mathematician, not even by the wildest stretch of imagination. I reckon I have about another 3 years before the kids homework will defeat me. However, I’m a big fan of the history of mathematics and science; Riemann conjecture, Nash equilibrium, Gauss and number theory, Mandelbrot and so on. I’m a sucker for [...]
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Category: history Tags: archimedes, leibniz, maths, newton
