Nesmith's Notes

Entries for January, 2004

Outsourcing, Increased IT Spending and New Technology

Here are a few of my own observations:
• OUTSOURCING · It looks like a hit-or-miss business but every company wants to do it. The key for the provider is getting to scale quickly enough to be able to provide services superior to in-house folks at a cost effective price. Also the expertise [...]

The Value of Offshoring

Offshoring – Relocating the back office
Dec 11th 2003 From The Economist print edition
The Organizational Implications of Offshore Outsourcing
24 October 2003
Diane Morello
Acrobat Version
Offshoring: Is it a Win-Win Game?
McKinsey Global Institute
August, 2003
The Irony of Outsourcing
By Kevin Laws on November 18, 2003 09:03 PM supports the argument that economic activity flowing to the most efficient provider creates [...]

Reforming Healthcare: Cost vs. Price

This posting by Kevin Brancato suggest that our view of healthcare cost in the US is distorted. While the data seems to lead to the conclusion that we’re buying much more healthcare at sky-high prices, economists doubt the validity and applicability of the offical data because it does not appropriately adjust for quality.

Corporate Social Responsibility

BusinessPundit talks about this movement which according to The Economist is
One of the biggest corporate fads of the 1990s—less overpowering, no doubt, than dotcom mania, but also longer-lived—was the flowering of “corporate social responsibility” (CSR). The idea that it is not enough for firms to make money for their owners is one that you might [...]

10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World

Technology Review unveils its annual selection of hot new technologies about to affect our lives in revolutionary ways—and profiles the innovators behind them.
Universal Translation
Synthetic Biology
Nanowires
Bayesian Machine Learning
T-Rays
Distributed Storage
RNA Interference
Power Grid Control
Microfluidic Optical Fibers
Personal Genomics

Misunderstanding the Internet

TM Lutas provides an alternative economic analysis of the Internet to those provided by Adam Thierer at Cato, Howard Dean’s Principles for an Internet Policy, David Weinberger’s analysis of the Cato article, and Lawrence Lessig’s commentary on same.

Line56: 2003 In Review

The top 12 topics of interest to our readers in 2003 as seen by the editors of Portals Magazine:
1. Consolidation
2. Outsourcing
3. Mid-Market Grind
4. Portals
5. Integration Evolves
6. Supply Chain Gains
7. BI/Analytics
8. CRM Crossroads
9. Offshore
10. IT meets Business
11. RFID
12. Business Process Management

Top Internet Trends for 2004

Rob Greenlee, Host WebTalk Radio, predicts:
1. The decline of the web browser usage on the desktop as a way to get to web content
2. The growth of Internet applications – the executable Internet
3. [...]

Blogging for Corporate Intelligence

Stephen Downes in his predictions for 2004 suggest that a form of “non-blog blogging” will begin to emerge. He describes this as a way to tap into the views and opinions held by the vast majority of people who will not write publicly.
Downes also predicts that 2004 will be the year of personalization. [...]

Seeking the Unconventional Accurate Prediction

Bill Gurley outlines the future trends in VC investing via the ever present 2 x 2 matrix (Accurate vs. Inaccurate x Conventional vs. Non-conventional). Of course, we can all agree that inaccurate predictions are worthless. Gurley suggests the Conventional/Accurate predictions are also worth very little. The market prices the high expectations into [...]

Open Source Meets Presidential Elections

Clark TechCorps – Political Action through Open Source Technology
Clark was relatively quick to allow the digital literate to contribute what they may, after the national newspapers covered what the Dean campaign was doing. Will it matter?
We’re glad today to announce Clark TechCorps, a technology community initiative to pioneer the development of open source [...]

  

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