Mitch Betts
Journalist.
By day: Editor at CIO magazine (for chief information officers) and CIO.com.
By night: Interested in strategic foresight, trends, innovation, market research and competitive intelligence.
Twitter (@mitchbetts)- LinkedIn profile
- Dispatches ... from the frontiers of business, politics and society (blog)
- Highlights of CIO.com (Tumblr)
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Tweets
- Growth of e-reader market will slow as consumers move towards more-versatile tablets: http://t.co/AS5WfwK2
- Megacities in BRIC countries are booming, digital, ripe with biz opportunities -- and risks: http://t.co/8omF1623
- Employees saying "no" to assignments in dangerous places: http://t.co/ZyetSJMH || The CIO role: http://t.co/mGHWPuMP
- Facebook will have trouble expanding overseas, especially in China & Japan: http://t.co/w1lrR4y3
- Model predicts popularity of news articles on Twitter (84% accuracy): http://t.co/JFybGDJl
- RT @marthaheller: The soft (skills) stuff is the hard stuff. M Weiss & J Drewry in @CIOmagazine: http://t.co/H8xQ5YV9
- How to Protect Your Intellectual Property in the Cloud: http://t.co/LztNas7m by @stephanieoverby @CIOonline
- "Risk Management" mag. says future of work is more automated -- more robots -- and less dangerous: http://t.co/Rnfss0dR
- Awesome infographic! RT @kmburnham: 18 Staggering Stats From Facebook's IPO http://t.co/UlWn4Hzs
- Attention CIOs: Be brave: Startups may be your ticket to real innovation: http://t.co/2kmWtMv4 by @knash99 @CIOonline
- Eastern ports scramble to prepare for bigger ships coming through a bigger Panama Canal: http://t.co/MDPOMOTm
- U.S. plans national database of wholesale drug prices to cut Medicaid's prescription drug costs: http://t.co/hpbNu3Wf
- Facebook IPO may produce a $1 billion revenue windfall for state of California & help housing mkt: http://t.co/jMyi9p2l
- The biz can easily bypass the IT dept., so how do you make the IT dept. irreplaceable? http://t.co/7kdfgTTl @CIOonline
- The dark side of "gamification," by @MobileGalen: http://t.co/vlHrU909
- Little devices, big problems: How to prevent USB flash drive security disasters: http://t.co/gVSrsT1S by @jmbrandonbb @CIOonline
- Study in the Journal of Business Ethics: People lie more when texting. http://t.co/tkVWgaqg
- Federal judges wary of Facebook, Twitter, Google+ impact on juries: http://t.co/8xsm5i5t by @NWWlayer8 @NetworkWorld
- Concert pianist uses iPad for sheet music, with Bluetooth foot pedal that turns the pages: http://t.co/6QZxLeUx
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Info
- SummaryI’m Executive Editor of CIO magazine (for chief information officers), with additional responsibilities at CIO.com. Formerly at Computerworld.
I’m also interested in strategic foresight, trends, innovation and competitive intelligence. On my own time, I'm seeking a Certificate in Strategic Foresight from the University of Houston.Specialties: Editing, writing, cover stories, CIO issues, strategic planning, trend-spotting, streamlining processes, public policy analysis, strategic foresight, running tight meetings, coaching journalistsExperience- Sept 2011 - PresentExecutive Editor, CIO / IDG EnterpriseI manage the editorial staff putting out CIO magazine (for chief information officers), with additional responsibilities at the CIO.com website. I'm also the "ambassador" bridging the two groups.
I typically edit the magazine's cover stories, columnists and departments; discuss CIO issues in social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and the "Strategic CIO" blog); and produce e-books on selected topics.
CIO magazine and CIO.com are part of IDG Enterprise, a business unit of International Data Group Inc. (IDG).
Education-
2010 - 2011University of Houston
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1974 - 1978Towson University
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Honors:Awards from the Computer Press Association and the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE).
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Interests:strategic foresight, competitive intelligence, public policy, trends, innovation, computer history, research about IT/business management, CIOs, genealogy
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Posts
- Jul 16, 11
Popular notions that electric cars will suddenly replace conventional gasoline-powered cars don't acknowledge the possibility that there could be eco-friendly advances in conventional car technology. A study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) finds that "internal combustion engines are improving their ability to cut CO2 emissions at a lower cost than expected, and, as a result, carmakers should be able to meet 2020 emissions targets mainly through improvements to conventional technologies."
- Jan 08, 11
The Corporate Executive Board identifies the following "emerging risks" on the horizon: Wikileaks-style disclosures of corporate info; foreign corruption; China's near-monopoly on rare earth minerals ; and the possible breakup of the euro zone.
- Jan 03, 11
Heard about an exciting new technology in the lab? Here are some tough questions an analyst/futurist should ask.
- Jan 02, 11
The wild cards include public-sector labor strikes in California, and a third-party presidential candidate.
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Posts
What’s your online privacy worth? Google looks for volunteers to relinquish their online privacy in exchange for a gift card. Were users outraged or did they take the money? You may be surprised by the reaction.
It’s easy to dwell on BlackBerry-maker RIM’s current troubles, but CIO.com’s Al Sacco says there’s reason to be optimistic. Here are five things to look forward to in the coming months.
From privacy settings to customization and more, here are six tips to set you on the right path with Facebook Timeline.
Microsoft is betting big on Windows 8. But will the immense promotional efforts the software giant is putting behind the latest Windows OS pay off? Rob Enderle handicaps the high-stakes game Redmond is playing.
How will Apple fare in the post-Steve Jobs era? Everyone is wondering whether or not Apple can deliver amazing technology in the future. From the wacky to the reasonable, here’s a list of innovation ideas.
Tired of Safari? The Opera Mini browser is fast, easy to use, and elegant. There are small drawbacks, but it’s definitely worth a try. Read the review here.
We are facing a huge deficit in people to not only handle big data, but more importantly to have the knowledge and skills to generate value from data — dealing with the non-stop tsunami. How do you aggregate and filter data, how do you present the data, how do you analyze them to gain insights, how do you use the insights to aid decision-making, and then how do you integrate this from an industry point of view into your business process? The whole thing is hugely important for the future.
Dean Yi Deng of the College of Computing and Informatics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, in a Forbes article, “Big Data and Data Scientists — It’s An Issue Of Degree(s)”An enterprise search platform delivers many benefits, including improved employee productivity, but there are more than a dozen vendors and three different approaches — specialized, integrated and detached — to consider. Here’s how to find the product that best fits your company’s search requirements.
When predicting technology trends, Bill Buxton, principal researcher at Microsoft Research and author of “Sketching User Experiences,” may have said it best:
“If history is any indication, we should assume that any technology that is going to have a significant impact over the next 10 years is already 10 years old!”
This theory holds true for several technologies. For example, the first mobile telephone call was made in 1946, many years before the first commercial cellular network was launched in 1979. GPS was in use for nearly 30 years in government and military programs before it became a must have for personal vehicle navigation. And, the formation of the Internet as we know it began in the 1980s, but wasn’t truly incorporated into virtually every aspect of modern human life until a decade later.
Applying this premise to radio frequency identification (RFID) seems to hold true as well. The technology itself was well over 10 years old in 2004 when retail giants began pushing it as a means of driving efficiencies into their supply chains. While these initial retail programs didn’t succeed according to plan, and mass adoption didn’t happen the way many analysts predicted, these initiatives did kick off a high level of interest from retailers, product manufacturers and many other industries and markets focused on improving their business and service processes. Between 2004 and now, something else happened that makes one ask if RFID is ready to have that significant impact Buxton mentions.
A new iPad and iPhone app lets you markup a variety of documents. But you’ll need a stylus and you can’t type annotations or add highlighting (yet). Read the review here.
Windows Phone 8, an update reportedly due when the Windows 8 launches, will bring with it the Windows 8 look and feel and app compatibility. Here’s a look at some anticipated mobile features in Windows Phone 8, including NFC and SkyDrive integration.
Between the free-expression camp and the hard-line regimes with strict censorship policies are some growing nations that are just beginning to delve into the work of crafting Internet policy. And those countries could hold the key. Read on for the analysis at CIO.com.
Looking to spice up your Valentine’s Day a bit this year? Check out the following 12 free Android apps designed to help you find the best flowers, chocolates, rom-coms, love poems, dinner reservations, mood music and much more. (All apps are Cupid approved.)Apple cherry-picks features and integrates them into native iPhone apps, but many are mediocre and pale in comparison to third-party apps. Is Apple sending the wrong message? CIO.com’s Apple-watcher Tom Kaneshige examines the issue.
SDG Launch ‘Military Grade’ Tough Tablet Running Ubuntu 10.04
The Trimble Yuma is both water- and dust-proof; is tested to MIL-STD-810F standards (just in case you we’re tempted to take one into a warz one/throw one out of a plane); and shields its internals in a magnesium alloy shell capable of withstanding extreme cold (-22°F) to searing heat (140°F).
More information on the Yuma can be found online @ sdgsystems.com(vía OMG! Ubuntu!)
Motorola recently shipped about 100 refurbished XOOM Wi-Fi-only tablets that it says may contain sensitive information belonging to the original tablet owners. But Al Sacco points out that this would be a non-issue if those owners had simply performed a good ol’ security wipe on their gadgets.
VIPorbit is among the most full-featured customer relationship management (CRM) apps you can get for the iPhone. The interface is well organized, you can record unlimited notes for each contact, and the app lets you organize contacts into, well, Orbits. Check out the review at CIO.com.
iFixit’s Kyle Wiens has a darn good track record when it comes to Apple predictions. Here, he opines about the next iPad, foresees broken iPads everywhere, and even hints where post-Steve Jobs innovation might be headed next.
IT professionals know that handing data over to a third-party is always risky, but cloud computing creates unique concerns for IP. Here are nine tips to protect critical corporate data wherever it goes.
(And here’s a sneak preview of tip No. 9.)
Be prepared to walk. If adequately protecting IP is too costly or hard to implement or track, back away. Always leave open the possibility that a cloud-based service might not be a good fit.
Being among the first in your industry to experiment with mobile, video, tablets or social media tools, for example, can teach you what an emerging customer segment wants and give you a competitive advantage. Read the blog post by CIO senior editor Kim S. Nash.
