Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Innovations in Design

Amy Wohl has been writing about user interfaces in her developerWorks blog as well as in her "Amy Wohl" blog.  I have known Amy for a long time, and have always enjoyed reading what she has to say, as well as talking to her on a variety of issues from programming environments to IP strategy to cooking.

Amy is exploring a very important point, namely that programmers, almost universally, are not the best people to design applications and interfaces for use by "normal" people, i.e., people who are not programmers and who could care less about programming, computers and technology.  Amy includes a link to a really funny story on what a house designed by software developers would look like.  Her key point is that programmers think one way, and most users think a totally different way.

Autonomic Computing

Later this week we will announce a pretty comprehensive set of services and software to help businesses develop increasingly autonomic, i.e., self-managing IT infrastructures.

Autonomic computing is an initiative we started at IBM in 2001 when we recognized that the same very positive forces that are driving the growth of the IT industry could be responsible for its biggest problems, namely the almost exponential growth in complexity and the rising costs of managing this complexity.

Pedro, the Jedi Master

Reggie Jackson is the last baseball player that I remember capturing the imagination of New York, the way Pedro Martinez is now doing.

Reggie came to New York to play for the Yankees in 1977, and proceeded to take the town by storm.  He craved, and performed at his best under the intense pressure that New York City abounds in.  His biggest feat is the 3 consecutive home runs in 3 consecutive swings that he hit in the sixth game of the 1977 World Series to help the Yankees beat the Dodgers and win the Series.  He told everybody that they would name a candy bar after him, . . . and indeed they did, the  Reggie Bar.  He feuded with everyone, from manager Billy Martin to George Steinbrenner, the controversial principal owner of the Yankees .  But in the clutch, "Mr. October", as Reggie was nicknamed because of his outstanding performance in five World Series, was the man to go to.

The Top 500 Fastest Supercomputers in the World

The Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was just released. This list is compiled and published twice a year by a group of independent scientists in the US and Europe.  IBM was very prominent in the Top500 list, with 6 out of the top 10 systems and 259 out of the top 500 systems.  We are really proud of this achievement.

Why is supercomputing so important despite its being a relatively small portion of the IT industry?

As it happens, this question was dealt with directly in a report to the President of the United States released last week by PITAC, the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, titled Computational Science:  Ensuring America's Competitiveness.  To quote from the PITAC report, "Computational science is now indispensable to the solution of complex problems in every sector, from traditional science and engineering domains to such key areas as national security, public health, and economic innovation."  The PITAC report concludes  that while the potential benefits of supercomputing and its applications are enormous,  the challenges are huge, and it makes specific recommendations to Federal government R&D agencies and universities.

Out of the Blue: Unexpected Joys

I would like to continue the discussions on how the Internet has enriched my life, in particular when it comes to enjoying films.  A few years ago I started using Netflix, a really good Internet DVD rental service, which offers a huge collection of DVD's of all kinds, from recent releases to classics to foreign movies.  Netflix encourages its members to rate films, both films you rent from them as well as any other films you have watched, giving them from 1 star (hated it)  to 5 stars (loved it).  It then uses your ratings and compares them to the ratings from all other members, to recommend movies you are likely to love.  This is similar to the book recommendations from Amazon and other Internet sites.

Sometime last February, while in London, I went to the netflix.com site for a minute to check on a movie.  As usual, the first Netflix web page had a few personalized recommendations.  One in particular was a movie called Blue, which I had never heard of, by a Polish director, Krzysztof Kieslowski, whom I had also never heard of.  The movie had a very high rating, between 4 and 5 stars.  I read comments about Blue from Netflix members at the site, and checked with some of the professional reviewers I trust the most such as Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli, and they all recommended the move very highly.  I also learned that Blue was part of a trilogy, Blue, White and Red, based on the colors of the French flag, and that they were the last films made by Kieslowski, who died in 1996 two years after Red came out.  I was intrigued and put Blue at the top of my Netflix queue, meaning that it would be the next movie they ship me.

The Value of Diversity in a Global, Collaborative World

Having been born both Cuban and Jewish and with Polish/Russian forebears, it is natural for me to be interested in diversity.  I am proud to have been active in extending the progressive, leadership record on diversity amassed by IBM -- the place I've worked for the past 35 years. IBM's pioneering moves go back to the company's earliest years -- and they've been significantly strengthened recently.  And, just this week, we received the Freedom to Compete Award from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in recognition of IBM's innovative diversity recruiting programs in universities.   

In 1995 we established a set of eight executive task forces in the U.S. to address the needs of different constituencies.  I was a founding member of our Hispanic Leadership Council, and continue to participate in Hispanic/Latino activities both within IBM and in organizations like HENAAC, which in 2001 did me the great honor of naming me Hispanic Engineer of the Year and in 2004 inducted me into the HENAAC Hall of Fame.

Humanizing Information Technologies

In addition to the keynote at the Internet Global Congress, which I wrote about in an earlier post, I participated in a Power.org conference in Barcelona.  Power.org is an initiative launched by IBM last year to bring open, collaborative innovation to the world of systems hardware and microprocessor design and is centered around the Power architecture.  We launched Power.org in Beijing last December, at which time we announced the first round of partners.  In Barcelona last week, we announced additional Power.org partners, as well as new products and other developments from the Power.org community.

Why is it important to have the kind of open, collaborative innovation in the world of hardware that we are fostering with Power.org and that we already have in software?  When all is said and done, the key to successful open communities is that they allow all their participants to innovate, especially customers and   users.  This is the breakthrough with open source software that Power.org seeks to emulate at the hardware level.

A Supercomputing Center for the Ages

Last week, I gave a keynote talk at the Internet Global Conference in Barcelona.  I shared the keynote with Professor Mateo Valero from the Technical University of Catalonia, who is also the Director of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.  The theme of our talk was Innovation in IT and more specifically in supercomputing.

I talked (in Spanish) about some of the major forces driving innovation, including the Internet and standards in general, as well as new applications and products based on embedded IT in everything from consumer electronics to medical equipment to automobiles; and concluded with a discussion of the major societal changes brought about by collaborative innovation.  Professor Valero centered his talk on advances in supercomputing technology and architecture, and he talked at length about the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which he heads, and MareNostrum, the new supercomputer being installed at the Center.

Where do we come from?

In April, the National Geographic Society and IBM launched the Genographic Project.  This is a fascinating research initiative to map how the Earth was populated and trace the migratory history of the human species using sophisticated laboratory and computer analysis of DNA contributed by hundreds of thousands of people. 

Everyone is invited to participate by purchasing a kit which you use to to get a DNA sample by swabbing your cheek and returning it for analysis in the enclosed transport tubes.  You later get back the personalized genetic analysis, telling you when and where your particular group originated and how they likely journeyed through time.  Since this is all based on statistical analysis, the more people participate, the better the results of the project. 

A few of us at IBM were early participants in the study and gave permission (the entire process is anonymous otherwise)  to have the results appear in a story on ibm.com.  It is only when you read about your own family's journey, as well as those of your friends and colleagues, that the Genographic project moves from the scientific initiative that it is, to something much more personal.

The Internet and Films

I often think -- even after working in the area for more than ten years -- that there is something almost magical about the wonders of the Internet and World Wide Web.  I can rhapsodize about how the Internet has transformed business, society and our personal lives, and often do in formal talks and any other opportunity I have. But we all know that real "magic" isn't theoretical but personal. Take the impact that the Internet has had on my pleasure in watching films.

The Royal Academy of Engineering: Breaking Down Barriers To Innovation

Yesterday, London's Daily Telegraph published a story titled "Wake Up - there's a revolution going on", which offered their perspectives on the talk I gave at the Royal Academy of Engineering on May 17.

The story also focused on the really important efforts of the academy, led by its president, Lord Broers, to encourage British inventors to make their works widely available, and with the greatest possible range of applications. As part of these efforts, the academy established the MacRobert Award for innovation in engineering. I particularly liked Lord Broers comment on the four finalists: "all four teams are great examples of how successful innovators break down the barriers that stand in the way of practical application."

This is as good a definition of innovation as I have seen.