News
To Go from Big Data to Big Insight, Start with a Visual
September 11, 2013
Although data visualization has produced some of the most captivating artistic displays in recent memory, some of which have found their way into exhibits at the New York Museum of Modern Art and countless art installations around the world, business leaders are asking: is data visualization actionable? I think so. In my role as the Scholar-in-Residence at The New York Times R&D Lab, I am collaborating with one of the world's most advanced digital R&D teams to figure out how we can draw...
September 11, 2013
Although data visualization has produced some of the most captivating artistic displays in recent memory, some of which have found their way into exhibits at the New York Museum of Modern Art and countless art installations around the world, business leaders are asking: is data visualization actionable? I think so. In my role as the Scholar-in-Residence at The New York Times R&D Lab, I am collaborating with one of the world's most advanced digital R&D teams to figure out how we can draw...
Hospitals Prescribe Big Data to Track Doctors at Work
September 11, 2013
What is different this time, some hospital executives argue, is that new technology enables closer, faster tracking of individual doctors, and the new insurance payments factor in quality goals. But partly because many of the efforts are new, broad results are scarce. The Advisory Board says that among hospitals using its software for three years, lengths of inpatient stays fell 2.9%, on average, and readmissions fell 4.5%. Hospital executives nationwide say that many doctors, particularly younger...
September 11, 2013
What is different this time, some hospital executives argue, is that new technology enables closer, faster tracking of individual doctors, and the new insurance payments factor in quality goals. But partly because many of the efforts are new, broad results are scarce. The Advisory Board says that among hospitals using its software for three years, lengths of inpatient stays fell 2.9%, on average, and readmissions fell 4.5%. Hospital executives nationwide say that many doctors, particularly younger...
Mediating in Good Faith
September 11, 2013
Applying the standards for determining if mediation is conducted in good faith, a federal bankruptcy court held a lender in contempt and required payment of the borrowers’ attorney’s fees in a loss mitigation negotiation because the lender kept “moving the goalposts” by failing to provide timely information, failing to obtain a timely appraisal, failing to provide written terms following an oral modification, and failing to appear as ordered. In re Bambi, No. 11-36861 (U.S. Bankr. S.D.N.Y.,...
September 11, 2013
Applying the standards for determining if mediation is conducted in good faith, a federal bankruptcy court held a lender in contempt and required payment of the borrowers’ attorney’s fees in a loss mitigation negotiation because the lender kept “moving the goalposts” by failing to provide timely information, failing to obtain a timely appraisal, failing to provide written terms following an oral modification, and failing to appear as ordered. In re Bambi, No. 11-36861 (U.S. Bankr. S.D.N.Y.,...
The Pessimistic Meta-Induction from the History of Science
September 11, 2013
The rest of us, by contrast, often engage in a kind of tacit chronological exceptionalism. Unlike all those suckers who fell for the flat earth or the geocentric universe or cold fusion or the cosmological constant, we ourselves have the great good luck to be alive during the very apex of accurate human thought. The literary critic Harry Levin put this nicely: "The habit of equating one's age with the apogee of civilization, one's town with the hub of the universe, one's horizons with the limits...
September 11, 2013
The rest of us, by contrast, often engage in a kind of tacit chronological exceptionalism. Unlike all those suckers who fell for the flat earth or the geocentric universe or cold fusion or the cosmological constant, we ourselves have the great good luck to be alive during the very apex of accurate human thought. The literary critic Harry Levin put this nicely: "The habit of equating one's age with the apogee of civilization, one's town with the hub of the universe, one's horizons with the limits...
Market For New Lawyers Is Trying
September 10, 2013
It's a tough time for newly minted lawyers. Many graduates are having trouble finding jobs, and starting salaries are lower than they've been in years. Law schools are under mounting pressure to trim their programs so they don't continue to flood the market with unemployed lawyers, many of whom took on considerable debt to get their degrees. Perhaps not surprisingly, applications to law schools are down. It's “absolutely a buyer's market,” said Pete Boerner, managing partner in Texas for the legal...
September 10, 2013
It's a tough time for newly minted lawyers. Many graduates are having trouble finding jobs, and starting salaries are lower than they've been in years. Law schools are under mounting pressure to trim their programs so they don't continue to flood the market with unemployed lawyers, many of whom took on considerable debt to get their degrees. Perhaps not surprisingly, applications to law schools are down. It's “absolutely a buyer's market,” said Pete Boerner, managing partner in Texas for the legal...
Steve Ballmer’s Big Lesson for the Rest of Us: Innovation
September 10, 2013
The business media lit up over the weekend with the news that Steve Ballmer, the college friend who worked alongside Bill Gates to build Microsoft and was heir to the CEO job, will step down within a year. Ballmer, whose skills were in many ways complementary to Gates', took the helm of an already massive organization as it entered an era of relentless disruptive innovation by competitors. He managed to hold the stock price on a pretty even keel, but no better than that. It's worth taking a step...
September 10, 2013
The business media lit up over the weekend with the news that Steve Ballmer, the college friend who worked alongside Bill Gates to build Microsoft and was heir to the CEO job, will step down within a year. Ballmer, whose skills were in many ways complementary to Gates', took the helm of an already massive organization as it entered an era of relentless disruptive innovation by competitors. He managed to hold the stock price on a pretty even keel, but no better than that. It's worth taking a step...
Understanding Overconfidence (video)
September 10, 2013
In early 2000 I got to study a very interesting Italian company called Ducati Corse. And what this company does is racing motorcycles. It’s a very important business for them because what they do during the races actually translates in sales of commercial bikes. What is interesting is that in 2003 this company entered a new type of competition called MotoGP. And they decided that this was gonna be a learning season where they would collect a lot of data to try to understand how to make...
September 10, 2013
In early 2000 I got to study a very interesting Italian company called Ducati Corse. And what this company does is racing motorcycles. It’s a very important business for them because what they do during the races actually translates in sales of commercial bikes. What is interesting is that in 2003 this company entered a new type of competition called MotoGP. And they decided that this was gonna be a learning season where they would collect a lot of data to try to understand how to make...
Mediation and Settlement Confidentiality Provisions Waive Free Speech Protected by Anti-SLAPP Law
September 10, 2013
A California appellate court concluded that litigation to enforce confidentiality provisions in a mediated settlement does not violate the state’s anti-SLAPP law, even though the material related to a sex tape of a former Miss California USA that was of interest to the public. Defendants had moved to strike the complaint based on the anti-SLAPP statute, which is intended to prevent chilling of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition in connection with a public issue, and protects...
September 10, 2013
A California appellate court concluded that litigation to enforce confidentiality provisions in a mediated settlement does not violate the state’s anti-SLAPP law, even though the material related to a sex tape of a former Miss California USA that was of interest to the public. Defendants had moved to strike the complaint based on the anti-SLAPP statute, which is intended to prevent chilling of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition in connection with a public issue, and protects...
Global Patent Map Reveals the Structure of Technological Progress
September 10, 2013
Global Patent Map Reveals the Structure of Technological Progress Navigating the web in the early 90s was never an easy business. The complaint echoed from one user to the next was that it was next to impossible to find anything. That began to change in the mid-90s thanks to the evolution of search companies such as Yahoo. But even the early incarnations of search were difficult to use. Yahoo is a good example. Its earliest search tool was a directory that categorised webpages according to a predetermined...
September 10, 2013
Global Patent Map Reveals the Structure of Technological Progress Navigating the web in the early 90s was never an easy business. The complaint echoed from one user to the next was that it was next to impossible to find anything. That began to change in the mid-90s thanks to the evolution of search companies such as Yahoo. But even the early incarnations of search were difficult to use. Yahoo is a good example. Its earliest search tool was a directory that categorised webpages according to a predetermined...
A Brief History of Cloud Computing
September 9, 2013
Believe it or not, “cloud computing” concepts date back to the 1950s when large-scale mainframes were made available to schools and corporations. The mainframe’s colossal hardware infrastructure was installed in what could literally be called a “server room” (since the room would generally only be able to hold a single mainframe), and multiple users were able to access the mainframe via “dumb terminals” – stations whose sole function was to facilitate access to the mainframes. Due to the cost...
September 9, 2013
Believe it or not, “cloud computing” concepts date back to the 1950s when large-scale mainframes were made available to schools and corporations. The mainframe’s colossal hardware infrastructure was installed in what could literally be called a “server room” (since the room would generally only be able to hold a single mainframe), and multiple users were able to access the mainframe via “dumb terminals” – stations whose sole function was to facilitate access to the mainframes. Due to the cost...
